ECONOMY, SOCIETY, INSTITUTIONS
Claude Cahen
Arab immigration into neighbouring territories to the north of their peninsula had started many centuries before Muhammad, and conquest. The coming Islam was accompanied by a development urbanization. In economic-social structure, principal distinction be noted is that between town countryside. medieval Muslim world situated almost exclusively within subtropical zone. agriculture countries has given rise special literature, forerunner which appeared in Iraq 'Nabataean agriculture' Ibn Wahshiyya, mixture oral traditions borrowings from ancient treatises. Abbasid period, great centre for whole East Baghdad, replaced after fifth/eleventh century Cairo, while distant West also own activities, though on smaller scale. Umayyad governmental administrative institutions were relatively simple.
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