Religious redirection : Muslim-Christian market interaction in early islamic Syria-Palestine
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation examines cultural and religious change in a context of interreligious interaction at Jarash city in Jordan during the early Islamic period (600-1000 CE). Through archaeological study of market street shops, an early congregational mosque in the centre of urban Jarash, and an array of material items and practices, it investigates how religion is lived out in everyday experience and changes gradually. In late antique Jarash—a predominantly Christian city with numerous churches—a congregational mosque is built, the urban marketplace expands, and new changes are seen in commercial and material culture. I explore these changes by considering the relationship between mosque and market in the urban environment, studies of macro-botanical, phytolith, faunal and human remains, writing tablets, and mass-produced religious commodities. This enables a description of the material bases of social and religious belonging, changes in farming, food and diet, commercial practices involving money and trust, and ideas of the sacred in material culture. The dissertation suggests that the early urban mosque in Jarash facilitated intermingling and interaction. Evidence indicates that a food suq (market) became closely associated with the mosque and that market streets were organised by trade occupation. The discussion of bio-environmental data provides an account of how people put religious ideas to use and are shaped by their relations with ecological things and market exchange. The dissertation also illustrates how personal texts inscribed on mass-produced lamps created a distinct, local form of spirituality that emerged in the fluid relations between Christians and early Muslims. Overall it offers an understanding of how religious communities reshape each other in grounded, material ways through social interaction. Comparing change at a political state-level with change in religiosity in everyday material culture related to individuals, I show how these processes differ in timing. The dissertation suggests early Islam to be cross-cutting of religious and social boundaries within the study setting.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2016 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Simpson, Ian R |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Anthropology. |
| Primary advisor | Hodder, Ian |
| Thesis advisor | Hodder, Ian |
| Thesis advisor | Meskell, Lynn |
| Thesis advisor | Walmsley, Alan, 1952- |
| Advisor | Meskell, Lynn |
| Advisor | Walmsley, Alan, 1952- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Ian R. Simpson. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Anthropology. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2016. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2016 by Ian Roderick Simpson
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