The vast region between the Nile and the Syr-Darya (the Jaxartes of antiquity) has, geographically and thematically, been at the core of Oriental studies for a long time. Disciplinary boundaries have, in recent years, stressed the difference between the Arab and the Iranian world and have underlined the separate approaches according to philological, historical, geographical and archaeological subjects. This book attempts to transcend these boundaries by applying a range of approaches on a broad spectre of sources. It is dedicated to the scholar Heinz Gaube, who has, in the words of a well-known Persian geographical handbook, fathomed the “limits of the world” in his oeuvre.
Articles in the present book deal with a vast, but coherent field: Chronologically, they range from the early history of oriental cities and the writings of antiquity to the present internet-based discussions on Islamic justifications of certain manners of living. The geographical scope extends over the eastern part of the Islamic world, from Yemen across Jerusalem and Aleppo, the Persian Gulf and Iran to Samarkand and India. Connections between the Arab and the Iranian world are explicitly discussed or implicitly dealt with – be it with a structural comparison between palaces of the 9th to 11th centuries in Iraq and Afghanistan, be it with overarching phenomena of coinage, or be it with the travelogue of a Persian from Jerusalem under the Fatimids.
Under the heading “Cities, Sites and Landscapes”, articles dealing with the shape of individual places are presented. The section “Epigraphy, Numismatics, Monetary history and Documents” analyses sources of these categories, most of which hitherto unpublished. The third section, titled “Cultural Contacts” comprises five case studies pointing to the inner relationship between the Arab and the Iranian world, with a glance on India.