Cities Through Time

The first volume in a series dedicated to cities and urban processes in West Asia and Egypt, this collection of essays offers an exploration of West Asian history and society as seen through the lens of urbanization. Drawing together scholarship from historians, architectural historians, and archaeologists, the essays gathered here examine the development of cities and urban societies in the region from the Sasanian and early Islamic periods up to modern times. The up-to-date and advanced analyses presented within the volume explore the societies that inhabited these urban landscapes and shed light on noteworthy cities of West Asia and its surroundings, including Egypt, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. Through this approach, the authors examine not just the shapes, formations, and characteristics of urban centres, but also the economic and social structures that developed within them and gave shape to their communities.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Part I: Emerging Cities in the Pre-modern Era

1. Foundation of Cities as Military Bases: The Scheme of City-Building in the Late Umayyad and Early Abbasid Periods
Manabu Kameya
2. States and Capitals in the Islamic East: Some Notes on Ghazna and Fīrūzkūh
Minoru Inaba
3. Unearthing the Urban Landscape of Mamluk Jerusalem: Methodology, Social, and Cultural Implications
Nimrod Luz
4. From Village to a Provincial Capital: Bani Suef, an Ottoman Urban Centre in Early Modern Egypt
Magdi Guirguis
5. Urban Evolution in Kurdistan during the Early Modern Era: Shift from Mountain Strongholds to Flatland Cities
Akihiko Yamaguchi
6. In Search of the Words for ‘City’ in Pre-Islamic Iran
Seiro Haruta

Part II: Cross-Cultural Cities

7. Cities on the North-Eastern Fringes of the Sasanian Empire and Beyond
Alisher Begmatov
8. The City of Rayy: Urbanisation, People, and Caravan Trading Post
Rocco Rante
9. ʿAyntāb During the Mamluk Period: A City of Horizons
Nobutaka Nakamachi
10. Crossroad City of Ganja: A Treasury of Peoples and Cultures
Shinya Shionozaki and Gor Margaryan
11. Legacy of the Safavid Cosmopolitan Capital City: Traditional Crafts and Artisans in Isfahan
Tomoko Morikawa

Part III: Functions, Structures, and Landscapes of Cities

12. The City of Jundishapur: Formation and Transformation
Yousef Moradi
13. From Caliphs to Sultans: The Urban Structure of Baghdad and its Evolution During the Early Abbasid, Buyid, and Seljuq Periods
Vanessa Van Renterghem
14. Yerevan as a Boundary Stronghold Between Early Modern Empires
Kristine Kostikyan
15. Reconsidering Ḥāras: The Structure, Neighbourhoods, and Streets of Early Nineteenth Century Cairo
Naoko Fukami
16. Portraying the Urban Quarters of Tabriz in the Nineteenth Century: A Study of the Household Structures and Social Backgrounds of the Population in an Iranian City
Naofumi Abe

Part IV: Urban Life in Cities

17. Urban Society and Development of Cairo with Focus on Construction and Maintenance of Water Facilities
Takenori Yoshimura
18. Livestock Trade and Cities of Anatolia in the Late Ottoman Empire
Yonca Köksal and Can Nacar
19. Tehran at the Transition from the Qajars to the Pahlavis: Jaʿfar Shahrī on Modernisation and the History of Everyday Life
Anja Pistor-Hatam
20. An Overview of Internecine Muslim Urban Religious Violence in Medieval Islamic Cities in the Tenth through Twelfth Centuries
D.G. Tor
21. Saints in the Timurid Herat: Their Influence on the Urban Development and Society
Masaki Sugiyama
22. Masonic Lodges in Late Ottoman Beirut: Rise of the Urban Middle Class and its Civic Sociability
Masato Tanaka