Notes on Ṭabarī's History

1993 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence I. Conrad
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Special Interest ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Valuable Data ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Early Islamic

The caliphate of Hisham ibn ‘Abd al-Malik (105–25/724–43) was undoubtedly one of the most important periods in early Islamic history, and as witness to the history of this era a source of paramount importance is certainly the Ta'rīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk of al-Ṭabarī. This in itself makes the publication of Volume xxv of the English translation of this work by Dr Khalid Yahya Blankinship, covering all but the last five years of Hishām's long reign, a matter of special interest to historians of the eastern lands of Islam. The reader will immediately notice that al-Ṭabarī devotes the bulk of his narrative for this period to events in Khurāsān and Transoxania, specifically, to the Umayyad campaigns there and hostilities with the Türgish khāqān Sü-lü Čur. In the course of this narrative one finds not only a wealth of information on military matters, but also much valuable data on the customs of the western Turks and life in Central Asia in general. The author's reasons for giving his work such a markedly eastern emphasis at this point are not unrelated to a desire, as Blankinship observes, to set forth the background for the 'Abbāsid revolution. But most of what al-Ṭabarī reports for this period is in fact not of immediate relevance to the advent of the 'Abbāsids, and indeed, the subject of 'Abbāsid propaganda activities hardly seems to be a prominent one in this volume.

Mela's Phoenician Geography

2000 ◽  
Vol 90 ◽  
pp. 70-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Batty
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Technical Writing ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Poor Reading ◽  
History Of Cartography ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Many Sources ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Ancient Geography

The appearance in 1998 of F. E. Romer's English translation of Pomponius Mela's De Chorographia has helped to raise further the profile of this previously rather obscure author. Indeed, since the publication a decade previously of the Budé edition by Alain Silberman, interest in Mela seems to have grown quite steadily. Important contributions in German by Kai Brodersen have widened our appreciation of Mela's place within ancient geography as a whole, and his role within the history of cartography has been the subject of a number of shorter pieces.One element common to all these works, however, is a continuing tendency to disparage both Mela himself and the work he created. This is typified by Romer, for whom Mela was ‘a minor writer, a popularizer, not a first-class geographer’; one ‘shocking reason’ for his choice of genre was simply poor preparation, ‘insufficient for technical writing in geography’. Similar judgements appear in the works of Brodersen and Silberman. Mela's inaccuracies are, for these critics, typical of the wider decline of geography in the Roman period. Perhaps such negative views sprang initially from a sense of frustration: it was counted as one of our author's chief defects that he failed to list many sources for his work. For scholars interested in Quellenforschung it makes poor reading. Yet, quite clearly, the De Chorographia has also been damned by comparison. Mela's work has been held against the best Graeco-Roman learning on geography during antiquity—against Strabo, Ptolemy, or Pliny—and it has usually been found wanting. Set against the achievements of his peers, his work does not stand close scrutiny. Thus, for most scholars, the text has been read as a failed exercise in technical geography, or a markedly inferior document in the wider Graeco-Roman geographical tradition.

scholarly journals The Date of Agricola's Governorship of Britain

1920 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 68-78
Author(s):  
R. Knox McElderry
Keyword(s):  
Special Interest ◽  
Independent Interest ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Absence Of Evidence

Did the seven years' governorship recorded by Tacitus begin in A.D. 77 or in 78 ? The question has been often discussed: it is of some importance for the history of the time, and of special interest in our own country. Most authorities have hitherto supported the later date; but recent writers are still divided, and the latest and fullest discussion seems to require some additions and qualifications. In the absence of evidence directly conclusive, the decision depends upon a series of indirect arguments, which raise subsidiary questions of some independent interest. Hence it may be permissible to return to the subject.

