Table of Contents

Part 1 Sources and research tools: introduction; reference works - general, bibliographic tools, languages, geography and topography, chronology and genealogy, the scriptures of Islam - Qur'an and Hadith, research libraries and their catalogues; the sources - an analytical survey - narrative and literary texts, archives and documents, numismatics and metrology, epigraphy, art, archaeology and technology. Part 2 Problems in Islamic history: early historical tradition and the first Islamic polity - the character of early Islamic historiography, two cases from the early history of Islam; modern historians and the Addasid Revolution - the art of interpretation - developing an analytic framework, an outline of the sources, analyses and interpretations; Bayhaqi and Ibn Taghribirdi - the art of narrative in Islamic historical writing during the Middle Periods - the character of Islamic historical writing in the Middle Periods, two perspectives on Royal autocracy - Bayhaqi and Ibn Taghribirdi; ideology and propaganda - religion and state in the early Seljukid period; the fiscal administration of the Mamluk Empire; a cultural elite - the role and status of the "Ulama" in Islamic society; Islamic law and Islamic society; urban topography and urban society - Damascus under the Ayyubids and Mamluks - general perspectives on urban history in Islam, a case study - Damascus in the later Middle Ages; non-Muslim participants in Islamic society - the role and status of the "Dhimmi", autonomy and dependence in the Jewish communities of the Cairo Geniza, the problem of conversion; the voiceless classes of Islamic society - the peasantry and rural life - the physical setting, technology and the human impact, agriculture and the social order.