In this conference, we seek to explore how particular ruins were interpreted, described, memorialised and utilised in the Islamic period, from 622-1800 – i.e. from the dawn of Islam to the onset of the philological and archaeological discoveries in the nineteenth century. The purpose of our conference is to explore how Muslims interacted with the remains of pre-Islamic history present in their contemporary landscapes, and how the physical ruins of the pre-Islamic past were visualised, imagined and put to use in historical, theological and other literary contexts, and in material formats too.
