Transregional and Regional Elites - Connecting the Early Islamic Empire

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To integrate the regions of the early Islamic Empire from Central Asia to North Africa, transregional and regional elites of various backgrounds were essential. This volume is an important contribution to the conceptualization of the largest empire of Late Antiquity. After a theoretical introduction to the concept of 'elites' in an early Islamic context, the papers focus on elite structures and networks within selected regions of the Empire (Transoxiana, Khurasan, Armenia, Fars, Iraq, al-Jazira, Syria, Egypt, and Ifriqiya). They analyze elite groups across social, religious, geographical, and professional boundaries. Some papers take up contemporary terminology and its application within the sources. While previous studies used Iraq as the paradigm for the entire empire, this volume looks at diverse regions instead. While each region seems to be different based on its heterogeneous surviving sources, its physical geography, and its indigenous population and elites, the comparative approach highlights certain common patterns of governance and interaction across the Empire in its first three centuries.