Download or read book The Umayyad World written by Andrew Marsham and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-25 with total page 713 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Umayyad World encompasses the archaeology, history, art, and architecture of the Umayyad era (644–750 CE). This era was formative both for world history and for the history of Islam. Subjects covered in detail in this collection include regions conquered in Umayyad times, ethnic and religious identity among the conquerors, political thought and culture, administration and the law, art and architecture, the history of religion, pilgrimage and the Qur’an, and violence and rebellion. Close attention is paid to new methods of analysis and interpretation, including source critical studies of the historiography and inter-disciplinary approaches combining literary sources and material evidence. Scholars of Islamic history, archaeologists, and researchers interested in the Umayyad Caliphate, its context, and infl uence on the wider world, will find much to enjoy in this volume.

Download or read book The Politics and Culture of an Umayyad Tribe written by Mohammad Rihan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-06-04 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Umayyad caliphate, ruling over much of what is now the modern Middle East after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, governe from Damascus from 661 to750CE, when they were expelled by the Abbasids. Here, Mohammad Rihan sheds light on the tribal system of this empir, by looking at one of its Syrian tribes; the 'Amila, based around today's Jabal 'Amil in southern Lebanon. Using this tribe as a lens through which to examine the wider Umayyad world, he looks at the political structures and conflicts that prevailed at the time, seeking to nuance the understanding of the relationship between the tribes and the ruling elite. For Rihan, early Islamic political history can only be understood in the context of the tribal history. This book thus illustrates how the political and social milieu of the 'Amila tribe sheds light on the wider history of the Umayyad world. Utilizing a wide range of sources, from the books of genealogies to poetry, Rihan expertly portrays Umayyad political life. First providing a background on 'Amila's tribal structure and its functions and dynamics, Rihan then presents the pre-Islamic past of the tribe. Building on this, he then investigates the role the 'Amila played in the emergence of the Umayyad state to understand the ways in which political life developed for the tribes and their relations with those holding political power in the region. By exploring the literature, culture, kinship structures and the socio-political conditions of the tribe, this book highlights the ways in which alliances and divisions shifted and were used by caliphs of the period and offers new insights into the Middle East at a pivotal point in its early and medieval history. This historical analysis thus not only illuminates the political condition of the Umayyad world, but also investigates the ever-important relationship between tribal political structures and state-based rule.

Download or read book Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period written by A. F. L. Beeston and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1983-11-03 with total page 567 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The History provides an invaluable source of reference of the intellectual, literary and religious heritage of the Arabic-speaking and Islamic world.

Download or read book The Umayyad Mosque of Damascus written by Alain Fouad George and published by . This book was released on 2021-08-15 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An expansive illustrated history of the historic Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. The Umayyad Mosque of Damascus is one of the oldest continuously used religious sites in the world. The mosque we see today was built in 705 CE by the Umayyad caliph al-Walid on top of a fourth-century Christian church that had been erected over a temple of Jupiter. Incredibly, despite the recent war, the mosque has remained almost unscathed, but over the centuries has been continuously rebuilt after damage from earthquakes and fires. In this comprehensive biography of the Umayyad Mosque, Alain George explores a wide range of sources to excavate the dense layers of the mosque's history, also uncovering what the structure looked like when it was first built with its impressive marble and mosaic-clad walls. George incorporates a range of sources, including new information he found in three previously untranslated poems written at the time the mosque was built, as well as in descriptions left by medieval scholars. He also looks carefully at the many photographs and paintings made by nineteenth-century European travelers, particularly those who recorded the building before the catastrophic fire of 1893.

Download or read book The Umayyad World written by Andrew Marsham and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-25 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Umayyad World encompasses the archaeology, history, art, and architecture of the Umayyad era (644–750 CE). This era was formative both for world history and for the history of Islam. Subjects covered in detail in this collection include regions conquered in Umayyad times, ethnic and religious identity among the conquerors, political thought and culture, administration and the law, art and architecture, the history of religion, pilgrimage and the Qur’an, and violence and rebellion. Close attention is paid to new methods of analysis and interpretation, including source critical studies of the historiography and inter-disciplinary approaches combining literary sources and material evidence. Scholars of Islamic history, archaeologists, and researchers interested in the Umayyad Caliphate, its context, and infl uence on the wider world, will find much to enjoy in this volume.

