The purpose of this book is to examine and challenge the concept of an Islamic-Byzantine frontier that somehow separated the two antagonistic worlds between the second half of the Seventh century, following the Arab Conquests, and the middle of the Ninth when the frontier started breaking down.
In particular, a number of ideas have traditionally been associated with this “frontier” and these are rather well discussed by the author. The first of these was that, after Heraclius and Constantine IV pulled what was left of the Byzantine armies out of North Syria and of Mesopotamia over a decade to a decade and a half (between – at most - AD 637 and AD 652), the two Empires were separated by a large strip of depopulated “no man’s land.” The second and related idea is that the frontier was something of barrier and the area depopulated by the Byzantines was intended to help ensure that this was the case.
The author’s stated purpose is to confront, challenge and even refute both beliefs with what can be learned from a raft of Surveys of the various regions involved, looking at the Islamic side of the frontier. The main common finding is that there was a decline in the number of occupied settlements (and therefore probably also a decline in the overall population) along the whole of the Muslim side of the frontier during the early Islamic period, from roughly 650 to 780. However, the following period (roughly the next century and a half) saw a significant pick-up with numbers reaching the levels attained prior to the Arab Conquests.
A related finding was the declines and pick-up did not exactly take place simultaneously for the three segments of the frontier that the author identified, neither did they have exactly the same proportions. There are multiple reasons for these differences, including differences in geography and climate, but also differences in settlement patterns.
A third idea and statement is that the frontier was far from hermetic – quite the opposite in fact, that there was considerable interactions and that on both sides a “frontier society” developed with its various representatives having perhaps as much in common, if not more, than with their respective co-religionists in their respective Empires. This latter idea, however, cannot really be substantiated through either archaeology or terrain surveys, with the author using instead written sources, as others have done before him.
The book is interesting and, at least at times, quite fascinating, although it is also “technical” and not targeted for the general public. It clearly shows how our knowledge on the period under review – roughly from 600 to 1000 – is still limited and may progress significantly.
Excavations can provide the most accurate information but they remain relatively rare, expensive and often remain unpublished. They are even impossible in many cases, if only because many sites, and not only the major towns of the time, are still occupied and the remains of the ancient constructions have been built-over. Existing surveys are of uneven quality and some of their observations may be impossible to exploit, although more recent ones making use of cutting-edge technology may be more systematic and accurate. Another limitation is that only a small sample of the whole frontier has been surveyed and that even in areas that have been covered, sites may have been missed or misdated.
The overall quality might, overtime, improve enough to allow the author or others to make assertions backed by less tentative data but, for the time being, this is all that is available and given the turmoil in South-East Turkey and the ongoing conflicts in modern Syria and Irak, it will take time before it becomes possible to conduct new Surveys in most cases.
Despite the author’s efforts in presenting the existing information and analysing it, his findings do not entirely disprove that a “depopulated” frontier zone developed since they focus on the Islamic side of the frontier, although it does lead to qualifying and questioning it. There is, for instance, no similar analysis of Surveys focused on the Byzantine side of the frontier. Another consideration is that the author has used the term “frontier” rather extensively to the extent that his analysis includes all of North Syria and North Mesopotamia, and not only the more limited Thughur regions that would ultimately fall to the Byzantines during the tenth century.
However, what the Survey analyses definitely show and offer is a glimpse of the complexity and richness of these frontier societies – the plural being deliberate. It also shows that the concept of a frontier, while useful, is also an over-simplification and that geography, climate and living conditions were at least as important as ideological considerations in shaping these frontier societies. It is perhaps in this respect, more than in the ambitious objectives that the author had set out and which are still largely out of reach given the flaws and limits in our current information, that this books should be praised as a worthy contribution
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