Arabs and Iranians in the Islamic Conquest Narrative analyzes how early Muslim historians merged the pre-Islamic histories of the Arab and Iranian peoples into a didactic narrative culminating with the Arab conquest of Iran. This book provides an in-depth examination of Islamic historical accounts of the encounters between representatives of these two peoples that took place in the centuries prior to the coming of Islam. By doing this, it uncovers anachronistic projections of dynamic identity and political discourses within the contemporaneous Islamic world. It shows how the formulaic placement of such embellishment within the context of the narrative served to justify the Arabs’ rise to power, whilst also explaining the fall of the Iranian Sasanian empire. The objective of this book is not simply to mine Islamic historical chronicles for the factual data they contain about the pre-Islamic period, but rather to understand how the authors of these works thought about this era. By investigating the intersection between early Islamic memory, identity construction, and power discourses, this book will benefit researchers and students of Islamic history and literature and Middle Eastern Studies.

Arabs and Iranians in the Islamic Conquest Narrative analyzes how early Muslim historians merged the pre-Islamic histories of the Arab and Iranian peoples into a didactic narrative culminating with the Arab conquest of Iran. This book provides an in-depth examination of Islamic historical accounts of the encounters between representatives of these two peoples that took place in the centuries prior to the coming of Islam. By doing this, it uncovers anachronistic projections of dynamic identity and political discourses within the contemporaneous Islamic world. It shows how the formulaic placement of such embellishment within the context of the narrative served to justify the Arabs' rise to power, whilst also explaining the fall of the Iranian Sasanian empire. The objective of this book is not simply to mine Islamic historical chronicles for the factual data they contain about the pre-Islamic period, but rather to understand how the authors of these works thought about this era. By investigating the intersection between early Islamic memory, identity construction, and power discourses, this book will benefit researchers and students of Islamic history and literature and Middle Eastern Studies.

How do converts to a religion come to feel an attachment to it? The New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran answers this important question for Iran by focusing on the role of memory and its revision and erasure in the ninth to eleventh centuries. During this period, the descendants of the Persian imperial, religious and historiographical traditions not only wrote themselves into starkly different early Arabic and Islamic accounts of the past but also systematically suppressed much knowledge about pre-Islamic history. The result was both a new 'Persian' ethnic identity and the pairing of Islam with other loyalties and affiliations, including family, locale and sect. This pioneering study examines revisions to memory in a wide range of cases, from Iran's imperial and administrative heritage to the Prophet Muhammad's stalwart Persian companion, Salman al-Farisi, and to memory of Iranian scholars, soldiers and rulers in the mid-seventh century.

In just over a hundred years--from the death of the Mohammed in 632 to the beginning of the Abbasid Caliphate in 750--the followers of the Prophet swept across the whole of the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. The conquered territory was larger than the Roman Empire at its greatest expansion, and it was claimed for the Arabs in roughly half the time. How they were able to engulf so many empires, states, and armies in such a short period of time is a question which has engaged historians since at least the ninth century. Most recent popular accounts have been based almost solely on the early Muslim sources, which were, in short, salvation history, composed for the purpose of demonstrating that God had chosen the Arabs as his vehicle for spreading Islam throughout the world. While exploiting the rich biographical and geographical information of the early Muslim sources, this groundbreaking work delivers a fresh account of the Arab conquests and the establishment of an Islamic Empire by incorporating different approaches and different bodies of evidence. Robert G. Hoyland, a leading Late Antique scholar, accomplishes this by first examining the wider world from which Mohammed and his followers emerged. For Muslim sources, the revelation of Islam to Muhammad is the starting point for their history, and modern university departments have tended to reinforce this approach. Late Antique studies have done us the service of shedding much needed light on the 4th to 6th centuries, thus giving us a better view of the nature of Middle Eastern society in the decades before the Arab conquests. In particular, Hoyland narrates the emergence of a distinct Arab identity in the region of the Roman province Arabia and western (Saudi) Arabia, which is at least as important for explaining the Arab conquests as Muhammad's revelation. The Arabs are the principal, almost sole, focus of the Muslim conquest narratives, and this is the norm for modern works on this subject. Yet, in the same period the Khazars, Bulgars, Avars and Turks established polities on the edges of the superpowers of Byzantium and Iran; in fact, the Khazars and Turks continued to be major rivals of the Arabs in the seventh and eighth centuries. The role of these peripheral states in the Arab success story is underscored in the narrative. Innovative and accessible, In God's Path is a welcome account of a transformative period in ancient history.

