Changing Social Identity with the Spread of Islam: Archaeological Perspectives.

• Author: Morony, Michael G.
• Position: Book review

Changing Social Identity with the Spread of Islam: Archaeological Perspectives. Edited by DONALD WHITCOMB. Oriental Institute Seminars, no. 1. Chicago: THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE, 2004. Pp. 101.

What can we learn from material culture about the spread of Islam? In particular, is there anything in material culture that would indicate the presence of Muslims? Have Muslims had a distinctive lifestyle that would have left a record in material remains, and what would this have to do with changes in social identity? Such questions raise the general issue of the relationship between material culture and the identity of people, and the specific issue of the religious basis for social identity. The slim volume under review presents five case studies that analyze material remains dating to the early Islamic period, at different times and in different places, by the participants at a seminar at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago in May, 2003. Since Islam spread to different places at different times (as it still does), these studies range from the seventh to the sixteenth century C.E. and from West Africa to Central Asia. There is an introduction by Donald Whitcomb, who argues that there can be archaeological evidence for social change and that Islamic archaeology is not just a chronological term for the historical archaeology of the Islamic period, but involves an Islamic context for social and economic developments.

In the first study Jodi Magness uses the difference between typical village layouts in Roman and Byzantine Palestine and those of two settlements on the edge of the desert in Palestine dated to the eighth and ninth centuries C.E. as evidence for the presence of a new, different population. The modular units of the early Islamic period consist of an inner room and outer room or courtyard; the rooms are all the same fairly small size; and there is no indication of a second story or insulae. Magness sees this as reflecting a village structure organized around family units rather than around elite individuals, and it is no surprise that this would be understood as tribal in nature and origin. The problem with this, of course, is that tribal populations were not new in the region, so why is that kind of settlement not evident earlier? As Magness suggests, the standardization of these units indicates some kind of organization, and these settlements deserve to be compared with the housing at mining sites. That is, these settlements...