Posted by 
By Hugh Kennedy
The Armies of the Caliphs is the 1st significant research of the connection among military and society within the early Islamic interval, and divulges the pivotal function of the army in politics. via a thorough examination of recruitment, fee, weaponry and fortifications within the armies, The Armies of the Caliphs deals the main finished view so far of the way the early Muslim Empire grew to regulate such a lot of humans. utilizing Arabic chronicles, surviving files, and archaeological proof, this e-book analyzes the army and the face of conflict, and gives a well timed reassessment of the early Islamic nation.
Read Online or Download The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State (Warfare and History) PDF
Similar middle east books
City of Oranges: Arabs and Jews in Jaffa
Jaffa - famed for its orange groves - was once for hundreds of years a urban of investors, retailers, lecturers and directors, domestic to Muslims, Christians and Jews alike. that's, until eventually the founding of the nation of Israel, which was once concurrently a second of jubilation for the Jews and a catastrophe - the Naqba - for the 100,000 Arabs who fled Jaffa in 1948.
Post-Colonial Syria and Lebanon: The Decline of Arab Nationalism and the Triumph of the State
The advanced dating among Syria and Lebanon is the political fulcrum of the center East, and has ruled headlines because the withdrawal of French colonial forces from the Levant in 1943. one of many nice paradoxes of this dating is how such very diversified political structures emerged in what many Syrian and Lebanese humans see as one society.
A History of the Arabian Peninsula
The significance of this assortment lies in its origins: for the 1st time, best Saudi Arabian historians have created a heritage of the Arabian Peninsula which analyzes that background from an inner Arabian point of view. The booklet explores the unique Bedouin payment of the quarter, the advance of the most important city components of Arabia through the Umayyad interval, the socio-political and monetary advancements within the Hijad and Najd as much as the eighteenth century into the trendy period and the increase and improvement of the Saudi nation.
Commanding Syria: Bashar al-Asad and the First Years in Power
This is often the 1st significant paintings on Bashar al-Asad. It assesses the sturdiness of his father, Hafiz's legacy together with the chronic impression of the outdated power-brokers, the effectiveness of Bashar's makes an attempt to maneuver clear of his father's shadow, and the customers for reform. peculiarly, it evaluates Bashar's carrying on with carry on strength following Syria's humiliating retreat from Lebanon in Spring 2005 and the competitive American force to impose democracy within the heart East.
Additional resources for The Armies of the Caliphs: Military and Society in the Early Islamic State (Warfare and History)
Example text
18 Donner, ‘Centralized Authority’, 347. Donner, ‘The Growth of Military Institutions in the Early Caliphate and their Relation to Civilian Authority’, Al-Qantara, xiv (1991), 311–26. 20 For military equipment, see pp. 173–8. E. Yapp (eds), War, Technology, and Society in the Middle East (Oxford, 1975), 32–43 which, despite the author’s somewhat cavalier attitude to the sources, makes some interesting observations. 22 For further discussion, see Morony, Iraq after the Muslim Conquest (Princeton, 1984), 197–8; the traditions about these troops have been collected and discussed in I.
61 The khandaq described here was obviously a well-defended quadrilateral enclosure. 62 Some khandaqs were clearly quite substantial structures. 64 ‘Abd al-Hamīd al-Kātib, writing at the end of the Umayyad period, gives instructions for the construction of a khandaq. After the baggage has been set down and the army has been assigned its places to stay, before any tents are set up. Each officer (qā’id) should be assigned a section of ground which he is to dig a trench (khandaq). It should be defended by hasak (either thorns or artificial caltrops).
The problem is rather that the figures often contradict each other and many seem to be formulaic round numbers rather than real assessments. Nor is there a clear relationship between the overall figures for men and their families enrolled in the dīwāns, and the numbers who could actually be recruited for military action. As a rule of thumb, I would like to suggest that the figures given in the sources may well be out by a factor of two, but unlikely to be out by a factor of 10: that is, a figure of 40000 may represent 20000 or 60000 but is unlikely to represent 4000 or 400000.