The History Of Al Abar Vol 8

Two major events occurred in the early centuries of Islam that determined its historical and spiritual development in the centuries that followed: the formation of the sacred scriptures, namely the Qur'an and the Hadith, and the chronic violence that surrounded the succession of the Prophet, manifesting in repression, revolution, massacre, and civil war. This is the first book to evaluate the writing of Islam's major scriptural sources within the context of these bloody, brutal conflicts. Conducting a philological and historical study of little-known though significant ancient texts, Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi rebuilds a Shi'ite understanding of Islam's early history and the genesis of its holy scriptures. At the same time, he proposes a fresh interpretative framework and a new data set for theorizing the early history of Islam, isolating the contradictions between Shi'ite and Sunni sources and their contribution to the tensions that rile these groups today.

When the Umayyads, the first Islamic dynasty, rose to power shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632), the polity of which they assumed control had only recently expanded out of Arabia into the Roman eastern Mediterranean, Iraq and Iran. A century later, by the time of their downfall in 750, the last Umayyad caliphs governed the largest empire that the world had seen, stretching from Spain in the West to the Indus valley and Central Asia in the East. By then, their dynasty and the ruling circles around it had articulated with increasing clarity the public face of the new monotheistic religion of Islam, created major masterpieces of world art and architecture, some of which still stand today, and built a state apparatus that was crucial to ensuring the continuity of the Islamic polity. Within the vast lands under their control, the Umayyads and their allies ruled over a mosaic of peoples, languages and faiths, first among them Christianity, Judaism and the Ancient religion of Iran, Zoroastrianism. The Umayyad period is profoundly different from ours, yet it also resonates with modern concerns, from the origins of Islam to dynamics of cultural exchange. Editors Alain George and Andrew Marsham bring together a collection of essays that shed new light on this crucial period. Power, Patronage, and Memory in Early Islam elucidates the ways in which Umayyad élites fashioned and projected their self-image, and how these articulations, in turn, mirrored their own times. The authors, combining perspectives from different disciplines, present new material evidence, introduce fresh perspectives about key themes and monuments, and revisit the nature of the historical writing that shaped our knowledge of this period.

This volume brings together some of the leading researchers on early Islamic history and thought to study the legitimacy of violence.

The initial years (126-145) of al-Manṣūr's reign presented several significant challenges to nascent ʿAbbāsid hegemony, and the resulting confrontations constitute the central focus of this section of Ṭabarī's Tarikh. After Abu Jafar succeeded his brother Abū Al-ʿabbās as caliph, the second of the ʿAbbāsid dynasty, he moved against his recalcitrant uncle, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī, and against the potential threat that he perceived in the person of the commander in Khurasan, Abu Muslim. Eliminating the latter and containing the former freed the caliph to address a series of other onslaughts and insurrections. Starting with the year 144, however, Ṭabarī turned to this volume's principal preoccupation, to which half of the book is devoted. Judging by the attention given to it, he clearly perceived the Hasanid rebellions of Muhammad b. Abdallah (the Pure Soul) and of his brother Ibrahim to be the most substantial attack on Abbasid authority to arise in the first years of that dynasty. Ṭabarī's description of the prolonged search for Muhammad and Ibrahim and of the caliphal vengeance visited upon their father and family provides an extended prelude to the vivid battle and death scenes in Medina and Bakhamra. Yet, elaboration of these events does not eclipse mention of all other Abbasid activity. To bridge the account of Muhammad's defeat and that of Ibrahim's uprising, Ṭabarī inserted a narrative interlude depicting the site selection and preliminary construction of al-Manṣūr's most celebrated achievement, the City of Peace, Baghdad.

The initial years (126-145) of al-Manṣūr's reign presented several significant challenges to nascent ʿAbbāsid hegemony, and the resulting confrontations constitute the central focus of this section of Ṭabarī's Tarikh. After Abu Jafar succeeded his brother Abū Al-ʿabbās as caliph, the second of the ʿAbbāsid dynasty, he moved against his recalcitrant uncle, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī, and against the potential threat that he perceived in the person of the commander in Khurasan, Abu Muslim. Eliminating the latter and containing the former freed the caliph to address a series of other onslaughts and insurrections. Starting with the year 144, however, Ṭabarī turned to this volume's principal preoccupation, to which half of the book is devoted. Judging by the attention given to it, he clearly perceived the Hasanid rebellions of Muhammad b. Abdallah (the Pure Soul) and of his brother Ibrahim to be the most substantial attack on Abbasid authority to arise in the first years of that dynasty. Ṭabarī's description of the prolonged search for Muhammad and Ibrahim and of the caliphal vengeance visited upon their father and family provides an extended prelude to the vivid battle and death scenes in Medina and Bakhamra. Yet, elaboration of these events does not eclipse mention of all other Abbasid activity. To bridge the account of Muhammad's defeat and that of Ibrahim's uprising, Ṭabarī inserted a narrative interlude depicting the site selection and preliminary construction of al-Manṣūr's most celebrated achievement, the City of Peace, Baghdad.

This book exposes the mimetic assumption involved in early Islamic historiography, its literary practice and whatever subverts it as reflected in Ṭabarī's History. Four major events in the history of early Islam are then subject to analysis based on literary criticism and are shown to produce a new meaning.

This volume reprints nineteen articles that deal with the formation of the first Islamic state under the 'rightly-guided' and Umayyad caliphs (632-750 CE). The articles (five of which originally appeared in languages other than English and are translated here) trace the crystallization of key institutions of the growing empire and treat such fundamental issues as taxation, military institutions, administrative organization and practices, the barid or official courier and intelligence service, succession, the ruling elites and their income, and questions of legitimation. The volume includes an introduction by the editor that offers an overview of the processes involved and helps place each article in its proper context. It also offers an extensive bibliography of further works relevant to the theme of the volume.

The present English translation reproduces the original German of Carl Brockelmann’s Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur (GAL) as accurately as possible. In the interest of user-friendliness the following emendations have been made in the translation: Personal names are written out in full, except b. for ibn; Brockelmann’s transliteration of Arabic has been adapted to comply with modern standards for English-language publications; modern English equivalents are given for place names, e.g. Damascus, Cairo, Jerusalem, etc.; several erroneous dates have been corrected, and the page references to the two German editions have been retained in the margin, except in the Supplement volumes, where new references to the first two English volumes have been inserted.