The module will examine the history of the caliphate in the central Islamic lands from the death of Prophet Muhammad in 632 until the breakup of the political unity of the Muslim world in the tenth century. The first quarter of the course will look at the Muslim’s conquests of the central Islamic lands and the reasons why they were able to overcome the old established Roman and Sasanian Empires. It will also look at the administrative arrangements put in place to tax the conquered lands and to reward the Arab conquerors and their descendants. Seminars will also investigate the growing divisions within the Muslim umma and the emergence of proto-Sunni and proto-Shi’ite parties with their own distinctive ideology. Finally it will open the discussion of the meaning of the titles caliph, Commander of the Faithful and the term sultan.

The second section will be concerned with the Umayyad caliphate (661-750) including its establishment and its claims to legitimacy, its administrative and fiscal structures and the rifts within the ruling elite which led to its eventual collapse. There will be classes on the question of trade, in both Mediterranean and Indian Ocean spheres, and a comparison of post-late antique political structure in the Islamic world on hand and Byzantium and western Europe on the other.

The third section will focus on the Abbasid caliphate. It will start by discussing the Abbasid Revolution of 747-50, the reasons for its success and the question of continuity and rupture with Umayyad regime. One seminar will be devoted to Baghdad, the emergence of the great city and its impact on the economy of the Muslim world, another will concentrate on the political and social upheaval of the civil war which followed the death of Harun al-Rashid in 809 and the emergence of the so-called slave armies. There will also be discussion of the cultural efflorescence of this period, the emergence of Islamic law and the impact of the introduction of paper on writerly culture.

The final section will deal with the beak up of the caliphate in the tenth century. There will be two main strands to this, the economic collapse of the resource base in Greater Mesopotamia on one hand and the development of “regional Islams” in the provinces of the caliphate as conversion to Islam gathered pace. The course will end with a critique of the idea of the “Muslim Commonwealth” in the post-Abbasid period.

The reading will emphasise Arabic historical accounts in English translation, now widely available, but also archaeological and material culture evidence.