Abstract Dr. Peter Verkinderen
“ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURES, CONCEPTS, APPROACHES, AND COMPARISONS”
Nov. 27-29, 2014, Universität Hamburg
Abstract
“Geography and Administrative Structures of the Early Islamic Empire”
This lecture is concerned with a number of questions related to administrative geography. What is the relation between administrative geography, the physical landscape (rivers, mountains, deserts, …) and human geography (questions of settlement, identity, ethnicity, ...)? What constitutes a province? How does a province differ from a region? How does the conception of provinces and regions change over time, and how can we detect this? How should we conceptualize borders and boundaries of and in the Early Islamic Empire? These discussions came up frequently during the first months of the Early Islamic Empire at Work project. During this lecture, we will present some of the issues we have been struggling with, outlining possible answers and posing more questions.