Islamic history: a framework for inquiry

Combining a bibliographic study with an inquiry into method, it opens with a survey of the principal reference tools available to historians of Islam and a systematic review of the sources they will confront. Problems of method are then examined in a series of chapters, each exploring a broad topic in the social and political history of the Middle East and North Africa between A.D. 600 and 1500. The topics selected represent a cross-section of Islamic historical studies, and range from the struggles for power within the early Islamic community to the life of the peasantry. Each chapter pursues four questions. What concrete research problems are likely to be most challenging and productive? What resources do we possess for dealing with these problems? What strategies can we devise to exploit our resources most effectively? What is the current state of the scholarly literature for the topic under study? -- Publishers description.

Preface -- Part One. Sources and research tools : Introduction -- Chapter one. Reference books -- Chapter two. The sources : An analytical survey -- Part Two. Problems in Islamic history : Chapter three. Early historical tradition and the first Islamic polity : A. The character of early Islamic historiography -- B. Two cases from the early history of Islam -- Chapter four. Modern historians and the Abbasid Revolution : The art of interpretation : A. Developing an analytic framework -- B. An outline of the sources -- C. Analyses and interpreations -- Chapter five. Bayhaqī and Ibn Taghrībirdī : The art of narrative in Islamic historical writing during the middle periods : A. The character of Islamic historical writing in the middle periods -- B. Two perspectives on royal autocracy : Bayhaqī and Ibn Taghrībirdī -- Chapter six. Ideology and propaganda : Religion and state in the early Seljukid period -- Chapter seven. The fiscal administration of the Mamluk empire -- Chapter eight. A cultural elite : The role and status of the 'Ulamā' in Islamic society -- Chapter nine. Islamic law and Islamic society -- Chapter ten. Urban topography and urban society : Damascus under the Ayyubids and…