During the second half of the tenth/fourth century, the Umayyad caliphate of al-Andalus became a powerful political formation in Western Europe. Described by the contemporary German nun Hrotsvitha as the 'ornament of the world', Cordoba was the destiny of embassies and traders coming from places as far away as Constantinople, the Ottoman empire and Italy. The zenith of this political supremacy coincided with the rule of al-Ḥakam II (961 - 976 CE), whose name is associated with the enlargement of the mosque of Cordoba, the magnificent palatine city of Madīnat al-Zahrāʼ and the rich caliphal library which housed Arab, Latin and Hebrew manuscripts.

This book is based on an extraordinary source that had never been the subject of a comprehensive study: the annals written by an official and chronicler of the caliph's court, 'Īsà b. Ahmad al-Rāzī, who carefully annotated the big and small events of the court. Used by Ibn Hayyān to compose one of the volumes of his celebrated Muqtabis, these 'annals' have come to us in a substantial fragment of more than 135 folia that cover the period from June 971 to July 975 CE. This source provides an eye-witness account of the caliphate, which describes with stunning detail all the events, characters, places and narratives of the Umayyad caliphate, and is a fundamental work in helping us to understand the configuration of the Mediterranean in the tenth century CE.

Between 1050 and 1128 the nomadic Seljuq Turks and European Crusaders subjected northern Syria to a series of invasions from the east and west. The migration of militant peoples from the Eurasian Steppe and Western Europe inserted a new set of political elites into a complex frontier zone already beset by numerous conflicts fought along several ethno-cultural and religious contours. Surveying this turbulent chapter of Syrian history from multiple perspectives, this book recalibrates the underlying power dynamics of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. Through this regional focus, it reassesses both the impact that the establishment of Turkish and Crusader lordships had upon bilad al-sham (Greater Syria) and the reactions of Syria's established ruling elite to this unprecedented sequence of events.

Providing a unique reinterpretation of the political situation in bilad al-sham during one of the most important periods in Middle Eastern history, this book proposes a new model for understanding the political dynasties of this period and questions the significance ascribed to the establishment of the Crusader States by modern historians.

This book tells the history of Herat, from its desolation under Chingiz Khan in 1222, to its capitulation to Tamerlane in 1381. Unlike the other three quarters of Khurasan (Balkh, Marw, Nishapur), which were ravaged by the Mongols, Herat became an important political, cultural and economic centre of the eastern Islamic world. The post-Mongol age in which an autochthonous Tajik dynasty, the Kartids, ruled the region set the foundations for Herat's Timurid-era splendors.

Divided into two parts (a political-military history and a social-economic history), the book explains why the Mongol Empire rebuilt Herat: its rationales and approaches; and Chinggisid internecine conflicts that impacted on Herat's people. It analyses the roles of Iranians, Turks and Mongols in regional politics; in devising fortifications; in restoring commercial and cultural edifices; and in resuscitating economic and cultural activities in the Herat Quarter.