Contents

List of maps

List of genealogical tables

Preface to the first edition

Preface and acknowledgements

Notes on names, titles and dates

1 The matrix of the Muslim world: the Near East in the early seventh century

2 The birth of the Islamic state

3 Conquest and division in the time of the Rāshidūn caliphs

4 The Umayyad caliphate

5 The early ‘Abbasid caliphate

6 The middle ‘Abbasid caliphate

7 The early Islamic economy

8 The structure of politics in the Muslim commonwealth

9 The Buyid confederation

10 The Kurds

11 The Hamdanids

12 Bedouin political movements and dynasties

13 The Eastern Iranian world in the tenth and early eleventh centuries

14 Early Islamic Egypt and the Fatimid empire

Postscript: the coming of the Seljuks

Principal sources for the history of the Near East, 600–1050

Suggested further reading

Glossary

Index