Download or read book The Long Eighth Century written by Inge Lyse Hansen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-22 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The eighth century has not been analysed as a period of economic history since the 1930s, and is ripe for a comprehensive reassessment. The twelve papers in this book range over the whole of Europe and the Mediterranean from Denmark to Palestine, covering Francia, Italy and Byzantium on the way. They examine regional economies and associated political structures, that is to say the whole network of production, exchange, and social relations in each area. They offer both authoritative overviews of current work and new and original work. As a whole, they show how the eighth century was the first century when the post-Roman world can clearly be seen to have emerged, in the regional economies of each part of Europe.

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 275 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 The Middle East and the Making of the Modern World written by Cyrus Schayegh and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-28 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Middle East and the Making of the Modern World, Cyrus Schayegh takes up a fundamental problem historians face: how to make sense of the spatial layeredness of the past. He argues that the modern world’s ultimate socio-spatial feature was not the oft-studied processes of globalization or state formation or urbanization. Rather, it was fast-paced, mutually transformative intertwinements of cities, regions, states, and global circuits, a bundle of processes he calls transpatialization. To make this case, Schayegh’s study pivots around Greater Syria (Bilad al-Sham in Arabic), which is roughly coextensive with present-day Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine. From this region, Schayegh looks beyond, to imperial and global connections, diaspora communities, and neighboring Egypt, Iraq, and Turkey. And he peers deeply into Bilad al-Sham: at cities and their ties, and at global economic forces, the Ottoman and European empire-states, and the post-Ottoman nation-states at work within the region. He shows how diverse socio-spatial intertwinements unfolded in tandem during a transformative stretch of time, the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, and concludes with a postscript covering the 1940s to 2010s.

Download or read book The Islamic Byzantine Frontier written by A. Asa Eger and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-11-18 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The retreat of the Byzantine army from Syria in around 650 CE, in advance of the approaching Arab armies, is one that has resounded emphatically in the works of both Islamic and Christian writers, and created an enduring motif: that of the Islamic-Byzantine frontier. For centuries, Byzantine and Islamic scholars have evocatively sketched a contested border: the annual raids between the two, the line of fortified fortresses defending Islamic lands, the no-man's land in between and the birth of jihad. In their early representations of a Muslim-Christian encounter, accounts of the Islamic-Byzantine frontier are charged with significance for a future 'clash of civilizations' that often envisions a polarised world. A. Asa Eger examines the two aspects of this frontier: its physical and ideological ones. By highlighting the archaeological study of the real and material frontier, as well as acknowledging its ideological military and religious implications, he offers a more complex vision of this dividing line than has been traditionally disseminated.With analysis grounded in archaeological evidence as well the relevant historical texts, Eger brings together a nuanced exploration of this vital element of medieval history. In this way, Eger's volume contributes to a more complex vision of the frontier than traditional historical views by bringing to the fore the layers of a real ecological frontier of settlement and interaction. For Eger, exposing the settlements and communities of the frontier constitutes a crucial gesture for understanding the interaction of two civilizations in a contested yet connected world. This work is thus vital for students of not only the medieval period and Byzantine and Islamic studies, but also for readers attempting to understand the ways in which frontiers and borders shape the construction of identity while functioning outside the traditionally understood state.

Download or read book The Historical Formation of the Arab Nation RLE The Arab Nation written by A A Duri and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-08-21 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a comprehensive examination of the historical process of social formation that gave rise to the communal consciousness of the Arab nation and determined its sense of identity. It aims to provide a historical context for the assessment of prevailing concepts and suggests hypotheses for the development of modern Arab consciousness. The book firstly traces Arab origins and the formation of Arab societies after the emergence of Islam, assessing the perspectives and factors that shaped the rise of the Arab nation in both practical and intellectual terms. It then examines the beginning of the Arab awakening and the course of its development in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth, focusing on the emergence of a nationalist perspective in the development of intellectual positions on patriotism and Arabism.

Download or read book Arab Byzantine Relations in Early Islamic Times written by Michael Bonner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Byzantine Empire was the Islamic commonwealth’s first and most stubborn adversary. For many centuries it loomed large in Islamic diplomacy, military operations and commerce, as well as in Islamic representations of the world in general. Moreover, the ways in which early Muslims and Byzantines perceived one another ” both polemically and otherwise ” afterwards proved decisive for the mutual perceptions between the Islamic world and Christian Western Europe. For these and other reasons, Arab-Byzantine relations have been a major concern of modern scholarship on early Islam for well over a century. Arab-Byzantine Relations in Early Islamic Times presents some of the most important of these contributions, organized according to the following themes: war and diplomacy; frontiers and military organization; polemics and images of the 'other'; exchange, influence and convergence; and martyrdom, jihad and holy war. An introductory essay discusses these themes within the contexts of early Islamic society, politics and economy.

