Contamination can skew the carbon isotope ratio, leading to inaccurate age estimates. When discrepancies like this occur, especially if other labs produce consistent results that match each other, scholars typically cross-reference with other dating methods or retest the sample. The inconsistent result is approached with caution, and the broader consensus from multiple tests and methods…

Article The memory of war – and its use – was a constant in the Middle Ages and beyond. For example, a knight from Vélay, a veteran of the First Crusade, gave King Louis VII of France, probably in 1137, a luxurious illuminated copy of three chronicles of the Holy Land, including those of two…

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Article This body of sunnas convinced all of the early jurists, except for those mentioned above, that the Prophet condoned the participation of polytheists/unbelievers in his campaigns. This was the position of al-Shaʿbī, Qatāda, Abū Ḥanīfa, al-Awzāʿī, Sufyān al-Thawrī, Abū Yūsuf, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī, al-Shāfiʿī (Ibn Ḥazm, Muḥallā, vol. 7, p. 334. For specific…

Article Muslim practices inspired Byzantine iconoclasm: C.H. Becker, “Christliche Polemik und islamische Dogmenbildung,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 26 (1912): 191‒195; Gerhart B. Ladner, “Origin and Significance of the Byzantine Iconoclastic Controversy,” Mediaeval Studies 2 (1940): 129; André Grabar, L’iconoclasme byzantine: dossier archéologique. Paris: Collège de France, 1957, 120‒127; G.E. von Grunebaum, “Byzantine Iconoclasm…

Article Introduction The Fatimid period marks a defining moment in the history of the Jews of Islam. It is during these years that their status as a minority of protected subjects and of middlemen was shaped. By the tenth century their legal status as dhimmīs was already defined and articulated. They were normally given protection…