Seventh and eighth-century papyri inscriptions and coins constitute the main evidence for the
rise of Arabic as a hegemonic language emerging from the complex fabric of Graeco-Roman-Iranian
Late Antiquity. This volume examines these sources in order to gauge the social ecology of
Arabic writing within the broader late antique continuum. Starting from the functional
interplay of Arabic with other languages in multilingual archives as well as the mediality of
practices of public Arabic writing the study correlates the rise of Arabic as an imperial
language to social interactions: the negotiation between the Arab-Muslim imperial elite and
non-Arabicized regional elites of the early Islamic empire. Using layout formulae and
technical terminology to trace common patterns and disruptions across sources from the Atlantic
to Central Asia the volume illuminates the distinctive formal varieties of official Umayyad
and early Abbasid imperial documents compared to informal Arabic writings as well as to
neighboring scribal traditions in other languages. The volume connects documentary practices to
broader imperial policies opening an unprecedented window into the strategies of governance
that lay at the core of the early Islamic empire.
