A history of the Muslim world : from its origins to the dawn of modernity / Michael Cook.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cook, Michael, 1940-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Islam.

Islamic countries--History.

Islamic countries.

Islamic Empire--History.

Islamic Empire.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (961 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2024.

Summary:

"In Michael Cook's words, this book is 'about a substantial slice of human history delimited by a particular cultural characteristic: adherance to Islam in some form or other. [...] A commitment to Islam makes a difference. Wherever a society and its rulers have come to be Muslim, this has meant a major discontinuity with its pre-Islamic past and a significant expansion of its relations with the wider Muslim world.' Starting in the pre-Islamic Middle East, Cook returns a sense of wonder to how Muhammad could not only become a prophet of a new monotheistic religion but also unite the Arab tribes behind it and create a state that would conquer much of the territory that belonged to the Byzantines and the Sasanians, the two empires that had balanced power in the region for hundreds of years. Exploring the high culture of the Abbasids, Cook then charts the disintegration of the Caliphate and the brief rise of the Fatimids and the Mongols of the Steppe. He covers the Ottomans (Turkish), Safavids (Iranian), Mughals (India), and ventures to East Africa, Madagascar, Somalia, Southeast Asia, and many places between. An epilogue gestures to major themes in the post-1800 world"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cover

Contents

List of maps

Preface

Acknowledgments

Maps

Part I. The emergence of the Muslim world

1. The Middle East in late antiquity

The Fijār wars and the Arabian interior

The story of the Third Fijār

Should we believe the story?

The marginality of states

The centrality of tribes

The culture of a tribal people

The last war between the empires

A summer night in 626

The Byzantine Empire

The Persian Empire

The Avars

Relations between the empires

The empires and Arabia

Imperial options

The Arabian interior

Monotheism in Arabia

The broader background

The long-term perspective

Resources and states

Paganism and its discontents

2 Muḥammad

Muḥammad's message

Every nation has its messenger

Muḥammad as an Abrahamic revivalist

Muḥammad as the successor of Moses and Jesus

Strong monotheism

Muḥammad's state

The political consequences of the message

Muḥammad's need for protection

The breakthrough

The "Constitution of Medina

Muḥammad's military activity

The raid on the Banū ʾl-Muṣṭaliq

The extent of Muḥammad's state

The character of Muḥammad's state

Messages about the state

3. The Caliphate from the seventh to the ninth century

The early Caliphate

The succession to the Prophet in 632

The conquests

The state

The first civil war

The Umayyad dynasty

Umayyad rule

The non-Muslim enemies of the Umayyads

The Muslim enemies of the Umayyads

From the Umayyads to the ʿAbbasids

The ʿAbbasid dynasty

The ʿAbbasids from 749 to 811

The fourth civil war, 811-19

The ʿAbbasids from 819 to 861

The provinces

Spain

North Africa

Egypt

Arabia

On the borders of the Fertile Crescent

Iran

The eastern fringe

The formation of Islamic civilization

The spread of Arabic.

The spread of Islam

The Arab heritage

The non-Arab heritage

The Islamic component

4. The breakup of the Caliphate in the West

The Muslim West around the ninth century

Tunisia

The land of Berber heresy

The land of Berber unbelief

Muslim Spain

Back to the Berber rebellion and its aftermath

The Berber rebellion

The aftermath of the rebellion in North Africa

The aftermath of the rebellion in Spain

The coming of Shīʿism

On to the rise of the Fāṭimids and its aftermath

How the Fāṭimids came to power

The Fāṭimids in Tunisia

The Fāṭimids beyond Tunisia

The resurgence of Umayyad Spain

The rest of the story

The rest of the story: Tunisia

The rest of the story: Spain

The rest of the story: The Berber tribes

5. The breakup of the Caliphate in the East

Political history: Grand designs

Counter-caliphs

Imperial restorationists

Nativist prophets

Political history: Petty states

Provincial governors who dig in

Mercenaries who take over

The Kurds

Other ventures in state formation

The emergence of a Muslim Persian culture

The medium

The message

6. The breakup of the Caliphate in the central Muslim world

The decline of the ʿAbbāsid central government

The central government

The fundamental change

No new imperial order

Ismāʿīlī ambitions

Why did the Ismāʿīlīs fail?

New states in the Fertile Crescent

New states in Arabia

Oman

The Yemen

Baḥrayn

The Ḥijāz

New dynasties in Egypt

From Ibn Ṭūlūn to renewed ʿAbbāsid rule

The Ikhshīdids

The Fāṭimids: A modest empire

The Fāṭimids and their problems

Part II. The Muslim world from the eleventh century to the eighteenth

7. The Turks, the Mongols, and Islam in the steppes

The Turks before the Mongols

The emergence of the Turks.

The world according to Bilgä Qaghan

The spread of Islam among the Turks

How do being a Turk and being a Muslim go together?

