Syria is usually where empires end, not where they begin. Like its Seleucid ancestor, the Marwanid experiment in Syria showed that a far-flung Middle Eastern empire was still possible without Iraq or Egypt to serve as its centre. Despite the tensions surrounding succession within the Marwanid family, the territorial expansion of the caliphate proceeded apace without any noticeable slowing until the eve of the third fitna. In keeping with the imperial vision established by the time of Abd al-Malik, Marwanid imperial designs were in theory limitless. For all that the Marwanid caliphs saw themselves as God's caliphs, from France to Farghana it was the Syrian tribal armies who were the real world conquerors. The Hijaz and Yemen were excluded from the superprovinces, no doubt because they lacked any active military fronts or waves of settlement. Nowhere can the aspirations of the Marwanid elites be better glimpsed than in the qusur built by caliphs and ashraf throughout the caliphate.

The empire in Syria, 705–763

As opposed to the Arsacids, the Sasanians, like their Achaemenid 'ancestors', tell a great deal about their notions of government, their public appearances and their political aspirations in both the domestic and foreign spheres. All lands of the former Parthian empire, except for Armenia, came under Sasanian control during the reign of the founder of the dynasty, Ardashir. Yazdgerd III was made king by Rustam's aristocratic party, thus becoming the Sasanians' last ruler. It was a decidedly Iranian attitude that characterised the Sasanian image of the ruler and his qualities. The late Sasanian period was altogether a time of literary flowering, much of it commissioned or sponsored by the royal court. The Sasanian empire was also characterised by the magnitude and diversity of its religious groups and communities. Whereas the fourth century was characterised by numerous military conflicts between the superpowers Iran and Byzantium.

The late Sasanian Near East

This article examines the notion that long‐distance transhumance played a significant role in the prehistory of the Iberian Peninsula in Neolithic and Early Bronze Age times. It finds the arguments unconvincing. On the other hand, pastoralism on quite a large scale seems to have been practised, and the possibilities of localized transhumance, or perhaps ranching, cannot be excluded.

Laying a mega-myth: dolmens and drovers in prehistoric Spain

Fluvial changes of the Guadalquivir river during the Holocene in Córdoba (Southern Spain)

Western writing on Islam, including early Islamic history, has roots reaching back to the medieval period. As far as early Islamic history is concerned, Western scholars of the Enlightenment began to consult key texts of the Islamic tradition itself in search of information. Contemporary scholars examines Islam's origins in depth mainly tend to follow the source-critical or tradition-critical school in their handling of the Islamic sources. Scholars of early Islamic history have shown increased interest in developing new approaches and methods, and in looking at such things as social history, gender relations, identity formation and economic history. Beyond the thorny problems posed by the heritage of the polemical tradition and by the deficiencies of the sources for early Islamic history, there exist other problems of perception and conceptualisation, as well as practical obstacles, that have affected Western approaches to early Islamic history.

Emilio García Gómez

Papers

España Musulmana : hasta la caída del califato de Córdoba (711-1031 de J.C.) : instituciones y vida social e intelectual . Arte Califal

Las jarchas romances de la serie árabe en su marco

España Musulmana : Hasta la caída del califato de córdoba (711-1031 de J.C.)

El siglo XI en 1.a persona : las "Memorias" de ʿAbd Allāh, último Rey Zīrí de Granada destronado por los Almorávides (1090)

España musulmana, hasta la caída del Califato de Córdoba (711-1031 de J. C.): instituciones y vida social e intelectual