4

SPACE

AN EASTWARD SHIFT

The distinction of North and South is real and intelligible; and our pursuit is

terminated on either side by the poles of the Earth. But the difference of East

and West is arbitrary, and shifts round the globe.

—E. Gibbon (ed. D. Womersley), The history of the decline and fall of the

Roman Empire (1994) 3.1095 (marginal note added to one of Gibbon’s

own copies in 1790/91)

Discovering the Mediterranean

If we are to weave Islam into the fabric of our history, we must go beyond its
scripture’s dialogue with rabbinic Judaism and Syriac Christianity, or the ca-
liphate’s reminiscences of imperial style in Iran and East Rome. Islam’s devel-
opment of late antique artistic forms offers a strong hint in this direction. If
Islam eventually touched everything, it is likely that everything touched
Islam. To be serious about contextualizing its early history, we must pay at-
tention to its physical, that is, geographical, as well as its mental and aesthetic
environment. The geography is not just a stage for historical events to be
played out on, it is a series of opportunities and contexts that mold events.
But it takes effort to be as sensitive to the position of Arabia, and the various
influences that played upon it, as we are—instinctively—to the Mediterra-
nean paradigm.
Reaching his Italian tour in his memoirs, Gibbon affected indifference to
once more recounting “scenes which have been viewed by thousands, and
described by hundreds of our modern travelers.”^1 “Discovering” the Mediter-
ranean was already a commonplace, whatever its impact on individuals, not
least Gibbon himself once he saw Rome. Coming down from Mont Cenis

1 Murray (ed.), Autobiographies of Edward Gibbon [1:23] 265–66.