Astrology and History in Early Islam

Antoine Borrut has written an outstanding analysis of early Islamic astrological histories, showing how historians shifted from producing astrologically focused to theologically determined chronicles in the early 900s. His insights are field-shifting and, conservatively speaking, should necessitate a re-examination of period sources for their underlying astrological structures. – Kristina Richardson, University of VirginiaAstrological beliefs saturated the pre-modern world and a unique genre of astrological histories flourished in the early Muslim world. However, contemporary historians can easily be unaware of the very existence of this genre. Borrut puts the evidence for it squarely in front of us and explores its significance not just as a competitor of mainstream historiography, but also as a formative influence on it. – Michael Cook, Princeton UniversityBuilding upon his earlier work on early Islamic historiography and the Umayyad legacy, yet breaking altogether new ground here, Antoine Borrut has written an important study that will be transformative in the fields of early Islamic history and historiography. This book highlights the terribly overlooked links between astrology and history in early Islam and establishes that, far from being marginal to the field of historiography, it was the very same cohort of cultural brokers– practitioners of astrology–who were tasked with compiling the first dynastic histories in the early Islamic period. The very shape of Islamic history, its sites of memory, important dates and narrative articulation points, were created by this early cohort of astrologers, woven into narratives later on in salvation histories, and employed by modern scholars even today. That is no small legacy to have uncovered. – Paul M. Cobb, University of Pennsylvania

Antoine Borrut is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland. A specialist in early Islamic history and historiography, he is a former member of the Institute for Advanced Study and the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship. He is the author of Between Memory and Power: The Syrian Space under the Late Umayyads and Early Abbasids (c. 72-193⁄692-809) (Leiden: Brill, 2023; originally published in French in 2011 and winner of the Islamic Republic of Iran “World book award” and of the Syrian Studies Association book award). He also edited or co-edited several volumes: Navigating Language in the Early Islamic World: Multilingualism and Language Change in the First Centuries of Islam (Turnhout: Brepols, 2024); Mers et rivages d’Islam: De l’Atlantique à la Méditerranée (Paris: Presses de La Sorbonne, 2023); Christians and Others in the Early Umayyad State (Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2016); Le Proche-Orient de Justinien aux Abbassides: peuplement et dynamiques spatiales (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012); Écriture de l’histoire et processus de canonisation dans les premiers siècles de l’Islam Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée (REMMM) 129 (Aix-en-Provence: 2011); and Umayyad Legacies: Medieval Memories from Syria to Spain (Leiden: Brill, 2010).