Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Figures
- List of Maps
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Acknowledgments to the first edition of A History of Islamic Societies
- Acknowledgments to the second edition of A History of Islamic Societies
- Publisher's Preface
- Introduction to Islamic Societies
- Part I The Beginnings of Islamic Civilizations
- The Middle East from c. 600 TO c. 1000
- The Preaching of Islam
- Chapter 2 Historians and the Sources
- Chapter 3 Arabia
- Chapter 4 Muhammad: Preaching, Community, and State Formation
- The Arab-Muslim Imperium (632–945)
- Cosmopolitan Islam: The Islam of The Imperial Elite
- Urban Islam: The Islam of Scholars and Holy Men
- Women, Families, and Communities
- Part II From Islamic Community to Islamic Society
- Part III The Global Expansion of Islam from the Seventh to the Nineteenth Centuries
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Annotated Bibliography from A History of Islamic Societies, 2nd Edition
- Index
Chapter 3 - Arabia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Figures
- List of Maps
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Acknowledgments to the first edition of A History of Islamic Societies
- Acknowledgments to the second edition of A History of Islamic Societies
- Publisher's Preface
- Introduction to Islamic Societies
- Part I The Beginnings of Islamic Civilizations
- The Middle East from c. 600 TO c. 1000
- The Preaching of Islam
- Chapter 2 Historians and the Sources
- Chapter 3 Arabia
- Chapter 4 Muhammad: Preaching, Community, and State Formation
- The Arab-Muslim Imperium (632–945)
- Cosmopolitan Islam: The Islam of The Imperial Elite
- Urban Islam: The Islam of Scholars and Holy Men
- Women, Families, and Communities
- Part II From Islamic Community to Islamic Society
- Part III The Global Expansion of Islam from the Seventh to the Nineteenth Centuries
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Annotated Bibliography from A History of Islamic Societies, 2nd Edition
- Index
Summary
On the eve of the Islamic era, Arabia stood on the periphery of the Middle Eastern imperial societies. (See Map 1.) In Arabia, the primary communities remained especially powerful, and urban, religious, and royal institutions were less developed. Whereas the imperial world was predominantly agricultural, Arabia was primarily pastoral. Whereas the imperial world was citied, Arabia was the home of camps and oases. Whereas the imperial peoples were committed to the monotheistic religions, Arabia was largely pagan. The imperial world was politically organized; Arabia was politically fragmented.
At the same time, pre-Islamic Arabia was in many ways an integral part, a provincial variant, of the larger Middle Eastern civilization. There were no physical or political boundaries between Arabia and the larger region; no great walls, nor rigid ethnic or demographic frontiers. Migrating Arabian peoples made up much of the population of the desert margins of Syria and Iraq. Arabs in the Fertile Crescent region shared political forms, religious beliefs, economic connections, and physical space with the societies around them.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth CenturyA Global History, pp. 31 - 38Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012