Description du projet
Mieux connaitre la vie quotidienne au cours de l’âge d’or islamique
Les conquêtes musulmanes en Afrique du Nord au VIIe siècle ont eu un impact fondamental sur les communautés locales, transformant les paysages urbains, établissant un vaste système commercial et introduisant de nouvelles pratiques agricoles, technologies et coutumes culturelles. Cependant, les connaissances existantes reflètent avant tout les expériences des dirigeants et de l’élite, négligeant celles de la population en général. Le projet EVERYDAYISLAM, financé par l’UE, étudiera la propagation des modes de vie islamiques en Afrique du Nord, et notamment l’impact de la domination musulmane sur les populations locales, le logement, l’agriculture et les pratiques quotidiennes. Dans ce but, le projet s’appuiera à la fois sur des résultats de fouilles récents, des analyses scientifiques avancées, des ensembles de données déjà existantes et des sources écrites. Une méthodologie comparative sera utilisée pour étudier les changements à long terme dans la vallée centrale de la Medjerda en Tunisie, le bassin fertile du Sebou dans l’État Idrisside et la ceinture d’oasis saharienne de l’oued Draa au Maroc.
Objectif
The Muslim conquests of North Africa in the 7th century transformed the everyday lives of communities– between 800-1000, the region experienced an economic ‘Golden Age’, visible in the growth of urban populations, intensified exchange across a vast trading system and the introduction of new agricultural practices and technologies. New social-religious norms underpinned the development of a distinctly ‘Islamic cultural package’ marked by the spread of new aesthetics, public and private architecture and Muslim dietary practices. Despite significant recent advances, much of our knowledge continues to reflect the experience of rulers and elites, rather than the bulk of the population. Our understanding of the timing and process of these innovations is hampered by a reliance on later literary sources, monumental architecture and the high arts, the absence of high-resolution archaeological data and an incomplete understanding of what these changes meant for the people living on the ground. Through new excavations and scientific analysis using state-of the-art methods, legacy datasets and written sources, this project will explore the underlying reasons for the spread of Islamic way of life in North Africa between ca. 600-1000 CE. In so doing, this project aims to make a paradigmatic shift in scholarly understanding of the impact of Muslim rule by focusing on local populations, their houses and their everyday practices. It will take a comparative approach and study long-term changes in housing, agriculture, diet and technology in three key regions: 1) the central Medjerda valley in Tunisia, the famed granary of Roman and Islamic Africa; 2) the fertile Sebou Basin in Morocco, at the centre of the Idrisid state; 3) the Saharan oasis belt of the Wadi Draa in Morocco, on the margins of settled life. The ambitious objective is to rewrite the history of Muslim rule and the Islamisation of daily life from the perspective of the communities living through this pivotal period.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Thème(s)
Régime de financement
ERC-STG - Starting GrantInstitution d’accueil
WC1E 6BT London
Royaume-Uni