NOTES
CHAPTER ONE: IN THE NAME OF THE LORD
1.
This description relies on Stephen Humphries,
Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry
(Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1991), 92–98, and W Montgomery Watt,
Islamic Political Thought
(Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 1968), 4–9 and appendix. Watt relies on the account of Ibn Ishaq, one of the canonical biographers of the Prophet, who wrote in the eighth century For pre-Islamic alliances, see Michael Cook,
Forbidding Wrong in Islam
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 150ff Some scholars question whether this agreement actually existed and believe that it was invented by chroniclers writing several hundred years after the fact. But to dismiss the notion entirely seems foolish. See John Wansbrough,
Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), and Patricia Crone and Michael Cook,
Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).
2.
Abu-l Abbas Ahmad ibn Jabir al-Baladhuri,
The Origins of the Islamic State
, trans. Philip Khuri Hitti (Piscataway NJ.: Gorgias Press, 2002), 33. This is a reprint of the original 1916 edition, published by Columbia University Press.
3.
Passages from the Quran are taken from A. J. Arberry
The Koran Interpreted (New
York: Touchstone, 1955, 1996).
4.
The account was written by the Armenian historian Sebeos and is quoted in A. A. Vasiliev,
History of the Byzantine Empire
, vol. I (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1952), 199. See also George Ostrogorsky
History of the Byzantine State
(London: Blackwell, 1956), 110ff. For a unique take on the origin of the caliphate, see Patricia Crone,
God’s Rule: Government and Islam
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2004).
5.
See Claude Cahen, “Dhimma,” in
The Encyclopedia of Islam
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991); Bat Ye’or,
The Decline of Eastern Christianity: From Jihad to Dhimmitude
(London, 1996), 121ff.; Suhayl Qasha,
Al-Masihiyan fi al-Dawlah al-Islamiya
[Christians in the Muslim State] (Beirut: Dar al-Malak, 2002), 54ff; C. E. Bosworth, “The Concept of Dhimma in Early Islam,” in Bosworth,
The Arab, Byzantium, and Iran
(Burlington, Vt: Ashgate Publishing, 1996), 285ff.
6.
Quoted Khalid ibn al-Walid, and the inhabitants of Hims all quoted in al-Baladhuri,
The Origins of the Islamic State
, 187, 211. Though some of the depiction of Christians and Jews rushing to the side of the Arabs may be exaggerated by al-Baladhuri, he is far from the only early historian to record the widespread discontent with Byzantine rule.
7.
See for instance Ibn Abd al-Hakam,
History of the Conquests of Egypt, North Africa, and Spain
, ed. Charles Torrey (Piscataway NJ.: Gorgias Press, 2002), and Jamal al-Din Shayyal,
Tarikh Misr al-Islamiya
[The Islamic History of Egypt] (Alexandria: Dar al-Ma’arif, 1967).
8.
Chase F. Robinson,
Empire and Elites After the Muslim Conquest: The Transformation of Northern Mesopotamia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 28ff
9.
For the best analysis of conversion to Islam, see Richard Bulliet,
Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979). For a detailed analysis of Quran 2:256, see Yohanan Friedmann,
Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in Muslim Tradition
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 100ff.
10.
A good account of the fall of Jerusalem and Umar’s visit can be found in Karen Armstrong,
Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths
(New York: Knopf, 1996), 226–34. For Sophronius, see Robert Hoyland,
Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam
(Princeton, NJ.: Darwin Press, 1997), 66–74.
11.
Hoyland,
Seeing Islam as Others Saw It
, 480ff; Hugh Goddard,
A History of Muslim-Christian Relations
(Chicago: New Amsterdam Books, 2000), 38–41.
CHAPTER TWO: AT THE COURT OF THE CALIPH
1.
Dimitri Gutas,
Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Abbasid Society
(New York: Routledge, 1998), 28ff Timothy quotation from Sydney Griffith,
Arabic Christianity in the Monasteries of Ninth-Century Palestine
(Burlington, Vt: Ashgate Publishing, 1992), 140–45. See also Hugh Kennedy,
The Early Abbasid Caliphate
(London: Croom & Helm, 1981); Jacob Lassner,
The Shaping of Abbasid Rule
(Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1980); al-Tabari,
The Early Abbasid Empire
, vol. 2, trans. John Alden Williams (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
2.
For the building of Baghdad, see Hugh Kennedy,
The Court of the Caliphs: The Rise and Fall of Islam’s Greatest Dynasty
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2005), 132ff.
3.
Sydney Griffith,
The Beginnings of Christian Theology in Arabic: Muslim-Christian Encounters in the Early Islamic Period
(Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2002), 155ff; Majid Fakhry
Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Mysticism
(Oxford, England: Oneworld, 1997); Ignaz Goldziher,
Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law
(Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1991); Hoyland, 454–56; Goddard, 52–54; Louis Cheikho,
Ulama’ al-Nasraniyah fi al-Islam, 622–1300
[Christian Scholars Under Islam] (Juniyah, Lebanon: al-Maktabah al-Bulusiyah, 1983).
