The Expansion of the Early Islamic State

Fred M. Donner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780860787228
• eBook ISBN: 9781351890021
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This volume presents a selection of the key studies in which leading scholars since the beginning of the 20th century 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, the nature of the movement itself, the impact the expansion 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. No articles devoted to the actual conquest of a given locality are included-hundreds exist-but a fairly extensive bibliography lists many of the more important contributions in this genre. The editor's introduction addresses the phenomenon of the expansion and how scholars have approached and grappled with it.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• General Editor’s Preface
• Introduction
• 1. The Art of War of the Arabs, and the Supposed Religious Fervour of the Arab Conquerors
• 2. Some Critical and Sociological Remarks on the Arab Conquest and the Theories Proposed on this
• 3. Observations on the Nature and Causes of the Arab Conquest
• 4. The Nomad as Empire Builder: A Comparison of the Arab and Mongol Conquests
• 5. The Arab Expansion: The Military Problem
• 6. The First Expansion of Islam: Factors of Thrust and Containment
• 7. The Conquest
• 8. Another Orientalist’s Remarks Concerning the Pirenne Thesis
• 9. Initial Byzantine Reactions to the Arab Conquest
• 10. Only a Change of Masters? The Christians of Iran and the Muslim Conquest
• 11. An Apocalyptic Vision of Islamic History
• 12. The Legendary Futūḥ Literature
• 13. On The Relationship in the Caliphate between Central Power and the Provinces: The ‘Ṣulḥ’–‘ʿAnwa’ Traditions for Egypt and Iraq
• 14. Ibn Abdelḥakam and the Conquest of North Africa
• 15. The Birth of Islam in the Holy Land
• 16. Iṣfahān-Nihāwand. A Source-Critical Study of Early Islamic Historiography
• 17. Centralized Authority and Military Autonomy in the Early Islamic Conquests
• 18. The Conquest of Khūzistān: A Historiographical Reassessment
• 19. Syriac Views of Emergent Islam
• Index