Jeremy Johns

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE HISTORY OF EARLY ISLAM: THE FIRST SEVENTY YEARS

The rarity of material evidence for the religion of Islam during the e rst seventy years of the hijra (622-92 CE) has been used to attack the traditional positivist account of the rise of Islam. However, the earliest declarations of Islam are to be found on media produced by the early Islamic state. It is therefore mistake to read too much signi e cance into the absence of such declarations prior to the formation of that state by ® Abd al-Malik (685-705 CE). There is little prospect that archaeology will uncover new evidence of Islam from the e rst seventy years. Le manque de donne es mate rielles sur la religion de lO Islam pendant les sept premie res de cennies de lO he gire (622-92) a e te utilise pour re futer la the orie positiviste traditionelle de

Islamic archaeology at a difficult age

Islamic archaeology, unlike the archaeology of medieval Christendom, is still struggling to establish itself as a mature and independent subject. It is not just that some excavators hurry through Islamic strata, if they do not actually discard them, in search of the real treasures buried beneath. No less damaging are the internal divisions that separate the different branches of Islamic history. Few archaeologists or art historians possess the linguistic skills necessary to use primary written sources to study the material culture of Islamic societies, and many historians

Arabic ‘June’ (brutuyun) and ‘July’ (istiriyun) in Norman Sicily

In Arabic documents issued by the dīwān of the Norman kings of Sicily during the twelfth century, brutuyūn and istiriyūn mean, respectively, ‘June’ and ‘July’. The geographer al-Idrīsī, who completed the Kitāb nuzhat al-mushtāq in Palermo in 1154, also uses istiriyūn for ‘July’. These month-names are derived from Greek * Πρωτοϊούνης , literally ‘first June’, i.e. June, and * Ύστeροϊούνης , literally ‘second June’, i.e. July. The linguistic circumstances in which the coining may have occurred are discussed.