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“Local histories” from the eastern Islamic world are a rich potential source for environmental history. My thesis focuses on three such texts produced between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries AD and interrogates how the “local” was framed and defined in reference to geography, the land, and its natural (and supernatural!) features. The exploitation of natural resources—most notably water—is also a subject of concern for the authors of these histories, and the link between control of the environment, prosperity, and just government forms an important part of the ethical dimension of the texts. In this presentation I will give a quick overview of my thesis—with plenty of context for non-specialists—and discuss broader questions about writing the environmental history of the Middle East and Islamic world in this period, and what the possibilities (and limitations) of the available sources are.
