Abstract
The latter quotation, shamelessly taken out of context from Lecker’s innovative study of the social organization of Madina, forcefully drives home an important point: detailed knowledge of toponyms can verify and explicate otherwise obscure reports. He combines this geographical information with genealogical details to formulate reliable beginnings toward regional history.3 The approach of Fiorani Piacentini relies on limited and late historical sources that have probably reached the limit of interpretative possibilities, not unlike the utilization of historical sources for the early Islamic Levant. More problematic is her understanding, not atypical for historians, of the role of archaeological evidence and its interpretation for constructing regional history.
Recent archaeological finds along the whole length of the southern and eastern Arabian coasts bear witness to the intensity of these contacts between the two sides of the Gulf and with the Mesopotamian area … But this material, though interesting, is still insufficient for one to be able to advance more precise and detailed theories on the historical level.
—Fiorani Piacentini1
Geographical evidence has a clear advantage over historical information in that it is not so susceptible to dispute.
—M. Lecker2
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Notes
V. Fiorani Piacentini, “Ardashir I Papakan and the Wars against the Arabs: Working Hypothesis on the Sasanian Hold of the Gulf,” Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 15 (1985): 73.
M. Lecker, Muslims, Jews and Pagans: Studies on Early Islamic Medina (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1995), 147.
In a similar way, Azd social structure may yield relevant and important information on the eastern Gulf region, as noted by J. C. Wilkinson, “Arab-Persian Land Relationships in Late Sasanid Oman,” Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 3 (1973): 44.
J. C. Wilkinson, “The Early Development of the Ibadi Movement in Basra,” in Studies on the First Century of Islamic Society, ed. G. H. A. Juynboll (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University, 1982), 137–43.
Muhammad ibn Ahmad Muqaddasi, Kitab Ahsan al-Tagasim fi Maʿrifat al-Agalim, 2nd. ed., Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum 3, ed. M. de Goeje (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1906). Also, The Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions: A Translation of Ahsan al-Taqasim fi Maʿrifat al-Aqalim, trans. B. A. Collins and M. H. al-Tai (Reading, UK: Garnet Publishing, 1994).
A useful summary of this literature is found in G. Le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate (Cambridge: University Press, 1905).
Q. A. S. al-Hadithi, “The Bahrain of the Geographers: An Administrative and Economic Study,” in Bahrain through the Ages: The History, ed. Abdullah bin Khalid al-Khalifa and Michael Rice (London: Kegan Paul, 1993), 267.
This exposition gives a clear example of the tassuj as an organizing principle (D. Whitcomb, Before the Roses and Nightingales: Excavations at Qasr-i Abu Nasr, Iran (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985), 228–31.)
T. Daryaee, “The Persian Gulf Trade in Late Antiquity,” Journal of World History 14 (2003): 8.
D. Whitcomb, “Trade and Tradition in Medieval Southern Iran” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1979).
Salih al-Ali, “Khittat of al-Basra,” Sumer (1952): 72–83, 281–303;
and Salih al-ʿAli, Social and Economic Organization of Al-Basra (Baghdad, Iraq: Matbaʾa al-Maʾarif, 1953). The meaning of misr follows the description adopted in Muqaddasi.
Muqaddasi, Kitab Ahsan al-Taqasim, 117; F. Sarre and E. Herzfeld, Archäologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris- Gebiet (Berlin, Germany: D. Reimer, 1911); also 1920, 209, where the urban plan is compared to that of Mosul, itself a very early misr.
See also M. G. Morony, Iraq After the Muslim Conquest (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984).
On the later construction of qusur and suqs, see A. J. Naji and Y. N. Ali, “The Suqs of Basra: Commercial Organization and Activity in a Medieval Islamic City,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 24 (1981): 298–309.
L. Massignon, “Explication du plan de Basra (Irak),” in Westöstliche Abhandlungen; Rudolf Tschudi, ed. F. Meier (Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 1954);
D. Whitcomb, “The Misr of Ayla: Settlement at al-ʿAqaba in the Early Islamic Period,” in The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East, II: Land Use and Settlement Patterns, ed. G. King and A. Cameron (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1994), 161–62.
