| This dissertation is a history of representations of Syria and Syrian cities in historical and geographical writing by Muslims from the second half of the 6th/12th century through the first half of the 8th/14th century. These representations made up a discourse of place in which localities acted as referents for various types of religious, political, and social belonging.; In a chronological analysis of major Arabic texts dedicated in large part or entirely to representations of localities, this dissertation argues that in the 6th/12th and 7th/13 th centuries representations of the cities of Jerusalem and Damascus, and later Aleppo, proliferated. These city-centric representations gradually gave way to representations of Syria as a coherent region by the late 7 th/13th century. In the first half of the 8 th/14th century, however, representations of the Mamluk Empire as a revived Dar al-Islam, within which the region of Syria was subsumed, began to dominate the discourse of place.; These discursive transformations shed light on wider social, religious, and political transformations between the 6th/12th and 8th/14th centuries. Many of the texts examined in this dissertation have been associated with the political and ideological history of the "Counter-Crusade" and "Sunni revival." Representations of Syrian localities emphasizing their sanctity in Islam, their historical role in the waging of jihad, and their resonance for the nostalgic reminiscences of their inhabitants reinforced the bases for legitimacy claimed by Muslim rulers and bolstered their expansionist projects in the period under study. |
