82 | CHAPTER 3
can be risked is some indication of the common denominators of their re-
spective maturations, along with that of rabbinic Judaism and certain other
traditions. At a not too far distant date I intend to produce a secular his-
torical narrative of all these experiences, within the framework of the First
Millennium.
For and against the First Millennium
Carl Becker prophesied a century ago that “a time will come when late Hel-
lenism will be appreciated retrospectively from the Islamic tradition.”^96 If we
accept the First Millennium as our primary framework (it does not exclude
parallel use of late Antiquity either long or short, political, socioeconomic,
or conceptual), we are indeed enabled to analyze certain major historical
phenomena, which stand out better once the time frame is expanded in this
way. “Before Muhammad” appears in a different light when viewed from
“after Muhammad,” and vice versa. For example, Christianity and the experi-
ence of Christianization are relativized when studied in the perspective of
Islam, which saw itself as a corrective to Christianity’s failures—but also suc-
cumbed to some of its vices. The uniqueness of Christian monarchy and
priesthood, and of their interaction, are better seen when we examine the
failure of the monarchical caliphate to endure effectively in Islam, and the
success of a scholarly, nonsacramental form of religious leadership. And
we more clearly appreciate the remarkable durability and influence of both
Rome and Iran, whether as state or civilization or both, when we read the
Umayyads in the light of East Rome, or the Abbasids in that of the Sasanids.
These are all developments that continue to resound today;^97 and students of
the First Millennium are better placed to address them than historians who
act as if North Africa, Arabia, the Levant, and Iran just dropped off the map
c. 640.
It has been well said that
the rediscovery of late antiquity as a historical epoch with distinctive
characteristics and of major importance for later developments is indis-
putably one of the major results of historical research during the last
decades, and its implications for comparative history have yet to be ex-
plored in detail.^98
96 Becker, Islamstudien [2:74] 1.201.
97 Others, which do not, may still be historiographically important. Note, e.g., R. Alston’s “reading
back” from early caliphal Syria in order to question the decline analysis of East Roman urbanism and
economy: Acta Byzantina Fennica 3 (2010) [2:113] 14–15.
98 Arnason and others (eds), Axial civilizations [2:117] 287.