Before and After Muhammad

Prefatory Note and Acknowledgments ix Abbreviations xi Chapter 1. INCLUDING ISLAM 1 The West and the Rest 1 Edward Gibbon 5 Islam and late Antiquity 9 Summary 15 Chapter 2. TIME: BEYOND LATE ANTIQUITY 18 The roots of late antique studies 18 Burckhardt to Strzygowski 23 The Orient and Islam: Views from Vienna 30 Pirenne to the present 37 Chapter 3. A NEW PERIODIZATION: THE FIRST MILLENNIUM 49 Decline versus transformation 49 Maturations 53 Monotheist historiography 68 For and against the First Millennium 82 Chapter 4. SPACE: AN EASTWARD SHIFT 92 Discovering the Mediterranean 92 Discovering the East 96 Empires and commonwealths 101 The Mountain Arena 116 Chapter 5. EXEGETICAL CULTURES 1: ARISTOTELIANISM 127 Greek Aristotelianism 129 Christian polemic 136 Aristotle in Latin, Armenian, and Syriac 139 Alexandria to Baghdad 146 Arabic Aristotelianism 153 Chapter 6. EXEGETICAL CULTURES 2: LAW AND RELIGION 164 Roman law 166 Rabbinic Judaism 173 Patristic Christianity 181 Islam 188 Chapter 7. VIEWPOINTS AROUND 1000: TUS, BASRA, BAGHDAD, PISA 198 Tus/Iran 199 Basra/Encyclopedism 204 Baghdad/Rationality 207 Pisa/The Latin West 212 Prospects for Further Research 219 Map: the Eurasian Hinge, with Circum-Arabian Trade Routes 106 Index 225

Garth Fowden is Research Director at the Institute of Historical Research, National Research Foundation, Athens, and Sultan Qaboos Professor of Abrahamic Faiths at the University of Cambridge. His books include Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity and The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind (both Princeton).

"Before and After Muhammad refocuses the chronological and geographical lenses through which historians view developments during the seminal period between ancient and medieval history in the West. Fowden writes clearly and convincingly. His research is thorough and his thesis is compelling."--Sidney H. Griffith, Catholic University of America