Iraq after the Muslim Conquest - Michael G. Morony

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INTRODUCTION

cases, the discussion here will begin with the late Sasanian period and
go through the early MarwanI period.
A second problem, which is related to the first, is a tendency to
make grand generalizations on a narrow base of evidence. In partic-
ular, there has been a tendency to generalize about Islamic history as
a whole on the basis of conditions in Iraq, partly because the infor-
mation about Iraq in early Arabic literature is so extensive. Standard
interpretations that have been produced in this way have tended to-
wards nationalism and have described early Islamic history as a period
of "Arab domination." Treatments of specific subjects based on a more
extensive examination of Arabic literature tend to be put within the
framework of this standard interpretation whether the evidence fits it
or not. At most, the conclusions of such studies only revise details
without challenging the larger picture.
On the other side is a tendency to take the standard interpretation
as a basis for arguing more general issues, to appeal to translations
of the sources and the secondary works of modern scholars without
verification, and to reach conclusions based on a priori arguments and
unverified assumptions. Such an approach tends to build an intellectual
house of cards and dissolves in meaningless generalizations. In this
respect no theory is any better than the evidence that supports it.
The converse, of course, is that the answers one gets are no better
than the questions one asks. In recent decades, social and economic
issues have attracted increasing interest among historians in almost
all fields. It has been tempting to apply modern social science theories
and methods to such questions because of assumptions about their
universality. But these theories and methods have largely been derived
from the study of modern, western societies, and their applicability to
premodern, nonwestern societies needs to be demonstrated before put-
ting them to use. It seems more prudent and responsible to err on the
side of caution, at least at first, and to use such theories and methods
only when the evidence justifies it. This issue is, in fact, related to the
general historiographical conflict between assertions of uniform, gen-
eral "laws" of historical processes and assertions of the specificity of
time and place. Generalizations are necessarily based on bodies of
specific data, and their usefulness in understanding different bodies of
data needs to be balanced against the limits of their applicability.
For instance, models that have been developed for discussing modern


15 Gerschenkron, Continuity, p. 7.
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