Islamization and Archaeology

Islamization and Archaeology

Author: José C. Carvajal López

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-05-04

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 135000667X

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This fresh approach to the study of Islamization proposes an innovative conceptual framework that treats the subject as a particular case of cultural change. The aim of the volume is to make Islamization amenable to archaeological and historical analyses of changes in material conditions of life without forsaking the specific history of Islam. Islam and Islamization must be understood in their particular social context, but also in relation to the conditions that hold them together over large geographical and chronological expanses. Archaeologists and historians have considered Islamization from a range of different perspectives, from conversion to cultural change, though these studies have tended to be underpinned by a normativist conception of Islam. In contrast, José C. Carvajal López takes a hermeneutical stance, wherein Islam is the result of exploration, and adopts a New Materialist theoretical analysis to explore Islamization and its impact on identities, communities and their material culture. The consequences for the study of Islamization are examined through examples that include some of the author's own experiences. This innovative take on Islamization is not exclusively interested in the spread of the religion or of the polity, and therefore it overcomes the theoretical limits imposed by the concepts of religious conversion and ideological imposition. This book will appeal to scholars interested in associating cultural and religious change and, in particular, those working on Islam, whether within or outside the discipline of archaeology.


The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Archaeology

The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Archaeology

Author: Bethany Walker

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-10-27

Total Pages: 1024

ISBN-13: 0199987882

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Born from the fields of Islamic art and architectural history, the archaeological study of the Islamic societies is a relatively young discipline. With its roots in the colonial periods of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its rapid development since the 1980s warrants a reevaluation of where the field stands today. This Handbook represents for the first time a survey of Islamic archaeology on a global scale, describing its disciplinary development and offering candid critiques of the state of the field today in the Central Islamic Lands, the Islamic West, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. The international contributors to the volume address such themes as the timing and process of Islamization, the problems of periodization and regionalism in material culture, cities and countryside, cultural hybridity, cultural and religious diversity, natural resource management, international trade in the later historical periods, and migration. Critical assessments of the ways in which archaeologists today engage with Islamic cultural heritage and local communities closes the volume, highlighting the ethical issues related to studying living cultures and religions. Richly illustrated, with extensive citations, it is the reference work on the debates that drive the field today.


Islamization and Archaeology

Islamization and Archaeology

Author: José C. Carvajal López

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-05-04

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1350006688

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This fresh approach to the study of Islamization proposes an innovative conceptual framework that treats the subject as a particular case of cultural change. The aim of the volume is to make Islamization amenable to archaeological and historical analyses of changes in material conditions of life without forsaking the specific history of Islam. Islam and Islamization must be understood in their particular social context, but also in relation to the conditions that hold them together over large geographical and chronological expanses. Archaeologists and historians have considered Islamization from a range of different perspectives, from conversion to cultural change, though these studies have tended to be underpinned by a normativist conception of Islam. In contrast, José C. Carvajal López takes a hermeneutical stance, wherein Islam is the result of exploration, and adopts a New Materialist theoretical analysis to explore Islamization and its impact on identities, communities and their material culture. The consequences for the study of Islamization are examined through examples that include some of the author's own experiences. This innovative take on Islamization is not exclusively interested in the spread of the religion or of the polity, and therefore it overcomes the theoretical limits imposed by the concepts of religious conversion and ideological imposition. This book will appeal to scholars interested in associating cultural and religious change and, in particular, those working on Islam, whether within or outside the discipline of archaeology.


The Archaeology of Islam

The Archaeology of Islam

Author: Timothy Insoll

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Published: 1999-01-26

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780631201144

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This book examines the archaeological implications of Islam as a force which can act upon all areas of life.


Islam, Archaeology and History

Islam, Archaeology and History

Author: Timothy Insoll

Publisher: British Archaeological Reports Oxford Limited

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13:

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The acceptance of Islam by the inhabitants of the Gao Region and the wider Western Sahel had far-reaching effects, socially, politically and economically. However, no systematic study has yet been undertaken of the archaeology of Islam in this region, although numerous detailed studies exist examine Islamization in West Africa. This study seeks to redress this. The traces of past occupation of the Gao Region between ca.AD 900 and 1250 are here examined, with an emphasis upon understanding the beginning, process, and effect of Islamization. New archaeological evidence is provided, and the existing archaeological evidence re-examined, and then integrated with the historical evidence. Islamic archaeology is still too often regarded as a sub-discipline of art history, and it is hoped that this work will go some way to altering these perceptions, at least for the Western Sahel, as well as to integrating its history into that of its wider region.


The Byzantine-Islamic Transition in Palestine

The Byzantine-Islamic Transition in Palestine

Author: Gideon Avni

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2014-01-30

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 0191507342

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Using a comprehensive evaluation of recent archaeological findings, Avni addresses the transformation of local societies in Palestine and Jordan between the sixth and eleventh centuries AD. Arguing that these archaeological findings provide a reliable, though complex, picture, Avni illustrates how the Byzantine-Islamic transition was a much slower and gradual process than previously thought, and that it involved regional variability, different types of populations, and diverse settlement patterns. Based on the results of hundreds of excavations, including Avni's own surveys and excavations in the Negev, Beth Guvrin, Jerusalem, and Ramla, the volume reconstructs patterns of continuity and change in settlements during this turbulent period, evaluating the process of change in a dynamic multicultural society and showing that the coming of Islam had no direct effect on settlement patterns and material culture of the local population. The change in settlement, stemming from internal processes rather than from external political powers, culminated gradually during the Early Islamic period. However, the process of Islamization was slow, and by the eve of the Crusader period Christianity still had an overwhelming majority in Palestine and Jordan.