Download or read book Syria and Bilad Al Sham Under Ottoman Rule written by Peter Sluglett and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010 with total page 631 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together some thirty essays in a Festschrift in honour of Abdul-Karim Rafeq, the leading historian of Ottoman Syria, touching on themes in socio-economic history which have been Rafeq's principal academic concerns.

Download or read book Housing the Stranger in the Mediterranean World written by Olivia Remie Constable and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-01-15 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Greek pandocheion, Arabic funduq, and Latin fundicum (fondaco) were ubiquitous in the Mediterranean sphere for nearly two millennia. These institutions were not only hostelries for traders and travelers, but also taverns, markets, warehouses, and sites for commercial taxation and regulation. In this highly original study, Professor Constable traces the complex evolution of this family of institutions from the pandocheion in Late Antiquity, to the appearance of the funduq throughout the Muslim Mediterranean following the rise of Islam. By the twelfth century, with the arrival of European merchants in Islamic markets, the funduq evolved into the fondaco. These merchant colonies facilitated trade and travel between Muslim and Christian regions. Before long, fondacos also appeared in southern European cities. This study of the diffusion of this institutional family demonstrates common economic interests and cross-cultural communications across the medieval Mediterranean world, and provides a striking contribution to our understanding of this region.

Download or read book A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East written by Linda T. Darling and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From ancient Mesopotamia into the 20th century, "the Circle of Justice" as a concept has pervaded Middle Eastern political thought and underpinned the exercise of power in the Middle East. The Circle of Justice depicts graphically how a government’s justice toward the population generates political power, military strength, prosperity, and good administration. This book traces this set of relationships from its earliest appearance in the political writings of the Sumerians through four millennia of Middle Eastern culture. It explores how people conceptualized and acted upon this powerful insight, how they portrayed it in symbol, painting, and story, and how they transmitted it from one regime to the next. Moving towards the modern day, the author shows how, although the Circle of Justice was largely dropped from political discourse, it did not disappear from people’s political culture and expectations of government. The book demonstrates the Circle’s relevance to the Iranian Revolution and the rise of Islamist movements all over the Middle East, and suggests how the concept remains relevant in an age of capitalism. A "must read" for students, policymakers, and ordinary citizens, this book will be an important contribution to the areas of political history, political theory, Middle East studies and Orientalism.

Download or read book Islamic Maritime Law written by Hassan Salih Khalilieh and published by BRILL. This book was released on 1998 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines Islamic maritime law and practice of Muslim mariners during the classical period using Fatwa and Geniza sources. Maritime terminology, interrelationships of mariners, maritime commercial and military laws, territorial waters and the performance of Islamic religious duties at sea in the period are discussed.

Download or read book Creating an Islamic City written by Rana Mikati and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2024-03-04 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Creating an Islamic City: Beirut, Jihad, and the Sacred, Rana Mikati examines for the first time the role and contribution of Beirut to the Umayyad and early Abbasid caliphates. This book traces the transformation of Beirut from a Byzantine metropolis to a place of ribāṭ, weaving previously unpublished archaeological material and narrative sources. By examining Beirut’s transformation into a frontier town, the rise of a scholarly community around the Syrian jurist al-Awzā‘ī (d. 157/773-774), and its integration in an Islamic sacred landscape, Creating an Islamic City shows how a provincial frontier town was integrated and participated in the early caliphate.

Download or read book The Places Where Men Pray Together written by Paul Wheatley and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 591 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What makes a city an economic, political, and cultural center? In The Places Where Men Pray Together, Paul Wheatley draws on two decades of astonishingly wide-ranging research to demonstrate that Islamic cities are defined by function rather than form—by what they do rather than what they are. Focusing on the roles of cities during the first four centuries of Islamic expansion, Wheatley explores interconnected cultural, historical, economic, political, and religious factors to provide the clearest and most extensively documented portrait of early Islamic urban centers available to date. Building on the tenth-century geographer al-Maqdisi's writings on urban centers of the Islamic world, buttressed by extensive comparative material from roadbooks, topographies, histories, adab literatures, and gazetteers of the time, Wheatley identifies the main functions of different Islamic urban centers. Chapters on each of the thirteen centers that al-Maqdisi identified, ranging from the Atlantic to the Indus and from the Caspian to the Sudan, form the heart of this book. In each case Wheatley shows how specific agglomeration and accessibility factors combined to make every city functionally distinct as a creator of effective space. He also demonstrates that, far from revolutionizing every aspect of life in these cities, the adoption of Islam often affected the development of these cities less than previously existing local traditions. The Places Where Men Pray Together is a monumental work that will speak to scholars and readers across a broad variety of disciplines, from historians, anthropologists, and sociologists to religious historians, archaeologists, and geographers.

