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The Study of Islamic Historiography: a Progress Report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

Chase F. Robinson
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Extract

Writing in the Supplement to the first edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam in 1938, Gibb began his article on “Ta’rikh” by volunteering that the “[t]he problem of the origins of Arabic historiography is not yet finally solved.” It was an astonishing thing to write. For equipped as he was with al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādi, Ibn al-Nadīm, Ḥajjī Khalifa, Yāqūt's Irshād, the first volume of al-Ṣafadī, with Wiüstenfeld's Die Geschichtschreiber der Araber und ihre Werke, as well as with all but Supplementband III of Brockelmann, Gibb certainly knewhow little of the early historical tradition had survived. He was very much working in the dark. It may be hard to imagine now, but of al-Balādhurī's Ansāb al-ashrāf he was probably then familiar only with Ahlwardt's slim volume, and the final volume of Ibn Sa‘d had not yet appeared. Meanwhile al-Wāqidī's Maghāzī (which he knew of), Ibn A‘tham's Futūḥ, ‘Abd al-Malik b. Ḥab7īb's Ta’rikh, ‘Umar b. Shabba's Ta’rikh al-madīna al-munauwara, Ya‘qūb b. Sufyān al-Fasawī's al-Ma‘rifa wa’l-ta’rikh, Abū Zur’a al-Dimashqī's Ta’rikh, and finally Khalifa b. Khayyāṭ's Ta’rikh and Tabaqāt (all of which he did not), remained inaccessible – and this is just to mention some third-century examples.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , July 1997 , pp. 199 - 227
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1997

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Footnotes

1

The following is a review of two recent works on Islamic historiography:

1.Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period. By Tarif Khalidi (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization.) pp. xiii, 250. Cambridge etc., Cambridge University Press, 1994. £35.00.

2.The Early Arabic Historical Tradition: A Source-Critical Study. By Albrecht Noth (second edition, in collaboration with Lawrence I. Conrad); translated from the German by Michael Bonner. (Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, 3.) pp. xi, 248. Princeton, NJ, The Darwin Press, 1994. US$27.50, £18.00.

References

2 Leiden, , 1938, p. 233 Google Scholar.

3 The essay shows no awareness of S. Goitein's important introduction to the first of the Jerusalem volumes (v, 1936).

4 Shaw, S. J. and Polk, W. R. (eds.) Studies on the Civilization of Islam (Boston, 1962), pp. 108–37Google Scholar.

5 Cf.Humphreys, R. S., Islamic History: a Frameworkfor Inquiry (Princeton, 1991), pp. 74fGoogle Scholar.

6 See Cameron, A. (ed.), History as Text: the Writing of Ancient History (London, 1989), pp. 207fGoogle Scholar.

7 Eagleton, T., Literary Theory: An Introduction (Minneapolis, 1983), p. 120 Google Scholar.

8 For two fairly recent examples, see Günther, S., Quellenuntersuchungen zu den “Maqātil aṭ-Tālibiyyin” des Abū ‘l-Farağ al-Isfahāni (gest. 356/967) (Hildesheim, 1991)Google Scholar; and Werkmeister, W., Quellenuntersuchungen zum Kitāb al-‘Iqd al-farid des Andalusiers Ibn ’Abdrabbih (246/860–328/940) (Berlin, 1983)Google Scholar.

9 The most notable recent addition is Sayf b, ‘Umar, Kitâb al-ridda wa’l-futûh and Kitâb Jamal wa-masîr ‘Â’isha wa-‘Alî, ed. by al-Sāmarrā’ī, Q. (Leiden, 1995)Google Scholar.

10 See, in particular, pp. 14f. and 183.

11 On this matter, see below.

12 al-‘Adim, Ibn, Bughyat al-ṭalabft ta’rikh Ḥalab (Aleppo, 1988)Google Scholar.

13 Some words are said about the ‘ulamā’ on pp. 200–4.

14 See Partner, N., “The new Comificius: medieval history and the artifice of words”, Classical Rhetoric and Medieval Historiography, ed. Breisach, E. (Kalamazoo, 1985), p. 11 Google Scholar.

15 As the editors note, al-Ibāḍi's, Ibn Sallām Kitāb fihi bad’ al-Islām wa-sharā’i‘ al-din (Wiesbaden, 1986; wr. after 273/886–7)Google Scholar is significant not only because it is an early Ibāḍi history, but also because it comes so early in the growth of the Maghribī historical tradition.

16 See, in particular, the criticism of Noth's work (p. 16, note 13), and the call for more study of ḥadith methodologies (p. 17, note 20).

17 Cf.Gilliot, C., “Mythe, récit, histoire du salut dans le commentaire coranique de Tabari”, JA, CCLXXII (1994), pp. 244fGoogle Scholar.

18 “Sufism provided the vocabulary that historians would sometimes employ to describe the manner in which they tried to arrive at the inner certainty of things and to relate the fleeting phenomena of history to a higher reality which alone could endow them with ultimate meaning” (p. 215).

