Archaeology and Early Islamic History

Religion, Society and the State

An account of Muslim Origins

• The Prophetic biography (Sira)

• Problem of the earliest textual sources

• The rise of the Islamic state

• Was Mecca even Mecca?

The Revisionist Dilemma

• Is the Muslim narrative of origins true?

• When do we first see the Muslims as a unified group (umma)?

• Does the archaeological record give us something that texts do not?

Categories of Evidence

• Mecca and Medina

• Religious architecture/monuments

• Numismatics

• Inscriptions

Other Possible Roles for Archaeology and the Early History of Islam

• Studies of culture contact

• Transformations of the landscape

• The workings of empire and its institutions

• The break with late antiquity