The Umayyad World encompasses the archaeology, history, art, and architecture of the Umayyad era (644-750 CE). This era was formative both for world history and for the history of Islam. Subjects covered in detail in this collection include regions conquered in Umayyad times, ethnic and religious identity among the conquerors, political thought and culture, administration and the law, art and architecture, the history of religion, pilgrimage and the Qur'an, and violence and rebellion. Close attention is paid to new methods of analysis and interpretation, including source critical studies of the historiography and inter-disciplinary approaches combining literary sources and material evidence. Scholars of Islamic history, archaeologists, and researchers interested in the Umayyad Caliphate, its context, and infl uence on the wider world, will find much to enjoy in this volume.

The Umayyad World encompasses the archaeology, history, art, and architecture of the Umayyad era (644-750 CE). This era was formative both for world history and for the history of Islam. Subjects covered in detail in this collection include regions conquered in Umayyad times, ethnic and religious identity among the conquerors, political thought and culture, administration and the law, art and architecture, the history of religion, pilgrimage and the Qur'an, and violence and rebellion. Close attention is paid to new methods of analysis and interpretation, including source critical studies of the historiography and inter-disciplinary approaches combining literary sources and material evidence. Scholars of Islamic history, archaeologists, and researchers interested in the Umayyad Caliphate, its context, and infl uence on the wider world, will find much to enjoy in this volume.

New perspectives on and interpretations of the popular medieval genre of the universal chronicle. Found in pre-modern cultures of every era and across the world, from the ancient Near East to medieval Latin Christendom, the universal chronicle is simultaneously one of the most ubiquitous pre-modern cultural forms and one of the most overlooked. Universal chronicles narrate the history of the whole world from the time of its creation up to the then present day, treating the world's affairs as though they were part of a single organic reality, and uniting various strands of history into a unifed, coherent story. They reveal a great deal about how the societies that produced them understood their world and how historical narrative itself can work to produce that understanding. The essays here offer new perspectives on the genre, from a number of different disciplines, demonstrating their vitality, flexibility and cultural importance, They reveal them to be deeply political texts, which allowed history-writers and their audiences to locate themselves in space, time and in the created universe. Several chapters address the manuscript context, looking at the innovative techniques of compilation, structure and layout that placed them at the cutting edge of medieval book technology. Others analyse the background of universal chronicles, and identify their circulation amongst different social groups; there are also investigations into their literary discourse, patronage, authorship and diffusion. Michele Campopiano is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Latin Literature at the University of York; Henry Bainton is Lecturer in High Medieval Literature at the University of York. Contributors:Tobias Andersson, Michele Campopiano, Cornelia Dreer, Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, Elena Koroleva, Keith Lilley, Andrew Marsham, Rosa M. Rodriguez Porto, Christophe Thierry, Elizabeth M. Tyler, Steven Vanderputten, Bjorn Weiler, Claudia Wittig.

The Umayyad Empire (644-750 CE) was the first Islamic empire and one of the largest empires of ancient and medieval times, extending over 5,000 miles between the Atlantic Ocean in the West and the Indian Ocean in the East. This book traces the empire's origins to the Arabian Peninsula and the Syrian Steppe in the centuries before Islam. It explores the dynamics that shaped this formative era for the history of the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. The century of Umayyad rule witnessed war with the Eastern Roman Empire, against whom the Umayyads defined their claims to rule as God's deputies on Earth. This was the period in which the Qur'an was compiled, monuments such as the Dome of the Rock were built, and new Islamic and Arab identities developed.

When the Umayyads, the first Islamic dynasty, rose to power shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632), the polity of which they assumed control had only recently expanded out of Arabia into the Roman eastern Mediterranean, Iraq and Iran. A century later, by the time of their downfall in 750, the last Umayyad caliphs governed the largest empire that the world had seen, stretching from Spain in the West to the Indus valley and Central Asia in the East. By then, their dynasty and the ruling circles around it had articulated with increasing clarity the public face of the new monotheistic religion of Islam, created major masterpieces of world art and architecture, some of which still stand today, and built a state apparatus that was crucial to ensuring the continuity of the Islamic polity. Within the vast lands under their control, the Umayyads and their allies ruled over a mosaic of peoples, languages and faiths, first among them Christianity, Judaism and the Ancient religion of Iran, Zoroastrianism. The Umayyad period is profoundly different from ours, yet it also resonates with modern concerns, from the origins of Islam to dynamics of cultural exchange. Editors Alain George and Andrew Marsham bring together a collection of essays that shed new light on this crucial period. Power, Patronage, and Memory in Early Islam elucidates the ways in which Umayyad elites fashioned and projected their self-image, and how these articulations, in turn, mirrored their own times. The authors, combining perspectives from different disciplines, present new material evidence, introduce fresh perspectives about key themes and monuments, and revisit the nature of the historical writing that shaped our knowledge of this period.