Contents

pp v-vi

Acknowledgements

pp vii-viii

Note on the Text

pp ix-x

Introduction

pp 1-20

PART ONE - The Rise of Arab Communities

pp 21-22

1 - Imagining Ancient Arabs: Sources and Controversies

pp 23-59

2 - Pre-Islamic ‘Arabless-ness’: Arabian Identities

pp 60-109

3 - Arabness from the Qur'an to an Ethnos

pp 110-174

PART TWO - The Changing Faces of Arabness in Early Islam

pp 175-176

4 - Interpreting Arabs: Defining their Name and Constructing their Family

pp 177-239

5 - Arabs as a People and Arabness as an Idea: 750–900 CE

pp 240-293

6 - Philologists, ‘Bedouinisation’ and the ‘Archetypal Arab’ after the Mid-Third/Ninth Century

pp 294-351

Imagining and Reimagining the Arabs: Conclusions

pp 352-360

Bibliography

pp 361-394

Index

pp 395-403