Land and Trade in Early Islam

Hugh Kennedy, Fanny Bessard

"This collection of essays sheds new light on the economy of the Islamic Middle East in the three centuries from 750 to 1050 CE, a period when this area sustained the largest and most complex economic systems in Western Eurasia. It is also a period which has been largely neglected by modern scholarship which has focussed on the transition from Late Antiquity to Islam or the impact of the coming of the Franks to the Eastern Mediterranean from the eleventh century on. The essays in the volume investigate the causes of this development and the interactions of different factors. These papers are characterised by the use of both textual and archaeological evidence and the insights gained from the interaction between them. It also examines the relationships between core and periphery, visiting such economic area as Armenia, the Red Sea, Khuzistan and North Africa. Among other specific...