Byzantium viewed by the Arabs / Nadia Maria El Cheikh.

  • El-Cheikh, Nadia Maria
Date:
2004
  • Books

About this work

Description

This book studies the Arabic-Islamic view of Byzantium, tracing the Byzantine image as it evolved through centuries of warfare, contact, and exchanges. Including previously inaccessible material on the Arabic textual tradition on Byzantium, this investigation shows the significance of Byzantium to the Arab Muslim establishment and their appreciation of various facets of Byzantine culture and civilization. The Arabic-Islamic representation of the Byzantine Empire stretching from the reference to Byzantium in the Qur'an until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 is considered in terms of a few salient themes. The image of Byzantium reveals itself to be complex, non-monolithic, and self-referential. Formulating an alternative appreciation to the politics of confrontation and hostility that so often underlies scholarly discourse on Muslim-Byzantine relations, this book presents the schemes developed by medieval authors to reinterpret aspects of their own history, their own self-definition, and their own view of the world.

Publication/Creation

Cambridge, Massacheusetts ; London, England : Distributed for the Center for Middle Eastern Studies of Harvard University by Harvard University Press, 2004.

Physical description

xi, 271 pages ; 21 cm.

Bibliographic information

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

1. The encounter with Byzantium -- Byzantium in the Quran : Surat al-Rum -- Early contacts : Byzantine military leaders -- An exemplary ruler : Emperor Heraclius -- Byzantine craftsmanship : a window to greatness -- Constantinople : sieges and eschatology -- 2. Confronting Byzantium -- Byzantine imperial authority : rank, titulature, and power -- The Byzantine emperors and Harun al-Rashid -- Byzantine knowledge : science and philosophy -- Shuubiyya and the "discovery" of pre-Islamic Byzantium -- Homo Byzantinus : criticism of character and practice -- Byzantine women : a source of fitna -- 3. Islam on the defensive -- Constantinople : the city of marvels -- Ceremonial, or the grandeur of Byzantium -- Byzantine revival : Islam on the defensive -- The rise and fall of Nicephorus Phocas -- End of an era : the Battle of Manzikert and the fall of Jerusalem -- 4. A new reality : revisiting Byzantium -- Homo Byzantinus : the new Christian presence -- Constantinople -- The fall.

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Identifiers

ISBN

  • 0932885306
  • 9780932885302