Routes and realms : the power of place in the early Islamic world

## Abstract This book explores the ways in which Muslims expressed attachment to land from the ninth through the eleventh centuries, the earliest period of intensive written production in Arabic. The conceptual innovation at the heart of the book is its identification of a “discourse of place,” a framework for approaching formal texts devoted to the representation of territory across genres. The discourse of place included such varied works as topographical histories, literary anthologies, religious treatises, world and regional geographies, poetry, travel literature, and maps. By subjecting these works to close reading and analysis, this book argues that their authors imagined plots of land primarily as homes, cities, and regions and associated them with a range of claims to religious and political authority. The discourse of place constitutes evidence of the powerful ways in which the geographical imagination was tapped to declare loyalty and invoke belonging in the early Islamic world. Now more than ever, when the competing forces of nationalism and globalism inspire new notions of rootedness, it is vital to ponder the changing ways in which land has mattered over the centuries. Routes and Realms explores the ways in which Muslims expressed attachment to land from the ninth through the eleventh centuries, the earliest period of intensive written production in Arabic. In this groundbreaking first book, Zayde Antrim develops a "discourse of place," a framework for approaching formal texts devoted to the representation of territory across genres. The discourse of place included such varied works as topographical histories, literary anthologies, religious treatises, world geographies, poetry, travel literature, and maps. By closely reading and analyzing these works, Antrim argues that their authors imagined plots of land primarily as homes, cities, and regions and associated them with a range of claims to religious and political authority. She contends that these are evidence of the powerful ways in which the geographical imagination was tapped to declare loyalty and invoke belonging in the early Islamic world, reinforcing the importance of the earliest regional mapping tradition in the Islamic world. Routes and Realms challenges a widespread tendency to underestimate the importance of territory and to over-emphasize the importance of religion and family to notions of community and belonging among Muslims and Arabs, both in the past and today. This title explores the ways in which Muslims expressed attachment to land in formal texts from the ninth through the eleventh centuries. These texts reveal that territories were imagined specifically as homes, cities, and regions and acted as powerful categories of belonging in the early Islamic world. Abstract: This title explores the ways in which Muslims expressed attachment to land in formal texts from the ninth through the eleventh centuries. These texts reveal that territories were imagined specifically as homes, cities, and regions and acted as powerful categories of belonging in the early Islamic world Cover 1 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Note on Translations, Transliterations, and Dates 14 Glossary 16 A 16 B 16 C 16 F 17 H 17 I 17 K 18 M 18 Q 18 S 18 T 19 U 19 W 19 Introduction: The Discourse of Place 22 PART ONE: HOME 30 1. Home as Homeland 32 PART TWO: CITY 52 2. Cities and Sacred History 54 3. The Image of the City 82 PART THREE: REGION 106 4. Dividing the World 108 5. Routes and Realms 129 Conclusion: Looking Forward 164 Notes 170 Bibliography 206 Index 224 A 224 B 225 C 225 D 226 E 226 F 226 G 226 H 227 I 227 J 228 K 228 L 229 M 229 N 230 O 231 P 231 Q 231 R 231 S 232 T 232 U 233 W 233 Y 233 Z 233