4.
Qasha, 110; G. Stange,
Baghdad During the Abbasid Caliphate
(London: Oxford University Press, 1924), 202ff.
5.
The best study, bar none, of this process is Richard Bulliet,
Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979).
6.
Abu Nuwas quoted in Eric Schroeder,
Muhammad’s People: An Anthology of Muslim Civilization
(Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 1955, 2002), 315. Also see Marshall C. S. Hodgson,
The Venture of Islam
, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 462–63.
7.
See Dimitri Gutas, 58–60, for the argument that the
bayt al-hikma
was little more than a simple library.
8.
Quoted in Schroeder, 366–67.
9.
Al-Ma’mun quoted in al-Tabari,
The History of al-Tabari
, vol. 32, trans. C. E. Bosworth (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), 100–101. For al-Kindi, see Fakhry 21–29, and Felix Klein-Franke, “Al-Kindi,” in Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, eds.,
History of Islamic Philosophy: Part 1
(London: Routledge, 1996), 165ff.
10.
Both al-Jahiz and the chief judge quoted in Bernard Lewis,
The Jews of Islam
(Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1984), 15, 59–60.
11.
This exchange is frequently cited, and the translation here is from Hugh Kennedy, 80–81. See also J. J. Saunders,
A History of Medieval Islam
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965), 114; C. E. Bosworth,
The Arab, Byzantium and Iran
(Burlington, Vt: Ashgate Publishing, 1996).
12.
See Alessandro Barbero,
Charlemagne: Father of a Continent
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 90–91; Richard Fletcher,
The Cross and the Crescent: Christianity and Islam from Muhammad to the Reformation
(New York: Viking, 2004), 50ff
13.
Al-Tabari,
The History of al-Tabari
, vol. 32, 195–97.
CHAPTER THREE: THE SACRIFICE OF ISAAC
1.
There have been many accounts of the Córdoban martyrs. See Jessica Coope,
The Martyrs of Córdoba: Community and Family Conflict in an Age of Mass Conversion
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995); Norman Daniel,
The Arabs and Mediaeval Europe
(London: Longman, 1975), 230–48; Kenneth Baxter Wolf,
Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Also, Paul Alvarus, “The Life of Eulogius,” in Olivia Remie Constable, ed.,
Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), 48–51. For the text of the surrender of Murcia, see Constable, 37.
2.
The phrase “ornament of the world” comes from the Saxon writer Hroswitha in the tenth century and is used as the title of Maria Rosa Menocal’s superb study,
The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain
(New York: Little Brown, 2002). Earlier Paul Alvarus quotation from Menocal, 66. The phrase “men who worship God and acknowledge heavenly laws” is from John McManners,
The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity.
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
3.
The excerpt from the life of John of Gorze and descriptions of tenth-century Córdoba come from Richard Fletcher,
Moorish Spain
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 66–70; see also Richard Reilly
The Medieval Spains
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
4.
See S. D. Goitein,
A Mediterranean Society: An Abridgement in One Volume
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). This is a condensed version of Goitein’s lifetime study of the documents of the Cairo Geniza, charting the intricate commercial ties between Jews throughout the Mediterranean. See also Olivia Remie Constable,
Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
5.
Translations of these letters can be found at the Web site
www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/khazars1.html
, which is part of the Internet Medieval Source-book compiled by the Fordham Center for Medieval Studies and edited by Paul Halsall. See also Douglas M. Dunlop,
A History of the Jewish Khazars
(Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1954); Jane Gerber,
The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience
(New York: Free Press, 1992), 46–61; Vivian Mann et al., eds.,
Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval Spain
(New York: Braziller and the Jewish Museum, 1992), 40–44.
6.
The description of Samuel as a lover of knowledge comes from Moses ibn Ezra, “Kitab al-Muarah,” from Joseph Jacobs, “Samuel Ha-Nagid,” in
www.jewishencyclopedia.com
. See also Jefim Schirmann, “Samuel Hannagid, the Man, the Soldier, the Politician,”
Jewish Social Studies
2 (April 1951), 107. The excerpted poem that begins “Man’s wisdom…” is from David Goldstein,
Hebrew Poems from Spain
(New York: Schocken Books, 1996). For the Nagid’s poem in which he calls himself “the David of his age,” see Menocal, 102. For the poem describing the carnage of the battlefield, see Israel Zinberg,
History of Jewish Literature: Arabic-Spanish Period
, trans. Bernard Martin (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University Press, 1972).
7.
From Constable, ed.,
Medieval Iberia
, 97–99.