Founding Gods, Inventing Nations

Conquest and Culture Myths from Antiquity to Islam

William F. McCants

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780691151489
• eBook ISBN: 9781400840069
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

From the dawn of writing in Sumer to the sunset of the Islamic empire, Founding Gods, Inventing Nations traces four thousand years of speculation on the origins of civilization. Investigating a vast range of primary sources, some of which are translated here for the first time, and focusing on the dynamic influence of the Greek, Roman, and Arab conquests of the Near East, William McCants looks at the ways the conquerors and those they conquered reshaped their myths of civilization's origins in response to the social and political consequences of empire.


The Greek and Roman conquests brought with them a learned culture that competed with that of native elites. The conquering Arabs, in contrast, had no learned culture, which led to three hundred years of Muslim competition over the cultural orientation of Islam, a contest reflected in the culture myths of that time. What we know today as Islamic culture is the product of this contest, whose protagonists drew heavily on the lore of non-Arab and pagan antiquity.


McCants argues that authors in all three periods did not write about civilization's origins solely out of pure antiquarian interest--they also sought to address the social and political tensions of the day. The strategies they employed and the postcolonial dilemmas they confronted provide invaluable context for understanding how authors today use myth and history to locate themselves in the confusing aftermath of empire.

Index

Abbās b.

Abd al-Mu

alib, 80

Abbāsids, 77, 106, 110–11, 118, 120, 137, 144

Abd Allāh b.

āhir, 118

Abel, 13n8, 44, 74n123

Abraham, 6

altars and, 45

ancient sciences and, 125, 128, 131, 140

Artapanus and, 100

astronomy and, 125

cultural history and, 39, 45–46, 53

Hagar and, 76

hospitality of, 82–83

medicine and, 140

monotheism of, 45–46

native histories and, 100

origins of civilization and, 27–28

protography and, 76–77, 82–83

Qur

an and, 45–46, 76

Abū al-Faraj, 78–79

Abū al-

usayn Walī al-Dawla, 139–40

Abū Bakr al-Rāzī, 140–42

Abū

anīfa, 77

Abū

ātim al-Rāzī, 142

Abū

ayyān al-Taw

īdī, 76

Abū Is

āq Ibrāhīm b. Mamshādh, 114–15

Abū Man

ūr Ma

marī, 115

Abū Man

ur

ūsī, 115

Abū Ma

shar al-Balkhī, 1, 108n155, 141–44, 147

Abū Na

r al-Fārābī, 137–38

Abū

Ubayd al-Harawī, 49

Adam: agriculture and, 21, 33, 71–72

Book of Adam and, 34–35, 51–52, 55, 72

The Book of the Cave of Treasures and, 73–77

clothing and, 22, 44, 71

death of, 74

Eve and, 11, 21–23, 44, 72–73

fa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• One Gifts of the Gods: The Origins of Civilization in Ancient Near Eastern and Greek Mythology
• Two The Beneficent Sky God: Cultural History in the Qur’an
• Three Who Was First? Protography and Discovery Catalogs
• Four Inventing Nations: Postconquest Native Histories of Civilization’s Origins
• Five “The Sciences of the Ancients”: Speculation on the Origins of Philosophy, Medicine, and the Exact Sciences
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index