The Muslim conquest of the East in the seventh century entailed the subjugation of Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and others. Although much has been written about the status of non-Muslims in the ...Islamic empire, no previous works have examined how the rules applying to minorities were formulated. Milka Levy-Rubin's remarkable book traces the emergence of these regulations from the first surrender agreements in the immediate aftermath of conquest to the formation of the canonic document called the Pact of 'Umar, which was formalized under the early 'Abbasids, in the first half of the ninth century. The study reveals that the conquered peoples themselves played a major role in the creation of these policies and that they were based on long-standing traditions, customs and institutions from earlier pre-Islamic cultures that originated in the worlds of both the conquerors and the conquered. In its connections to Roman, Byzantine and Sasanian traditions, the book will appeal to historians of Europe as well as Arabia and Persia.
A complete facsimile edition of the previously unedited Samaritan sequel to the Kitāb al-Taʾrīkh by Abū l-Fatḥ Ibn Abī l-Ḥasan al-Sāmirī al-Danafī (d. ca. 1355). The edition of this chronicle ...photographically reproduces Paris BN Ms. Samaritain 10 (pp. 203–264), which, written in Middle Arabic, seems easily readable but poses a plethora of editorial problems. The editor entitled the work a Continuatio, and translated it into English with full editorial and explanatory annotation. The work describes the local history of the Samaritan people in Palestine up to the 10th century and contains valuable information about major political events presented, according to caliphates up to al-Rāḍī (d. 934). “Il appert que la Continuatio est une important source historique" (Claude Gilliot)
The existing discussion regarding the motives for building the Dome of the Rock revolves around two suggestions: that the incentive for building was the fierce competition between ʿAbd al-Malik and ...ʿAbdallah b. al-Zubayr in Mecca, and that it was competition with local Christian monuments that moved ʿAbd al-Malik to building this outstanding edifice. This paper suggests that a third incentive lay in the political and ideological rivalry with Constantinople that was at its peak during that period. This rivalry drove ʿAbd al-Malik to build a monument that would outdo those of Constantinople, and especially that of the Hagia Sophia. Muslim tradition emphasized that Constantinople had contaminated the site of the Temple and had claimed to inherit its place as God's throne on earth. The building of the Dome of the Rock, the New Temple of Solomon, was thus meant to redeem the Temple of Jerusalem's honour as of old against the claims of Constantinople.
Shurūṭ ʿUmar MILKA LEVY-RUBIN
Beyond Religious Borders,
11/2011
Book Chapter
It has been the prevalent view of scholars concerned with the treatment ofahl al-dhimma, non-Muslim “protected people,” that various sets of restrictions enjoined upondhimmīsin the early period of ...Muslim rule (known asshurūṭ ʿUmar) were irregular and sporadic, and, when issued, often were not enforced or fell quickly into disuse. Two famous episodes—the imposition of restrictions by the caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 847–61) and those of al-Ḥākim (r. 998–1021), both of which are well-known and widely documented—are seen as exceptions rather than the rule. Thus Antoine Fattal, in his still relevant work,Le statut
This magnificent volume brings to life the great and ancient drama of the world's holiest city. Mining the rich evidence of this remarkable history, the world-renowned authors gathered here conjure ...the Holy City as it has appeared in antique Hebrew texts; in the testimony of Jewish and Christian pilgrims and in art; in medieval Islamic literature and in Western nineteenth-century accounts; in maps, mosaics and architecture through the ages.
There is an ongoing discussion among scholars concerning the date and the pace of the process of Islamization in Palestine during the early Muslim period. Evidence concerning this subject is rare. ...Muslim sources relate that there was a substantial presence of Muslims in the area of Samaria from the tenth century onwards. It has been presumed until now that this was solely a result of immigration of Arab Muslims to this area. Basing itself upon new evidence found in a local Samaritan chronicle, this article strives to show that a small part of this Muslim population originated in Samaritan population which converted to Islam during the early Muslim period mainly as a result of difficult economic conditions. As of now, this is the only evidence we have of mass conversion to Islam in Palestine during the early Muslim period. It should be emphasized that this evidence cannot be applied automatically to the Jewish and Christian communities in Palestine whose circumstances, though similar, were nevertheless somewhat different.
