Bilad al-Sham (the Levant)
Modern-day: Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel
Bilad al-Sham ("the land of Sham") is the classical Arabic geographic term for the region spanning modern Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. Damascus served as the Umayyad capital from 661 CE, and Jerusalem, captured from the Byzantine Empire in 637–638 CE, became the site of major early Islamic monumental construction.
Content set in this region
- Research Paper
The Dome of the Rock Inscriptions and Early Islamic Identity
What the 72 AH Dome of the Rock inscriptions can and cannot tell historians about the state of the Qur'anic text and Islamic religious identity at the end of the first Islamic century.
- Research Paper
Islam: History, Authority and the Development of Islamic Tradition
A historical-critical review of the Qur'an and Hadith as sources of religious authority in Islam, distinguishing established fact, scholarly consensus, majority and minority opinion, disputed claims, and theological interpretation at every step.
- Article
Islam: A Reader's Guide to the Qur'an, Hadith and Early Islamic History
A plain-language companion to Revert Way's academic review of the Qur'an and Hadith: the same evidence, sources, and arguments, with every technical term and historical figure introduced on first use.
- Evidence Library
The Dome of the Rock Inscriptions (72 AH / 691–692 CE)
A monumental Kufic inscription band, roughly 240 meters long, running around the interior and exterior arcades of the Dome of the Rock: the earliest securely dated substantial body of Qur'anic-related text.