The Book of the Conquests of Lands (Kitāb Futūḥ al-Buldān) by the ninth century author al-Balādhurī is among the most important historical sources modern scholars have for the first centuries of the Islamic state. Owing to its information on the Islamic conquests and the administration of the realm, it is a source often mined for useful content on regions or topics concerning the seventh and eighth centuries CE; its popularity also benefited greatly from an early translation into a western language. It is, however, often neglected as a single, more substantial work encompassing the breadth of the Islamic world in the early period. Despite modern scholars’ reliance on the book as a source of information for the Byzantine, Sasanian, and early Islamic near east, it has never before had a substantial scholarly study dedicated to the text as a whole, thereby neglecting the greater questions of its purpose and construction in favor of its content alone. This paper will consider the purpose of the Futūḥ against the backdrop of previous scholarship on the text; it will challenge many of the preconceptions that have developed surrounding its genre. Additionally, it will reflect over the intended audience of the work through a discussion of the text’s themes and foci, suggesting that its great emphasis on land ownership and issues of taxation meant it likely served some practical role at the court as an “administrator’s handbook.” In particular, it will discuss the problems associated with considering the text solely in the genre of conquest literature. This is despite its overwhelming focus on administrative material and its geographic organization. It will advise that considering the text within the framework of historiographical genres is deeply problematic, questioning the validity of attempts to characterize early Arabic historical works within the confines of traditional categories.

This paper describes three contexts of differentiation (arabness-‘ajamness / Turks-Kurds / Kurdish territory) and their evolution during the Middle Ages from a rudimentary definition of “Kurd” to a more diversified conception. It interprets them through three lenses: micro-social (actor subjectivity), meso-social (competition/transaction between groups or categories), and macro-social (state ascription). In medieval Arabic sources, the use of “Kurd” (kurd, pl. akrâd) generally does not fit into contemporary social and ethnic categories. Many scholars have resolved the issue by simplistic statements: “The term Kurd is not an ethnic term, it is a social one”, or: “Kurd is synonymous with Iranian nomads”. The process of categorization is multiform, originating from several sources and resulting in a polysemic category. It is undergirded by social, political and intellectual environments that implement many constructions. As Catherine Quiminal writes: “While categorizing one doesn’t only arrange objects in pre-given classes of belonging. One selects a principle of classification which defines the situation.” Like other ethnonyms (‘arab, turk, furs, and ‘ajam) “Kurd” is used in various contexts of meaning defined by evolving conceptions of difference. From al-Jāḥiẓ to Ibn Khaldūn, Arabic medieval authors – whether they vaguely mention “Kurds” or insert them in a sophisticated social theory – articulate conceptions of “Kurdish” difference. Three main models appear: First, during the classical era (700s-1000s AD) a binary framework of reference developed, situating Kurdishness in--between “`arabness” and “`ajamness”. Second, during the following centuries (1100s-1300s AD) the collapse of an exclusively Arab empire enabled a more diverse conception of difference, which included the Kurds in the Khaldūnian register of ‘bedouinity’ or the broader narrative of “barbarians” of the edges. Parallel to these processes of utterance a rather paradoxical one crystallized the category “Kurd”. Essentially recognized for their military skills, the Kurds seemed to enter the city (civitas) along with the Turks. While associated with Turks within military oligarchies, “Kurds” reinforced a process of differentiation necessary to compete for resources. Third, my paper considers the geo-ethnic dimension of Kurdish identity. In Arab geographers’ and chroniclers’ spatial conception of the medieval East, some designations referred clearly to a Kurdish presence (Bilad al-Akrâd, Zûzân al-Akrâd, Kurdistân, etc.) in Upper Mesopotamia. This dimension emerged from the frontier culture among the Kurds that has lasted until today, an in-between situation that actors have shaped and exploited, and that is shaping Kurdishness in return, due to the intimate association of people and environment.

1. The Syriac and Georgian versions of “The Life of Peter the Iberian”, an outstanding ecclesiastic figure and a most highly valued and respected saintly man in the 5th century, whose activity is closely associated with Constantinople and the monastic centers in Palestine, play a tremendous role both in the study of his life and activity and the research in the Syro-Palestinian ecclesiastic and political history of the 5th century; no less important are these versions for studying the Syro-Georgian literary interrelations. However, the research in the textological and theological problems of the Syriac and Georgian versions of “The Life” acquired especial significance after the renowned Georgian scholar Nutsubidze and Honigmann, a Belgian scholar, had identified Peter the Iberian as author of the Areopagite corpus. 2. The Syriac and Georgian versions of “The Life of Peter the Iberian”, as a matter of fact, have not been studied; at that it is quite clear that a number of issues connected with the study of the text cannot be solved only on the basis of the Syriac sources without resorting to the Georgian material. 3. Collation of the Syriac and the Georgian texts gives us grounds to conjecture that the Syriac and the Georgian texts of “The Life” stem from the same source. 4. It has been my aim to reveal the interconnection between the Syriac and the Georgian versions of “The Life”; except a few separate episodes the texts mainly coincide. However, the Syriac version is altered and the Georgian version of Macarios of Meskheti has not survived; hence the only text the Syriac text can be compared with is the text restored by the archpriest Paul, where some passages are lacking, due to the many flaws present in the original some episodes were added during his work on the text. 5. In spite of the fact that the Georgian text of “The Life” has been worked on and differs from the Syriac text, it should not be underestimated, as it is the Georgian version where the important information which can be useful for clarifying some separate ambiguous passages of the Syriac texts, is provided.