The Historical Context

2020 ◽  
pp. 13-30
Author(s):  
Fanny Bessard
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Near East ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Arab Muslim ◽  
Economic Practices ◽  
Slow Expansion ◽  
History Of

The seventh to the eighth centuries witnessed the initially rapid Arab-Muslim conquests of the Near East and their subsequent slow expansion in North Africa, Spain, and Central Asia, leading to the rise of a unified Islamic caliphate from 661 to the early tenth century. Chapter 1 seeks to define the material and sociopolitical context of the early Islamic history of the Near East, which determined the development of urban economic life between 700 and 950 CE. While differing conditions of conquests in the Near East and Central Asia, respectively peaceful subjugation and brutal expansion, laid the foundation of region-specific economic practices, the assertion of caliphal authority as well as the development of agriculture and trade sowed the seeds of economic growth.

Richard II's Yeomen of the Chamber

1978 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 319-329
Author(s):  
James L. Gillespie
Keyword(s):  
Special Interest ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Administrative History ◽  
Royal Household

Richard II's attempt to transform his kingdom into an absolute monarchy has provided the basic outline for the traditional interpretation of the reign. The role of the royal household and especially of the chamber has always loomed large in such an interpretation. It was the subject of Thomas Haxey's famous complaint of 1397, and it had a special interest for Thomas F. Tout who undertook a very detailed study of Richard's reign in volumes three and four of his classic Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England. Tout credited the king's tutor, Simon Burley, with the development of the chamber staff as an instrument of royal tyranny: We may feel pretty sure that it was Burley's intelligence which developed the chamber into a special preserve of the court party, so that the chamber knights and esquires could always be trusted to further the wishes of the sovereign. There was no effort to make it an organized instrument of prerogative: it was rather the office which held the reserve of workers for the king's cause, who, as individuals, did what in them lay to carry out their master's wishes.

scholarly journals Problematika Pembelajaran SKI Di MTs Salafiyah Syafiiyah Bandung Diwek Jombang

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-49
Author(s):  
Mar'atul Azizah ◽  
Rina Bayu Winanda
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Learning Objectives ◽  
Islamic Culture ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Data Presentation ◽  
Evaluation Scores ◽  
Analysis Technique ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Collection Methods

The subject of Islamic history is underestimated or is only considered a complementary subject by students. So that here the researcher is interested in researching about how the problems of learning Islamic Cultural History at MTs Salafiyah Syafiiyah Bandung Diwek Jombang and how the teacher's efforts in overcoming the problems of learning the History of Islamic Culture at MTs Salafiyah Syafiiyah Bandung Diwek Jombang. This research uses a qualitative approach. Data collection methods: observation, interviews and documentation. The data analysis technique used Miles and Huberman's interactive model which included data reduction, data presentation and conclusion drawing. To check the validity of the data, it was used research extension, observation persistence and triangulation. The results of this study found that: Mathematics of learning resource problems are incomplete, lack of understanding of the method, the lack of media so that it meets the learning objectives, student problems before and during learning, some evaluation scores are below standard. The teacher's efforts: learning resources are handled with the internet as a complementary source, methods are handled with other methods prepared by the teacher, media are overcome with other media that are easy to find, students are overcome with several common things, evaluation is overcome with remedial programs.

scholarly journals The Place of Politics in the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad: the History of the Issue from al-Karafi to the Ideologists of the Islamic revolution in Iran

2021 ◽  
pp. 172-192
Author(s):  
E.G. Amirov
Keyword(s):  
Political Process ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Islamic Political Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Holy Quran ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
The Military ◽  
Political Actions ◽  
Political Decisions

