Arabs and Empires before Islam - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199654522 ISBN 13: 9780199654529

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2015

Synopsis

Arabs and Empires before Islam illuminates the history of the Arabs before the emergence of Islam, collating nearly 250 translated extracts from an extensive array of ancient sources. Drawn from a broad period between the eighth century BC and the Middle Ages, the sources include texts originally written in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Persian, and Arabic, inscriptions in a variety of languages and alphabets, and discussions of archaeological sites from across the Near East. More than twenty international experts from the fields of archaeology, classics and ancient history, linguistics and philology, epigraphy, and art history provide detailed commentary on and analysis of this diverse selection of material.

Richly illustrated with sixteen colour plates, fifteen maps, and over seventy in-text images, the volume provides a comprehensive, wide-ranging, and up-to-date examination of what ancient sources had to say about the politics, culture, and religion of the Arabs in the pre-Islamic period. It offers a full consideration of the traces which the Arabs have left in the epigraphic, literary, and archaeological records, and sheds light on their relationship with their often more-powerful neighbours: the states and empires of the ancient Near East. Arabs and Empires before Islam gathers together a host of material never before collected into a single volume--some of which appears in English translation for the very first time--and provides a single point of reference for a vibrant and dynamic area of research.

About this title

About the Author

Greg Fisher is a graduate of the University of Oxford and a Fulbright scholar. An historian of antiquity, he is the author and editor of numerous works examining the ancient Middle East. He lives in Montreal.

Review

"This book's title is too modest to give an accurate idea of its contents. In sober fact, it is an absolutely essential vade mecum for anyone seriously interested in the material culture of the Arabs across the Near East before the coming of Islam . . . an encyclopaedia, a mine of curious erudition, a challenge to take the wider view, a reminder that Islam did not come out of nowhere. This is a book to savour, to treasure, and to dip into anytime." -- Robert Hillenbrand, Journal of Qur'anic Studies

"Arabs and Empires Before Islam embraces a remarkable variety of sources, and the secondary references are comprehensive and up to date. The literary translations and the examination of the epigraphic evidence help ease readers into the spectrum of primary sources. A major merit of the volume is to have proved the relevance of epigraphic evidence to this particular historical enquiry." -- Valentina A. Grasso, Journal of Roman Studies

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0199654522
• ISBN 13: 9780199654529
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 610
• Editor: Fisher Greg