Between Memory and Power

Antoine Borrut is Associate Professor of Islamic History at the University of Maryland. He has published many articles and co-edited volumes, including Umayyad Legacies: Medieval Memories from Syria to Spain (Brill, 2010) and Christians and Others in the Umayyad State (Chicago, 2016).

• Preface to the English Translation (2022)Acknowledgements to the French Edition (2011)Translator’s NoteList of IllustrationsAbbreviationsIntroduction1 A Time of Writings and Rewritings: Writing History in the Syrian Space1.1 Narrative Islamic Sources and the Question of Their Transmission1.2 Writing History in the Syrian Space under the Late Umayyads and Early Abbasids2 A Time of Writings and Rewritings: Historiographic Filters and Vulgates2.1 In Search of Umayyad Historiographic Projects2.2 Toward a Historiographic Vulgate: The History of Syria Rewritten in Abbasid Iraq3 A Time of Writings and Rewritings: Sources on the Margins of the Historiographic Vulgate?3.1 Islamic Sources on the Margins of the Vulgate?3.2 Non-Muslim Sources: “External” or “Eastern” Sources?4 The Second/Eight-Century Syrian Space: Between Memory and Oblivion4.1 Memoria as an Object of Study4.2 Umayyad Memoria4.3 Spaces of Memory5 The Creation of Umayyad Heroes Maslama B. ʿAbd Al-Malik, Combat Hero5.1 The Siege of Constantinople: Military Failure, Narrative Success5.2 From Hero of the Byzantine Frontier to Islamic Hero?5.3 Eschatology and the Creation of Heroes6 The Creation of Umayyad Heroes: ʿUmar B. ʿAbd Al-ʿAziz, the “Holy” Caliph6.1 ʿUmar II in the Islamic Tradition6.2 ʿUmar II in the Christian Sources6.3 Constructing the Image of the Pious Caliph: Stages and Conditions7 Interpreting the Abbasid Revolution in the Syrian Space7.1 The Abbasid Revolution: Medieval and Modern Vulgates7.2 Syrian Memories of the Abbasid Revolution7.3 ʿAbd Allāh B. ʿAlī and the Allure of a Syrian Abbasid Caliphate?8 Exercising Power in the Syrian Space in the Second/Eighth Century: A History of Meanings8.1 Patrimonialism and the Creation of a Caliphal Landscape8.2 The Mobile Exercise of Power8.3 Abbasid ReconfigurationsConclusionSourcesBibliographyIndex