Power, patronage, and memory in early Islam: perspectives on Umayyad elites

Abstract

"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."--

Contents

Part I: Caliphal authority in text and image. "God's Caliph" revisited : Umayyad political thought in its late antique context / Andrew Marsham -- Paradise or empire? On a paradox of Umayyad art / Alain George -- A Qur'anic script from Umayyad times : around the Codex of Fustat / François Déroche. Part II: Patronage and power : the evidence of the "Desert Castles." Hishām's balancing act : the case of Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Gharbī / Robert Hillenbrand -- Khanāṣira and Andarīn (Northern Syria) in the Umayyad Period and a new Arabic tax document / Robert G. Hoyland -- Two possible caliphal representations from Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Sharqī and their implication for the history of the site / Denis Genequand -- Umayyad palace iconography : on the practical aspects of artistic creation / Nadia Ali and Mattia Guidetti. Part III: Historiography and historical memory. Christians in Umayyad Iraq : decentralization and expansion (600-750) / Philip Wood -- The future of the past : historical writing in early Islamic Syria and Umayyad memory / Antoine Borrut -- Caliphs and conquerors : images of the Marwanids and their agents in narratives of the conquest of Iberia / Nicola Clarke -- The Umayyads in contemporary Arab TV drama : ʻUmar ibn ʻAbd al-ʻAziz and al-Hajjāj ibn Yūsuf in Musalsalāt / Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen.