Projecting a New Empire: Formats, Social Meaning, and Mediality of Imperial Arabic in the Umayyad and Early Abbasid Periods (Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East, 42)

Seventh and eighth-century papyri, inscriptions, and coins constitute the main evidence for the rise of Arabic as a hegemonic language emerging from the complex fabric of Graeco-Roman-Iranian Late Antiquity. This volume examines these sources in order to gauge the social ecology of Arabic writing within the broader late antique continuum. Starting from the functional interplay of Arabic with other languages in multilingual archives as well as the mediality of practices of public Arabic writing, the study correlates the rise of Arabic as an imperial language to social interactions: the negotiation between the Arab-Muslim imperial elite and non-Arabicized regional elites of the early Islamic empire. Using layout, formulae and technical terminology to trace common patterns and disruptions across sources from the Atlantic to Central Asia, the volume illuminates the distinctive formal varieties of official Umayyad and early Abbasid imperial documents compared to informal Arabic writings as well as to neighboring scribal traditions in other languages. The volume connects documentary practices to broader imperial policies, opening an unprecedented window into the strategies of governance that lay at the core of the early Islamic empire. Acknowledgements 5 Contents 7 List of Illustrations 13 Note on Conventions 15 Maps 19 Introduction 23 Becoming Empire 23 Semantics of Empire 27 Empires and Arab History 30 Views on Early Islamic History 33 A Review of the Documentary Evidence and Coping with its Limitations 36 Previous Studies 44 Approach and Methodology: Form over Substance 46 The Definitional Trap: A Note on Terminology and Anachronism 51 Timeframe 55 Organization of this Study 57 I Towards an Ecology of Documentary Arabic 59 Introduction 59 A Sudden Language: Pre-Islamic Arabic Writing and the Epigraphical Habit 64 The Rise and Dissolution of “Imperial Arabic” (From Reichssprache to Lingua Franca) 69 Concluding Remarks 131 II Imperial Arabic: Between Text and Visual Text 133 Introduction 133 Images of the Word 137 The Word and the Image: An Arab Late Antiquity 153 From Image to Word 164 The Eye of the Beholders 185 Conclusion 188 III Shaping Official Umayyad Arabic 191 Introduction: Reichsarabisch or Early Islamic Official Arabic? 191 If the Mountain Will Come: Arabic Letters 196 If the Mountain Will Not Come: Official Inscriptions 214 Umayyad Official Documentary Standard as Early Islamic Documentary Standard 221 Conclusion 234 IV A Culture of Ambivalence 237 Negotiating “Arab Style” 237 Shifting Boundaries between Scribal Cultures in the Umayyad Empire 261 Parallel Scribal Traditions: Numismatics 264 Parallel Scribal Traditions: Independent Arab-Style Scribal Practices 276 Conclusion 281 V An Empire of Words 283 Regional Idiolects in the Use of Administrative Loanwords in Documentary Arabic 283 The Loanwords in Imperial Arabic (640–800) 288 Regional Diversity in the Use of Administrative Loanwords in Early Islamic Documentary Arabic 332 Terminology and Regional Settings: The Role of Umayyad Syria and the Looming Shadow of Abbasid Iraq 336 Conclusion 344 Summary and Conclusions 346 Appendices 359 Appendix 1: Formal and Layout Structure of Early Islamic Arabic Official Letters 359 Appendix 2: Formal and Layout Structure of Early Islamic Official Inscriptions 361 Appendix 3: Comparative Table of Early Islamic Arab-style Letters 367 Bibliography 375 Indices 437 General Index 437 Index Locorum I: Papyri 449 Index Locorum II: Inscriptions 463 Die Studien Zur Geschichte Und Kultur Des Vorderen Orients Erscheinen Als Supplement Der Zeitschrift Der Islam, Gegründet 1910 Von Carl Heinrich Becker, Einem Der Väter Der Modernen Islamwissenschaft. Ganz Im Sinne Beckers Ist Das Ziel Der Studien Die Erforschung Der Vergangenen Gesellschaften Des Vorderen Orients, Ihrer Glaubenssysteme Und Der Zugrundeliegenden Sozialen Und ökonomischen Verhältnisse, Von Der Iberischen Halbinsel Bis Nach Zentralasien, Von Den Ukrainischen Steppen Zum Hochland Des Jemen. Über Die Grundlegende Philologische Arbeit An Der Literarischen Überlieferung Hinaus Nutzen Die Studien Die Archivalischen, Sowie Materiellen Und Archäologischen Überlieferungen Als Quelle Für Die Gesamte Bandbreite Der Historisch Arbeitenden Geistes- Und Sozialwissenschaften. Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East are published as supplement to Der Islam which was founded in 1910 by Carl Heinrich Becker, an early practitioner of the modern study of Islam. The mission of the series is the study of past societies of the Middle East, their belief systems, and their underlying social and economic relations--in their aim to cover the entire spectrum of the historically oriented humanities and social sciences