“The Impact of Muslim Rule on the Pattern of Rural Settlement in Syria,” in La Syrie de Byzance à l'Islam, edd. P. Canivet and J.P. Rey-Coquais (Damascus, Institut français du Proche orient 1992) pp. 291–7.

Contours of Conversion: The Geography of Islamization in Syria, 600-1500

The Islamization of Syria, a multi-faceted social and cultural process not limited to demography, was slow and highly variable across different locales. This article analyzes geographical works—ten in Arabic, one in Persian, and one in Hebrew—as well as the earliest Ottoman defters of the province to outline the process of Islamization in Syria from the Islamic conquest in the seventh century to the Ottoman conquest in the sixteenth. Geographical texts cannot be mined as databases, but when interpreted as literature they provide often detailed information regarding the foundation of mosques, the slow conversion of multi-religious shrines, and areas within Syria known for particular religious affiliations.

Economic Developments and the Nature of Settlement in the Towns and Countryside of Syria-Palestine ca. 565-800 CE

2007

New work over the last thirty years on the archaeology of Syria-Palestine in the later sixth and seventh centuries has significantly questioned the once-accepted view of an economy in decline, seen in part as a contributory factor to the supposed “easy” conquest of the region. Coinage, ceramics, and settlement profiles depict, rather, an economic resilience that successfully weathered the political and military disruptions of the seventh century. The relative soundness of the economy at the end of the seventh century gave crucial support to ʿAbd al-Malik during the succession dispute with Ibn Zubayr, and following its resolution ʿAbd al-Malik’s reforms were to ensure decades of continuing economic prosperity in Syria-Palestine. In the eighth century, a standardized coinage ensured monetary confidence, townbased industries were built up on a major scale to supply regional markets, while improvements to the infrastructure of agriculture—rather than the introduction of new crops—and the exploration of natural resources promoted settlement in the countryside. Over two centuries, the economy had changed, bringing significant shifts in urban and rural settlement patterns, but had not, to any significant extent, failed.