Islamic Archaeology

Islamic Archaeology

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2019-04

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9781642242379

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The rarity of material evidence for the religion of Islam during the first seventy years of the hijra (622-92 CE) has been used to attack the traditional positivist account of the rise of Islam. However, the earliest declarations of Islam are to be found on media produced by the early Islamic state. There has never been such interest among both scholars and the informed public alike in the archaeology of Islamic societies. The last few years in particular have witnessed marked growth in the number of conferences and workshops, publications, and university programs with Islamic archaeology as a focus. Islamic archaeology courses are being offered in conjunction with Middle East Studies and Islamic art history at universities throughout North America and Europe, and comprise a field of specialization in archaeology departments in the Middle East. This book explores the origins and development of archaeology in and of the Islamic world. It considers the relationship between Islamic archaeology and imperialism, colonialism, nationalism, and, more recently, tourism and heritage management. In examining the impetus for Islamic archaeology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it also considers the relationship between the art market, the formation of museum collections, and archaeological expeditions. Whilst the title of this volume privileges the art of Islam there is much more about the issues and questions of Islam, art, and museums to be found here, from the political to the professional and on to the public. The book is committed to highlighting the diverse character of Islamic material and visual culture, and to establishing common preoccupations that exist in the production, commissioning, use and appreciation of art and architectural forms across the Islamic world. The book also contains studies that can function as fundamental resources for future research and teaching of Islamic visual and material culture.This book will be a valuable guide for students and archaeologists, and initiate a major area of debate.


Landscapes of the Islamic World

Landscapes of the Islamic World

Author: Stephen McPhillips

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2016-05-13

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0812292766

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Islamic societies of the past have often been characterized as urban, with rural and other extra-urban landscapes cast in a lesser or supporting role in the studies of Islamic history and archaeology. Yet throughout history, the countryside was frequently an engine of economic activity, the setting for agricultural and technological innovation, and its inhabitants were frequently agents of social and political change. The Islamic city is increasingly viewed in the context of long and complex processes of urban development. Archaeological evidence calls for an equally nuanced reading of shifting cultural and religious practices in rural areas after the middle of the seventh century. Landscapes of the Islamic World presents new work by twelve authors on the archaeology, history, and ethnography of the Islamic world in the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, and Central Asia. The collection looks beyond the city to engage with the predominantly rural and pastoral character of premodern Islamic society. Editors Stephen McPhillips and Paul D. Wordsworth group the essays into four thematic sections: harnessing and living with water; agriculture, pastoralism, and rural subsistence; commerce, production, and the rural economy; and movement and memory in the rural landscape. Each contribution addresses aspects of extra-urban life in challenging new ways, blending archaeological material culture, textual sources, and ethnography to construct holistic studies of landscapes. Modern agrarian practices and population growth have accelerated the widespread destruction of vast tracts of ancient, medieval, and early modern landscapes, highlighting the urgency of scholarship in this field. This book makes an original and important contribution to a growing subject area, and represents a step toward a more inclusive understanding of the historical landscapes of Islam. Contributors: Pernille Bangsgaard, Karin Bartl, Jennie N. Bradbury, Robin M. Brown, Alison L. Gascoigne, Ian W. N. Jones, Phillip G. Macumber, Daniel Mahoney, Stephen McPhillips, Astrid Meier, David C. Thomas, Bethany J. Walker, Alan Walmsley, Tony J. Wilkinson, Paul D. Wordsworth, Lisa Yeomans.


Early Islamic North Africa

Early Islamic North Africa

Author: Corisande Fenwick

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-05-14

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1350075213

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This volume proposes a new approach to the Arab conquests and the spread of Islam in North Africa. In recent years, those studying the Islamic world have shown that the coming of Islam was not marked by devastation or decline, but rather by considerable cultural and economic continuity. In North Africa, with continuity came significant change. Corisande Fenwick argues that the establishment of Muslim rule also coincided with a phase of intense urbanization, the appearance of new architectural forms (mosques, housing, hammams), the spread of Muslim social and cultural practices, the introduction of new crops and manufacturing techniques and the establishment of new trading links with sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and the Middle East. This concise and accessible book offers the first assessment of the archaeology of early Islamic North Africa (7th–9th centuries), drawing on a wide range of new evidence from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. It lays out current debates about its interpretation and suggests new ways of thinking about this crucial period in world history. Essential reading for those interested in understanding the impact of the Arab conquests and the spread of Islam on daily life, it will also challenge students of archaeology and history to think in new ways about North Africa, the earliest Islamic empires and states and the transition from the Roman to the medieval Mediterranean.


Changing Social Identity with the Spread of Islam

Changing Social Identity with the Spread of Islam

Author: Donald S. Whitcomb

Publisher: Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13:

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This volume addresses the topical interest in Islam, studying the process of its spread throughout the medieval world and the process of conversion to this religion and adoption of its cultural life. The evidence is presented in a series of essay reports on archaeological approaches in current Islamic Archaeology. These papers are the result of a seminar that attempted a comparative analysis of widely different regions and periods, based on archaeological monuments or artefacts, exploring processes of adaptation or adjustment to local cultural complexes. Islam may be seen as a religion, political system, and cultural complex, a trinity of inseparable aspects. The introduction of these variable characteristics of Islam, during initial contact and afterwards, resulted in changes in identity approached as a sort of "cognitive" archaeology. In each specific case, the author assesses the nature of the pre-Islamic regional tradition, the resulting plurality of cultures as a "multi-cultural" society, and finally a resultant normative condition as a regional or cosmopolitan culture. This exposure to unfamiliar subjects and archaeological perspectives offers a potential for more abstract, comparative modelling in future historical research.