An Islamic Late Antiquity? Problems and Perspectives

The inclusion of nascent Islam into a Late Antique framework has become largely conventional. And yet, with a few exceptions, Islamicists have been reluctant to discuss the implications of such an epistemological shift, or have had the tendency to reduce an ‘Islamic Late Antiquity’ to its religious and imperial dimensions. My aim is to question some of the consequences of the inclusion of early Islam into a Late Antique paradigm. In particular, I focus on the reception of Late Antiquity among Islamicists; the limits of late antique Arabia; the vexing issue of historiographical categories; and the cultural significance of the first dynasty of Islam, the Umayyads.