The Byzantine and early Islamic Near East. I: problems in the literary source materials (review)

Abstract

Reviews 123 critical methodological statement in the preface, Bloom's study seems unabletobreak free from the neo-Orientalist mould. The above criticism should not diminish the value of Bloom's Minaret as an important contribution to the ongoing scholarly debate on the history of Islamic architecture. Although not all his conclusions are convincing, the questions he raises, including the impact of politics on the changing semiotics of Islamic architecture, and the sheer scope of the coverage, make his book worthy of serious consideration. The illustrations are well integrated in the discussion with constant references. Apart from specialists in Islamic architecture, the book should appeal to medievalists in general, and also to those interested in the comparative study of architecture and culture. Ahmad Shboul Department of Semitic Studies University of Sydney Cameron, Averil and Lawrence I. Conrad, eds, The Byzantine and early Islamic Near East. I: problems in the literary source materials (Studies in late antiquity and early Islam, I), Princeton, The Darwin Press, 1992; cloth; pp. xiv, 428; R.R.P. US$29.95/£18.50. This volume contains eight papers: Michael Whitby on 'Greek historical writing after Procopius: variety and vitality'; Averil Cameron on 'New themes and styles in Greek literature: seventh-eighth centuries'; John Haldon on 'The works of Anastasius of Sinai: a key source for the history of seventh-century east Mediterranean society and belief; G. J. Reinink on 'Ps.-Methodius: a concept of history in response to theriseof Islam'; Hans J. W . Drijvers on "The Gospel of the Twelve Apostles: a Syriac apocalypse from the early Islamic period'; Wadad al-Qadi on 'Early Islamic state letters: the question of authenticity'; Stefan Leder on 'The literary use of the Khobar, a basic form of historical writing'; and Lawrence I. Conrad on "The conquest of Arwad: a source-critical study in the historiography of the early medieval Near East'. Space precludes comment on all of the above. What follows is addressed to Whitby's, Cameron's, Reinink's and Drijver's contributions. Whitby demonstrates that there was indeed an end to traditional historiography after the reign of Heraclius. This 'shrinkage of historiography must to a certain extent be seen in the context of the demise 124 Reviews of a broader range of categories of secular literature—panegyrics, epigrams, letters, philosophical works, legislation'. One reason why there were no Byzantine historians writing on the Arab conquests was precisely this drying-up of the classical tradition though, as Whitby makes clear, this does not mean that there was no historiography as such. Ecclesiastical historiography, and chronicle-writing were not affected. Whitby suggests that the actions of Heraclius were translated into eschatological terms. Averil Cameron goes further than Whitby and while she admits that 'historical writing in the traditional sense seems to have suffered a hiatus: classical historiography did not seem relevant any more', she nevertheless insists that 'an enormous amount of writing was going on in the seventh and eighth centuries'. Most of this was polemical and also written mostly by monks. All of it was theological. She cautions historians against an attempt 'to construct our own history of the period from the Greek sources alone . . . ; even leaving aside the vast corpus of works in the Arab-Islamic historical tradition, surviving historical works in Armenian and Syriac are as important as those in Greek One source above all seems to have influenced both Byzantine and medieval minds: Pseudo-Methodius. In an exemplary essay Reinink summarizes the extensive literature on this Syriac apocalypse and comes up with an original dating. Pseudo-Methodius was written in reaction to 'Abd al-Malik's foundation of the D o m e of The Rock on the site of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, in or about 692 A.D. According to Reinink, his primary concern 'is to create a typological relation between Alexander, the first king of the Greeks, and the last king of the Greeks' who will defeat the Arabs and liberate Jerusalem. Whitby suggests that Heraclius's victories and the restoration of the True Cross to Jerusalem in 630 led to belief in the coming of the Golden Age of the Syriac Romance of Alexander. Reinink notes that 'the idea of the...