Arabs and Empires before Islam
Greg Fisher
Abstract
This book collects nearly 250 translated extracts from an extensive array of ancient sources, which, from a variety of different perspectives, illuminate the history of the Arabs before the emergence of Islam. These sources are drawn from a broad period from the eighth century BC to the Middle Ages, and include texts 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 20 experts, drawn from the fields of archaeology, classics and ancient history, linguistics and ... More
This book collects nearly 250 translated extracts from an extensive array of ancient sources, which, from a variety of different perspectives, illuminate the history of the Arabs before the emergence of Islam. These sources are drawn from a broad period from the eighth century BC to the Middle Ages, and include texts 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 20 experts, drawn from the fields of archaeology, classics and ancient history, linguistics and philology, epigraphy, and art history, provide detailed commentary and analysis on this diverse selection of material. The book provides a comprehensive 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.
Keywords:
Arabs,
barbarians,
Roman empire,
Persian empire,
Old Arabic,
Sasanians,
Jafnids,
Nasrids,
Christianity,
late antiquity
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2015 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199654529 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2015 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654529.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Greg Fisher, editor
Associate Professor, College of the Humanities and Department of History, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
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