A History of Islamic Societies

Ira Lapidus' history explores the beginnings and transformations of Islamic civilizations in the Middle East and details Islam's worldwide diffusion.

Ira M. Lapidus (Author)

9780521732970, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 October 2014

1017 pages, 42 b/w illus. 39 maps 19 tables
25.4 x 17.7 x 3.8 cm, 1.59 kg

Review of previous edition: 'By this singular work Lapidus, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Berkeley, has … placed himself in the recording of Islamic history on a pedestal equivalent to Gibbon's for that of Rome.' The Book Review Literary Trust, New Delhi

This new edition of one of the most widely used course books on Islamic civilizations around the world has been substantially revised to incorporate the new scholarship and insights of the last twenty-five years. Ira Lapidus' history explores the beginnings and transformations of Islamic civilizations in the Middle East and details Islam's worldwide diffusion. The history is divided into four parts. Part I is a comprehensive account of pre-Islamic late antiquity; the beginnings of Islam; the early Islamic empires; and Islamic religious, artistic, legal and intellectual cultures. Part II deals with the construction in the Middle East of Islamic religious communities and states to the fifteenth century. Part III includes the history to the nineteenth century of Islamic North Africa and Spain; the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires; and other Islamic societies in Asia and Africa. Part IV accounts for the impact of European commercial and imperial domination on Islamic societies and traces the development of the modern national state system and the simultaneous Islamic revival from the early nineteenth century to the present.

Introduction to Islamic societies
Part I. The Beginnings of Islamic Civilizations: 1. Middle Eastern societies before Islam
2. Historians and the sources
3. Arabia
4. Muhammad: preaching, community, and state formation
5. Introduction to the Arab-Muslim empires
6. The Arab-Muslim conquests and the socioeconomic bases of empire
7. Regional developments: economic and social change
8. The Caliphate to 750
9. The 'Abbasid Empire
10. Decline and fall of the 'Abbasid Empire
11. Introduction: religion and identity
12. The ideology of imperial Islam
13. The 'Abbasids: Caliphs and emperors
14. Introduction
15. Sunni Islam
16. Shi'i Islam
17. Muslim urban societies to the tenth century
18. The non-Muslim minorities
19. Continuity and change in the historic cultures of the Middle East
Part II. From Islamic Community to Islamic Society: 20. The Post- 'Abbasid Middle Eastern state system
21. Muslim communities and Middle Eastern societies: 1000–1500 CE
22. The collective ideal
23. The personal ethic
24. Conclusion: Middle Eastern Islamic patterns
Part III. The Global Expansion of Islam from the Seventh to the Nineteenth Century: 25. Introduction: Islamic institutions
26. Islamic North Africa to the thirteenth century
27. Spanish-Islamic civilization
28. Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco from the thirteenth to the nineteenth centuries
29. States and Islam: North African variations
30. Introduction: empires and societies
31. The Turkish migrations and the Ottoman Empire
32. The postclassical Ottoman Empire: decentralization, commercialization, and incorporation
33. The Arab provinces under Ottoman rule
34. The Safavid Empire
35. The Indian subcontinent: the Delhi Sultanates and the Mughal Empire
36. Islamic empires compared
37. Inner Asia from the Mongol conquests to the nineteenth century
38. Islamic societies in Southeast Asia
39. The African context: Islam, slavery, and colonialism
40. Islam in Sudanic, Savannah, and forest West Africa
41. The West African Jihads
42. Islam in East Africa and the European colonial empires
43. The varieties of Islamic societies
44. The global context
Part IV. The Modern Transformation: 45. Introduction: imperialism, modernity, and the transformation of Muslim societies
46. The dissolution of the Ottoman empire and the modernization of Turkey
47. Iran: state and religion in the modern era
48. Egypt: secularism and Islamic modernity
49. The Arab east: Arabism, military states, and Islam
50. The Arabian peninsula
51. North Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
52. Women in the Middle East: 19th–21st centuries
53. Muslims in Russia, the Caucasus, Inner Asia, and China
54. The Indian subcontinent: India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh
55. Islam in Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines
56. Islam in West Africa
57. Islam in East Africa
58. Universal Islam and African diversity
59. Muslims in Europe and America
Conclusion: secularized Islam and Islamic revival.

Subject Areas: Islam [HRH], Social & cultural history [HBTB], General & world history [HBG]