Circa AD 750, both the Islamic world and western Europe underwent political revolutions; these raised to power, respectively, the ʿAbbasid and Carolingian dynasties. The eras thus inaugurated were similar not only in their chronology, but also in the foundational role each played in its respective civilization, forming and shaping enduring religious, cultural, and societal institutions.
The "ʿAbbāsid and Carolingian Empires: Studies in Civilizational Formation", is the first collected volume ever dedicated specifically to comparative Carolingian-ʿAbbasid history. In it, editor D. G. Tor brings together essays from some of the leading historians in order to elucidate some of the parallel developments in each of these civilizations, many of which persisted not only throughout the Middle Ages, but to the present day.
Author(s): Deborah G. Tor (ed.)
Series: Islamic History and Civilization. Studies and Texts, 150
Publisher: Brill
Year: 2018
Language: English
Pages: X+232
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction. The ʿAbbasid and Carolingian Dynasties in Comparative Perspective / D. G. Tor 3
Part 1. Political Power
Inventing the Missi: Delegating Power in the Late Eighth and Early Ninth Centuries / Jennifer R. Davis 13
Ḥasanwayh b. al-Ḥusayn al-Kurdī (r. ca. 350–369/ca. 961–979): From Freehold Castles to Vassality? / Jürgen Paul 52
Part 2. Culture, Ethnicity, and Geography
The Emperor’s Ass: Hunting for the Asiatic Onager ('Equus hemionus') in the ʿAbbasid, Byzantine, and Carolingian Worlds / Eric J. Goldberg 73
Ethnicity in the Carolingian Empire / Walter Pohl 102
Across the Hindūkush of the ʿAbbasid Period / Minoru Inaba 123
Part 3. Religion
Columbanus, the Columbanian Tradition and Caesarius / Ian Wood 153
The Rebel and the Imam: The Uprising of Zayd al-Nār and Shiʿi Leadership Claims / Robert Gleave 169
Final Summation. Comparing Carolingians and ʿAbbasids / Michael Cook 192
Index 225