Download or read book Abd al Rahman III written by Maribel Fierro and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-12-01 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abd al-Rahman III (891 - 961) was the greatest of the Umayyad rulers of Spain and the first to take the title of Caliph. During his reign, Islamic Spain became wealthy and prosperous. He founded the great Caliphate of Madinat al-Zahra at Cordova and did much in his lifetime to pacify his realm and stabilise the borders with Christian Spain. He died at the apex of his power on Oct. 15, 961.

Download or read book The Umayyad Empire written by Andrew Marsham and published by Edinburgh History of the Islamic Empires. This book was released on 2024-01-31 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the distinctive character of the Umayyad empire in its early Islamic context: its economy, society and political history.

Download or read book Umayyad Legacies written by Antoine Borrut and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-06-14 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building on new interest in the study of memory and Islamic historiography and including interdisciplinary perspectives from Arabic literature, art, and archaeology, the papers in this book consider the achievements of the Umayyad dynasty in the Near East and Islamic Spain, and highlight the shaping of our knowledge of the Umayyad past.

Download or read book The Umayyad Caliphate written by and published by . This book was released on 2020-05-04 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes a bibliography for further reading The split between the two forms of Islam was already in the process of forming upon the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad had constructed around himself not only a potent new religious movement but also a powerful young state called the Ummah (the "Community" for lack of a better translation). Belonging to the Islamic faith also meant belonging to the Ummah, which was governed by its own laws and had many of its own institutions. In his own lifetime, Muhammad had ruled the Ummah through what sociologists call "charismatic authority," a term coined by Max Weber that is defined as "resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him." Hence, Muslims believe Muhammad ruled because he was uniquely chosen and endowed by God as the exemplar of all humanity, giving him a unique (though not perfect or infallible) ability to govern humanity. This was a holistic form of governance because the Prophet did not simply deliver God's words (what became the Holy Qur'an), nor did he simply pronounce upon court cases and create laws. He did all those things, but he also presented in his own person the embodiment of the best that humanity could aspire to. He was fully human, but the finest, most pious example that humans would ever produce. Amid the upheaval in the Islamic world following Muhammad's death, the Umayyad Caliphate lasted for less than a century, but in that time it managed to become one of the most influential of the major caliphates established following him. Its official existence was from 661-750, and the rulers were the male members of the Umayyad dynasty, roughly translated from Arabic as the "Sons of Umayyah." Its primary base of power was in Syria following the creation of a dynastic, hereditary rule headed by one of Syria's long-lasting governors, Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan. Like the other caliphates around that time, the Umayyads existed in a constant state of internal struggle and external conflict. Battles over succession, especially over which lineages possessed the more legitimate claim to power, plagued the early years of the caliphate in Syria. The most significant were the First Muslim Civil War in 661 and the Second Civil War in 680. The official right to become caliph passed between branches of the Umayyad clan, but Syria and Damascus continued to be the main seats of power even as the kingdom expanded to include the Iberian Peninsula, the Transoxiana, the Maghreb, and Sindh. The Umayyad Caliphate became renowned for being a center of authoritarian power, education, and cultural development. The population was multiethnic and consisted of local peoples conquered throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia, including regional Christians and Jews. At its greatest extent, the empire extended over an area of 4,300,000 sq. miles, with over 33,000,000 residents. It was one of the largest known empires in history, even considering modern developments, and a precursor to the Golden Age of Islam. It remains a subject of modern debate how to best understand the Umayyads, but there is no doubt they were one of the most influential of the early medieval empires and paved the way for future Islamic caliphates to wield impressive amounts of influence throughout the Middle East. The Umayyad Caliphate: The History and Legacy of the Second Islamic Kingdom Established After the Prophet's Death chronicles the caliphate's life and accomplishments, and the massive impact it left on the world. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Umayyad Caliphate like never before.