Did early Muslims consider Zoroastrians to be People of the Book? Much of the secondary literature on medieval Muslim-Zoroastrian relations presumes so, but the Qur’an does not describe Zoroastrians as People of the Book, and Zoroastrians did not transcribe the Avesta—their sacred text—until at least the eleventh century. Until then, Zoroastrians were literally People without a Book. As a result, early Muslims debated the propriety of accepting jizya from them. Remnants of that debate are evident in the early Islamic taxation literature, particularly Abu ‘Ubayd’s (d. 224/838) Kitāb al-Amwāl and Abu Yusuf’s (d. 182/798) Kitāb al-Kharāj, and the relevant sections of hadith collections like ‘Abd al-Razzaq’s (d. 211/827) al-Muṣannaf and Abu Dawud’s (d. 281/894) Sunan. What appears to be the earliest report suggests that the Prophet offered the Zoroastrians of Bahrayn a stark choice between conversion and death. Yet the most common report is that he accepted jizya from them. Significantly, the latter is always narrated by Bajala b. ‘Abda, a member of the Banu Tamim tribe of Bahrayn. The Banu Tamim were allies of the Sasanian Persians before the advent of Islam, and some of them had embraced Zoroastrianism. Thus, the tribe had a vested interest in promoting the notion that Muhammad had accepted jizya from Zoroastrians. They also countered reports to the contrary. In one hadith, a member of the Banu Tamim threatens the life of a Muslim who criticized the Prophet’s decision to tax Zoroastrians. Due to this intense lobbying, early Muslim tax officials universally accepted that Muhammad set the precedent for taxing Zoroastrians. Early Muslim jurists were uncomfortable with that precedent because they did not consider Zoroastrians to be People of the Book. Therefore, they prohibited Muslims from marrying Zoroastrians or consuming meat slaughtered by them. The jurists’ rulings later became enshrined in prophetic sayings. In an apparent bid to flout such restrictions, dissenting Muslims circulated an updated version of the Banu Tamim’s report, which expanded the scope of the Prophet’s precedent beyond taxation. In this updated report, Muhammad urges Muslims to “treat Zoroastrians like People of the Book” (sunnū bihim sunnat ahl al-kitāb). Little is known about these dissenters, but they used the new prophetic precedent to contest the additional legal disabilities that jurists had imposed on Zoroastrians. Thus, while the early Islamic taxation literature betrays considerable Muslim ambivalence about Zoroastrians, it affirms that in this period Zoroastrians were People without a Book.

Literary genres or subgenres may experience a rise in importance and public interest, a decline, and sometimes periods of revival. Studying such trends is part of the field of the History of the Book. This modern field of historical inquiry is interested in tracking books as objects and as socio-historical agents. In this paper is interested in applying some of the field’s concepts and techniques to a subgenre of medieval Islamic books, namely ‘Aqida books. What links these books to modern ones and enables us to use the same techniques and concepts on both is the fact that in the Islamic empire after the mid-eight century there was a real industry of the book accompanied by a real market where books, as intellectual and industrial products, are traded and consumed. The special edition of JAIS titled The book in fact and fiction in pre-modern Arabic literature (Ghersetti, Metcalf eds, 2012) is a great attempt at launching the subfield of the history of the medieval Islamic book. The volume marks a departure from the earlier trends of bibliography (Sezgin and Brockelman); introduction to the medieval Islamic “book milieu” (Perdersen, The Arabic Book); surveys of the development of a literary genre such as the development of Islamic historiography (Humphreys in EI2; Robinson and others); or the development and canonization of Hadith compilations (Lucas and Brown). R. Darnton describes the book industry as an integrated “communication circuit” that includes “authors, publishers, printers, shippers, booksellers and readers”; all immersed in powerful economic, commercial, social, legal, and political force fields. In the current paper we trace the work of the combined elements of the communication circuit to produce and propagate ‘Aqida books (or “doctrine”; a subgenre of Islamic dogma and theology). We will follow the rise and decline of this subgenre, its main authors, the pivotal points in its history, and the social, political and intellectual currents that made this subgenre possible, shaped its content, and allow it to exercise a certain historical agency. We foresee this agency to be the crystallization of Sunnism and the Shiism as separate branches of Islam, as well as separate and antagonistic communities. We foresee the peak points of production in this subgenre to coincide with the period of heightened tensions between communities and kingdoms that adopted these two doctrines; namely the Buyid period in Baghdad and the Fatimid period (and its Ayyubid aftermath in Syria and Egypt).