Hugh Kennedy

Presents a history of the Abbasid dynasty, the founders of Baghdad, and discusses the politics, military conquests, court life, palace bureacracy, culture, and arts which characterized the era.

The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty

When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World

Fanny Bessard

Land and Trade in Early Islam discusses the latest developments in the field of early Islamic economic and social history, and explores the notion of polycentrism and the dialectic between global and local between 700 and 1050 CE. The volume explores the political mechanisms and the role of Islamic states in regulating and developing demand in the economy. The chapters question the binary of core/periphery, and demonstrate how the growing scholarship on the liminal regions of the Caliphate has transformed our understanding of the early Islamic world by offering a more nuanced picture of its regional urban and socio-economic dynamics. Changes in the peripheries of the early medieval Caliphate have traditionally been conceived as resulting from initiatives by the core. An increased focus on the comparatively under-explored regions in central Asia, north Africa, south-east Asia and the Caucasus has thrown this into question. Land and Trade in Early Islam draws on this growing body of scholarship to question the notion of peripherality, explore lines of economic influence and interdependence, and to better understand the regional economic, social and political dynamics of this period.

The Economy of the Islamic Middle East 750-1050 CE

Land and Trade in Early Islam

In the tradition of F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise and Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City, a first novel that brilliantly reflects life in the '90s. It is the story of Alex, a native of Maine who arrives at Yale full of anxieties about his modest background. He soon falls in love with Jill, a senior whose sexual politics lead to a violent confrontation.

A Novel

Everything Looks Impressive

Professor of Arabic Hugh Kennedy

Examines the history of the great Islamic expansion, reveals how the Arab armies were able to overcome almost everything in their path, and brings to light the unique characteristics of Islamic settlement in new lands and the conversion to Islam of vast populations.

How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In

The Great Arab Conquests

The Prophet and the Age of Caliphates is an accessible history of the Near East from c.600-1050AD, the period in which Islamic society was formed. Beginning with the life of Muhammad and the birth of Islam, Hugh Kennedy goes on to explore the great Arab conquests of the seventh century and the golden age of the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates when the world of Islam was politically and culturally far more developed than the West. The arrival of the Seljuk Turks and the period of political fragmentation which followed shattered this early unity, never to be recovered. This new edition is fully updated to take into account the considerable amount of new research on early Islam, and contains a completely revised bibliography. Based on extensive reading of the original Arabic sources, Kennedy breaks away from the Orientalist tradition of seeing early Islamic history as a series of ephemeral rulers and pointless battles by drawing attention to underlying long term social and economic processes. The Prophet and the Age of Caliphates deals with issues of continuing and increasing relevance in the twenty-first century, when it is, perhaps, more important than ever to understand the early development of the Islamic world. Students and scholars of early Islamic history will find this book a clear, informative and readable introduction to the subject.

The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century

The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates

Mike O’Toole

What do electric shavers, craft beer, and DNA tests all have in common? They were all revolutionized by the Unconventionals. We've had our expectations turned upside down by leading brands like Converse, General Electric, and Waze simply because they saw things differently. How did they do that? By simply questioning the prevailing wisdom which then created outsized results and lasting change. Based on the award-winning podcast, The Unconventionals chronicles the amazing stories behind these solid business successes and shows you how reinventing your company (or starting a new one) can be easier than you think! Through in-depth interviews with the business visionaries who turned the unexpected into the expected you will learn how to become unconventional, too!

How Rebel Companies Are Changing Markets, Hearts, and Minds—and How You Can Too

The Unconventionals

This is the first study in English of the political history of Muslim Spain and Portugal, based on Arab sources. It provides comprehensive coverage of events across the whole of the region from 711 to the fall of Granada in 1492. Up till now the history of this region has been badly neglected in comparison with studies of other states in medieval Europe. When considered at all, it has been largely written from Christian sources and seen in terms of the Christian Reconquest. Hugh Kennedy raises the profile of this important area, bringing the subject alive with vivid translations from Arab sources. This will be fascinating reading for historians of medieval Europe and for historians of the middle east drawing out the similarities and contrasts with other areas of the Muslim world.

A Political History of al-Andalus

Muslim Spain and Portugal

This book investigates the Muslim castles of greater Syria from c.700 to c.1700 from archaeological and historical perspectives.

From the Coming of Islam to the Ottoman Period

Muslim Military Architecture in Greater Syria

The Armies of the Caliphs is the first major study of the relationship between army and society in the early Islamic period, and reveals the pivotal role of the military in politics. Through a thorough examination of recruitment, payment, weaponry and fortifications in the armies, The Armies of the Caliphs offers the most comprehensive view to date of how the early Muslim Empire grew to control so many people. Using Arabic chronicles, surviving documents, and archaeological evidence, this book analyzes the military and the face of battle, and offers a timely reassessment of the early Islamic State.

Military and Society in the Early Islamic State

The Armies of the Caliphs

The early Abbasid Caliphate was an important period for Islam. The dynasty, based in Baghdad, ruled over a vast Empire, stretching from the Indus Valley and Southern Russia to the East to Tunisia in the West; and presided over an age of brilliant cultural achievements. This study, first published in 1981, examines the Abbasid Caliphs from their coming to power in 750 AD, to the death of the Caliph al-Ma’mun in 833 AD, when the period of Turkish domination began. It looks at the political history of the period, and also considers the social and economic factors, showing how they developed and influenced political life. The work is designed as a unique introduction to the period, and will prove invaluable to all students involved with Islamic, Byzantine and Mediterranean history and culture.

A Political History

The Early Abbasid Caliphate

What is a caliphate? Who can be caliph? And how are contemporary ideologues such as ISIS reviving - and abusing - the term today? In the first modern account of a subject of critical importance today, acclaimed historian Hugh Kennedy answers these questions by chronicling the rich history of the caliphate, from the death of Muhammad to the present. At its height, the caliphate stretched from Spain to China and was the most powerful political entity in western Eurasia. In an era when Paris and London boasted a few thousand inhabitants, Baghdad and Cairo were sophisticated centres of trade and culture, and the Ummayad and Abbasid caliphates were distinguished by extraordinary advances in science, medicine and architecture. By ending with the recent re-emergence of caliphal ideology within fundamentalist Islam, The Caliphate underscores why it is crucial that we understand this form of Islamic government before groups such as ISIS distort its practice completely.

Hugh Kennedy

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