Final Report Summary - FOI (The formation of Islam: The view from below)
The Formation of Islam: The View from Below (FOI) project has resulted in important new insights in the crucially important history of the first two centuries of Islam in Egypt following the mid-seventh-century Arab conquest. Using Arabic, Greek and Coptic papyri from Egypt, the only contemporary evidence to the great Arab conquests and the establishment and formation of Muslim rule in Egypt, the project was able to correct histories based on narrative sources (chronicles, legal and theological treaties, etc.). Through an examination of the impact on the daily life of those living under the new regime, the ways in which the Arabs built on existing structures and ideas and the striking newness of their rule has been exposed. We now know that the overwhelming sense of continuity of daily life concealed important adjustments by the new rulers in the management, administration, organisation and cultural outlook of the province. Linguistic, cultural-religious and administrative practices were introduced by the Arabs displaying the conquerors’ Near Eastern baggage, a result of intensive contacts between Arabia and the world around it as well as the role played in the conquest by Arab tribes long settled in the Levant. The project resulted in the publication of several hundred Greek, Coptic and Arabic documents from the earliest history of Islam which had not been available before and a number of scholarly publications. A publicly accessible website displays bibliographies, technical terminologies and databases of topically selected documents. The impact of the findings of the FOI project have been internationally recognised with scholarly meetings and publication projects building on the main findings of the project that a self-conscious, well-established and determinedly operating political entity was in place from the moment Arab rule was established in Egypt. The way in which this crucially important formative period of Islam is considered ànd how the historiography of the period is written, have been revolutionised by the FOI project.