Projecting a New Empire

Formats, Social Meaning, and Mediality of Imperial Arabic in the Umayyad and Early Abbasid Periods

Eugenio Garosi

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9783110740974
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Modern History

Seventh and eighth-century papyri, inscriptions, and coins constitute the main evidence for the rise of Arabic as a hegemonic language emerging from the complex fabric of Graeco-Roman-Iranian Late Antiquity. This volume examines these sources in order to gauge the social ecology of Arabic writing within the broader late antique continuum.

Starting from the functional interplay of Arabic with other languages in multilingual archives as well as the mediality of practices of public Arabic writing, the study correlates the rise of Arabic as an imperial language to social interactions: the negotiation between the Arab-Muslim imperial elite and non-Arabicized regional elites of the early Islamic empire. Using layout, formulae and technical terminology to trace common patterns and disruptions across sources from the Atlantic to Central Asia, the volume illuminates the distinctive formal varieties of official Umayyad and early Abbasid imperial documents compared to informal Arabic writings as well as to neighboring scribal traditions in other languages.

The volume connects documentary practices to broader imperial policies, opening an unprecedented window into the strategies of governance that lay at the core of the early Islamic empire.

Index Locorum II: Inscriptions

• • Abdeljauad 2001
    • – no. 2
  • AI
    • – Y
    • – Z
    • – Z
    • – Z

• • Bartoccini 1964
    • – no. B-1630

• • CG I
    • – 1
    • – 2
    • – 3
    • – 4
    • – 7
  • CG VII
    • – 2466
  • CG VIII
    • – 3187
  • CG IX
    • – 3201
    • – 3203
  • CG X
    • – 3977
  • CIAP I
    • – p. 4, no. 1
    • – p. 30–31, no. 1
    • – p. 31, no. 2
    • – p. 103, no. 1
    • – p. 144, no. 1
  • CIAP II
    • – p. 5, no. 1
    • – p. 207, no. 1
    • – p. 215, no. 1
    • – p. 221, no. 3
    • – p. 286, no. 19-A
  • CIAP III
    • – p. 104, no. 1
    • – p. 104–105, no. 2
    • – p. 162, no. 2
    • – p. 179
    • – p. 220, no. 1
    • – p. 221, no. 2
    • – p. 230, no. 13
    • – p. 230, no. 14
    • – p. 232, no. 15
    • – p. 232–233, no. 16
  • CIAP VI
    • – 58
    • – 59
    • – 60
    • – 61
    • – 62
    • – 63
    • – 64
    • – 65
    • – 66
    • – 67
    • – 68
    • – 69
    • – 70
    • – 71
    • – 72
    • – 73
    • – 74
    • – 75
    • – 76
    • – 77
    • – 78
  • CMC
    • – 1

• • DZ I
    • – p. 229, no. 1
  • DZ II
    • – p. 430
    • – p. 487

• • EIA
    • – no. 67
    • – no. 82
  • EPI
    • – 14941
    • – 14944
    • – 14993
    • – 40352
    • – 43922

• • Flood 2001
    • – p. 252–253

• • Gadjev/Shikhsaidov 2002
    • – p. 4

• • Hamilton 1946
    • – p. 70
  • el-Hawary 1930CG I 1
  • el-Hawary 1932CG IX 3201
  • Hoyland 2006
    • – p. 413

• • IM
    • – p. 28–29
  • Imbert 2016
    • – p. 344–346

• • Jumʿa/al-Maʿānī 1999
    • – p. 247–248

• • al-Kilābī 1995
    • – no. 163

• • Litmann 1949
    • – no. 31see Ory 1969 p. 137 no. 3

• • Mayer 1946
    • – p. 73
  • MCIA I
    • – 546
  • MCIA IV, 1
    • – p. 40, no. 1
    • – p. 43, no. 2
    • – p. 44, no. 3
    • – p. 44, no. 4
    • – p. 46, no. 5
    • – p. 47, no. 6
    • – p. 47, no. 7
    • – p. 48, no. 8
  • Mittwoch 1935
    • – p. 235–236

• • Ory 1967
    • – no. 55
  • Ory 1969
    • – no. 1
    • – no. 3
    • – no. 15
    • – no. 21
    • – no. 22
    • – no. 23
    • – no. 24
    • – no. 27
    • – no. 28
    • – no. 55
    • – no. 56
    • – no. 79a
  • Ory 1999
    • – p. 376
  • Ory 2005
    • – no. 1
    • – no. 2

• • P.HerzfeldSamarra
    • – 8
  • PoI
    • – 1.22
    • – 1.25
    • – 1.26
  • P.SchlumbergerQasr

• • Randall 1933
    • – p. 328
  • al-Rāshid 1992
    • – p. 138
  • al-Rāshid 1993
    • – p. 335, no. 1
    • – p. 335–336 no. 2
    • – p. 336 no. 3
    • – p. 337
  • RCEA I
    • – 1
    • – 2
    • – 5
    • – 6CG I 1
    • – 8
    • – 9a
    • – 9b
    • – 10
    • – 11
    • – 12
    • – 14CIAP III p. 104–105 no. 2
    • – 15CIAP II p. 5 no. 1
    • – 16CIAP III p. 104, no. 1
    • – 17CIAP I p. 4, no. 1
    • – 18a–bsee Flood 2001, 252–253, 296, 341
    • – 19
    • – 23see Imbert 2016, 344–346
    • – 25see Sauvaget 1944 no. 1
    • – 26
    • – 27
    • – 28
    • – 32CIAP I p. 30–31 no. 1
    • – 37CIAP I p. 31 no. 2
    • – 38
    • – 40MCIA IV 1, p. 40, no. 1
    • – 46see Sauvaget 1947 p. 58 D and E
    • – 47see Sauvaget 1947 p. 56 B
    • – 48MCIA IV, 1 p. 44, no. 3
    • – 49MCIA IV, 1 p. 44, no. 4
    • – 50MCIA IV, 1 p. 47, no. 7
    • – 51MCIA IV, 1 p. 47, no. 6
    • – 52MCIA IV, 1 p. 48, no. 8
    • – 53RCEA V additions and corrections 53
    • – 54
    • – 55CG I 2
    • – 56CG I 3
    • – 57
    • – 58CG I 4
    • – 59
    • – 60
    • – 61CG I 7
    • – 62
    • – 63
    • – 163CMC 1
  • RCEA V additions and corrections
    • – 53
  • RCEA XIV
    • – p. 275
  • Ritter 2016a
    • – p. 65
  • Ritter 2017
    • – p. 49

• • Sauvaget 1944
    • – no. 1 92n334, 198n156, 340, 341, 342
  • Sauvaget 1947
    • – p. 52 no. 2see Ory 2005 p. 161–162
    • – p. 56 A
    • – p. 56 B
    • – p. 58 D
    • – p. 58 E
    • – p. 66
    • – p. 79
  • Schick/Salameh 2004
    • – no. 1
  • Sharon 2018
    • – p. 101
  • Silverman 2007
    • – p. 605

• • TKN
    • – p. 191–192
    • – p. 194

• • WS
    • – 001
    • – 003
    • – 004

Notes

1

A strikingly similar injunction (though seemingly ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Note on Conventions
• Maps
• Introduction
• I Towards an Ecology of Documentary Arabic
• II Imperial Arabic: Between Text and Visual Text
• III Shaping Official Umayyad Arabic
• IV A Culture of Ambivalence
• V An Empire of Words
• Bibliography
• General Index
• Index Locorum I: Papyri
• Index Locorum II: Inscriptions