ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book show what a memory-narrative-based approach to early Islamic historiography can reveal about identity construction in the early Islamic world. It investigates how early Muslim authors living between the years 750 and 1050 streamed together the histories of the Arab and Iranian peoples into a four-centuries-long didactic drama culminating with the Islamic conquest of the Sasanian empire. The book argues that akhbaris writing in the cosmopolitan environment of early 'Abbasid Iraq sought to project the existence of an Arab "civilization" in their writings of the Jahiliyya era, and to justify the rise of the Arabs over a rival civilization possessing a longstanding imperial heritage. It analyzes the portrayal of the epic confrontation between the Sasanian empire, whose ruling house was in disarray, and the young, vibrant Muslim state, unified under the shaykhayn.
