This book focuses on the conceptualization of the court, palace and ruler of the Umayyad Caliphate of al-Andalus. Western terminology still plays a normative role in the representation of foreign courts, determining concepts that fit poorly into chronologies with their own dynamics and specificities, which is the case of Muslim courts. While Court Studies is a well-developed field for modern Western societies, Muslim medieval courts lack a consistent field of research. Sources elaborate a specific terminology for medieval Muslim court societies. In the specific case of the Umayyad Caliphate of al-Andalus, the court is usually articulated as Bāb Suddat al-Khalīfa (“The door of the Sudda of the caliph”) – a reference to the symbology of the main city gate of Cordoba – or simply as Bāb. Bāb Suddat al-Khalīfa became the most emblematic concept to name the Umayyad palace and its society, which will be additionally interpreted in the framework of the performance of ceremonial. The strong conceptualization of the Umayyad court of Cordoba was highlighted through the articulation of ceremonial, as the mis-en-scène of the conceptualization, expressed by gestures, insignia and hierarchies. The preliminary comparative perspective with the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus, the ‘Abbasid and Fatimid Caliphates and the Byzantine Empire further discusses the Umayyad Andalusi model in relation to other dynasties. While this book focuses on the Umayyad conceptualization and articulation of ceremonial, this model will be discussed within the Mediterranean and Eastern framework of the 10th and 11th centuries, which broadens the interest of the book to other fields of research.

The Caliph’s Splendor is a revelation: a history of a civilization we barely know that had a profound effect on our own culture. While the West declined following the collapse of the Roman Empire, a new Arab civilization arose to the east, reaching an early peak in Baghdad under the caliph Harun al-Rashid. Harun is the legendary caliph of The Thousand and One Nights, but his actual court was nearly as magnificent as the fictional one. In The Caliph’s Splendor, Benson Bobrick eloquently tells the little-known and remarkable story of Harun’s rise to power and his rivalries with the neighboring Byzantines and the new Frankish kingdom under the leadership of Charlemagne. When Harun came to power, Islam stretched from the Atlantic to India. The Islamic empire was the mightiest on earth and the largest ever seen. Although Islam spread largely through war, its cultural achievements were immense. Harun’s court at Baghdad outshone the independent Islamic emirate in Spain and all the courts of Europe, for that matter. In Baghdad, great works from Greece and Rome were preserved and studied, and new learning enhanced civilization. Over the following centuries Arab and Persian civilizations made a lasting impact on the West in astronomy, geometry, algebra (an Arabic word), medicine, and chemistry, among other fields of science. The alchemy (another Arabic word) of the Middle Ages originated with the Arabs. From engineering to jewelry to fashion to weaponry, Arab influences would shape life in the West, as they did in the fields of law, music, and literature. But for centuries Arabs and Byzantines contended fiercely on land and sea. Bobrick tells how Harun defeated attempts by the Byzantines to advance into Asia at his expense. He contemplated an alliance with the much weaker Charlemagne in order to contain the Byzantines, and in time Arabs and Byzantines reached an accommodation that permitted both to prosper. Harun’s caliphate would weaken from within as his two sons quarreled and formed factions; eventually Arabs would give way to Turks in the Islamic empire. Empires rise, weaken, and fall, but during its golden age, the caliphate of Baghdad made a permanent contribution to civilization, as Benson Bobrick so splendidly reminds us.

The tales with which Sheherazade nightly postpones the murderous intent of the Sultan Schahriar have entered our language and our lives like no other collection before or since. This, the only edition to include the complete text of the earliest English translation of the Nights, also offers extensive textual apparatus such as explanatory notes and plot summaries to help readers follow the complex and interwoven stories.