Arabs and Empires Before Islam
Arabs and Empires Before Islam

Author: Greg Fisher

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 609

ISBN-13: 0199654522

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Arabs and Empires before Islam collates 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.

Medieval Islamic Maps
Medieval Islamic Maps

Author: Karen C. Pinto

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2016-11

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 022612696X

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The history of Islamic mapping is one of the new frontiers in the history of cartography. This book offers the first in-depth analysis of a distinct tradition of medieval Islamic maps known collectively as the Book of Roads and Kingdoms (Kitab al-Masalik wa al-Mamalik, or KMMS). Created from the mid-tenth through the nineteenth century, these maps offered Islamic rulers, scholars, and armchair explorers a view of the physical and human geography of the Arabian peninsula, the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean, Spain and North Africa, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, the Iranian provinces, present-day Pakistan, and Transoxiana. Historian Karen C. Pinto examines around 100 examples of these maps retrieved from archives across the world from three points of view: iconography, context, and patronage. By unraveling their many symbols, she guides us through new ways of viewing the Muslim cartographic imagination.

The Arabs in Antiquity
The Arabs in Antiquity

Author: Jan Retso

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-07-04

Total Pages: 706

ISBN-13: 1136872892

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The history of the Arabs in antiquity from their earliest appearance around 853 BC until the first century of Islam, is described in this book. It traces the mention of people called Arabs in all relevant ancient sources and suggests a new interpretation of their history. It is suggested that the ancient Arabs were more a religious community than an ethnic group, which would explain why the designation 'Arab' could be easily adopted by the early Muslim tribes. The Arabs of antiquity thus resemble the early Islamic Arabs more than is usually assumed, both being united by common bonds of religious ideology and law.

Arabia and the Arabs
Arabia and the Arabs

Author: Robert G. Hoyland

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-09-11

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1134646348

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Long before Muhammed preached the religion of Islam, the inhabitants of his native Arabia had played an important role in world history as both merchants and warriors Arabia and the Arabs provides the only up-to-date, one-volume survey of the region and its peoples, from prehistory to the coming of Islam Using a wide range of sources - inscriptions, poetry, histories, and archaeological evidence - Robert Hoyland explores the main cultural areas of Arabia, from ancient Sheba in the south, to the deserts and oases of the north. He then examines the major themes of *the economy *society *religion *art, architecture and artefacts *language and literature *Arabhood and Arabisation The volume is illustrated with more than 50 photographs, drawings and maps.

Seafaring in the Arabian Gulf and Oman
Seafaring in the Arabian Gulf and Oman

Author: Dionisius A. Agius

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1136201750

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This book is a study of the seafaring communities of the Arabian Gulf and Oman in the past 150 years. It analyses the significance of the dhow and how coastal communities interacted throughout their long tradition of seafaring. In addition to archival material, the work is based on extensive field research in which the voices of seamen were recorded in over 200 interviews. The book provides an integrated study of dhow activity in the area concerned and examines the consciousness of belonging to the wider culture of the Indian ocean as it is expressed in boat-building traditions, navigational techniques, crew organisation and port towns. People of the Dhow brings together the different measures of time past, the sea, its people and their material culture. The Arabian Gulf and Oman have traditionally shared a common destiny within the Western Indian Ocean. The seasonal monsoonal winds were fundamental to the physical and human unities of the seafaring communities, producing a way of life in harmony with the natural world, a world which was abruptly changed with the discovery of oil. What remains is memories of a seafaring past, a history of traditions and customs recorded here in the recollections of a dying generation and in the rich artistic heritage of the region.