Download or read book Islamic Imperialism written by Efraim Karsh and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the first Arab-Islamic Empire of the mid-seventh century to the Ottomans, the last great Muslim empire, the story of the Middle East has been the story of the rise and fall of universal empires and, no less important, of imperialist dreams. So argues Efraim Karsh in this highly provocative book. Rejecting the conventional Western interpretation of Middle Eastern history as an offshoot of global power politics, Karsh contends that the region's experience is the culmination of long-existing indigenous trends, passions, and patterns of behavior, and that foremost among these is Islam's millenarian imperial tradition. The author explores the history of Islam's imperialism and the persistence of the Ottoman imperialist dream that outlasted World War I to haunt Islamic and Middle Eastern politics to the present day. September 11 can be seen as simply the latest expression of this dream, and such attacks have little to do with U.S. international behavior or policy in the Middle East, says Karsh. The House of Islam's war for world mastery is traditional, indeed venerable, and it is a quest that is far from over.

Download or read book Europe and the Islamic World written by John Victor Tolan and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this ... book, three .. historians bring tio life the complex and tumultuous relations between Genoans and Tunisians, Alexandrians and the people of Constantinople, Catalans and Maghrebis - the myriad groups and individuals whose stories reflect the common cultural and religious heritage of Europe and Islam. Since the seventh century, when the armies of Constantinople and the Medina fought for control of Syria and Palestine, there has been ongoing contact between the Muslim world and the West. This sweeping history recounts the wars and the crusades, the alliances and diplomacy, commerce and the slave trade, technology transfers, and the intellectual and artistic exchanges. [Readers] are given an ... introduction to key periods and events, including the Muslim conquests, the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, the commercial revolution of the medieval Mediterranean, the intellectual and cultural achievements of Muslim Spain, the crusades and Spanish reconquista, the rise of the Ottomans and their conquest of a third of Europe, European colonization and decolonization, and the challenges and promises of this entwined legacy today. ..."--Jacket.

Download or read book The Most Noble of People written by Jessica Coope and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2021-03-11 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Most Noble of People presents a nuanced look at questions of identity in Muslim Spain under the Umayyads, an Arab dynasty that ruled from 756 to 1031. With a social historical emphasis on relations among different religious and ethnic groups, and between men and women, Jessica A. Coope considers the ways in which personal and cultural identity in al-Andalus could be alternately fluid and contentious. The opening chapters define Arab and Muslim identity as those categories were understood in Muslim Spain, highlighting the unique aspects of this society as well as its similarities with other parts of the medieval Islamic world. The book goes on to discuss what it meant to be a Jew or Christian in Spain under Islamic rule, and the degree to which non-Muslims were full participants in society. Following this is a consideration of gender identity as defined by Islamic law and by less normative sources like literature and mystical texts. It concludes by focusing on internal rebellions against the government of Muslim Spain, particularly the conflicts between Muslims who were ethnically Arab and those who were Berber or native Iberian, pointing to the limits of Muslim solidarity. Drawn from an unusually broad array of sources—including legal texts, religious polemic, chronicles, mystical texts, prose literature, and poetry, in both Arabic and Latin—many of Coope’s illustrations of life in al-Andalus also reflect something of the larger medieval world. Further, some key questions about gender, ethnicity, and religious identity that concerned people in Muslim Spain—for example, women’s status under Islamic law, or what it means to be a Muslim in different contexts and societies around the world—remain relevant today.

Download or read book The Arabs in Antiquity written by Jan Retso and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 706 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of the Arabs in antiquity from their earliest appearance around 853 BC until the first century of Islam, is described in this book. It traces the mention of people called Arabs in all relevant ancient sources and suggests a new interpretation of their history. It is suggested that the ancient Arabs were more a religious community than an ethnic group, which would explain why the designation 'Arab' could be easily adopted by the early Muslim tribes. The Arabs of antiquity thus resemble the early Islamic Arabs more than is usually assumed, both being united by common bonds of religious ideology and law.

