Acknowledgements
The origins of this volume lie in the first meeting of the three-year programme “Late Antiquity and Early Islam in the Mediterranean and Near East (500–900 CE),” a cooperation between Leiden University, Oxford University, Princeton University and the Paris-based UMR 8167. This project examined the Mediterranean basin and Near East during these four centuries as a whole, looking for common experiences, comparable historical processes and divergences. The disintegration of the Roman Empire in the seventh century set in train some of the most profound and long-lasting historical changes that the Mediterranean has ever witnessed. While the Frankish and Byzantine empires seem to be dutiful legatees of the Roman heritage, the Arabs, by contrast, appear to remake their Romanised territories with a culture and religion formed in the vacuum of the Arabian Peninsula, far away from the villas and cities that symbolised Roman civilisation. Severing its ties with the two other successor states thus left the Islamic empire free to follow its own, somewhat lonely itinerary. But this view is based on several fundamental misconceptions. Their diverging paths come less from intrinsic differences than from the dislocations attendant on territorial expansions and contradictions, the gradual reorganization of economic and social structures, and the interaction with subject populations.
The publications that result from this project aim to offer a full and focused approach, filling numerous lacunas in our knowledge of this period. “Late Antiquity and Early Islam in the Mediterranean and Near East (500–900CE)” was part of the Internationalisation Humanities programme, sponsored by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) with additional funding provided by the partners Leiden University, Oxford University, Princeton University and the Paris-based UMR 8167.
This first meeting, entitled Authority and Control in the Countryside, took place in September 2010 at Leiden University. The papers as published here are the result of ongoing discussion and exchange since that conference and the authors have continued to update their work and references during the editorial process. Subsequent meetings took place in Oxford (2011) on the topic of “Minorities: legal, cultural and economic perspectives” and in Paris (2012) where we looked at “Legitimacy and legitimization of political authority 6th–10th century.” The project has resulted already in one other publication edited by Robert G. Hoyland which has appeared under the title: The late Antique World of Early Islam: Muslims among Christians and Jews in the East Mediterranean (Princeton: Darwin Press, 2015).
We would like to thank the academic institutions and museums that have provided the images that accompany the articles. A list of illustrations is provided in the front matter. We are grateful to the series editors as well as the anonymous readers for their helpful remarks on earlier versions of the articles. Nazreen Sahebali, Nienke van Heek and Nynke van der Veldt from Leiden University deserve special mention for their assistance during the editorial process. We would like to thank the Leiden University Center for the Study of Islam and Society (LUCIS) and the Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS) for making this assistance available. We would also like to thank LUCIS for sponsoring the open access format in which this volume appears next to its printed form. As our Brill editor, Teddi Dols has offered unfaltering encouragement throughout the publication process for which we are especially thankful.
Leiden, October 2018