The Expansion of the Early Islamic State

by Donner,Fred M.; Donner,Fred M.

• ISBN13: 9780860787228
• ISBN10: 0860787222
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-05-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This volume presents a selection of the key studies in which leading scholars attempt to explain the phenomenally rapid expansion of the early Islamic state during the 7th century CE. The articles debate the causes for the conquest movement or expansion, the reasons for its success, its nature and the impact it had on the countries affected by it, and the complex questions surrounding the sources on which historians have constructed their views of the expansion, and the reliability (or lack of it) of those sources. The editor's introduction addresses the phenomenon of the expansion and how scholars have approached it. About the Author: Fred M. Donner is Professor of Near Eastern History at the University of Chicago, USA

Table of Contents

Introduction

The art of war of the Arabs, and the supposed religious fervour of the Arab conquerors

Some critical and sociological remarks on the Arab conquest and the theories proposed on this

Observations on the nature and causes of the Arab conquest

The nomad as empire builder: a comparison of the Arab and Mongol conquests

The Arab expansion: the military problem

The first expansion of Islam: factors of thrust and containment

The conquest

Another orientalist's remarks concerning the Pirenne thesis

Initial Byzantine reactions to the Arab conquest

Only a change of masters? The Christians of Iran and the Muslim conquest

An apocalyptic vision of Islamic history

The legendary Futuh literature

On the relationship in the Caliphate between central power and the provinces: the 'Sulh'-''Anwa' traditions in Egypt and Iraq

Ibn Abdelhakam and the conquest of North Africa

The birth of Islam in the Holy Land

Isfahan-Nihawand. A source-critical study of early Islamic historiography

Centralized authority and military autonomy in the early Islamic conquests

The conquest of Khuzistan: a historiographical reassessment

Syriac views of emergent Islam

Index

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