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From the dawn of writing in Sumer to the sunset of the Islamic empire, Founding Gods, Inventing Nations traces four thousand years of speculation on the origins of civilization. Investigating a vast range of primary sources, some of which are translated here for the first time, and focusing on the dynamic influence of the Greek, Roman, and Arab conquests of the Near East, William McCants looks at the ways the conquerors and those they conquered reshaped their myths of civilization's origins in response to the social and political consequences of empire. The Greek and Roman conquests brought with them a learned culture that competed with that of native elites. The conquering Arabs, in contrast, had no learned culture, which led to three hundred years of Muslim competition over the cultural orientation of Islam, a contest reflected in the culture myths of that time. What we know today as Islamic culture is the product of this contest, whose protagonists drew heavily on the lore of non-Arab and pagan antiquity. McCants argues that authors in all three periods did not write about civilization's origins solely out of pure antiquarian interest--they also sought to address the social and political tensions of the day. The strategies they employed and the postcolonial dilemmas they confronted provide invaluable context for understanding how authors today use myth and history to locate themselves in the confusing aftermath of empire.

Mythology, Middle Eastern --- Greeks --- Romans --- Arabs --- Acculturation --- History --- Middle East --- Civilization --- Historiography --- Philosophy --- Intellectual life --- Colonization --- Greeks - Middle East - History --- Romans - Middle East - History --- Arabs - Middle East - History --- Acculturation - Middle East - History --- Middle East - Civilization - Historiography --- Middle East - Civilization - Philosophy --- Civilization - Philosophy --- Middle East - Intellectual life --- Middle East - Colonization --- Mythology, Middle Eastern. --- History. --- Philosophy. --- Historiography. --- Intellectual life. --- Colonization. --- Arab conquests. --- Arabs. --- Greek conquests. --- Greek ethnography. --- Greek philosophy. --- Greeks. --- Ibn Qutayba. --- Islam. --- Islamic culture. --- Islamic thinking. --- Jews. --- Muhammad. --- Near East. --- Pliny. --- Qur'an. --- Roman conquests. --- Romans. --- ancient Greece. --- ancient culture. --- ancient mythology. --- ancient texts. --- civilization. --- conquerors. --- conquest. --- conquests. --- culture myths. --- ethnic belonging. --- ironsmithing. --- learned culture. --- medicine. --- native history. --- origin. --- origins. --- philosophy. --- postconquest period. --- pre-Islamic culture. --- protography. --- science.

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"This third edition of Ira M. Lapidus's classic A History of Islamic Societies has been substantially revised to incorporate the insights of new scholarship and updated to include historical developments in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Lapidus's history explores the beginnings and transformations of Islamic civilizations in the Middle East and details Islam's worldwide diffusion to Africa, Spain, Turkey and the Balkans, Central, South and Southeast Asia, and North America, situating Islamic societies within their global, political, and economic contexts. It accounts for the impact of European imperialism 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. This book is essential for readers seeking to understand Muslim peoples."--Publisher information.

