IFAO

The division and political upheavals experienced by the eastern territories of the Dār al-Islām in the tenth century CE were factors that complicated the social and political, when they experienced an irruption of conquering peoples from the eleventh century onwards.

Another factor at play with regard to this dynamic was the gradual militarization of powerful elites. These elites initiated new forms of conflict and framed the discourse around war. Continuing in the vein of the last decade in the field of war studies, this dossier focuses on the notions of ǧihād and fitna. Formulated in the context of a discourse grounded in Qur'an and hadiths, the founding texts of Islam, these two notions fueled discourses on war in medieval Islam.

Through the diversity of themes and the nature of sources reflected in this volume, contributions by historians and islamologists of this dossier aim, from a diachronic perspective, to shed light on the meanings and evolution of these two terms, as well as the ways in which they were used in different contexts.

The dossier also includes three articles in the varia section.