Abstract

This monograph contains a number of significant yet underexamined incidents of the centuries-long history of the Arab East. Although the monograph presents a broad overview of the Arab history during the ancient times, Middle Ages and modern era, the author pays special attention to the issues of spaces in the Arab and Muslim history. Drawing on specific historical cases, the monograph author explains how ancient authors perceived Arabs and what we know about the structure, movements and achievements of pre-Islamic Arab tribes; how Arab writers described the lands beyond Dar al-Islam and what they thought of the foreigners who came from there; how the Arab geographic literature combined real knowledge and mythologized beliefs; how nomadic and urban spaces co-existed in the Muslim West and how the space of Andalusian mosques was structured; how social and semantic spaces of the Arab world were formed in the late Middle Ages and modern era.

Imprint

Spaces and meanings. Memorable chapters of the Arab world history: monograph / RAS Institute of Oriental Studies. – М.: ООО «Sadra», 2018. – 272 p. – [Islamic and pre-Islamic worlds: history and politics].