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  3. Pre-Islamic Arabia
  • Cited by 5
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    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      February 2023
      February 2023
      ISBN:
      9781009252997
      9781009252966
      9781009253000
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009252997
      Dimensions:
      (235 x 154 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.56kg, 280 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (229 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.458kg, 280 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Ancient History, Classical Studies, Middle East Studies, Area Studies, History, Middle East History
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    Subjects:
    Ancient History, Classical Studies, Middle East Studies, Area Studies, History, Middle East History
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    Book description

    This book delves into the political and cultural developments of pre-Islamic Arabia, focusing on the religious attitudes of the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula and its northern extension into the Syrian desert. Between the third and the seventh century, Arabia was on the edge of three great empires (Iran, Rome and Aksūm) and at the centre of a lucrative network of trade routes. Valentina Grasso offers an interpretative framework which contextualizes the choice of Arabian elites to become Jewish sympathisers and/or convert to Christianity and Islam by probing the mobilization of faith in the shaping of Arabian identities. For the first time the Arabians of the period are granted autonomy from marginalizing (mostly Western) narratives framing them as 'barbarians' inhabiting the fringes of Rome and Iran and/or deterministic analyses in which they are depicted retrospectively as exemplified by the Muslims' definition of the period as Jāhilīyah, 'ignorance'.

    Awards

    Winner, 2023 Choice Awards

    Reviews

    ‘[A] wonderful exploration of a neglected area of late antiquity studies. It is this rarity that makes this work immensely important. … Essential.’

    J. Tucci Source: Choice

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