Product Description: This is the first translation of a classic work (Bahth fi nnsh' at 'ilm al ta' rikh 'inda l-'Arab) by the eminent Arab historian A. A. Duri. Published in Beirut in 1960, Duri's book was the first comprehensive effort to trace the origins and early development of Arab historical writing, and to resolve some extremely complex and still debated questions about the reliability of the Arabic historical sources...read more

Product Description: In this contribution to the ongoing debate on the nature and causes of the Islamic conquests in Syria and Iraq during the sixth and seventh centuries, Fred Donner argues for a necessary distinction between the causes of the conquests, the causes of their success, and the causes of the subsequent Arab migrations to the Fertile Crescent...read more

Product Description: The papers in this first volume of the new Oriental Institute series LAMINE are derived from a conference entitled “Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians in the Umayyad State,” held at the University of Chicago on June 17–18, 2011...read more

Product Description: This volume reprints nineteen articles that deal with the formation of the first Islamic state under the 'rightly-guided' and Umayyad caliphs (632-750 CE). The articles (five of which originally appeared in languages other than English and are translated here) trace the crystallization of key institutions of the growing empire and treat such fundamental issues as taxation, military institutions, administrative organization and practices, the barid or official courier and intelligence service, succession, the ruling elites and their income, and questions of legitimation...read more