Political Legitimacy and Authority in Late Pre‐Islamic and Early Islamic South Arabia: The Case of the Yuʿfirids and the Manāḫids

The Byzantine-Islamic Transition in Palestine: An Archaeological Approach

In the tenth century, the polymath Abu Muhammad al-Hamdani compiled a ten-volume compendium, entitled al-Iklı-l (The Crown), which narrates the history of South Arabia from the pre-Islamic to the early Islamic periods with the aim of extolling the various achievements and virtues of this region. The eighth volume of this compendium contains a collection of reports that describe the uncovering of pre-Islamic burials in the early Islamic period. Although the veracity of some reports may be questioned due to their inclusion of fantastical elements, these accounts portray a vivid imagining of the ancient tombs themselves and the stories of those buried within, as well as show the varied reactions to these sites. In some reports, the interred are revered and the chambers are returned to their former state. But in others, ambivalence is shown toward those buried, even when the inscriptions found at the site communicate that the interred testified to a belief in one god, and the tombs are looted. Overall, these rich reports do not merely depict encounters with pre-Islamic funerary remains, but also serve to connect South Arabia’s past with major narratives and themes of Islamic history.

The term ‘political legitimacy’ is unfortunately ambiguous. One serious source of confusion is the failure to distinguish clearly between political legitimacy and political authority and to conflate political authority with authoritativeness. I will distinguish between (1) political legitimacy, (2) political authority, and (3) authoritativeness. I will also articulate two importantly different variants of the notion of political authority. Having drawn these distinctions, I will argue first that political legitimacy, rather than political authority, is the more central notion for a theory of the morality of political power. My second main conclusion will be that where democratic authorization of the exercise of political power is possible, only a democratic government can be legitimate. Another ambiguity is also a source of confusion. Sometimes it is unclear whether ‘legitimacy’ is being used in a descriptive or a normative sense. In this article I am concerned exclusively with legitimacy in the normative sense, not with the conditions under which an entity is believed to be legitimate. However, a normative account of legitimacy is essential for a descriptive account. Unless one distinguishes carefully between political legitimacy, political authority, and authoritativeness, one will not be clear about what beliefs in legitimacy are beliefs about.

Administratively, the territories of Transjordan (a neutral term for what is now Jordan) have always belonged to different provinces. During the Late Byzantine or Early Islamic periods, the administrative borderlines were imposed by geographic rather than political considerations. They were generally running from east to west (Hitti 1970; Watson 2001). Hence, we can distinguish three major regions in Transjordan: northern, central and southern. While the northern one certainly had privileged relations with north Palestine and Syria, the central region had close relations with Palestine, and the southern played an important role in relations with south Arabia and Egypt. In times of peace as well as in times of war, Transjordan has therefore played an important role as a platform for trade and warfare in both north-south and east-west directions.

Caliphs and Merchants: Cities and Economies of Power in the Near East (700–950)

The Rasulids arrived in South Arabia towards the end of the sixth/twelfth century as Turkoman officers in the Ayyubid military. Thereafter they established a dynasty that lasted until the mid-ninth/fifteenth century. At the height of their power at the end of the seventh/thirteenth century, an effort to further buoy their political legitimacy was undertaken by resituating their ethnic origins to South Arabia. This first appeared within a genealogy that simultaneously showed their emergence from the complex web of descent of the local tribes, as well as juxtaposed them with the rulers of the Islamic Caliphate and elevated them above other contemporary political groups in South Arabia. However, after the Rasulid military was increasingly challenged over the course of the eighth/fourteenth century and the dynasty’s influence in the region and the wider Islamic world continued to dissipate, the assertion of their local origins was greatly fleshed out into a narrative at the beginning of a dynastic chronicle of the early ninth/fifteenth century. This prologue explains more explicitly how they first emigrated from South Arabia in the pre-Islamic period only to then return in the late medieval period as its rightful rulers. Overall, the construction of this origin story points to the Rasulids’ attempt to take on a new strategy of identification through the appropriation of South Arabian cultural memory in order to strengthen their political status.

This paper discussed the social phenomena that occurred during the birth of Islam and its influence on the revolution process in developing the Arabic language. The study was a qualitative research with a descriptive design relying on documents and literature of al-Mujtama'at al-Islamiyah as the primary reference source. This paper showed the social events that accompanied the birth of Islam had an impact and influence on the growth and development of the Arabic language. The social events during the early period of Islam were a great momentum for the revelation of the Qur'an, the entry of Islamic teachings into the Arab ignorant society. The establishment of social interaction relations between Arab and Islamic communities became a powerful event in forming the Arabic language. Thus, the early period of the birth of Islam was a time of transformation in standard Arabic. The events and social phenomena that occurred during the early period of Islam also had implications for the growth process of knowledge originating from Islam. The Arab community had made standard Arabic the primary language in delivering Islamic teachings and the development of science. This paper suggested the need for a further study of the development of the Arabic language viewed from the historical aspect.

This volume is the second in a series of final reports presenting the results of the excavations conducted in the Givati Parking Lot, located on the eastern slope of the Tyropoeon Valley in Jerusalem. The site covers an area of c. 0.5 hectares, making it one of the largest excavations in the City of David. This second volume is comprised of three parts, and presents the remains of the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods. The exposure of Byzantine and Early Islamic remains over an extensive area has enabled a reassessment of the nature of the transition between these two periods, and has shed light on numerous aspects of settlement patterns and city planning in both periods, as well as the question of the city’s southern limits in the Early Islamic period. The current Part 3 presents analyses of finds from both the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods.

