AbstractsHistory

The political, social, and economic changes associated with the Seljuq invasion of Iran in the fifth century A.H./eleventh century A.D. have long been considered pivotal developments in Middle Eastern history. But scholars, while agreeing that the invasion was momentous for the history of the Middle East, have disagreed on its specific effects.This dissertation focusses on one of the component regions of the ('c)Abbasid Empire, the southwestern Iranian province of Khuzestan, during the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries and incorporates data from contemporary historical and geographical documents, from archaeological surveys and excavations, and from medieval Islamic coinage.These data indicate that many of the political and economic developments traditionally ascribed to the Seljuq era, such as the institution of iqta('c) (a system of making military pay incumbent on land-tax revenues), the shift in power away from the Caliph to a secular ruler (e.g., the Sultan), or the decrease in international trade, had their origins in historical and economic factors that long preceded the Seljuqs.In addition to analysing the relative usefulness of the various types of evidence and to reconstructing the political and economic history of medieval Khuzestan, maps of settlement patterns and trade routes have been constructed, and appendices provide a catalogue of known coin production in Khuzestan, annotated translations of crucial sections of Arabic and Persian geographies, and an analysis of the chronological and literary relationships of various medieval authors.