Modern Time: Repetition in James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, and Virginia Woolf.

This dissertation explores the ways in which the group of people identified as the Azd adapted to and exploited the changes of the seventh and eighth centuries associated with the rise of an ever more imperial caliphate occurring simultaneously with the massive and widespread settlement of the former peoples of the Arabian peninsula in the settled world. It argues that the relation of tribe to state in this formative period cannot be understood through a simple logic of action and reaction, but rather as a set of dynamic processes in which each redefined itself as it sought to come to terms with the other. Chapter one addresses issues related to sources and methodology, issues which are extremely complex for the period under study. It argues for a traditional critical methodology which focuses on collections of information and their transmission in attempts to use their information for historical reconstruction. Chapter two examines a number of issues related to the origins of the Azd grouping and its development up through the period of the conquests, highlighting the patterns of its interaction with the outside world which set the base for the politics of the early caliphate. The focus of the third chapter is on the garrison towns of Kufa and Basra during the critical Sufyanid period. Chapter four concerns the Muhallabid family which played a critical role in Azdi history, while chapters five and six will examine the Azd in Mosul and Khurasan, respectively.