Islamic Frontiers, Real and Imagined.
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- A. Asa Eger, Full Professor (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Abstract: Beginning in the ninth century, Muslim historians,jurists, and geographers frequently discussed the Islamic-Byzantine frontier or al-thughur and al-'awasim provinces primarily as a militarized region, daral-harb. Warriors of the faith, in their view, performed ritualized yearly raids termed jihiid against non-Muslims in bilad
ar-Rum or, as it was somctimes known, biladal-kufr. This vision of the frontier has
been largely left unchallenged by modern historians and untouched by archaeologists working on the periods of Late Antiquity and Islam. However, the historical sources' retrospective and idealized, religious
interpretations are problematic and do not adequately explain the choices of frontier settlement, yearly raiding, and diverse
communities that comprised the frontier region. Recent evidence from survey and excavation now permits a re-examination of the infamous Islamic-Byzantine thughur of the 7-10th centuries from an
archaeological perspective.
Islamic Frontiers, Real and Imagined.
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Created on 1/1/2005
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Al-‘Usur al-Wusta. The Bulletin of the Middle East Medievalists 17.1 (2005): 1-6, 10
- Language: English
- Date: 2005
- Keywords
- Islam, Jihad, Islamic-Byzantine thughur