Sergio La Porta – författare

The History of the Armenian priest Łewond is an important source for the history of early Islamic rule and the only contemporary chronicle of second/eighth-century caliphal rule in Armenia. This volume presents a diplomatic edition and new English translation of Łewond's text, which describes events that took place during the century and a half following the Prophet Muḥammad's death in AH 11/632 CE. The authors address Łewond's account as a work of caliphal history, written in Armenian, from within the Caliphate. As such, this book provides a critical reading of the Caliphate from one of its most significant provinces.Reading notes clarify many aspects of the period covered to make the text understandable to students and specialists alike. Extensive commentary elucidates Łewond's narrative objectives and situates his History in a broader Near Eastern historiographical context by bringing the text into new conversations with a constellation of Arabic, Greek, and Syriac works that cover the same period. The book thus stresses the multiplicity of voices operating in the Caliphate in this pivotal period of Near Eastern history.

This book offers the first comprehensive edition and translation of all surviving versions—Latin, Armenian, Arabic, and Aljamiado—of the polemical correspondence attributed to the Byzantine emperor Leo III and the Umayyad caliph 'Umar II.Far from simple diplomatic communication, these letters form part of a centuries-long Christian–Muslim exchange, rooted in fictional authorship but widely circulated across the Mediterranean from the eighth to the sixteenth century. The book explores their multilingual transmission and textual fluidity, as well as the evolution of their arguments, especially regarding scriptural reliability and Christology, to demonstrate how diverse communities adapted the texts to local polemical contexts. It identifies three main textual groupings and traces recurring argumentative strands, many of which derive from specific Qur'anic passages, suggesting their origins in an oral, cross-confessional polemical milieu.The correspondence not only reflects shared themes of religious disputation but also continuously imagines itself as one episode in a larger, unending dialogue between Christianity and Islam. By situating these texts within vibrant Mediterranean networks, the book provides crucial insights into the construction, adaptation and transmission of polemical literature in the premodern world.