The Persians is a succinct narrative of Iranian history from thetime of Cyrus the Great in 560BC to the present day. A succinct narrative of Iranian history from the time of Cyrusthe Great in 560BC to the present day. Traces events from the rise of the Persian empire, throughcompetition with Rome and conquest by the Arabs, through to there-establishment of a Persian state in the sixteenth century, andfinally the Islamic Revoltuion on 1979 and the establishment of thecurrent Islamic Republic. Uses the most recent scholarship to examine Iran's political,social and cultural history. Focuses on rulership as a central theme in Iranianidentity. Also shows how land, language and literature relate to Iranianidentity.

A popular history of the Arab invasions that carved out an empire from Spain to China Today's Arab world was created at breathtaking speed. Whereas the Roman Empire took over 200 years to reach its fullest extent, the Arab armies overran the whole Middle East, North Africa and Spain within a generation. They annihilated the thousand-year-old Persian Empire and reduced the Byzantine Empire to little more than a city-state based around Constantinople. Within a hundred years of the Prophet's death, Muslim armies destroyed the Visigoth kingdom of Spain, and crossed the Pyrenees to occupy southern France. This is the first popular English language account of this astonishing remaking of the political and religious map of the world. Hugh Kennedy's sweeping narrative reveals how the Arab armies conquered almost everything in their path. One of the few academic historians with a genuine talent for story telling, he offers a compelling mix of larger-than-life characters, battles, treachery and the clash of civilizations.

This volume covers the years 21-23/641-43 of the caliphate of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb. It can be divided into two distinct and almost equal parts: the first concerning the Muslim conquests in Iran and the east, and the second concerning ʿUmar himself, his assassination, and an assessment of the caliph and the man. The volume begins with the caliphal order to the Muslim troops, recently victorious at the famous battle of Nihawand in 21/641, to penetrate farther into infidel lands in the east. The might of the Persian empire had been broken, and a golden opportunity offered itself to the Muslim community to expand its territories. The territorial gains thus achieved are recounted in this volume. Moving out of the garrison towns of al-Kufah and al-Basrah, the Muslim forces' conquests of Isfahan, Hamadhan, al-Rayy, Qumis, Jurjan, Tabaristan, Azerbaijan, Khurasan, parts of Fars province, Kirman, Sijistan and Makran as far as the Indus, are all described in these pages. Contained in these accounts of far-reaching conquests are the peace documents, which are of considerable historical importance. They are typically the documents issued by the victorious Muslim commanders on the ground to the subjugated local inhabitants, laying out in precise terms the obligations of the latter toward their Muslim conquerors in return for safe conduct. Leaving the Muslim forces on the bank of the Indus, Ṭabarī switches his account to Medina, where in 23/643 ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb was assassinated by a Christian slave. After full accounts of this deed, the reader is provided with details of the caliph's genealogy, his physical description, his birth date and age, the names of his children and wives, and the period of time he was a Muslim. A lengthy section follows, in which the deeds of ʿUmar are recounted in anecdotal form. There are also quotations from his addresses to his people and some poetic eulogies addressed to him. The volume ends with ʿUmar's appointment of the electoral council, five senior figures in the Islamic community, to decide on his successor, and the fascinating and historically greatly important account of the workings of the council with all the cut and thrust of debate and the politicking behind the scenes. Thus was ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān appointed to succeed ʿUmar.