The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East

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Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2006 - History - 276 pages
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The essays in this volume deal with the history of the Middle East from c.550 to 1000 AD. There are three main themes: Syria in Late Antiquity and the changes and continuities with the early Islamic period; relations between Muslims and the Byzantine Emp
 

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Contents

Preface viiviii
1
a reinterpretation 141183
29
power and patronage in
54
The impact of Muslim rule on the pattern of rural
54
From Antiquity to Islam in the cities of alAndalus
54
The Melkite church from the Islamic conquest to
65
from Byzantium to Islam and back again 181198
85
CONTENTS
103
ByzantineArab diplomacy in the Near East from
170
Central government and provincial Elites in the early
181
Military pay and the economy of the early Islamic state 155169
194
Caliphs and their chroniclers in the middle Abbasid
209
the origins and structure of
228
The decline and fall of the first Muslim empire 330
258
Index
272
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Page 54 - Such were the three great facts — obscure as yet, but visible — by which the new social order announced itself, at the end of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh century.
Page 197 - DENNETT, Conversion and the Poll Tax in Early Islam, Cambridge, Mass., 1950 (Harvard Historical Monographs, XXII); F.
Page 5 - In the Buildings Procopius describes the reconstruction of Antioch by Justinian in the years after the Persian conquest of 540: "he laid it out with stoas and agoras, dividing all the blocks of houses by means of streets and making water-channels, fountains, and sewers, all of which the city now boasts. He built theatres and baths for it, ornamenting it with all the other buildings by which the prosperity of the city is want to be shown.
Page 17 - ... to make two general points. The first is that we should avoid making inappropriate value judgements. The development of the Islamic city is often seen as a process of decay, the abandonment of the high Hippodamian ideals of classical antiquity and the descent into urban squalor. On the contrary, the changes in city planning may, in some cases, have been the result of increased urban and commercial vitality, as in early Islamic Damascus and Aleppo for example. It was rather that the built environment...
Page 129 - Recherches sur le cadastre byzantin et la fiscalite aux XIe et XIIe siecles: le cadastre de Thebes', Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique 83 (1959), 55—6.
Page 16 - Pavia wished to gather to make their views heard, they did so in the square (platea) by the cathedral.44 This may have been one of the reasons why open squares survived in the cities of Italy and not in those of Syria. The mosque also took over the functions of other public buildings. It was usually in the mosque that the Muslim judge (qadf) held court, although there are records of early qadis using their own houses for this purpose. Until the appearance of the madrasa (theological college) in the...
Page 54 - Aleppo and the areas where there seems to have been increased activity in the sixth century were those on the borders between the desert and the town, the market places, in fact, where the badu could buy the agricultural products they needed. In short the shift of population and wealth away from the coast, usually ascribed to the effects of the Muslim conquest, seems to have occurred during the preceeding century. Clearly these changes were closely related to the rise of the Ghassanids. These Arab...
Page 30 - In addition it is suggested that the persecution of the Monophysite church by the central government and its agents, had left many local people resentful and disillusioned and more than satisfied to see Roman power humbled and their own beliefs respected. The other form of explanation emphasises the Arab side. The new unity acquired by the Arab tribes with the adoption of Islam meant that they submerged their tribal feuds into the enthusiasm of their committment to the new religion and that this...
Page 46 - ... specialised in the monoculture of olives, which could flourish on the barren heights. The oil would then be exported to surrounding areas in exchange, presumably, for the subsistance crops which the inhabitants were unable to grow in sufficient quantities themselves. This meant that the villages were not self-sufficient peasant communities but were closely integrated into the economy of the surrounding areas and that their survival depended on the existence of a reliable market for their produce....

About the author (2006)

Hugh Kennedy formerly Professor of Middle Eastern History at the University of St Andrews, UK.

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