The expansion of the Turks outside the steppes

Non-Turkic nomads from the East

The Qara Khiṭāy

The Mongols

The Mongol regional states

The Turks after the Mongols

The Turks in the post-Mongol period

Being a Turk and being a Muslim again

The passing of the nomad threat

Qazaqlїq and the political culture of the steppes

Excursus: The Muslims of China

8. Iran and Central Asia

Iran from the Seljuqs to the Mongols

The Oghuz invasion and the Seljuq dynasty

Between the Seljuqs and the Mongols

The Mongol invasion

The Ilkhans

The Mongol legacy in Iran

Iran from the Mongols to the Qājārs

Between the Mongols and the Timūrids

The Timūrids

The Turcoman dynasties

The Ṣafawids to the later sixteenth century

The conversion of Iran to Shīʿism

The Ṣafawids from the later sixteenth century

The fortunes of Persian beyond the borders of Iran

Between the Ṣafawids and the Qājārs

The pattern of Iranian history over eight centuries

Sampling a third-order approximation

Qualifications

Other levels of political activity

Central Asia and the legal legacy of the Mongols

Central Asia in brief

The legal legacy of the Mongols

9. The Turks in the western Middle East in medieval times

The Turkic expansion to the southwest

The Turcomans in Syria

The Zangids and the Ayyūbids

The Mamlūks

Copts and Muslims

The Turcoman expansion to the west

The Turcomans in Anatolia

From Greek-speaking Christians to Turkish-speaking Muslims

The political history of Turcoman Anatolia before the Mongols

The Mongols in Anatolia

The Turcoman dynasties of Anatolia

10. The Ottoman Empire

Background on the Balkans

The early Ottoman period.

Beginnings, expansion, and catastrophe: The Ottomans to 1402

How the Ottoman state changed over the fourteenth century

Recovery and renewed expansion: The Ottomans from 1402 to 1453

Meḥmed II and his palaces

The middle Ottoman period

Expansion continued: The Ottomans from 1453 to 1566

The structure of the sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman army and navy

Bureaucrats, scholars, law, and identity

The late Ottoman period

Heading into a time of troubles

The upshot of the time of troubles

How the Ottomans thought about their troubles

Low-level equilibrium: From the later seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth century

The provinces: The Balkans and Anatolia

The provinces: The Arab lands

The looming crisis

Muslims and Christians

Muslims and Christians: Demography

Muslims and Christians rubbing off on each other

Muslims, Christians, and the Ottoman state

An Ottoman traveler

11. India

The pre-Islamic background

The unity and diversity of India

India and the wider world

Muslim conquest and Muslim rule in India

The Arab conquest and rule of the northwest

The Turkic conquest of the northwest: Ghaznawids and Ghurids

The Delhi Sultanate

The first age of fragmentation

The beginnings of the Mughal Empire

The history of the Mughal Empire

The second age of fragmentation

Muslims and Hindus

The Muslim predicament in India

The policies of rulers

Bottom lines

12. The Indian Ocean

The coast of the heartlands

Geography and its implications

Muslim merchants from the heartlands

The western sector

Madagascar

East Africa

The Somali coast

The Indian sector

The Malabar coast

The southeastern coast

From Ceylon to Bengal

The eastern sector

Geography and its implications.

Continental Southeast Asia

Maritime Southeast Asia

The character of Islam in maritime Southeast Asia

The last of the rim and the edge of the Pacific

The small islands of the Indian Ocean

13. Africa

The Sahara desert

The Sahara as a barrier

The Sahara: History

The Sahara: Peoples

The Sahara: States

The Sahara: Islam

The savanna

The savanna belt: The western states

The savanna belt: The eastern states

The savanna belt: Comparisons and contrasts

Back to eleventh-century Ghana and fourteenth-century Mali

Northeast Africa

The Ethiopian highlands: Background

The Ethiopian highlands: Muslim-Christian warfare

Nubia

South of the savanna

The spread of Islam in Africa

Race in the African context

14. The Arabs

The political history of the Arabs

Potential sites for large-scale state formation: Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia

Potential sites for large-scale state formation: Spain

Potential sites for large-scale state formation: Morocco and its Berber dynasties

Potential sites for large-scale state formation: Morocco and its Arab dynasties

Midscale state formation in Arabia

Midscale state formation outside Arabia

The demographic history of the Arabs

The Arab tribes

Nontribal Arabic speakers

Part III. Epilogue

15. The Muslim world and the West

Background

The western Mediterranean frontier

Western Europe beyond the Mediterranean

What has changed since 1800?

Territory

Population

Communications

The economy

Society

Imitating non-Muslims

Ethelbert's dilemma

Muslim attitudes to Christian Europe

The extent and limits of imitation

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780691262154

0691262152

9780691236582

0691236585

OCLC:

1371956617