19 The idea has been anticipated by others; see, for example, Rotter, G., “Zur Überlieferung einiger historischer Werke Madā’inis in Tabarīs Annalen’, Oriens, XXIII–1V (1974), p. 105 Google Scholar.

20 See, for example, Juynboll, G., Muslim Tradition (Cambridge, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chapter 1. It is worth noting that although Motzki's careful qualifications of Schacht's views may allow for some late first-century ḥadith, he does not argue for an earlier systematization of isnād procedures.

21 See Landau-Tasseron, E., “Sayf b. ‘Umar in medieval and modem scholarship”, DI, LXVII (1990), pp. 6f.Google Scholar; al-Nās, Ibn Sayyid, ‘Uyūn al-athar (Beirut, 1982), pp. 20ffGoogle Scholar. (noted by Landau-Tasseron). On the sorry reputation of Wathīma b. Mūsā (237/847), see Hoenerbach, W., Waṯīma's Kitāb al-ridda aus Ibn Ḥağar (Mainz, 1951), pp. 231fGoogle Scholar.

22 Cf.Petersen, E. L., ‘Ali and Mu‘āwiya in Early Arabic Tradition (Copenhagen, 1964), p. 17 Google Scholar.

23 Thus al-Wāqidī is given to defending his use of collective isnāds by appealing to economy; see al-Nās, Ibn Sayyid, ‘Uyūn al-athar, pp. 23fGoogle Scholar.

24 See his Kitāb al-Ta’rīj (La Historia) (Madrid, 1991)Google Scholar; and idem, Mukhtaṣarfi al-ṭibb (Madrid, 1992), particularly P. 99 Google Scholar.

25 Thus, “the use of astronomy” by al-Ya‘qūbī, and al-Iṣfahāni, Ḥamza is “typical of the influence that the climate of Adab exercised on historiography in encouraging the investigation of chronography and in transcending the traditional scriptural sources for the inquiry into ancient history” (p. 121)Google Scholar.

26 See Pingree, D., “The fragments of the works of al-Fazārī”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, XXIX (1970), pp. 103–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 E.g. Māshā’allāh's Fi qiyām al-khulafā’ wa-ma‘rifat qiyām kull malik; see Kennedy, E. S. and Pingree, D., The Astrological History of Māshā’allāh (Cambridge, MA, 1971), in particular pp. 129ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 For a list of astrological works available in ninth-century libraries, see Rosenthal, F., “From Arabic books and manuscripts, X”, JAOS, LXXXIII (1963), pp. 454fGoogle Scholar.

29 Creswell, K. A. C., Early Muslim Architecture, 2nd edition (Oxford, 1969), pp. 401fGoogle Scholar. (particularly Saxl, F., “The Zodiac of Quṣayr ‘Amra”, pp. 424–32Google Scholar).

30 For evidence on the Jewish side, see Charlesworth, J. H., “Jewish interest in astrology during the Hellenistic and Roman period”, Aufstieg und Niedetgang der römischen Welt, 20:2 (Berlin and New York, 1987), pp. 926–50Google Scholar; for Christian astrology in general, see now Barton, T., Ancient Astrology (London and New York, 1994), chapter 3Google Scholar; for the Armenians’ interest, Thomson, R. W., “‘Let now the astrologers stand up’: the Armenian Christian reaction to astrology and divination”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, XLVI (1992), pp. 304–12Google Scholar.

31 On the historiographic significance for the Islamic tradition of Theophilus of Edessa (d. 785), translator of Homer, historian, and court astrologer to al-Mahdī, see Conrad, Lawrence I., “The conquest of Arwād: a source critical study in the historiography of the early medieval Near East”, in Cameron, A. and Conrad, L. I., The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East I: Problems in the Literary Source Material (Princeton, 1992), pp. 331fGoogle Scholar.

32 Khoury, R. G., “Un Fragment astrologique inédit attribué à Wahb b. Munabbih”, Arabica, XIX (1972), pp.139–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 al-Nadīm, Ibn, Kitāb al-Fihrist (Leipzig, 1872), p. 277 Google Scholar.

34 By “early Islamic scholarship”, which “begins in earnest in the early yean following the death of the Prophet” (p. 14), we are clearly to understand the transmission of ḥadīth which was “[r]ecorded in both memory and writing from the earliest decades after the death of the Prophet” (p. 19).

35 Azmi, M. M., On Schacht's Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (Riyadh, 1985)Google Scholar.

36 Motzki, H., Die Anfange der islamischen Jurisprudenz: Ihre Entwicklung bis zur Mitte des 2./8. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1991)Google Scholar; idem, “The Muṣannaf of ‘Abd al-Razzāq aṣ-Ṣan‘āni as a source of authentic aḥādīth of the first century A.H.”, JNES, L (1991), pp. 1–21 Google Scholar. Motzki's work suggests that some ḥadīth may date from the late first century.