The article analyzes one of the fundamental issues of Islamic political thought - the origin of the military-political actions of the Prophet Muhammad. This is an issue that has been the subject of serious debate and controversy among Muslim thinkers for many centuries. The author compares two opposing points of view of Muslim scholars of different eras on this issue. According to the first – the political decisions of the Prophet Muhammad must be perceived as the fruit of revelation, according to the second – they are still the result of a bright political talent. Having decided on the arguments of each of the parties and as an arbiter, the author turns to the Holy Quran. Various examples from the scriptures of Muslims lead to the conclusion that political and military decisions made as a result of revelation occupy a significant place in the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad. However, the author cites the example of a case when the Prophet Muhammad made important military-political decisions at his own discretion or as a result of a meeting with his companions. Summarizing the examples, taking into account the lessons of Islamic history and the modern political process, the author comes to the conclusion that the fundamental principles of Islamic rule established by the Prophet Muhammad are of Quranic origin, and they are mandatory for Muslim leaders. Guided by these principles, Muslim leaders are free to make decisions in one form or another, depending on the prevailing circumstances. The Quran and Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad reflect the principles and essence of Islamic politics. External forms are seen as a changeable phenomenon, and in traditional Islamic discourse, the interest in understanding them is usually not so great.

Living happily ever after: fraternal polyandry, taxes and “the house” in early Islamic Bactria

2016 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-56
Author(s):  
Arezou Azad
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Tax System ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
Islamic Historiography ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Early Islamic

AbstractThis paper is a first attempt at understanding the impact of Islam on families in eighth-century rural Ṭukhāristan (modern-day northern Afghanistan), at the periphery of the late Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid caliphate. Tukhāristan lay in the ancient region of Bactria, which became the land and city of Balkh after the Islamic conquests of the early seven hundreds ad. My analysis is based on a fascinating corpus of legal documents and letters, written in Bactrian and Arabic in the fourth to eighth centuries ad, which were discovered, edited and translated relatively recently. Scholars of Central Asia have tended to discuss the region's early Islamic history within a politico-military framework based on chronicles and prosopographies written in Arabic and/or adapted into Persian centuries after the Muslim conquests. Such narrative sources describe an ideal state defined by genres of Islamic historiography, and come with the usual menu of distortions, simplifications and exoticisms. The documents under review, on the other hand, were written to serve immediate and practical uses; the evidence they offer is devoid of rhetoric, recording aspects of life and social groupings to which we would otherwise have no access. This paper argues that during the transition to Islamic rule (c. ad 700–771), Bactrian and Islamic administrative systems co-existed, and significantly affected family life and marriage traditions. Specifically, it is suggested that the early ʿAbbāsid tax system eclipsed the age-old practice of fraternal polyandry here: more by default than by design.

"Consider that it is a Raid on the Path of God": The Spiritual Manual of the Attackers of 9/11

Numen ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Kippenberg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Political Center ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Early Islamic

AbstractThe document found with three of the four cells responsible for the crimes of 9/11 is unique in providing specific information about how the Muslim suicide terrorists conceived of their action. The document shows that they found justification for violence by emulating the moment in early Islamic history when Muhammad cancelled contracts with non-Muslims and organized raids (ghazwa) against the Meccans in order to establish Islam as a political order. No statement in the Manual explicitly identifies the United States as the financial, military, and political center of today's paganism; rather, such identification is tacitly assumed, as was shown by the action itself. Instead, the Manual prescribes recitations, prayers and rituals by which each member of the four cells should prepare for the ghazwa, purify his intention and anticipate in his mind the successive stages of the struggle to come. Not the objective aim but the subjective intention is at the center of the Manual. The article places this type of justification of violence in the history of Islamic activism since the 1980s.

Understanding the History of Ancient Israel

2007 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Early Islamic

In recent years, the study of the history of Ancient Israel has become very heated. On the one hand there are those who continue to use the Bible as a primary source, modified and illustrated by the findings of archaeology, and on the other there are some who believe that primacy should be given to archaeology and that the Biblical account is then seen to be for the most part completely unreliable in historical terms. This book makes a contribution to this debate by inquiring into the appropriate methods for combining different sorts of evidence – from archaeology, epigraphy, iconography, and the Bible. It also seeks to learn from related historical disciplines such as classical antiquity and early Islamic history, where similar problems are faced. Chapters focus on the ninth century BCE (the period of the Omri dynasty) as a test case, but the proposals are of far wider application. The book brings together in mutually respectful dialogue the representatives of positions that are otherwise in danger of talking across one another.

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