Download or read book Khalifa Ibn Khayyat s History on the Umayyad Dynasty 660 750 written by Robert G. Hoyland and published by . This book was released on 2015-08-31 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Khalifa ibn Khayyat is the author of the earliest extant Arabic chronicle. The work principally deals with fighting between Arab groups, external conquests, and administrative matters. After the death of each caliph it lists the persons who held office (as governors, judges and secretaries) during his reign; it also notes who led the pilgrimage in each year, the death of prominent persons (included those who died in major battles), and natural phenomena. Events are for the most part narrated quite briefly and the work was presumably intended as a useful guide to Islamic history and a complement to his biographical dictionary of scholars, which also survives. Carl Wurtzel translated the portion of Ibn Khayyat's chronicle that relates to the Umayyad period (AD 660-750) for his PhD thesis (Yale, 1977). The translation is of a high standard and is well annotated. The introduction is useful for providing an overview of the life and oeuvre of Ibn Khayyat and a survey of his sources, as well as a consideration of the apparently pro-Umayyad bias of the author. Ibn Khayyat's chronicle is relatively early in date. It also has quite wide scope, especially as regards its narration of the Arab conquests, ranging from Spain across the Mediterranean and all the way over to Central Asia. It is by far our earliest Muslim source for these campaigns.

Download or read book Kingdoms of Faith written by Brian A. Catlos and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A magisterial, myth-dispelling history of Islamic Spain spanning the millennium between the founding of Islam in the seventh century and the final expulsion of Spain's Muslims in the seventeenth In Kingdoms of Faith, award-winning historian Brian A. Catlos rewrites the history of Islamic Spain from the ground up, evoking the cultural splendor of al-Andalus, while offering an authoritative new interpretation of the forces that shaped it. Prior accounts have portrayed Islamic Spain as a paradise of enlightened tolerance or the site where civilizations clashed. Catlos taps a wide array of primary sources to paint a more complex portrait, showing how Muslims, Christians, and Jews together built a sophisticated civilization that transformed the Western world, even as they waged relentless war against each other and their coreligionists. Religion was often the language of conflict, but seldom its cause -- a lesson we would do well to learn in our own time.

Download or read book The Caliph s Splendor written by Benson Bobrick and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-08-14 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Caliph’s Splendor is a revelation: a history of a civilization we barely know that had a profound effect on our own culture. While the West declined following the collapse of the Roman Empire, a new Arab civilization arose to the east, reaching an early peak in Baghdad under the caliph Harun al-Rashid. Harun is the legendary caliph of The Thousand and One Nights, but his actual court was nearly as magnificent as the fictional one. In The Caliph’s Splendor, Benson Bobrick eloquently tells the little-known and remarkable story of Harun’s rise to power and his rivalries with the neighboring Byzantines and the new Frankish kingdom under the leadership of Charlemagne. When Harun came to power, Islam stretched from the Atlantic to India. The Islamic empire was the mightiest on earth and the largest ever seen. Although Islam spread largely through war, its cultural achievements were immense. Harun’s court at Baghdad outshone the independent Islamic emirate in Spain and all the courts of Europe, for that matter. In Baghdad, great works from Greece and Rome were preserved and studied, and new learning enhanced civilization. Over the following centuries Arab and Persian civilizations made a lasting impact on the West in astronomy, geometry, algebra (an Arabic word), medicine, and chemistry, among other fields of science. The alchemy (another Arabic word) of the Middle Ages originated with the Arabs. From engineering to jewelry to fashion to weaponry, Arab influences would shape life in the West, as they did in the fields of law, music, and literature. But for centuries Arabs and Byzantines contended fiercely on land and sea. Bobrick tells how Harun defeated attempts by the Byzantines to advance into Asia at his expense. He contemplated an alliance with the much weaker Charlemagne in order to contain the Byzantines, and in time Arabs and Byzantines reached an accommodation that permitted both to prosper. Harun’s caliphate would weaken from within as his two sons quarreled and formed factions; eventually Arabs would give way to Turks in the Islamic empire. Empires rise, weaken, and fall, but during its golden age, the caliphate of Baghdad made a permanent contribution to civilization, as Benson Bobrick so splendidly reminds us.

Download or read book The First Dynasty of Islam written by G. R Hawting and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-01-04 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gerald Hawting's book has long been acknowledged as the standard introductory survey of this complex period in Arab and Islamic history. Now it is once more made available, with the addition of a new introduction by the author which examines recent significant contributions to scholarship in the field. It is certain to be welcomed by students and academics alike.