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Eighth- and ninth-century Armenia and Caucasian Albania were largely Christian provinces of the then Islamic Caliphate. Although they formed a part of the Iranian cultural sphere, they are often omitted from studies of both Islamic and Iranian history. In this book, Alison Vacca uses Arabic and Armenian texts to explore these Christian provinces as part of the Caliphate, identifying elements of continuity from Sasanian to caliphal rule, and, more importantly, expounding on significant moments of change in the administration of the Marwanid and early Abbasid periods. Vacca examines historical narrative and the construction of a Sasanian cultural memory during the late ninth and tenth centuries to place the provinces into a broader context of Iranian rule. This book will be of benefit to historians of Islam, Iran and the Caucasus, but will also appeal to those studying themes of Iranian identity and Muslim-Christian relations in the Near East.Contents1. Non-Persian provinces of Iran, non-Muslim provinces of Islam: an introduction to the Umayyad and 'Abbāsid North2. Whence the Umayyad North?: Byzantine, Sasanian and caliphal administrative geography of the North3. Lost Greek kings and hoodwinked Khazars: Sasanian and Byzantine legacy in the construction of caliphal frontiers in the North4. The so-called Marzbāns and the Northern Freemen: local leadership in the North from Sasanian to caliphal rule5. Caliphs, commanders and Catholicoi mechanisms to control the North under Byzantine, Sasanian and caliphal rule6. Taxing the dead and sealing the necks of the living: Sasanian and caliphal treaties and taxation in the North7. Collective historical amnesia: claiming Sasanian legacy and the case for a Parthian Intermezzo.Alison Vacca, University of Tennessee, KnoxvilleAlison Vacca is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. A recipient of the Fulbright Islamic Civilization Initiative award and the Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fund fellowship, her research focuses on intercultural transmission of historical texts, the use of Arabic sources to tell Armenian history, the relationship between the South Caucasus and Central Asia, and inter-communal conflict between Muslims and Christians under early Islamic rule.