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E-book
Author Vacca, Alison, author

Title Non-Muslim provinces under early Islam : Islamic rule and Iranian legitimacy in Armenia and Caucasian Albania / Alison Vacca
Published New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2017

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Description 1 online resource
Series Cambridge studies in Islamic civilization
Contents Cover -- Half-title -- Series information -- Title page -- Copyright information -- Epigraph -- Table of contents -- List of illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Situating Places, People, and Dates -- 1 Non-Persian Provinces of Iran, Non-Muslim Provinces of Islam -- The Non-Persian North as Iranian History -- The Iranian Intermezzo -- The North as Part of the Iranian Oikoumene -- Mnemonic Drift: Sasanian Legacy Is not Sasanian History -- The Non-Muslim North as Islamic History -- The North as Part of the Islamic World -- The North as Part of Islamic History -- Locating the North in Modern Scholarship on Islamic History -- Methodology and Approach -- Mnemohistory and Islamic History -- Complicating the Chronology -- The Trajectory -- 2 Whence the Umayyad North? -- Forgetting Byzantium -- Greater and Lesser Armenia -- Interior and Exterior Armenia -- The Quadripartite Division of Armenia -- Mnemonic Additions -- The Syriac Super-Armenia and the Iraqi School of Geography -- The Christian Context -- Support for Super-Armenia in Arabic Sources -- Finding Georgia -- Defining Albania -- Sasanian Geography in Contemporary and Later Sources -- Sasanian Geography: K'usti Kapkoh and Kust-i Ādūrbādagān -- Memory of Sasanian Geography in Arabic Sources: Jarbī -- The Umayyad North and the Balkhi School -- Arabic Geography: Riḥāb -- Caliphal Governors and Their Coins -- Conclusion -- 3 Lost Greek Kings and Hoodwinked Khazars -- Describing the Caliphal Frontier -- Defining the Ḥudūd and Thughūr -- The Problem of Buffer Zones (and: Why Did Albanian Fail Where Armenian and Georgian Succeeded?) -- How Anūshirwān Constructed the Conceptual Borders of Islam -- Forgetting Byzantine Qālīqalā/Karin -- Remembering Sasanian Bāb al-Abwāb/Darband -- The Domain of the Iranians Becomes the Kingdom of Islam -- The Role of the Iranian Oikoumene in Imagining the Thughur
Imagined Unity and Iranian Cosmography in Arabic Geographical Texts -- Conclusions -- 4 The So-Called Marzbāns and the Northern Freemen -- Foreign Governors: The Marzbān and the Ostikan -- The Title Ostikan -- The Roles of the So-Called Marzbāns -- The Identity of the Sasanian and Caliphal Governors of the North -- The Presiding Princes of the North -- Išxan Hayoc' -- Mt'avar K'art'lisa -- Arrānshāh -- The Local Nobility -- The Names Baṭāriqa, Aḥrār, and Abnāʼ al-Mulūk -- The Role of the Nobility -- Identifying the Nobles -- Sasanian Legitimacy in the North during the Iranian Intermezzo -- Conclusions -- 5 Caliphs, Commanders, and Catholicoi -- The Masses and the Caliphate -- Emigration from the North -- Immigration to the North -- The Local Political Élite -- Common Ground between Sasanian, Byzantine, and Caliphal Rule -- Encouraging Disunity among the Nobles -- The Religious Élite -- Ancestral Customs -- Shāhanshāhs and Caliphs as Champions of Non-Chalcedonian Christianity -- The Laws of Apostasy -- Conclusions -- 6 Taxing the Dead and Sealing the Necks of the Living -- Treaties and the Question of Reliability -- Sasanian Taxation and the Islamic Conquest -- The Imposition of Direct Control under the Marwānids and ʿAbbāsids -- The Significance of the Marwanid Reforms in the North -- Treaties and Taxation under the Marwānids -- Taxation in the ʿAbbāsid Period -- Sasanian Taxation, Syriac Sources, and Iranian Social Mores -- Conclusions -- 7 Collective Historical Amnesia -- Competing Claims to Sasanian Power -- Sasanian Legacy as a Marker of Iranianness -- The Memory of Parthian Rule in the ʿAbbāsid Period -- The Parthian Intermezzo -- Conclusions -- Bibliography -- Arabic -- Armenian -- Georgian -- Greek -- Persian -- Syriac -- Modern Literature -- Index
Summary Eighth- and ninth-century Armenia and Caucasian Albania were largely Christian provinces of the then Islamic Caliphate. Although they formed a part of the Iranian cultural sphere, they are often omitted from studies of both Islamic and Iranian History. In this book, Alison Vacca uses Arabic and Armenian texts to explore these Christian provinces as part of the Caliphate, identifying elements of continuity from Sasanian to caliphal rule, and, more importantly, expounding on significant moments of change in the administration of the Marwanid and early Abbasid periods. Vacca examines historical narrative and the construction of a Sasanian cultural memory during the late ninth and tenth centuries to place the provinces into a broader context of Iranian rule. This book will be of benefit to historians of Islam, Iran and the Caucasus, but will also appeal to those studying themes of Iranian identity and Muslim-Christian relations in the Near East
Subject Islam -- Iran -- History
Islam -- Armenia -- History
Islam -- Caucasian Albania -- History
HISTORY -- Middle East -- General.
Islam
SUBJECT Islamic Empire -- History -- 661-750. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85068448
Islamic Empire -- History -- 622-661. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85068447
Subject Armenia
Caucasian Albania
Iran
Islamic Empire
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781316979853
1316979857
9781316994641
1316994643