Ifriqiya and the Central Maghreb

North Africa played a pivotal part in the development of Islamic archaeology as a discipline through the important French excavations at the Qal’a of the Beni Hammad in Algeria in the late 19th century, one of the earliest excavations at an Islamic site by European archaeologists anywhere in the Islamic world. Despite this early promise, for most of the 20th century, the Islamic period was the preserve of art historians, with only a handful of small-scale excavations conducted at the spectacular palatial-cities, mosques, ribats, and fortresses of Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Since the 1990s, there has been a significant rise in the number of projects and amount of evidence available, as well as a new interest in revisiting old questions and models for the Islamic period. This chapter charts the development of Islamic archaeology and lays out the key scholarly debates in Ifriqiya and the central Maghreb, broadly understood as encompassing modern-day Tunisia, Algeria, and western coastal Libya.

Sicily

Sicily is a large and fertile island at the center of Mediterranean trading networks. Renewed public interest in its medieval past, a surge in research in recent years, and the richness of its archaeological and architectural heritage make it particularly fascinating for scholars of the Islamic world and beyond. While conquered much later than other regions, it saw an incomplete Islamization during the two and a half centuries of Muslim rule but an incredible economic growth especially during the 10th century. The fulcrum of the Sicilian social, economic, and cultural transformations was the great metropolis, al-Madina, Balarm (Palermo). Contrary to scholarly assumption, the arrival of the Normans in 1061 was not painless, and archaeological evidence points to gradual but substantial changes. Social and cultural tensions at the end of the Norman kingdom came to a head in Swabian times. Sicily in the late 13th century is a different world to 10th-century Sicily in every way: crops, culture, language and religion, settlement models, material culture, and networks of exchange.

The Maghreb al-Aqsa

Islamic archaeology in Morocco has its roots in the colonial period and developed in concert with architectural and urban studies of the imperial cities of Fes, Marrakech, and Meknes. For many years, it remained the poor relation to classical archaeology, and it was only in the 1970s and 1980s that systematic excavations began at Islamic sites. Since then, there has been a significant rise in the number of projects and amount of evidence available for urban and rural sites, particularly between the 8th and 14th centuries, though many challenges remain in terms of funding, training, finds analysis, and the use of new scientific technologies. This chapter charts the development of Islamic archaeology and lays out the key developments in urban and rural archaeology and the study of material culture in Morocco.

Southern Syria

Traditionally associated with the “Holy Land” and the target of early scientific investigations, southern Syria is one of the most intensively studied regions by archaeologists. Islamic archaeology has very old roots here, and many of the debates that have driven development of the field arose first in this region. This chapter, focusing primarily on Palestine and the Transjordan, evaluates the contributions to the field by archaeologists working there and critiques recent fieldwork as it informs such highly debated topics as Islamization, the collapse of the Late Antique polis, the militarization of frontiers, and rural resilience in times of political chaos. A special emphasis is placed on environmental and landscape research that has been opening new windows on rural society and the later historical periods.

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia’s Islamic archaeology remains unexplored and poorly understood. A perception even persists amongst some scholars that the region does not constitute fertile ground for the archaeologist, with its high humidity destroying valuable remains. This chapter, however, demonstrates that Southeast Asia is home to a fascinating array of early Islamic artifacts. Focusing on the sites of four early Southeast Asian Islamic kingdoms, namely Barus, Lambri, Samudera-Pasai, and Brunei, this chapter considers their archaeology in the context of recent claims that Muslims from China were involved in the region’s Islamization. Consonant with conversion, the chapter demonstrates that all four locations did indeed experience a connection of some sort with China. Most notably, all the sites (except Samudera-Pasai, for which no systematic ceramic evidence is available) yielded considerable amounts of Chinese pottery, pre-modern China’s principal export item. Three of the sites, Lambri, Samudera-Pasai, and Brunei, also witnessed the utilization of numerous Chinese artistic motifs in association with their earliest Islamic artifacts. Most strikingly, however, Brunei provides strong evidence not only of a much earlier sultanate than previously suspected but also of a direct connection with the major Chinese port of Quanzhou. While continually stressing that the presence of Chinese trade items and/or cultural influences does not establish a Chinese (Muslim or otherwise) presence at the examined locations, they do demonstrate that Southeast Asia’s first Muslim kingdoms emerged within an environment suffuse with Chinese trade goods and at a time when Chinese cultural influences were being freely adopted by the local Muslim population.

