The study of early Islamic cities has suffered from self-imposed limits and
has even been challenged as an empirical subject of research. The weight of
traditional definitions originates in a preoccupation with the medieval and premodern cities of the Middle East and idealising models based on descriptions
of these cities. New trends in recent years include a tremendous concentration
of scholarly interest in late antiquity, with reassessments of many assumptions.
Among these assumptions may be counted the primacy of literary resources
research, especially when the chronological lacunae may be taken to cast
doubt on historical constructs in the foundations of Islamic civilisation.
