Early Christian and Islamic History

[Dr.Livingstone]

So, I'm interested in early Christian and Islamic History, basically everything from the social and political situation the Jews found themselves in during Roman occupation up until the flight of Umayyads to Spain and the Islamic SunnI-Shia split. To go into more detail, can I have a sources on the following:
1. The social and political factors that the Jewish people found themselves in under Roman Occupation.
2. The Age of Jesus and John the Baptist, what affect all these various religious movements had on the provinces of Judea, Egypt, and Asia.
3. Early Apostle history, hopefully with an annotated guide to the New Testament
4. The split of Christianity and Judaism, and the three Jewish Revolts
5. How Christianity spread in the first, second, and third centuries, what the treatment of the average Christian was like, and the relation of Christianity to other monotheistic movements.
6. Domitian's great purge, and Constantine's conversion and subsequent transformation of the Empire
7. The Early Church, and the conflicts between various heresies and parishes for power, with special focus on Arianism.
8. The Ecumenical council and the creation of the Papacy
9. A biography of Saint Ambrose, whom I just adore as a historical figure.
10. Christianity in the Late Empire and its reaction to the fall of the Eternal City.
11. The Missionary system as it spread west and north
12. The split between the Eastern and Western Church
13. The Social and Political situation the Arabian peninsula faced in the 6th and 7th century
14. An annotated guide to the Quran
15. The four good caliphs
16. The Rise and Fall of the Ummayads
17. The flight to Spain and the subsequent battle for France
18. The rise of Abbasids.
19. A detailed report of the Sunni-Shia split, as well as the fall of the Abbasids

It's a tall order, but I'm sure that at least one of you has a complete set of what I just asked for sitting in your book shelf, or, if your more modern, in your kindle. This is the paradox forums after all, and what are we besides a bunch of history nerds?

 

[Chamboozer]

I don't know what sort of detail you're looking for, but for the rise of the Abbasids you should see the fourth chapter of R. Stephen Humphreys' Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry. He provides a detailed encapsulation of the historiography of the Abbasid Revolution (up until 1991, the book's publication date) as well as the problems associated with it. It would give you a great overview of the topic and the literature associated with it.

 

[Dr.Livingstone]

I don't know what sort of detail you're looking for, but for the rise of the Abbasids you should see the fourth chapter of R. Stephen Humphreys' Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry. He provides a detailed encapsulation of the historiography of the Abbasid Revolution (up until 1991, the book's publication date) as well as the problems associated with it. It would give you a great overview of the topic and the literature associated with it.

Thanks! Do you know of any books that detail the rise printed after 1991?

 

[OnvreOrrivle]

Sadly most literature on the subject is one sided. I studied the catholic early part so ill recomend you Fliche and Y. Martin History of the church.
All other texts i read where in spanish

 

[MoreHistory]

Well I know how the shia, sunni split started.I'm muslim (sunni) so excuse me if you think this is a little biased. Pretty much what happened was when the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) died people of separate faiths such as jews and pagans were making rumors that Muhammad was actually stealing the information (of the quran) from his cousin Aly (peace be upon him). The idea was that since Aly was too young at the time to understand the revelations of the quran from the angel Gabriel it made Prophet Muhammad steal the information. At first if you were shia you were officially not muslim,until this famous shia man (i forgot his name) convinced the other shias that Muhammad didn't steal it.This man's idea was to divert their thought into not thinking Muhammad stole it but that Aly deserved it (being the prophet). Long story short the shias were mad that Aly wasn't the first khalifa or prophet. You might wonder why the jews and pagans would do this,well the main reason was to cause revolts against the sunnis so that the jews and pagans could make their own states. As you see it didn't work their way. Again sorry if you thought this was biased.

 

[Chamboozer]

Thanks! Do you know of any books that detail the rise printed after 1991?

Unfortunately the early Islamic period is outside of my own area of focus so I don't know of more up to date publications on this topic, except some which are only tangentially related.

 

[Seli]

It has been ages since I read them. But I remember enjoying The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels, which apparently (going by amazon reviews) focusses on how christian ideology was partly formed by its need to distinguish itself from the surrounding populations.

 

[Calad]

Damn, there is a really good book of question of 1-8. I just cant remember its name but book itself was very short, explained a lot and was scientific.

 

[Dr.Livingstone]

Damn, there is a really good book of question of 1-8. I just cant remember its name but book itself was very short, explained a lot and was scientific.

Huh, well if you remember it let me know.

 

[LatinKaiser]

I don't know if this is what you are looking for (in fact it very well may not be), but The Dark Ages by Isaac Asimov is a very good book that covers the entirety of the Migrations Period.

 

[Dr.Livingstone]

I don't know if this is what you are looking for (in fact it very well may not be), but The Dark Ages by Isaac Asimov is a very good book that covers the entirety of the Migrations Period.

My dear Latin, I'm always looking for an Asimov book.

 

[Henry IX]

This excellent lecture series contains lots of information related to the topics you are talking about.

