The Gate of Iron: The Making of the Eastern Frontier

The study of the eastern dynasties that ruled Khurasan and Transoxania during the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries - most notably the T&dotbelow;ahirids (r. 205-259/821-873), S&dotbelow;affarids (r. 247-393/861-1003), and S&dotbelow;amanids (r. 204-395-819-1005) - has traditionally focused on the relationship between these dynasties and a weakened 'Abbasid Caliphate (r. 132-656/750-1258). This approach understands this period as a time when provincial governors sought to break away from a declining Caliphate in order to form their own independent dynasties. This project offers a different approach to the study of Khorasan and Transoxania during the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries, one which focuses on the role of these provinces as a frontier.;Through the end of the fourth/tenth century, Khurasan and Transoxania made up the eastern frontier of the Islamic world, facing the Turks of the Inner Asian steppe. This frontier created a unique set of circumstances in these provinces which affected the political, social, and economic networks of the region. This project applies a frontier studies approach to the eastern frontier during the reign of the eastern dynasties in order to present an alternative view of the history of these provincial dynasties.;To achieve these goals, this project is divided into two major sections. The first (Chapters Two, Three, and Four) examines the "environment" of the frontier, exploring issues of how the eastern frontier was conceived by contemporary writers, the built environment of the frontier through a study of networks of fortifications, and the political and economic networks of the region, examined through minting practices. The second section (Chapters Five and Six) moves the focus onto the "frontier processes" of settlement, integration, and acculturation that shaped the eastern frontier from the time of the Arab conquests of the first/seventh and second/eighth centuries, through the reign of the eastern dynasties, and to the end of the fourth/tenth. This project seeks to place the eastern dynasties within local and imperial networks that developed along the eastern frontier in the early centuries of Muslim rule.