This chapter focuses on the churches of Umm al-Rasas and the monastic-palace complex of Qasr al-Hallabat in Jordan and discusses architecture and decoration in Palestine and Arabia during the Umayyad and early Abbasid periods. At least fourteen churches were constructed, reconstructed, or renovated between the late sixth and late eighth centuries, as attested by inscriptions in the mosaic pavements of the buildings. The chapter highlights the role played by the Ghassanids as important intermediaries in this process, and this has recently gained attention in scholarship. The sites considered in the chapter attest to an environment of continuity and stability in Palestine and Arabia during the early Islamic period. The renovation and rebuilding that occurred well into the Umayyad period in the Complex of St Stephen at Umm al-Rasas suggest conditions of prosperity and tolerance for the Christian community. Keywords: Arabia; Christian community; Complex of St Stephen; early Islamic period; Ghassanids; Jordan; Palestine; Qasr al-Hallabat; Umm al-Rasas

The main aspect of the critical tendency of non-Muslim biographers is the criticism of the political and social issues of the biography of the Prophet (peace be upon him). In this regard, their first objection is that the Prophet (peace be upon him) forcibly spread his religion among the people through the sword, so that people were forced to accept Islam. The purpose of taking up the sword was to show how many hardships the Prophet and his companions had to face in the early period of Islam, but the principles of patience, perseverance and peace were adopted, and later he took up the sword to defend himself to prevent the oppression of the infidels. Similarly, non-Muslim biographers presented him as an unimportant figure in society, while the personality of the Prophet (peace be upon him) was well-known and recognizable in the Meccan and Medinan periods, and people loved him more than their own lives and property. The livelihood of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and his companions has also been objected to. Muslims gathered in trade caravans to fulfill their economic needs and fulfilled their needs, while the purpose of stopping these trade caravans was to weaken the power of the infidels and the purpose of the Muslims was to create fear and power in the hearts of these infidels. Non-Muslim biographers have described the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)'s preaching struggle as the acquisition of political power and authority, while he (peace be upon him) lived a life of great humility and simplicity, transcending all these things. There was no purpose in his life to acquire political power and authority, rather his entire life was spent for the upliftment of the religion of Islam, to bring people out of the valleys of misguidance and to bring them to guidance. This was the purpose of his life. The claim that the Jews were treated very badly in society and were forcibly exiled is also not true, but rather they had to be killed and exiled because of their deceit and harm to Islam. There is no point in criticizing the political and social affairs of non-Muslim biographers, as if they want to diminish your greatness by making such objections that people will express hatred and enmity towards you. In reality, these people can never succeed in their goal. In this discussion, along with criticizing the political and social affairs of non-Muslim biographers, it has also been refuted with arguments.

Archaeological Research on Islamic Pottery from Qal´eh Sang, Old Sirjan (Kerman Province, Iran)

This research aims to analyze the comparative system of government policies in the pre-Islamic period and the early Islamic period. This research is necessary because, in the present time, the commitment of the Muslim community, particularly in government policies, is far from the Islamic values taught by Prophet Muhammad PBUH when implementing the Medina Charter as an ideal state consensus. This research is a literature study conducted using a qualitative method with a descriptive approach. The research data was obtained through literature such as books and journal articles. The data collection technique involved searching and collecting literature related to the research object. The data analysis technique used deductive analysis. This research finds that in the pre-Islamic period, the Arab people already had civilization but experienced a moral crisis. In contrast, during the early Islamic period, when Prophet Muhammad PBUH became the leader of the state and the religious leader, the government policies took progressive steps in terms of social complexity and political capacity

The aim of this paper is to present a first attempt at a comprehensive classification of squinches related to semi-domes, in Persian kāna pūsh, in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia and Iran between the late Sasanian and early Islamic periods. This feature is a characteristic of the Persian architectural tradition: all the preserved examples are in buildings of considerable importance (most are related to the architecture of the élites) and demonstrate a typological evolution. Furthermore, their origin can also be backdated to between the late Sasanian and early Islamic periods.

This volume is the second in a series of final reports presenting the results of the excavations conducted in the Givati Parking Lot, located on the eastern slope of the Tyropoeon Valley in Jerusalem. The site covers an area of c. 0.5 hectares, making it one of the largest excavations in the City of David. This second volume is comprised of three parts, and presents the remains of the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods. The exposure of Byzantine and Early Islamic remains over an extensive area has enabled a reassessment of the nature of the transition between these two periods, and has shed light on numerous aspects of settlement patterns and city planning in both periods, as well as the question of the city’s southern limits in the Early Islamic period. The current Part 1 is devoted to the stratigraphy and finds of the Byzantine period.

This article discusses what may be learned about the Yemeni Tihāma in the pre‐Islamic and early Islamic periods from Arabic texts. In practice the texts that are available to us, consisting of a barely differentiated mixture of fact and legend, provide only glimpses of the pre‐Ismalmic history, although there are more substantial references in the early Islamic period. For details of the tribal populations of Tihāma, we have a fairly detailed picture of the situation in the 3rd/9th century in the works of al‐Hamdānī. Some of this may have been applicable in earlier centuries. Ibn al‐Muǧāwir's Tārīẖ al‐MustabṢir includes a number of intriguing legends, at least one of which may have a foundation in fact.