The Reach of Empire – The Early Islamic Empire at Work

Date: October 11-13, 2018

Venue: Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

As the ERC project “The Early Islamic Empire at Work – The View from the Regions Toward the Center” nears its end, its final conference invites participants to consider the reach of the early Islamic Empire from the 7^th to the 10^th centuries CE.

When we talk about the reach of the early Islamic empire, we usually consider the geographical extent it encompassed, from the Hindukush to the Atlantic. However, the question of reach is a more intricate one that also entails the depth of military and administrative control over and within these vast regions.

– What strategies did the empire employ to integrate peoples and elites of different provinces, ethnicities, and confessions within its administrative and bureaucratic structures?

– Which areas fell outside the central control of the empire, when did they do so, and why?

– How did the reach and type of control strategies employed by imperial authorities (d)evolve over time?

– To what extent, for example, did communities in the provinces seek integration in exchange for the potential benefits of empire?

– Alternatively, what motivated them to resist deeper integration?

– Should the wider process of regionalization that began in the 9th century CE be understood as successful provincial resistance, imperial failure, or simply an alternative form of negotiating empire?

– To what extent did ‘Islam’ serve as an integrating force, even if only for the imperial elite?…

The conference will also discuss the economic and fiscal reach of the early Islamic empire, which concerns its interest in fiscal extraction.

The conference discusses the reach of law, Islamic and other, for the integration and functioning of the empire, as well as its role in the development of Islam as an ‘imperial’ religion.

Source: University of Hamburg