חוקרים רבים סבורים היום כי הכיבוש המוסלמי בארץ-ישראל לא היה בעיקרו אירוע טראומטי או אלים במיוחד, וכי המעבר משלטון ביזנטי לשלטון מוסלמי נתאפיין בהמשכיות בתחומים רבים. במאמר זה נטען כי גם אם אכן כך ...היה, בכל זאת הביא הכיבוש המוסלמי בעקבותיו שינויים מרחיקי לכת בתפרושת היישוב בארץ ובאופיו. השינוי העיקרי התבטא בנטישה מוחלטת כמעט של הערים לאורך רצועת החוף, שהיו עד אז חלק ממארג הערים במזרח הקיסרות הביזנטית, וששימשו מרכז הכובד הכלכלי, החברתי והתרבותי בארץ-ישראל. אבדנם של המרכזים הללו והגירתם של חלק גדול מתושביהם, בעיקר בני השכבה הגבוהה בקיסרות, אל ביזנטיון בדרך כלל, שינו את פני היישוב בארץ-ישראל והביאו עמם ירידה כלכלית וחברתית. בעוד שהשכבות הגבוהות דוברות היוונית נתמעטו במידה רבה, נותרו ברצועת החוף השכבות הנמוכות דוברות הארמית. נטישתה של רצועת החוף הביאה לא רק להגירה אל מחוץ לארץ אלא גם להגירה פנימית, וייתכן כי פריחתו של עבר הירדן המזרחי, הניכרת בממצא הארכאולוגי העשיר במאה השביעית והשמינית, יש בה כדי להעיד על הגירה פנימית מרצועת החוף, שהפכה בעקבות הכיבוש לחזית בין המוסלמים לביזנטים, אל עבר הירדן המזרחי. Many historians believe that the Muslim conquest of Palestine in the seventh century was neither a traumatic nor a violent episode, and that the changeover from Byzantine to Muslim rule was marked by continuity in many areas. The article argues that even if these claims are true, the conquest did have far-reaching effects on the geographical distribution of the population in Palestine and its character. The major change lay in the almost complete abandonment of the coastal cities that until then had been an integral part of a widespread network of poleis in the Byzantine Empire in the east, and were the focal points of economic, social, and cultural life in Palestine. The fall of these centers and the emigration of a large part of their populace, belonging mainly to the upper class in the Byzantine Empire, also changed the character of the local community and was the cause of significant economic and social decline. While its Greek-speaking upper classes diminished to a great degree, most of the remaining population was of the lower classes that spoke Aramaic. Abandonment of the coastal plain led not only to emigration from the country, but also to migration into the interior. It may well be that the efflorescence of the territories east of the Jordan, to which the plentiful archaeological evidence from the seventh and eighth centuries testifies, is also indicative of internal migration to the trans-Jordan regions after the conquest of the coastal plain, which became a frontier line dividing Muslims and Byzantines.
The paper seeks to clarify the origins of an outstanding group of 12 round maps depicting Crusader Jerusalem, made at a time when city-mapping in the west was still undeveloped. Three aspects are ...examined: subject matter, graphic style, and cartographic characteristics. We attempt to show here that stylistically and carto-graphically these maps are closely related to world maps made in Europe in the second half of the eleventh century. We demonstrate that cartographically, they closely followed the T-O pattern that was the most common method of world mapping, and that stylistically, they utilize the pattern of the picture-map which became widespread during the eleventh century and appears in the Cotton map and in the San Sever and Osma Beatus maps, among others. This resemblance is well exemplified by the T-O map from Leipzig made in the eleventh century, a T-O world map that is stylistically virtually identical to the Jerusalem round maps. Their subject matter, however, originated in the early Christian tradition of the Byzantine East, specifically, in the Liber Locorum of Jerome, an edited Latin translation of Eusebius' Onomasticon. We show here that this tradition was preserved in medieval mapping tradition in exemplars of world maps, the earliest of which goes back to the eighth century (the Vatican map). This may well support the assumption made previously that the Onomasticon was accompanied by an actual map of the Holy Land. This Eusebius-Jerome tradition, which was later transmitted to the West, seems to have been regenerated in the Crusader period with the conquest of the Holy Land, as demonstrated by the round maps of Jerusalem which depict not only Jerusalem, but many other sites in the Holy Land, using the sites as well as the nomenclature found in Jerome's Liber Locorum.