Comments on Basra and its ceramics have benefited from a reading of the unpublished thesis by Jessica Hallett, “Trade and Innovation: The Rise of a Pottery Industry in Abbasid Basra” (Oxford University, 1994). R. Mason and E. J. Keall, “The ‘Abbasid Glazed Wares of Siraf and the Basra Connection: Petrographic Analysis,” Iran 29 (1991);
R. Mason, “Early Medieval Iraqi Lustre-Painted and Associated Wares: Typology in a Multidisciplinary Study,” Iraq 59 (1997): 15–61.
M. G. Morony, “Continuity and Change in the Administrative Geography of Late Sasanian and Early Islamic al-ʿIraq,” Iran 20 (1982): 35.
This paper relies heavily on a pioneering and detailed study by A. Iqtidari, Athar-i shahrha-yi bastani, savahil va jazayir-i Khalij-i Fars va Bahr-i Uman (Tehran, Iran: Organization of National Antiquities, 1348/1969–70). There is no reason to believe that such studies have not been continued in recent times by Iranian scholars, but, if so, access to such research has been severely limited.
M. Hinds, “The First Arab Conquests in Fars,” Iran 22 (1984): 39–53.
D. Whitcomb, “Bushire and the Angali Canal,” Mesopotamia 22 (1987): 315.
D. Whitehouse and A. Williamson, “Sasanian Maritime Trade,” Iran 11 (1973): 29–49.
D. Whitcomb, “The Walls of Early Islamic Ayla: Defence or Symbol?,” in Muslim Military Architecture in Greater Syria, from the Coming of Islam to the Ottoman Period, ed. H. Kennedy (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2006), 61–74.
Abu Ishaq al-Istakhri, Kitab Masalik waʾl Mamalik, Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum 1, ed. M. de Goeje (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1927), 140–41.
A. Williamson, “Persian Gulf Commerce in the Sassanian Period and the First Two Centuries of Islam,” Bastanshinasi va Hunar-i Iran 9–10 (1972): 104.
The archaeology and history of Hormuz, with Bahrain and Julfar, fall outside the parameters of this paper and must belong to a separate discussion. For Iranian excavations see H. H. Bakhtiari, “Hormuz Island,” Iran 17 (1979): 150–52.
Williamson, “Persian Gulf Commerce in the Sassanian Period” and Peter Morgan, “New Thoughts on Old Hormuz: Chinese Ceramics in the Hormuz Region in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” Iran 29 (1991): 67–83.
M. Kervran, “Forteresses, entrepôts et commerce: une histoire à suivre depuis les rois sassanides jusqu’aux princes d’Ormuz,” Itinéraires d’Orient, hommages à Claude Cahen, Res Orientales 6, eds. R. Curiel and R. Gyselen (Paris: Groupe pour l’étude de la civilisation du Moyen-Orient, 1994): 335–38.
J. J. Bede, “The Arabs in Sind, 712–1026” (PhD diss., University of Utah, 1973), 135–38.
J. C. Wilkinson, “Suhar (Sohar) in the Early Islamic Period: The written Evidence,” South Asian Archaeology 1977, ed. M. Taddei (Naples, Italy: Istituto universitario orientale, 1979), vol. 2, 887–907.
M. Kervran and F. Hiebert, “Sohar pré-Islamique, note stratigraphique,” Golf-Archäologie: Mesopotamien, Iran, Kuwait, Bahrain, Vereinigte Arabische Emirate und Oman, ed. K. Schippmann, Anja Herling, and Jean-François Salles (Buch am Erlbach, Germany: M. L. Leidorf, 1991), 337–48.
Wilkinson believes that this was a fortified quarter called Dastajird; see Kervran, “Forteresses, entrepôts et commerce,” 334, for full historical references. On the other hand, one may suggest a corruption of Jamshidgird, with the possibility that a separate Sasanian city may have existed nearby, perhaps even circular in form. Indeed, Jamshidgird is the name of an island in the Indian Ocean associated with Yamakoti, the castle of Jam (=Kangdiz?) (V. Minorsky, trans., Hudud al-ʿAlam, ‘the Regions of the World’: A Persian Geography, 372 a.h. –982 a.d. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937), 189.
