Before and After Muhammad: The First Millennium Refocused

Description

A new historical framework integrating Islam into European and Asian history Islam emerged amid flourishing Christian and Jewish cultures, yet students of Antiquity and the Middle Ages mostly ignore it. Despite intensive study of late Antiquity over the last fifty years, even generous definitions of this period have reached only the eighth century, whereas Islam did not mature sufficiently to compare with Christianity or rabbinic Judaism until the tenth century. Before and After Muhammad suggests a new way of thinking about the historical relationship between the scriptural monotheisms, integrating Islam into European and West Asian history. Garth Fowden identifies the whole of the First Millennium--from Augustus and Christ to the formation of a recognizably Islamic worldview by the time of the philosopher Avicenna--as the proper chronological unit of analysis for understanding the emergence and maturation of the three monotheistic faiths across Eurasia. Fowden proposes not just a chronological expansion of late Antiquity but also an eastward shift in the geographical frame to embrace Iran. In Before and After Muhammad, Fowden looks at Judaism, Christianity, and Islam alongside other important developments in Greek philosophy and Roman law, to reveal how the First Millennium was bound together by diverse exegetical traditions that nurtured communities and often stimulated each other. Cover Title Copyright Dedication Contents PREFATORY NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABBREVIATIONS Chapter 1. INCLUDING ISLAM The West and the Rest Edward Gibbon Islam and late Antiquity Summary Chapter 2. TIME: BEYOND LATE ANTIQUITY The roots of late antique studies Burckhardt to Strzygowski The Orient and Islam: Views from Vienna Pirenne to the present Chapter 3. A NEW PERIODIZATION: THE FIRST MILLENNIUM Decline versus transformation Maturations Monotheist historiography For and against the First Millennium Chapter 4. SPACE: AN EASTWARD SHIFT Discovering the Mediterranean Discovering the East Empires and commonwealths The Mountain Arena Chapter 5. EXEGETICAL CULTURES 1: ARISTOTELIANISM Greek Aristotelianism Christian polemic Aristotle in Latin, Armenian, and Syriac Alexandria to Baghdad Arabic Aristotelianism Chapter 6. EXEGETICAL CULTURES 2: LAW AND RELIGION Roman law Rabbinic Judaism Patristic Christianity Islam Chapter 7. VIEWPOINTS AROUND 1000: TŪS, BASRA, BAGHDAD, PISA Tūs/Iran Basra/Encyclopedism Baghdad/Rationality Pisa/The Latin West PROSPECTS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH MAP: THE EURASIAN HINGE, WITH CIRCUM-ARABIAN TRADE ROUTES INDEX