A theoretically rich, nuanced history of Islam and Islamic civilization with a unique sociological component This major new reference work offers a complete historical and theoretically informed view of Islam as both a religion and a sociocultural force. Uniquely comprehensive, it surveys and discusses the transformation of Muslim societies in different eras and various regions, providing a broad narrative of the historical development of Islamic civilization. This text explores the complex and varied history of the religion and its traditions. It provides an in-depth study of the diverse ways through which the religious dimension at the core of Islamic traditions has led to a distinctive type of civilizational process in history. The book illuminates the ways in which various historical forces have converged and crystallized in institutional forms at a variety of levels, embracing social, religious, legal, political, cultural, and civic dimensions. Together, the team of internationally renowned scholars move from the genesis of a new social order in 7th-century Arabia, right up to the rise of revolutionary Islamist currents in the 20th century and the varied ways in which Islam has grown and continues to pervade daily life in the Middle East and beyond. This book is essential reading for students and academics in a wide range of fields, including sociology, history, law, and political science. It will also appeal to general readers with an interest in the history of one of the world’s great religions.

This book offers a number of innovative studies on the three main communities of the East Mediterranean lands--Muslims, Jews and Christians--in the aftermath of the seventh-century Arab conquests. It focuses principally on how the Christian majority were affected by and adapted to their loss of political power in such arenas as language use, identity construction, church building, pilgrimage, and the role of women. Attention is also paid to how the Muslim community defined itself, administered justice, and regulated relations with non-Muslims. This book will be important for anyone interested in the ways in which the cultures and traditions of the late antique Mediterranean world were transformed in the course of the seventh to tenth centuries by the establishment of the new Muslim political elite and the gradual emergence of an Islamic Empire.

Historical categorization -- Tropes and temporalities of historiographic romanticism, modern and Islamic -- Islam and the history of civilizations -- Typological time, patterning and the past appropriated -- Chronophagous discourse: a study of the clerico-legal appropriation of the world in an Islamic tradition -- The muslim canon from late antiquity to the era of modernism -- History and narration in Arab historiography -- History of the future -- God's chronography and dissipative time -- Rhetoric for the senses: a consideration of Muslim paradise narratives -- Distractions of Clio: impasses and perspectives of historians' history -- Islamic political thought: current historiography and the frame of history -- Monotheistic monarchy -- Acknowledgements -- Index

A comprehensive and innovative reconstruction of the emergence of early Muslim religion and polity in their historical, religious and ethnological contexts. Intended principally for scholars of late antiquity, Islamic studies and the history of religions, the book opens up many novel directions for future research.

A History of the Islamic World, 600–1800 supplies a fresh and unique survey of the formation of the Islamic world and the key developments that characterize this broad region’s history from late antiquity up to the beginning of the modern era. Containing two chronological parts and fourteen chapters, this impressive overview explains how different tides in Islamic history washed ashore diverse sets of leadership groups, multiple practices of power and authority, and dynamic imperial and dynastic discourses in a theocratic age. A text that transcends many of today’s popular stereotypes of the premodern Islamic past, the volume takes a holistically and theoretically informed approach for understanding, interpreting, and teaching premodern history of Islamic West-Asia. Jo Van Steenbergen identifies the Asian connectedness of the sociocultural landscapes between the Nile in the southwest to the Bosporus in the northwest, and the Oxus (Amu Darya) and Jaxartes (Syr Darya) in the northeast to the Indus in the southeast. This abundantly illustrated book also offers maps and dynastic tables, enabling students to gain an informed understanding of this broad region of the world. This book is an essential text for undergraduate classes on Islamic History, Medieval and Early Modern History, Middle East Studies, and Religious History.

Volume One of The New Cambridge History of Islam, which surveys the political and cultural history of Islam from its Late Antique origins until the eleventh century, brings together contributions from leading scholars in the field. The book is divided into four parts. The first provides an overview of the physical and political geography of the Late Antique Middle East. The second charts the rise of Islam and the emergence of the Islamic political order under the Umayyad and the Abbasid caliphs of the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries, followed by the dissolution of the empire in the tenth and eleventh. 'Regionalism', the overlapping histories of the empire's provinces, is the focus of Part Three, while Part Four provides a cutting-edge discussion of the sources and controversies of early Islamic history, including a survey of numismatics, archaeology and material culture.

This new edition of one of the most widely used course books on Islamic civilizations around the world has been substantially revised to incorporate the new scholarship and insights of the last twenty-five years. Ira Lapidus' history explores the beginnings and transformations of Islamic civilizations in the Middle East and details Islam's worldwide diffusion. The history is divided into four parts. Part I is a comprehensive account of pre-Islamic late antiquity; the beginnings of Islam; the early Islamic empires; and Islamic religious, artistic, legal and intellectual cultures. Part II deals with the construction in the Middle East of Islamic religious communities and states to the fifteenth century. Part III includes the history to the nineteenth century of Islamic North Africa and Spain; the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires; and other Islamic societies in Asia and Africa. Part IV accounts for the impact of European commercial and imperial domination on Islamic societies and traces the development of the modern national state system and the simultaneous Islamic revival from the early nineteenth century to the present.

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.

The articles included in this Yearbook of the Sociology of Islam are focused on two perspectives: Some link the comparative analysis of Islam to ongoing debates on the Axial Age and its role in the formation of major civilizational complexes, while others are more concerned with the historical constellations and sources involved in the formation of Islam as a religion and a civilization. More than any other particular line of inquiry, new historical and sociological approaches to the Axial Age revived the idea of comparative civilizational analysis and channeled it into more specific projects. A closer look at the very problematic place of Islam in this context will help to clarify questions about the Axial version of civilizational theory as well as issues in Islamic studies and sociological approaches to modern Islam. Contributors among others: Said Arjomand, Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, Josef van Ess and Raif G. Khoury.