M. Kervran, “A la recherche de Sohar: état de la question,” in Arabie orientale, Mésopotamie et Iran meridional: de l’âge du fer au début de la période islamique, eds. R. Boucharlat and J.-F. Salles (Paris: Ed. Recherche sur les civilisations, 1984), 285–98.
A. Williamson, Sohar and Omani Seafaring in the Indian Ocean (Muscat: Petroleum Development (Oman) Ltd., 1973), 7.
T. J. Wilkinson, “Feeding Medieval Siraf and Sohar,” al-ʿUsur al-Wusta: The Bulletin of Middle East Medievalists 4 (1992): 8–9, 16.
“Julfar has become one of the most extensively surveyed and excavated archaeological sites in the Gulf,” according to D. Kennet, “Jazirat al-Hulayla: Early Julfãr,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 4 (1994): 175. He has documented this archaeological history in “Julfar and the Urbanization of Southeastern Arabia,” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 14 (2003): 103–25.
J. Hansman, Julfãr, an Arabian Port: Its Settlement and Far Eastern Ceramic Trade from the 14th to the 18th Centuries (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1985).
T. Sasaki and H. Sasaki, “Southeast Asian Ceramic Trade to the Arabian Gulf in the Islamic Period,” in Archaeology of the United Arab Emirates: Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Archaeology of the UAE, ed. D. Potts, Hasan Al Naboodah, and Peter Hellyer (London: Trident Press, 2003), 254–62. Also Hansman, Julfãr, an Arabian Port.
Kush has a mud-brick tower (Period II, ca. 800) and an enigmatic large, mud-brick structure (Period V, ca. 1100); Mataf has an imposed orthogonal street plan with residences (phase 2, ca. 1400); T. Sasaki and H. Sasaki, “Japanese Excavations at Julfar—1988, 1989, 1990, and 1991 seasons,” Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 22 (1992): 105–20.
D. Kennet, “Kush: A Sasanian and Islamic-Period Archaeological Tell in Ras al-Khaimah (UAE),” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 8 (1997): 284–302.
A comprehensive publication of this ceramic evidence is now available in D. Kennet, Sasanian and Islamic Pottery from Ras al-Khaimah: Classification, Chronology and Analysis of Trade in the Western Indian Ocean, BAR International Series 1248 (Oxford, 2004). One has in his analysis the first detailed exposition of evidence that will allow vastly more precise evaluation of regional archaeological research.
D. C. Baramki, “An Ancient Caravan Station in Dubai,” Illustrated London News 2903, March 29, 1975, 66.
As discussed in D. T. Potts, The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 299–300, fig. 24
and D. Whitehouse, “Excavations at Siraf, Interim Reports,” Iran 12 (1974): 5–7n9, fig. 3, pl. 1a, b.
T. Insoll, “Early Islamic Bahrain,” Antiquity 75 (2002): 495–96.
This small mosque of phase 2 may be compared to that at Julfar, phase 1 (Kennet, “Julfar and the Urbanization of Southeast Arabia,” 113), as well as the numerous small mosques at Siraf (D. Whitehouse, The Congregational Mosque, and Other Mosques from the Ninth to the Twelfth Centuries, Siraf III (London: British Institute of Persian Studies, [1980]). The discrepancy in dating suggests either an early phase at Julfar or a more likely continuation at Khamis.
See M. Kervran, “La mosquée al-Khamis à Bahrain: son historie et ses inscripdons: I. Le monument,” Archéologique islamique 1 (1990): 7–51;
L. Kalus, “La mosquée al-Khamis à Bahrain: son historie et ses inscriptions: I. Les inscriptions,” Archéologique islamique 1 (1990): 53–73;
D. Whitehouse, “The al-Khamis Mosque on Bahrain: A Note on the First and Second Phases,” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 14 (2003): 95–102.
J.-F. Salles, Beatrice Andre-Leickam, Geneviève Renisio, and Marie-Anne Vaillant, Barbar-sud, 1982 (Bahrain): Rapport préliminaire sur une 1 ère campagne de fouilles archéologiques (Lyon, France: Maison de l’Orient, 1983).