Download or read book Studies on the Life of Muhammad and the Dawn of Islam written by Michael Lecker and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-10-31 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume includes 20 articles published between 1994 and 2020 on the subject of Muḥammad and the history of early Islam, covered in five sections: Arabia on the Eve of Islam, Muḥammad at Medina, Muḥammad and the Jews, Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq and the sīra and studies on early Islamic literature. The book focuses on a variety of historical questions, from the presumed Ghassanid/Byzantine involvement in the hijra to Muḥammad’s treaties with the main Jewish tribes of Yathrib/Medina. Predilection for detail, especially in the realms of genealogy and geography, is a salient characteristic of Lecker’s research, which in recent years has been increasingly based on digitized text repositories. Many of the articles deal with the social and economic environment of early Islam, which is vital for the study of Muḥammad’s biography. They are conceived of as building blocks in a future critical biography of the Arabian prophet. Studies on the Life of Muhammad and the Dawn of Islam will appeal to those interested in the history of pre- and early Islam, with an emphasis on Muḥammad’s life and his relations with the Jews of Arabia.

Download or read book Writing Signs written by Irene A. Bierman and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1998-12-16 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Irene Bierman explores the complex relationship between alphabet and language as well as the ways the two elements are socially defined by time and place. She focuses her exploration on the Eastern Mediterranean in the sixth through twelfth centuries, notably Cairo's Fatimid dynasty of 969-1171. Examining the inscriptions on Fatimid architecture and textiles, Bierman offers insight into all elements of that society, from religion to the economy, and the enormous changes the dynasty underwent during that period. Bierman addresses fundamental issues of what buildings mean, how inscriptions affect that meaning, and the role of written messages and the ceremonies into which they are incorporated in service of propagandist goals. Her method and conclusions provide a pioneering model for studying public writing in other societies and offer powerful evidence to show that writing is a highly charged and deeply embedded social practice.

Download or read book Ceramics in Transition Production and Exchange of Late Byzantine Early Islamic Pottery in Southern Transjordan and the Negev written by Elisabeth Holmqvist and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2019-07-31 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the utilitarian ceramic traditions during the socio-political transition from the late Byzantine into the early Islamic Umayyad and ‘Abbasid periods, in southern Transjordan and the Negev. Production clusters, manufacturing techniques, distribution patterns, and material links between communities are analysed.

Download or read book Damascus after the Muslim Conquest written by Nancy Khalek and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-16 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before it fell to Muslim armies in AD 635-6 Damascus had a long and prestigious history as a center of Christianity. How did this city, which became the capitol of the Islamic Empire and its people, negotiate the transition from a late antique or early Byzantine world to an Islamic culture? In Damascus after the Muslim Conquest, Nancy Khalek demonstrates that the changes that took place in Syria during this formative period of Islamic life were not simply a matter of the replacement of one civilization by another as a result of military conquest, but rather of shifting relationships and practices in a multifaceted social and cultural setting. Even as late antique forms of religion and culture persisted, the formation of Islamic identity was affected by the people who constructed, lived in, and narrated the history of their city. Khalek draws on the evidence of architecture and the testimony of pilgrims, biographers, geographers, and historians to shed light on this process of identity formation. Offering a fresh approach to the early Islamic period, she moves the study of Islamic origins beyond a focus on issues of authenticity and textual criticism, and initiates an interdisciplinary discourse on narrative, storytelling, and the interpretations of material culture.

Download or read book Parable and Politics in Early Islamic History written by Tayeb El-Hibri and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-19 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the succession to the Prophet Muhammad and the rise of the Rashidun Caliphate (632-661) is familiar to historians from the political histories of medieval Islam, which treat it as a factual account. The story also informs the competing perspectives of Sunni and Shi'i Islam, which read into it the legitimacy of their claims. Yet while descriptive and varied, these approaches have long excluded a third reading, which views the conflict over the succession to the Prophet as a parable. From this vantage point, the motives, sayings, and actions of the protagonists reveal profound links to previous texts, not to mention a surprising irony regarding political and religious issues. In a controversial break from previous historiography, Tayeb El-Hibri privileges the literary and artistic triumphs of the medieval Islamic chronicles and maps the origins of Islamic political and religious orthodoxy. Considering the patterns and themes of these unified narratives, including the problem of measuring personal qualification according to religious merit, nobility, and skills in government, El-Hibri offers an insightful critique of both early and contemporary Islam and the concerns of legitimacy shadowing various rulers. In building an argument for reading the texts as parabolic commentary, he also highlights the Islamic reinterpretation of biblical traditions, both by Qur'anic exegesis and historical composition.