Early Islamic historians, working from a textual perspective, assert that the Islamic-Byzantine frontier (al-thugh?r) only begins to take shape in the 'AbbAsid period, when the frontier features in the writings of jurists and scholars on the subject of jih d. They describe the frontier as a former abandoned zone repopulated with Muslims engaged in yearly holy war, thus showing how the 'Abb sids laid claim to an ideologically perceived empty space. On the other hand, archaeologists have argued that Early Islamic landscapes (including the frontier zone) were marked by strong continuities of both rural and urban settlement and networks of trade carried over from the Byzantine/Sastnian sixth century through the tenth century, thus countering any claims of an empty landscape awaiting reclamation. Neither of these two opposing views is entirely correct, nor are they completely wrong. Recent evidence from survey and excavation in the western thugher shows a nuanced narrative of 6-8th century changes in the landscape with diminishing rural sites occupied followed by a punctuated increase in settlements in the early 'Abbesid period. Settlement consisted of varying categories of sites including reoccupied or de novo urban centers, villages, and a new system of midrange sites that served as waystations on trans-frontier routes. The building-up of the thugh r in the early 'Abbtsid period must not be explained with simple incentives of promoting jih d but with multivariant concerns on the part of the 'Abbasid state to internally control or accommodate its transhumant and settled frontier communities, to encourage exchange of resources, as well as, to protect its frontiers from external threats.