Co-edited by Fred McGraw Donner, B.A. 1968, Ph.D. 1975.

The papers in this first volume of the new Oriental Institute series LAMINE are derived from a conference entitled “Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians in the Umayyad State,” held at the University of Chicago on June 17–18, 2011. The goal of the conference was to address a simple question: Just what role did non-Muslims play in the operations of the Umayyad state? It has always been clear that the Umayyad family (r. 41–132/661–750) governed populations in the rapidly expanding empire that were overwhelmingly composed of non-Muslims — mainly Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians — and the status of those non-Muslim communities under Umayyad rule, and more broadly in early Islam, has been discussed continuously for more than a century. The role of non-Muslims within the Umayyad state has been, however, largely neglected. The eight papers in this volume thus focus on non-Muslims who participated actively in the workings of the Umayyad government.

Table of Contents

Notes for an archaeology of Mu'awiya: material culture in the transitional period of believers / Donald Whitcomb

Mansur Family and Saint John of Damascus: Christians and Muslims in Umayyad times / Sidney H. Griffith

Christians in the service of the Caliph: through the looking glass of communal identities / Muriel Debie

Persian lords and the Umayyads: cooperation and coexistence in a turbulent time / Touraj Daryaee

Non-Muslims in the Muslim conquest army in Early Islam / Wadad al-Qadi

Al-Akhtal at the Court of 'Abd al-Malik: the Qasida and the construction of Umayyad authority / Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych

'Umar II's ghiyar edict: between ideology and practice / Milka Levy-Rubin

Did 'Umar b. 'Abd al-'Aziz issue an edict concerning non-Muslim officials? / Luke Yarbrough.