The retreat of the Byzantine army from Syria in around 650 CE, in advance of the approaching Arab armies, is one that has resounded emphatically in the works of both Islamic and Christian writers, and created an enduring motif: that of the Islamic-Byzantine frontier. For centuries, Byzantine and Islamic scholars have evocatively sketched a contested border: the annual raids between the two, the line of fortified fortresses defending Islamic lands, the no-man's land in between and the birth of jihad. In their early representations of a Muslim-Christian encounter, accounts of the Islamic-Byzantine frontier are charged with significance for a future 'clash of civilizations' that often envisions a polarised world. A. Asa Eger examines the two aspects of this frontier: its physical and ideological ones. By highlighting the archaeological study of the real and material frontier, as well as acknowledging its ideological military and religious implications, he offers a more complex vision of this dividing line than has been traditionally disseminated. With analysis grounded in archaeological evidence as well the relevant historical texts, Eger brings together a nuanced exploration of this vital element of medieval history.

A. Asa Eger is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in the US.

Introduction: Islamic Frontiers Real and Imagined

Part I: The Syro-Anatolian Thughur
Chapter 1: The Central Thughur: The Two Amuqs
Chapter 3: The Central Thughur: The Steppe and the River
Chapter 3: The Eastern Thughur
Chapter 4: The Jazira (Balikh and Khabur River Valleys)
Chapter 5: The Western Thughur: Crossroads of Cilicia

Part II: Hydraulic Villages and Fortified Castles: A Narrative of Settlement
Chapter 6: Upland Settlements in the Late Roman Period (Fourth to Seventh Centuries)
Chapter 7: Hydraulic Villages in the Early Islamic Period (Seventh to Tenth Centuries)
Chapter 8: Pastoralism on the Byzantine Frontier (Seventh to Tenth Centuries)
Chapter 9: Fortified Castles of the Middle Islamic/Byzantine Period (Tenth to Fourteenth Centuries)
Chapter 10: Frontier or Frontiers: Social and Environmental Interactions

Conclusion: Dismantling and Rebuilding the Frontier