 

[Ki-Koshi]

The rise of Islam (as a religious movement) is very nicely depicted in Fred Donners "Muhammed and the Believers"; I think he also published the history of al-Tabari which is the prime source for early Islamic history, if you're interested in such readings. Both Donner and Patricia Crone have published a lot of books on early Islamic history, which are considered to be very influential (at least according to my lecturer in Islamic history), you may want to have look at those. If you're able to read German you could also search for Heinz Halms publications, those were recommended to us as a first start for an overview of Islamic history in general; a commentated version of the Quran has also been published by fellow German scientist Tillmann Nagel.

Hope this may be of some help.

 

[Calad]

Huh, well if you remember it let me know.

Roots of Christianity: Michael Walsh 1986.

 

[Yakman]

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Gibbon

Go to the master.

 

[Dr.Livingstone]

This excellent lecture series contains lots of information related to the topics you are talking about.

The rise of Islam (as a religious movement) is very nicely depicted in Fred Donners "Muhammed and the Believers"; I think he also published the history of al-Tabari which is the prime source for early Islamic history, if you're interested in such readings. Both Donner and Patricia Crone have published a lot of books on early Islamic history, which are considered to be very influential (at least according to my lecturer in Islamic history), you may want to have look at those. If you're able to read German you could also search for Heinz Halms publications, those were recommended to us as a first start for an overview of Islamic history in general; a commentated version of the Quran has also been published by fellow German scientist Tillmann Nagel.

Hope this may be of some help.

Roots of Christianity: Michael Walsh 1986.

Thanks, these are exactly what I'm looking for!

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Gibbon

Go to the master.

Already had it in my file.

 

[LatinKaiser]

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Gibbon

Go to the master.

Gibbon is horribly overrated.

John Julius Norwich wrote a fantastic trilogy on the Byzantine Empire. I have only read the third book (Byzantium: The Decline and Fall), but I would imagine that the second book (Byzantium: The Apogee) would probably provide some good info on the Great Schism and the rise of Islam.

 

[Semper Victor]

For a direct, simple and "traditional" view of the ascents of Islam and the Caliphate, you could read Hugh Kennedy's The Great Arab Conquests. It's quite a readable book that offers a streamlined explanation, but doesn't question anything about traditional Islamic accounts. He has another book about the Abbasids (which I've not read) titled When Baghdad ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dinasty.

Robert G. Hoyland, scholar who is more questioning and incisive about traditional accounts, has two very interesting books about the rise of Islam:

• Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam. I'd say this is an imprescindible book for any thorough approach to the subject, because it analyses systematically Syriac, Armenian or Greek sources, which offer te older (often contemporary) accounts of the rise of Islam.
• In God's Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire. An excellent (if unorthodox) account of the Arab expansion.

Also he has another interesting book about the history of the Arabs before Islam: Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam.

Fred McGraw Donner's Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam has also been recommended by other forumites. In this 2010 book Donner offers a vision of early Islam that's becoming the mainstream one in academic circles right now and which has incorporated some (not all) of the controverted thesis of Patricia Crone and Michael Crook's 1977 book Hagarism.

Another fundamental sourcebook to get a wider picture of the rise of Islam is James Howard-Johnston's Witnesses to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century, another analysis of extant sources from the VII century.

For a vision about the formation of classical Islamic societies along the centuries, a good book is Jonathan P. Berkey's The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-1800.

G.R. Hawting has authored two important books about the origins and early evolution if Islam:

• The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate AD 661-750
• The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History

About the Islamic conquest of al-Andalus, most of the books I know are not available in English. Two that were written in this language are Roger Collins' The Arab Conquest 710-797 (a book written in the 1980s, quite influential in its time) and Osprey's monographic volume Poitiers AD 732: Charles Martel turns the Islamic tide, by David Nicolle.

If you can read Spanish, I'd recommend strongly España 702-719: La conquista musulmana by Luis A. García Moreno and Conquistadores, emires y califas by Eduardo Manzano.

 

[Tufto]

Gibbon is horribly overrated.

John Julius Norwich wrote a fantastic trilogy on the Byzantine Empire. I have only read the third book (Byzantium: The Decline and Fall), but I would imagine that the second book (Byzantium: The Apogee) would probably provide some good info on the Great Schism and the rise of Islam.

I believe it's covered in "The Early Centuries" rather than "The Apogee".

But Norwich's books are outdated historiographically, even if they are very fine reads. Though it's not quite as bad as recommending freaking Gibbon *glares angrily at Yakman.*

 

[Yakman]

I believe it's covered in "The Early Centuries" rather than "The Apogee".

But Norwich's books are outdated historiographically, even if they are very fine reads. Though it's not quite as bad as recommending freaking Gibbon *glares angrily at Yakman.*

For the time period he's talking about? Yes, Gibbon is a good read.

Because why? HE'S A GOOD WRITER.

His facts are on point, his style is incredible, and he talks about lots of different things which help inspire the mind. Gibbon is awesome, even if, as I do, you disagree with his central thesis.