When scholars of Middle Eastern and Islamic history consider Mecca or its region, the Hijaz, they tend to focus on either the first century of Islam, when the city and region became briefly the center of an incipient empire, or the twentieth, when the city was the center of the Arab Revolt. More than a thousand years of history in between are relatively unknown. The pre-modern imperial cities of Damascus, Baghdad, and Cairo quickly superseded Mecca as centers of politics and long-distance trade, leaving Islams premier holy city with its singular role as the destination of the great pilgrimage. Of course, the religious significance of Mecca attracted the attention of neighboring rulers, such as the Mamluk sultans of Cairo, who claimed sovereignty over the city to enhance their reputations as paramount Muslim rulers in the later medieval period. Since these claims were written into the Mamluk historical record, the principal means of viewing late medieval Mecca, the standard conception of the citys history has been skewed by its role as the ritual center of Islam and dominated by its relationship with Cairo. Yet when one considers that Mecca and its port of Jedda lay midway between the vital trading networks of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, one finds cause to question the received view of the Holy City. Using sources composed by late medieval Meccan scholars alongside the more well-known Mamluk material, this study presents the history of late medieval Mecca and the Sharifs who ruled the city by examining their relations with local and global forces: their alliances with local groups in the Hijaz, their relations with the imperial center of Mamluk Cairo, and their reliance on the maritime trade of the Indian Ocean.

Product Description: Emerging out of the vast steppe grasslands of Central Asia in the early 1200s, the Mongols, under their ferocious leader, Genghis Khan, quickly carved out an empire that by the late thirteenth century covered almost one sixth of the Earth's landmass -- from Eastern Europe to the eastern shore of Asia--and encompassed 110 million people...read more

Product Description: In a series of case studies, the contributions assess the extent to which in the Ancient World control over large territories relied on the settlement of active or retired soldiers. The central question is that of the link between the historical situation of the foundation, those involved, and the location of the settlement on the one hand and, on the other, the strategic importance which can be derived from these factors for the domination of territories on land and sea, roads, frontiers, other towns, a previous population etc...read more

Product Description: Who was in charge of the widespread provinces of the great Inka Empire of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: Inka from the imperial heartland or local leaders who took on the trappings of their conquerors, either by coercion or acceptance? By focusing on provinces far from the capital of Cuzco, the essays in this multidisciplinary volume provide up-to-date information on the strategies of domination asserted by the Inka across the provinces far from their capital and the equally broad range of responses adopted by their conquered peoples...read more

Product Description: The future of the United Kingdom is an increasingly open question. This book traces the issue's roots to the Middle Ages, when English power and control came to extend to the whole of the British Isles. By 1300 it looked as if Edward I was in control of virtually the whole of the British Isles...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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