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Arab-Byzantine Relations in Early Islamic Times
By
Michael Bonner, Michigan-Ann Arbor
Description
The Byzantine
Empire was the Islamic commonwealth’s first and most stubborn
adversary. For many centuries it loomed large in Islamic diplomacy,
military operations and commerce, as well as in Islamic
representations of the world in general. Moreover, the ways in which
early Muslims and Byzantines perceived one another — both
polemically and otherwise — afterwards proved decisive for the
mutual perceptions between the Islamic world and Christian Western
Europe. For these and other reasons, Arab-Byzantine relations have
been a major concern of modern scholarship on early Islam for well
over a century.
Arab-Byzantine
Relations in Early Islamic Times presents some of the most important
of these contributions, organized according to the following themes:
war and diplomacy; frontiers and military organization; polemics and
images of the \\\\\\\'other\\\\\\\'; exchange, influence and convergence; and
martyrdom, jihad and holy war. An introductory essay discusses these
themes within the contexts of early Islamic society, politics and
economy.
Contents
Introduction. War
and Diplomacy: The Persians in Asia Minor and the end of antiquity,
Clive Foss; Arab wars with the Byzantines in the Umayyad period,
Julius Wellhausen; Arab-Byzantine relations under the Umayyad
Caliphate, H.A.R.Gibb; Byzantine-Arab diplomacy in the Near East from
the Islamic conquests to the mid-11th century, Hugh Kennedy.
Frontiers and Military Organization: 7th-century continuities: the
Ajnâd and the \\\\\\\'Thematic Myth\\\\\\\', John Haldon; The Arab-Byzantine
frontier in the 8th and 9th centuries: military organisation and
society in the borderlands, J.F. Haldon and H. Kennedy. Polemics and
Images of the \\\\\\\'Other\\\\\\\': Apocalyptic and other materials on Early
Muslim-Byzantine wars: a review of Arabic sources, Suliman Bashear;
Byzantine views of Islam, John Meyendorff; Byzantium and the Arabs:
the image of the Byzantines as mirrored in Arabic literature, Ahmad
M.H. Shboul. Exchange, Influence and Confluence: Islamic art and
Byzantium, Oleg Grabar; Parallelism, convergence and influence in the
relations of Arab and Byzantine philosophy, literature and piety,
Gustav E. von Grunebaum; Theophanes and the Arabic historical
tradition: some indications of intercultural transmission, Lawrence
I. Conrad; Islam, Judaeo-Christianity and Byzantine iconoclasm,
Patricia Crone. Martyrdom, Jihad, Holy War: Some observations
concerning the early development of Jihad on the Arab-Byzantine
frontier, Michael Bonner; The 60 Martyrs of Gaza and the martyrdom of
Bishop Sophronius of Jerusalem, David Woods. General index.
About the Author/Editor
Michael Bonner is
Director, Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, and
Associate Professor of Medieval Islamic History, Department of Near
Eastern Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.
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