Umayyad Legacies

This well edited book, appearing as Volume 80 in Brill’s Islamic History and Civilization series, is the result of an international conference held in Damascus in 2006. It consists of an introduction and 16 articles written in English (8), French (7) and Spanish (1). Copiously illustrated, it carries 38 colour plates, 7 black-and-white ones, five maps, plus 28 figures and architectural sketches.

The editors are assistant professors specialized in Islamic history and civilization. Sorbonne-trained Borrut now teaches at the University of Maryland and Cobb, author of a biography of Usamah ibn Munqidh (Warrior- Poet in the Age of the Crusades) does so at the University of Pennsylvania.

With their succinct contributions – Introduction and first chapter – the editors pinpoint the volume’s crucial problematic: How do we know what we think we know about the Umayyad dynasty? How did they want to be remembered? And how did later generations shape that memory?