Abbreviations xi
Chapter 1. INCLUDING ISLAM 1
The West and the Rest 1
Edward Gibbon 5
Islam and late Antiquity 9
Summary 15
Chapter 2. TIME: BEYOND LATE ANTIQUITY 18
The roots of late antique studies 18
Burckhardt to Strzygowski 23
The Orient and Islam: Views from Vienna 30
Pirenne to the present 37
Chapter 3. A NEW PERIODIZATION: THE FIRST MILLENNIUM 49
Decline versus transformation 49
Maturations 53
Monotheist historiography 68
For and against the First Millennium 82
Chapter 4. SPACE: AN EASTWARD SHIFT 92
Discovering the Mediterranean 92
Discovering the East 96
Empires and commonwealths 101
The Mountain Arena 116
Chapter 5. EXEGETICAL CULTURES 1: ARISTOTELIANISM 127
Greek Aristotelianism 129
Christian polemic 136
Aristotle in Latin, Armenian, and Syriac 139
Alexandria to Baghdad 146
Arabic Aristotelianism 153
Chapter 6. EXEGETICAL CULTURES 2: LAW AND RELIGION 164
Roman law 166
Rabbinic Judaism 173
Patristic Christianity 181
Islam 188
Chapter 7. VIEWPOINTS AROUND 1000: ?US, BASRA,
BAGHDAD, PISA 198
Tus/Iran 199
Basra/Encyclopedism 204
Baghdad/Rationality 207
Pisa/The Latin West 212
Prospects for Further Research 219
Map: the Eurasian Hinge, with Circum-Arabian Trade Routes 106