IMC 2026: Sessions

Beginning in the seventh century, the Islamic conquests reshaped the social networks of the regions that fell under the rule of the Caliphate as Arab warriors migrated to every corner of the growing empire and integrated themselves into the communities they conquered. This ongoing process continued to the early Abbasid period and created new challenges in response to both the migrations themselves, as well as the way local communities responded to them. The three papers on this session each address marriage and household formation as part of broader social and political changes on the northern edges of the Iranian cultural sphere during the Islamic conquests. One paper focuses on Tabaristan, the second on Khurasan, and third on Caucasian Albania. All three papers investigate marriages and concubinage between Muslim men and women living on or past the frontiers of the Caliphate. They interrogate the role of women as wives and mothers of mixed children, particularly as these women appear in texts to assert or maneuver both caliphal and local claims. All three papers also take cues from ʿAbbasid-era Arabic sources such as Balādhurī or Ibn Aʿtham to define the “Islamic conquests” (futūḥ) as an expansive period extending to the ʿAbbasid period.