Download PDF | Conflict And Conquest In The Islamic World A Historical Encyclopedia
Eds. Alexander Mikaberidze, 2011
1143 Pages
Preface
Conception and Genesis
Conflict and Conquest in the Islamic World: A Historical Encyclopedia was conceived to fill a large gap on the reference book shelf. Its goal is to serve as a single title dealing with the military—political history of the Islamic world. In recent years, the rising demand for accessible knowledge about Islam has produced many encyclopedias and dictionaries on various aspects of Islamic history.
Most of them deal with cultural, social, or political topics and concentrate on Islam in the modern world. There are plenty of reference works on military history, but they largely omit the rich tapestry of the military—political history of the Islamic world and concentrate on the practices and experiences of the Western world.
So people interested in the military history of the Islamic world are left with few choices except to consult general reference works or encyclopedias and dictionaries devoted to European military history, which only give a fragmented picture of Islamic experiences. Specialist reference works are numerous and they—most notably the famous Encyclopedia of Islam—do offer more detailed and technical articles about various aspects of Islam from pre-Islamic times to the present, but they are also less available and accessible to a general audience.
So the main purpose of the present encyclopedia is to provide a useful and convenient reference source on the major conflicts that have influenced the course of history in the Islamic world since the seventh century. We must stress that this title does not embrace, promote, or in any way encourage the misperception that there is something intrinsic in Islam as a religion that engenders acts of violence and terrorism. The word “Islam,” a verbal noun meaning submission (to God) is etymologically related to the word “salaam,” meaning peace.
We believe that, like any other religion, be it Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, or Buddhism, Islam is a peaceful religion, and the source of violence lies not in its teachings but rather in the intricacies of human behavior that are influenced by a variety of factors (e.g., environmental, economic, social, or political) that compel humans to commit acts of violence using religion as a cover.
Conflict and Conquest in the Islamic World is a group enterprise that draws on military historians and experts in the field of Islamic history to present clear and accurate historical information on major and minor wars, revolts and rebellions, political events, prominent political and military personalities, armed groups, and so on that shaped Islamic civilization. It presents in two volumes some 625 alphabetically arranged articles contributed by leading military and political historians. The alphabetical and thematic ordering of articles will enable readers to locate topics of interest quickly. A chronology of some 250 conflicts provides a quick overview of the entire span of Islamic history, and a glossary that lists commonly used Islamic military terms will enable general readers to determine quickly the meaning of less familiar terms.
Audience
This encyclopedia was written with high school and college students in mind, but we hope it will also be of benefit to a general audience interested in the subject and to university and secondary-school teachers seeking a better understanding of a concrete event or personality. With this goal in mind, we decided to avoid specialized academic vocabulary and use clear and accessible narrative. Because readers can easily get confused by technical terms and diacritical marks on words borrowed from Arabic and Persian, we decided to minimize the diacritical marks on loanwords from Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and other Islamic languages.
We also chose not to use the Muslim calendar, which began in 622 when the Prophet Muhammad and his followers made the hijra or “migration” from Mecca to Medina. Many specialist titles use the abbreviation A.H. for anno Hejirae, denoting years of the Muslim calendar. The Muslim calendar is based on the cycles of the moon and has no fixed relationship to dates of the Gregorian calendar or to seasons of the year. For simplicity’s sake, we converted all dates into Gregorian calendar, which is more familiar to the target audience.
Scope
It is impossible to cover all aspects of Islamic military and political history in a two-volume reference. Thus, this work is selective by nature, but in choosing entries we sought to cover a wide geographic and chronological range, which, as expected, meant omitting some entries. We are well aware of this imperfection but hope it will not detract from the overall value of the book. We tried to focus on Muslim military and political personalities who are oftentimes overshadowed by their Western counterparts. Therefore, we sought to exclude Western personalities whose biographical details can be easily gleaned in existing reference works. The encyclopedia covers the entire span of Islamic history starting with the Prophet Muhammad’s campaigns in the seventh century and ending with the most recent events in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Geographically, the encyclopedia deals with a vast territory spanning the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Acknowledgments
Every book is a result of collective effort, and I am grateful to many persons for their support. Bernard Lewis, the doyen of Islamic studies, was gracious in his encouragement when the manuscript was still in its infancy. The encyclopedia features entries from more than 160 contributors, and I am grateful to them for their commitment and dedication to this initiative. I am thankful to the members of the editorial board for their recommendations. This work would not have been possible without the abiding enthusiasm of Pat Carlin, acquisitions editor at ABC-CLIO, who quickly saw a potential in this title, and editors John Wagner and Andrew McCormick, who shepherded it through the development process. On a personal level, this book could not have been written without the help and support of my family and friends. I extend my love and thanks to all of them, but especially to my wife, Anna, who while pregnant tolerated long lonely nights as I toiled on this manuscript. I dedicate this book to our newborn son Luka George.
Alexander Mikaberidze
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