The Shrinking Frontiers of Islam

Abstract

I have borrowed the term “frontier” from the late Professor Joseph Schacht for the Islamic marches where Islamic political power and Islam were once firmly entrenched. Unlike him I would apply this term also to the Islamic marches in Europe: Spain and Sicily. Division of Islamic lands into geographical categories “The Central Islamic Lands” and the “Further Islamic Lands,” has also been adopted in the recently publishedCambridge History of Islam.

Medieval Sicily and Southern Italy in Recent Historiographical Perspective

“…40 In keeping with the concern about how populations changed after a conquest, and how new cultures, religions, and languages were adopted, there also have been a few works that have tried to trace language development in the period. 41 More specialized studies have focused on such topics as religious culture 42 and coinage, 43 but without any dominant trends or themes.…”

The status of the Muslim under European rule: the eviction and settlement of the Cerkes

“…as truthful people suffering for the cause of Islam and deserving of help and respect from their coreligionists. 1 The migration and settlement of the Cherkess (henceforth Cerkes or Circassians) in Syria during the second half of the 19th century may appear at first as a minor transfer of population both in terms of the number of people involved and in the surface of the settlement area. 2 Indeed, put in purely technical terms, the migration of the Cerkes involves their transfer from their ancestral lands in the Caucasus to certain areas in Western Syria, either directly or indirectly via the Balkans and/or Anatolia.…”