The Arabs And Arabia On The Eve Of Islam

This volume examines the background to the rise of Islam. The opening essays consider the broad context of nomad-sedentary relations in the Near East; thereafter the focus is on the Arabian peninsula and the history of the Arab peoples. The following papers set out the political and economic structures of the pre-Islamic period, and are concerned to trace the evolution of religious beliefs in the area, looking in particular at the role of local traditions and the impact of Jewish and Christian influences.

Using a wide range of sources – inscriptions, poetry, histories, and archaeological evidence – Robert G. Hoyland explores the main cultural areas of Arabia, from ancient Sheba in the South, to the deserts and oases of the north.

Arabs and Empires before Islam illuminates the history of the Arabs before the emergence of Islam, collating nearly 250 translated extracts from an extensive array of ancient sources. Drawn from a broad period between the eighth century BC and the Middle Ages, the sources include texts originally written in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Persian, and Arabic, inscriptions in a variety of languages and alphabets, and discussions of archaeological sites from across the Near East. More than twenty international experts from the fields of archaeology, classics and ancient history, linguistics and philology, epigraphy, and art history provide detailed commentary on and analysis of this diverse selection of material. Richly illustrated with sixteen colour plates, fifteen maps, and over seventy in-text images, the volume provides a comprehensive, wide-ranging, and up-to-date examination of what ancient sources had to say about the politics, culture, and religion of the Arabs in the pre-Islamic period. It offers a full consideration of the traces which the Arabs have left in the epigraphic, literary, and archaeological records, and sheds light on their relationship with their often more-powerful neighbours: the states and empires of the ancient Near East. Arabs and Empires before Islam gathers together a host of material never before collected into a single volume--some of which appears in English translation for the very first time--and provides a single point of reference for a vibrant and dynamic area of research.

The emergence of Islam has in recent years become a matter of heated debate, mainly because Islamic historiography is a battle-field of contradictory versions of the past. In this second collection of studies, several of which appear here for the first time, Michael Lecker distances himself from the clash of theories, concentrating instead on several basic issues. They all belong to the preparatory work that still remains to be done on the social and economic environment in which Islam emerged. The volume includes the following sections: Arabia on the Eve of Islam; Muhammad and his Companions; and Arabian Tribes in Pre- and Early Islamic Arabia. The third section includes much extended and fully-documented versions of nine Encyclopaedia of Islam articles dealing with Arabian tribes and tribal society.

Originally published in 1958, this volume covers important aspects of Islamic history and culture: Arabia before the Prophet The Prophet The Koran and Islam The Caliphate From the Caliphate to the end of the Ottoman The Crusades The Maghreb Muslim Spain The Sharia Philosophy The Sciences Literature The Arts Problems of the Twentieth Century Arab World

The emergence of Islam has in recent years become a matter of heated debate, mainly because Islamic historiography is a battle-field of contradictory versions of the past. In this second collection of studies, several of which appear here for the first time, Michael Lecker distances himself from the clash of theories, concentrating instead on several basic issues. They all belong to the preparatory work that still remains to be done on the social and economic environment in which Islam emerged. The volume includes the following sections: Arabia on the Eve of Islam; Muhammad and his Companions; and Arabian Tribes in Pre- and Early Islamic Arabia. The third section includes much extended and fully-documented versions of nine Encyclopaedia of Islam articles dealing with Arabian tribes and tribal society.

The history of Arabia is inextricably tied to the history of Islam. The Prophet Muhammad came from Arabia, and the most important religious centers for Muslims are located in the Arab cities of Mecca and Medina. However, Arabs already had a history reaching back over one and a half millennia when Muhammad entered the stage. Since the ninth century B.C.E., they had been an integral force in determining the fate of the Middle East, establishing themselves as a major power in the seventh century C.E. and with the rise of the caliphate expanding the borders of the Arab world far beyond the Middle East into North Africa and Spain, and even into France. Since that time, Arab history has been intimately connected with European history. Medieval European arts and sciences would have been unthinkable without the brilliant culture of the Arab empire. Only in the modern era has this relationship been marked by a growing European hegemony, which continues to encumber relations between the West and the Arab world to the present day. In this volume, Heinz Halm offers a compact and comprehensible overview of the history and culture of the Arabs from the first references in the inscriptions of Assyrian kings to the most recent developments of contemporary Arab nations. -- From https://www.amazon.co.uk (April 6, 2017).