Central Asia

This chapter explores the Islamic archaeology of Central Asia. Central Asian medieval ities were investigated by Russian researchers since the last quarter of the 19th century but the results of these excavations remain little known in the west. The predominance of historical survey studies, extensive excavations, and an impressive number of publications provides a basis for understanding the organization and distribution of the Islamic Central Asian cities. Their interactions within this vast territory and with the Middle East emerge in contemporary debates. Trade plays a major role in these contacts, and the sedentary-nomadic interface stimulated the economy. Nevertheless, few studies bring together the work carried out over the long term and enable an understanding of the variation and evolution of Islamic trade and urbanism in Central Asia. Outlines of the medieval societies are known, but the details remain unclear. This chapter follows the main river basins (Amu Darya and Syr Daria) and steppic and desert interfaces to understand the basis and extent of Russian archeology in Central Asia from the Tsarist period (c. 1850–1917) until today. The construction of a field of Central Asian Islamic archaeology and the main challenges confronting researchers in the five Central Asian republics are also considered.

Eastern African Coast

This chapter offers an overview of historical and archaeological research on Islam and Islamic practice on the pre-colonial eastern African coast during the late first and early second millennium ce. Due to the visible remains of mosques, tombs, and other stylistic elements influenced by the Islamic heartlands, researchers have always regarded Islam as important to the emergence of Swahili coastal towns. In this way, the archaeology of the Swahili has always been an archaeology of Islam. Archaeological research during the past thirty years, however, has challenged the way an earlier generation of archaeologists characterized Swahili society as resulting from immigrant settlers from the Arab world. These debates, which continue today, are centered on how researchers position the Swahili within the dar al-Islam: Are they increasingly marginalized descendants of early colonists or the result of cosmopolitan engagements of local communities? Uncovering the first-millennium roots of east African Islam has allowed archaeologists to explore the development of coastal Islam, its particular material legacy, and its possible sectarian associations. Building on this research, the authors argue for a shift in research emphasis, from the study of Islamic presence to that of Islamic practice and demonstrate how research on mosques, burials, and coins can provide insights into the way coastal residents enacted Islam in their daily lives.

Central Sudan

In view of the paucity of research, the Islamic archaeology of the Central Sudan and Sahel remains one of the less well known of the African continent. While this also applies to the material legacy of the past six centuries, it is particularly sites and remains from the early period of Islamic influence in the region that are virtually unexplored. The earliest and most expressive elements of the archaeology of Islam in the Central Sudan and Sahel are elite sites related to powerful indigenous states: Kanem-Borno around Lake Chad and the Hausa city-states to the west. In view of their pivotal role in the introduction and propagation of the new religion and culture, the archaeology of those states is particularly significant when addressing the theme. Taking into account the current absence of a comprehensive body of archaeological evidence, this chapter relies on historical knowledge and interpretation as background to discussing a range of archaeological sites, structures, and features that are relevant material expressions of the impact of early and late Arab-Islamic influence in the region. The authors conclude by emphasizing the still untapped, enormous potential of research on the archaeology of Islam in the Central Sudan and Sahel.

Central Islamic Lands

The following text serves as an introduction to the chapters focused on the “central lands” of the Islamic world: the “Arab heartland,” Persia, and the territories of the Ottoman Empire. Long associated with the Holy Land, this region attracted the attention of archaeologists, geographers, antiquarians, and scholars of religion early on, with missions sent to explore and map the ruins of places associated with Biblical and extra-Biblical texts with greater frequency from the 19th century. Largely born out of Biblical and Classical archaeology, Islamic archaeology thus got an early start here, gradually shifting since the 1970s from the study of changes to the Late Antique city in the post-conquest era to that of larger landscapes and the rural sphere. Interest in the process and timing of Islamization has been a driving force in archaeological research in this region.

Heritage Management and Community Development

This section deals with the incipient practice of heritage management in Islamic archaeology through the deliberate engagement of local communities in the preservation of Islamic material culture. This growing expansion of the nature of the academic Islamic Archaeology has been enabled by the maturation of the discipline. An it was encouraged by a post-colonial activist agenda among some scholars to restore the rightful access of previously by excluded local communities to their own archaeological and architectural heritage. This thematic introduction will treat the emergence and nature of this process, and the ensuing chapters will give diverse instances of its practice.