Full Description
This book represents the first sustained attempt to understand Islamic urbanism and court life from an interdisciplinary approach. Samarra, the last great example of early Islamic city building in Iraq, was the capital of the Abbasid caliphate and the centre of court culture during the second half of the ninth century. Although archaeologists and art historians have worked on the site extensively, the bounty of numismatic, literary, and historical evidence has hardly been tapped. Since much of this evidence overlaps, Samarra offers unique insights into the character of city building, administration, military history, court life (ritual, court poetry), and imperial ideology throughout this period.
Contents
Introduction; Samarra in Ninth-Century Arabic Letters; The Palaces of the Abbasids at SamarraThe Samarran Mint; The Palace-Complex as Emblem. Some Samarran Qasidas; Fixtures and Fittings. The Role of Decoration in Abbasid Palace Design; Samarran Tiles. A Reconstruction; The Commanders of the Samarran Turkish Military. The Shaping of a Third/Ninth-Century Imperial Elite; Notes on the Mint at Samarra; The Form of the Military Cantonments at Samarra. The Organisation of the Abbasid Army; Feeding the Army
