Sea of the Caliphs - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Sea of the Caliphs write by Christophe Picard. This book was released on 2018-01-21. Sea of the Caliphs available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Christophe Picard recounts the adventures of Muslim sailors who competed with Greek and Latin seamen for control of the 7th-century Mediterranean. By the time Christian powers took over trade routes in the 13th century, a Muslim identity that operated within, and in opposition to, Europe had been shaped by encounters across the sea of the caliphs.
Sea of the Caliphs
Sea of the Caliphs - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Sea of the Caliphs write by Christophe Picard. This book was released on 2018-01-21. Sea of the Caliphs available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. “How could I allow my soldiers to sail on this disloyal and cruel sea?” These words, attributed to the most powerful caliph of medieval Islam, Umar Ibn al-Khattab (634–644), have led to a misunderstanding in the West about the importance of the Mediterranean to early Islam. This body of water, known in Late Antiquity as the Sea of the Romans, was critical to establishing the kingdom of the caliphs and for introducing the new religion to Europe and Africa. Over time, it also became a pathway to commercial and political dominion, indispensable to the prosperity and influence of the Islamic world. Sea of the Caliphs returns Muslim sailors to their place of prominence in the history of the Islamic caliphate. As early as the seventh century, Muslim sailors competed with Greek and Latin seamen for control of this far-flung route of passage. Christophe Picard recreates these adventures as they were communicated to admiring Muslims by their rulers. After the Arab conquest of southern Europe and North Africa, Muslims began to speak of the Mediterranean in their strategic visions, business practices, and notions of nature and the state. Jurists and ideologues conceived of the sea as a conduit for jihad, even as Muslims’ maritime trade with Latin, Byzantine, and Berber societies increased. In the thirteenth century, Christian powers took over Mediterranean trade routes, but by that time a Muslim identity that operated both within and in opposition to Europe had been shaped by encounters across the sea of the caliphs.
The Red Sea from Byzantium to the Caliphate
The Red Sea from Byzantium to the Caliphate - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Red Sea from Byzantium to the Caliphate write by Timothy Power. This book was released on 2012. The Red Sea from Byzantium to the Caliphate available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This book examines the historic process traditionally referred to as the fall of Rome and rise of Islam from the perspective of the Red Sea, a strategic waterway linking the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and a distinct region incorporating Africa with Arabia. The transition from Byzantium to the Caliphate is contextualized in the contestation of regional hegemony between Aksumite Ethiopia, Sasanian Iran, and the Islamic Hijaz. The economic stimulus associated with Arab colonization is then considered, including the foundation of ports and roads linking new metropolises and facilitating commercial expansion, particularly gold mining and the slave trade. Finally, the economic inheritance of the Fatimids and the formation of the commercial networks glimpsed in the Cairo Geniza is contextualized in the diffusion of the Abbasid 'bourgeois revolution' and resumption of the 'India trade' under the Tulunids and Ziyadids. Timothy Power's careful analysis reveals the complex cultural and economic factors that provided a fertile ground for the origins of the Islamic civilization to take root in the Red Sea region, offering a new perspective on a vital period of history.
Lost Maps of the Caliphs
Lost Maps of the Caliphs - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Lost Maps of the Caliphs write by Yossef Rapoport. This book was released on 2018-12-11. Lost Maps of the Caliphs available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. About a millennium ago, in Cairo, an unknown author completed a large and richly illustrated book. In the course of thirty-five chapters, this book guided the reader on a journey from the outermost cosmos and planets to Earth and its lands, islands, features, and inhabitants. This treatise, known as The Book of Curiosities, was unknown to modern scholars until a remarkable manuscript copy surfaced in 2000. Lost Maps of the Caliphs provides the first general overview of The Book of Curiosities and the unique insight it offers into medieval Islamic thought. Opening with an account of the remarkable discovery of the manuscript and its purchase by the Bodleian Library, the authors use The Book of Curiosities to re-evaluate the development of astrology, geography, and cartography in the first four centuries of Islam. Their account assesses the transmission of Late Antique geography to the Islamic world, unearths the logic behind abstract maritime diagrams, and considers the palaces and walls that dominate medieval Islamic plans of towns and ports. Early astronomical maps and drawings demonstrate the medieval understanding of the structure of the cosmos and illustrate the pervasive assumption that almost any visible celestial event had an effect upon life on Earth. Lost Maps of the Caliphs also reconsiders the history of global communication networks at the turn of the previous millennium. It shows the Fatimid Empire, and its capital Cairo, as a global maritime power, with tentacles spanning from the eastern Mediterranean to the Indus Valley and the East African coast. As Lost Maps of the Caliphs makes clear, not only is The Book of Curiosities one of the greatest achievements of medieval mapmaking, it is also a remarkable contribution to the story of Islamic civilization that opens an unexpected window to the medieval Islamic view of the world.
The Great Caliphs
The Great Caliphs - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Great Caliphs write by Amira K. Bennison. This book was released on 2014-05-14. The Great Caliphs available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This endlessly informative history brings the classical Islamic world to lifeIn this accessibly written history, Amira K. Bennison contradicts the common assumption that Islam somehow interrupted the smooth flow of Western civilization from its Graeco-Roman origins to its more recent European and American manifestations. Instead, she places Islamic civilization in the longer trajectory of Mediterranean civilizations and sees the ‘Abbasid Empire (750–1258 CE) as the inheritor and interpreter of Graeco-Roman traditions.At its zenith the ‘Abbasid caliphate stretched over the entire Middle East and part of North Africa, and influenced Islamic regimes as far west as Spain. Bennison’s examination of the politics, society, and culture of the ‘Abbasid period presents a picture of a society that nurtured many of the “civilized” values that Western civilization claims to represent, albeit in different premodern forms: from urban planning and international trade networks to religious pluralism and academic research. Bennison’s argument counters the common Western view of Muslim culture as alien and offers a new perspective on the relationship between Western and Islamic cultures.