Islam --- History --- Islamic countries --- History. --- 905.1 --- 217 --- godsdienst --- geschiedenis --- cultuurgeschiedenis - algemeen --- islam --- World history --- Arab states --- history of Islamic societies --- Islamic civilizations --- The Middle East --- Middle Eastern societies before Islam --- Persian empires --- the Roman Empire --- the Sasanian Empire --- religion and society --- religions and empires --- marriage --- divorce --- sexual morality --- property and inheritance --- seclusion and veiling --- the preaching of Islam --- Arabia --- clans and kingdoms --- Mecca --- language --- the gods --- Muhammad --- state formation --- the Quran --- the Judeo-Christian heritage --- the Arabian heritage --- community and politics --- the Umma of Islam --- the Arab-Muslim imperium --- the Arab-Muslim empires --- the Arab-Muslim conquests --- economic and social change --- Iraq --- Syria and Mesopotamia --- poetry --- Egypt --- Iran --- conversions to Islam --- Arabic --- Middle Eastern languages --- the caliphate to 750 --- the Umayyad monarchy --- the Marwanids --- the 'Abbasids --- the 'Abbasid Empire --- Baghdad --- cosmopolitan Islam --- the Islam of the imperial elite --- religion and identity --- the ideology of imperial Islam --- Islam and iconoclasm --- the caliphate and Islam --- inquisition --- the Arabic humanities --- Persian literature --- Hellenistic literature --- philosophy --- urban Islam --- the Islam of scholars and holy men --- Sunni Islam --- the veneration of the Prophet --- early Muslim theology --- Ash'arism --- scripturalism --- hadith --- tradition and law --- asceticism and mysticism --- Sufism --- Shi'i Islam --- Isma'ili Shi'ism --- Muslim urban societies --- women and family --- non-Muslim minorities --- the early Islamic era --- Islamic legislation for non-Muslims --- Christians and Christianity --- Christian literature in Arabic --- Crusades --- the Egyptian Copts --- Christians in North Africa --- Jews and Judaism --- Egyptian and North African Jews --- the Gheniza era --- the yeshivas and rabbinic Judaism --- the nagid --- Jewish culture in the Islamic context --- continuity and change in the historic cultures of the Middle East --- religion and empire --- the post-'Abbasid Middle Eastern state system --- the Saljuq Empire --- the Mongols --- the Timurids --- Fatimid Egypt --- the Mamluk empire --- the iqta' system and Middle Eastern feudalism --- royal women --- women of urban notable families --- working women and popular culture --- jurisprudence and courts --- Islamic institutions --- mass Islamic society --- Muslim religious movements and the State --- the personal ethic --- normative Islam --- Al-Ghazali --- alternative Islam --- gnostic and popular Sufism --- Islamic philosophy and theosophy --- Ibn al-'Arabi --- the veneration of Saints --- imperial Islamic society --- the limits of worldy life --- state and religion in the Medieval Islamic paradigm --- the global expansion of Islam --- Turkish conquests and conversions --- Anatolia --- the Balkans --- Inner Asia --- India --- Southeast Asia --- sub-Saharan Africa --- Muslim elites --- the reform movement --- Islamic North Africa --- the Zirid empires --- the Banu Hilal --- the Almoravids --- the Almohads --- Islamic religious communities --- Spanish-Islamic civilization --- Hispano-Arabic society --- Hispano-Arabic culture --- the Reconquista --- Muslims under Christian rule --- Judaism in Spain --- Arabic culture --- Hebrew culture --- Latin culture --- convivencia --- the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal --- Jews in North Africa --- the expulsion of Muslims --- Tunisia --- Algeria --- Morocco --- the Marinid and Sa'dian states --- the 'Alawi dynasty --- states and Islam --- Islam in Asia --- the Turkish migrations --- the Ottoman empire --- Turkish-Islamic states in Anatolia --- ghazi state --- the Ottoman world empire --- the janissaries --- Ottoman law --- royal authority --- cultural legitimization --- Ottoman identity --- the Ottoman economy --- Jews and Christians in the Ottoman Empire --- Greek Orthodox and Armenian Christians --- Coptic Christians --- Christians in the Ottoman Near East --- the Ottoman legal system and the family --- freedom and slavery --- family and sexuality --- the postclassical Ottoman empire --- decentralization --- commercialization --- incorporation --- new political institutions --- the Arab provinces under Ottoman rule --- the Safavid Empire --- the reign of Shah 'Abbas --- the conversion of Iran to Shi'ism --- state and religion in the late Safavid Iran --- the dissolution of the Safavid Empire --- the Delhi sultanates --- the Mughal Empire --- the varieties of Indian Islam --- Indian culture --- Aurangzeb --- the international economy and the British Indian Empire --- the Mongol conquests --- Turkestan --- Transoxania --- Khwarizm --- Farghana --- Eastern Turkestan --- China --- Islamic societies in Southeast Asia --- Pre-Islamic Southeast Asia --- Java --- the 'ulama --- the crisis of imperialism and Islam on Java --- Aceh --- Malaya --- Minangkabau --- Islam in Africa --- colonialism --- Islam in Sudanic Africa --- Islam in savannah Africa --- Islam in forest West Africa --- the kingdoms of the Western Sudan --- Mali --- Songhay --- the central Sudan --- Kanem --- Bornu --- Hausaland --- non-state Muslim communities in West Africa --- Zawaya lineages --- the Kunta --- missionaries --- Senegambia --- the West African jihads --- the Senegambian jihads --- 'Uthman don Fodio and the Sokoto Caliphate --- the jihad of al-Hajj 'Umar --- jihad and conversion --- Islam in East Africa and the European colonial empires --- Darfur --- Swahili Islam --- Ethiopia --- Somalia --- Central Africa --- colonialism and the defeat of Muslim expansion --- the Muslim world --- The Mediterranean --- the Indian Ocean --- the rise of Europe and the world economy --- European trade --- naval power --- European imperialism --- modernity --- the transformation of Islamic societies --- Islamic reformism --- Islamic modernism --- nationalism --- the contemporary Islamic revival --- nationalism and Islam in the Middle East --- the modernization of Turkey --- the partition of the Ottoman Empire --- Ottoman reform --- World War I --- Republican Turkey --- the Turkish Republic under Ataturk --- the post-World War II Turkish Republic --- Islam in Turkish politics --- the AKP --- Qajar Iran --- the Pahlavi era --- revolution --- the Islamic Republic --- secularism and Islamic modernity --- British colonial rule --- the Nasser era --- Sadat and Mubarak --- secular opposition movements --- the Arab East --- Arabism --- military states --- the rise of Arab nationalism --- Arabism and Arab states in the colonial period --- Lebanon --- Transjordan and Jordan --- the Palestinian movement and the struggle for Palestine --- Zionism --- the Palestinian movement and Israel --- the Arabian peninsula --- Yemen --- union of the two Yemens --- Saudi Arabia --- political and religious opposition --- foreign policy --- the Gulf States --- Oman --- Kuwait --- Bahrain --- Qatar --- United Arab Emirates --- France --- Algerian resistance --- the Algerian revolution --- independent Algeria --- independent Tunisia --- independent Morocco --- Libya --- Islam in state ideologies and opposition movements --- women in the Middle East --- changes in family law --- women's secular education --- labor and social and political activism --- Post-World War II Arab states --- Islamism and feminism --- Islam and secularism in Central and Southern Asia --- Russia --- the Caucasus --- Tsarist rule --- the jadid movement --- the formation of the Soviet Union --- Soviet modernization --- Post-Soviet Russia --- Azarbayjan --- the Muslims of China --- the Indian subcontinent --- Pakistan --- Afghanistan --- Bangladesh --- the partition of the Indian subcontinent --- Muslim militance --- Plassey --- the Pakistan movement --- the Muslims of post-Partition India --- Indonesia --- Malaysia --- the Philippines --- Dutch rule and economic development in the Indies --- Southeast Asian responses to Dutch rule --- Islamic traditionalism --- the priyayi --- the merchant elites --- Islamic and secular nationalist political parties --- the Indonesian Republic --- Sukarno --- a secular Indonesia --- the Suharto regime --- Indonesian Islam --- British Malaysia and independent Malaysia --- the Malaysian state and Islam in a multiethnic society --- Mauritania --- Senegal --- Nigeria --- military rule --- civil war --- Eritrea --- Swahili East Africa --- Zanzibar --- Tanzania --- Kenya --- Uganda --- universal Islam and African diversity --- Islam in the West --- the United States --- American converts --- Muslim identity issues in the United States --- Canada --- Eastern Europe --- Bosnia and Yugoslavia --- Albania --- Bulgaria --- Western Europe --- immigrant identities in Europe --- immigrant status --- Britain --- Germany --- Sweden --- Netherlands --- the anti-immigrant reaction --- secularized Islam --- Islamic revival --- pre-modern Islamic societies --- religious revival --- transnational Islam --- Islamism and political action --- the relations between states and Islamic societies --- Islamic and neo-Islamic states --- secularized states with Islamic identities --- secularized states and Islamic opposition --- Islamic national societies in Southeast Asia --- Muslims as political minorities