Ibn As Kir And Early Islamic History

"Begun in 1134 and completed some four decades later, Ibn 'Asakir's massive Ta'rikh madinat Dimashq ("History of Damascus"), with its 10,226 biographical notices, is a veritable gold mine of information for our understanding of the first five and one-half centuries of Islamic history. Now that it has finally been edited and published in its entirety, scholars will have far greater access to this fundamentally important (and to date little exploited) Syrian source. Ibn 'Asakir and Early Islamic History seeks to demonstrate the kinds of questions that Ibn 'Asakir (d. 571/1176) can answer for us, and highlights Ibn 'Asakir's importance for the study of early Islamic History and historiography, especially in the context of geographic Syria (Bilad al-Sham). Although the essays in this volume do not necessarily represent agreement as to the particulars of Ibn 'Asakir's historiographic agenda(s), each essay addresses important aspects of his methodology in his presentation of his vision of Syria's past. Taken separately, the individual contributions serve as guides through the perils and pitfalls of specific aspects of Ibn 'Asakir's coverage of the early Islamic past. Taken together, they show us how one Crusader-era Muslim envisioned the formative centuries of his own embattled religious and cultural community."--Publisher description.

The contributions in this volume deal with crucial subjects of political and theological dialogue and controversy that characterized the varying responses of the Christian communities in the Byzantine Eastern provinces to the Islamic conquest and its subsequent impact on Byzantine society and history.

Donner challenges the scholarly assumption that the earliest Muslim believers wanted to write history out of "idle curiosity" and suggests that Islamic historical tradition resulted from a variety of challenges facing the community during the seventh to tenth centuries, C.E. He identifies the intellectual context in which Muslims began to think and write historically; sketches the issues, themes, and forms of the early Islamic historiographical tradition; considers the value of some radically revisionist interpretations of early Islam that have appeared in the past 20 years; and discusses the problem of sources in studying Islamic origins.

Religious Scholars and the Umayyads analyzes legal and theological developments during the Marwānid period (64/684--132/750), focusing on religious scholars who supported the Umayyads. Their scholarly network extended across several generations and significantly influenced the development of the Islamic faith. Umayyad qādòīs, who represented the intersection of religious authority and imperial power, were particularly important. This book challenges the long-standing paradigm that the emerging Muslim faith was shaped by religious dissenters who were hostile to the Umayyads. A prosopographical analysis of Umayyad-era scholars demonstrates that piety and opposition were not necessarily synonymous. Reputable scholars served as qādòīs, tutors and advisors to Umayyad caliphs and governors. Their religious credentials were untarnished by their association with the Umayyads and they appear prominently in later hòadīth collections and fiqh works. This historiographical study demonstrates that excessive reliance on al-Tòabarī’s chronicle has distorted the image of the Umayyads. Alternatively, biographical sources produced by later hòadīth scholars reveal a rich tradition of Umayyad-era religious scholarship that undermines al-Tòabarī’s assumptions. Offering a better understanding of early Islamic religious development, this book is a valuable resource for students and researchers in the fields of Islamic history, Islamic legal studies and Arabic historiography.

This work provides an account of the preaching of a revitalized vision of jihad in crusader-era Syria by Sunni scholars.

Al-Tha’labi was a renowned Qur’anic scholar of the fifth/eleventh century, and his ‘Ara’is al-majalis is arguably the finest and most widely consulted example of the Islamic qisas al-anbiya’ genre. Drawing on primary Arabic sources, Klar applies modern critical methods in order to explore the nature of al-Tha’labi’s ‘Ara'is al-majalis within its historical and literary context, and thereby produces a compelling examination of the stories of Noah, Job, Saul and David as portrayed in the key historiographical and folkloric texts of the medieval Islamic period. Via a close analysis of the relevant narratives, the book considers a number of universal aspects of the human condition as they are displayed in these tales, from first a religious, then a familial, and finally a social perspective. Touching upon the benefits and limitations of the application of biblical studies and literary motifs to Islamic materials, the book investigates the possibilities of interpretation raised by a primarily psychoanalytical reading of the tales of the four individuals in question. As such, this text will be of great interest to scholars of the biblical prophets, Qur’anic studies, Islamic historiography, folklore and literary criticism.

Ibn ʿAsākir's massive Taʼrīkh madīnat Dimashq (TMD) is a veritable gold mine of information for our understanding of the first five and one-half centuries of Islamic history. This book offers important insights on the mechanics of Arabic historiography, in particular on biographical sources from the Middle period. Moreover, two contributions show that Ibn ʿAsākir pursued a political and sectarian agenda within his TMD. 1. James E. Lindsay, Ibn ʿAsākir, His Taʼrīkh madīnat Dimashq and its Usefulness for Understanding Early Islamic History; 2. Suleiman A. Mourad, Jesus According to Ibn ʿAsākir;