T. Sasaki, “Excavations at AʿAli — 1988/89,” Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 20 (1990): 111–29.
K. Frifelt, Islamic Remains in Bahrain, Jutland Archaeological Society publications, v. 37 (Højbjerg, Denmark: Jutland Archaeological Society, in association with Moesgaard Museum and Ministry of Information, State of Bahrain, 2001)
M. Kervran, Excavation of Qalʾat al-Bahrein, 1st Part (1977–1979) (Bahrain: Ministry of Information, 1982).
The evidence of the architecture remains inconclusive and there is the possibility of a late Sasanian or very early Islamic reuse. (S. Gregory, “Was there an Eastern Origin for the Design of Late Roman Fortifications? Some Problems for Research on Forts of Rome’s Eastern Frontier,” in The Roman Army in the East, Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supp. Ser. 18, ed. D. Kennedy (1996): 169–210.)
C. Hardy-Guilbert, “Recherches sur la période islamique au Qatar,” Mission archéologique française à Qatar, ed. J. Tixier (Paris: Recherches anthropologiques du Proche et Moyen Orient, 1980), 111–28;
C. Hardy-Guilbert, “Recherches sur la période islamique au Qatar — 4ème campagne,” Mission archéologique française à Qatar, ed. J. Tixier (Paris: Recherches anthropologiques du Proche et Moyen Orient, 1982), 35–72.
B. de Cardi, ed., Qatar Archaeological Report: Excavations 1973 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978).
D. Whitcomb, “The Archaeology of al-Hasa Oasis in the Islamic Period,” Atlal, Journal of Saudi Arabia Studies 2 (1978): 95–113;
F. S. Vidal, The Oasis of al-Hasa (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia: Arabian American Oil Co., 1955).
For references to this dynasty see W. Madelung, “Karmati,” Encyclopedia of Islam 4 (1976). Also Clifford Edmund Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical Manual (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 94–95.
Tabari describes Yamama as “a place in the desert embracing a great number of towns, one called Hajar, another Lahsa, and seven or eight others which to-day are occupied by the Carmathians” (in A. T. Wilson, The Persian Gulf (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1928), 84).
The capital of the central region of Yamama in the Arid mountains, also known as Jaw al-Khadharim. A. Al-Askar, al-Yamama in the Early Islamic Period (Reading, UK: Ithaca, 2002), mentions the need for archaeological work (21, 30n45).
The Yamama was apparently a mint for dirhams in the late 9th century (R. W. Morris, “An Eighth Century Hoard from Eastern Saudi Arabia,” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 5 (1994): 70–79.)
Likewise, Muqaddasi fails to mention the island of Failaka, off the coast of modern Kuwait. Numerous remains of the early Islamic settlements, particularly Qusur, have been found among earlier occupations. S. Patitucci and G. Uggeri, Failakah: Insediamenti medievali islamici: Richerche e scavi nel Kuwait (Rome: “l’Erma” di Bretschneider, 1984).
Also D. Kennet, “Excavations at the Site of al-Qusur, Failaka, Kuwait,” Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 21 (1991): 97–111.
This is reflected in the writing of Tabari and Ibn Faqih; see J. C. Wilkinson, “The Early Development of the Ibadi Movement in Basra,” Studies on the First Century of Islamic Society, ed. G. H. A. Juynboll (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982), 130 and 243n15.
T. Lewicki, “Les premiers commerçant arabes en Chine,” Rocznik Orientalistyczny 9 (1935): 173–86.
This association is also picked up by D. Whitehouse, “The al-Khamis Mosque on Bahrain: A Note on the First and Second Phases,” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 14 (2003): 101. See Wilkinson, “The Early Development of the Ibadi Movement in Basra,” 140–43.
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© 2009 Lawrence G. Potter
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Whitcomb, D. (2009). The Gulf in the Early Islamic Period: The Contribution of Archaeology to Regional History. In: Potter, L.G. (eds) The Persian Gulf in History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230618459_4
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