Description
Book SynopsisLate Antique Responses to the Arab Conquests is a showcase of new discoveries in an exciting and rapidly developing field: the study of the transition from Late Antiquity to Early Islam. The contributors to this volume engage with previously neglected sources, such as Arabic rock inscriptions, papyri and Byzantine archaeological remains. They also apply new interpretative methods to the literary tradition, reading the Qur’an as a late antique text, using Arabic poetry as a source to study the gestation of an Arab identity, and extracting settlement patterns of the Arabian colonizers in order to explain regional processes of Arabicization and Islamization. This volume shows how the Arab conquests changed both the Arabian conquerors and the conquered.
Trade Review"This is a cohesive, well-written volume that should appeal to anyone interested in the transition from Late Antiquity to Early Islam. The papers are scholarly, but have generally been written in such a way as to make them accessible to a readership that does not specialize in Islamic studies, but wants to learn more about the early Islamic period. It has also been produced to a very high standard." David Woods in Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2022.09.18
Table of ContentsPreface List of Figures and Tables Notes on Contributors 1 Late Antique Responses to the Arab Conquests: An Introduction Josephine van den Bent, Floris van den Eijnde and Johan Weststeijn 2 The Qurʾanic Rūm: A Late Antique Perspective Clare Wilde 3 Wine and Impurity in the Sura of the Bees: A Structuralist Interpretation of Qurʾan 16:67 Johan Weststeijn 4 Historical-Critical Research of the Sīra of the Prophet Muhammad: What Do We Stand to Gain? Harald Motzki † 5 Arabicization, Islamization, and the Colonies of the Conquerors Kevin van Bladel 6 Continuity and Change: Elite Responses to the Founding of the Caliphate Peter Webb 7 Muḥammad’s World in Egypt Petra M. Sijpesteijn 8 “May God be Mindful of Yazīd the King”: Further Reflections on the Yazīd Inscription and the Development of Arabic Scripts Ahmad Al-Jallad 9 Of Siblings, Kingdoms, and the Days of the Messiah: Jewish Literary Responses to the New Order in the Land of Israel in the First Muslim Period Constanza Cordoni 10 New Light on the Dark Ages: A Byzantine Perspective on the Arab Expansion Joanita Vroom Index