37 For a demonstration of how isnāds can misrepresent the transmission of parallel accounts, see S. Leder, “The literary use of the khabar. a basic form of historical writing”, in Cameron, and Conrad, , Problems in the Literary Source Material, pp. 284fGoogle Scholar.

38 Motzki, , “The Muṣannaf”, pp. 12f.Google Scholar: “… traditions conveying opinions and practices of others played only a minor role in his legal teaching.”

39 Pace Abbott too (Studies, p. 9), who writes of the “parallel oral transmissions”.

40 Here I draw on several studies by Schoeler, G. (“Die Frage der schriftlichen oder mündlichen Überlieferung der Wissenschaften im frühen Islam”, DI, LXII [1985], pp. 201–30Google Scholar; “Mündliche Thora und ḥ;adiṯ: Überlieferung, Schreibverbot, Redaktion”, DI, LXVI [1989], pp. 213–51Google Scholar; and “Schreiben und Veröffentlichen. Zu Verwendung und Funktion der Schrift in den ersten islamischen Jahrhunderten”, DI, LXIX [1992], pp. 1–43)Google Scholar, as well as on Leder, S., Das Korpus al-Haiṯam ibn ‘Adi (Frankfurt am Main, 1991), pp. 8f.Google Scholar, Günther, Quellenuntersuchungen; and Calder, N., Studies in Eariy Muslim Jurisprudence (Oxford, 1993), chapter 7Google Scholar.

41 In addition to the note above, see Landau-Tasseron, E., “Processes of redaction: the case of the Tamīmite delegation to the Prophet Muhammad”, BSOAS, XLIX (1986), pp. 253–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Abbott, N., Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri I: Historical Texts (Chicago, 1957), pp. 9fGoogle Scholar.

43 For a more circumspect view, see Rosenthal, F., A History of Muslim Historiography (Leiden, 1952), p. 64 Google Scholar; and idem, “Ibn Sharya”, EI 2, where ‘Ubayd's historiographical role is characterized as “entirely conjectural”.

44 On precisely this, see below.

45 The difficulty of dating the conquests is a recurrent theme in Caetani, L., Annali dell’Islam (Milan, 1905–1926)Google Scholar, and Donner, F., The Early blamic Conquests (Princeton, 1981)Google Scholar.

46 The role played by ‘Urwa in the emergence of the sira has featured prominently in the literature since Horovitz's time; for some examples, see Sezgin, , GAS, i, pp. 278f.Google Scholar; Duri, A. A., Rise of Historical Writing among the Arabs, ed. and tr. by Conrad, Lawrence I. (Princeton, 1983), pp. 25f.Google Scholar; and Werkmeister, , Quellenuntersuchungen, pp. 432fGoogle Scholar.

47 Abbott, , Studies, p. 26 Google Scholar.

48 On ‘Urwa, cf.Faruqi, N. A. (Early Muslim Historiography [Delhi, 1979], p. 226 Google Scholar: “The style of ‘Urwa in writing and presenting the historical material was quite simple and far from any complexity or ambiguity. His approach is quite realistic, clear and free from exaggeration”; and Duri, , The Rise of Historical Writing, p. 25 Google Scholar (as translated from the 1960 original): “‘Urwa's style of writing is direct and far removed from literary affectation, and at the same time his attitude is realistic, unequivocal, and free from exaggeration.”

49 See Caetani, , Annali dell’Islam, i, pp. 472fGoogle Scholar.

50 Crone, P., Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (Princeton, 1987), pp. 226fGoogle Scholar.

51 This was pointed out nearly a century and a half ago by Steinschneider, M., “Die kanonische Zahl der Muhammedanischen Secten und die Symbolik der Zahl 70–73”, ZDMG, IV (1850), pp. 145–70Google Scholar. The topological character of this number in the conquest traditions was also pointed out by E. Landau-Tasseron in her review of Donner, , The Early Islamic Conquests in JSAI, VI (1985), pp. 509f.Google Scholar; and for a detailed discussion of 7, see Hartmann-Schmitz, U., Die Zahl Sieben im sunnitischen Islam. Studien unhand von Koran und Ḥadiṯ (Frankfurt am Main, 1989)Google Scholar.

52 See Conrad, , “The conquest of Arwād”, pp. 393fGoogle Scholar.

53 On the exegetical nature of much of what purports to Prophetic history, see Crone, , Meccan Trade, pp. 204fGoogle Scholar.

54 I borrow the phrase from the “Introduction” to Hornblower, S. (ed.), Greek Historiography (Oxford, 1994), p. 8 Google Scholar.

55 For the isnād as a rhetorical feature to endow narrative with authority, see Leder, “Literary use of the khabar”; and cf.Bellamy, J., “Sources of Ibn Abi’l-Dunyā's Kitāb Maqtal Amir al-Mu’minin ‘Ali ”, JAOS, CIV (1984), p. 17 Google Scholar.

56 The argument was first made by Noth, in his “Der Charakter der ersten grossen Sammlungen von Nachrichten zur frühen Kalifenzeit”, DI, XLVII (1971), pp. 168–99Google Scholar.

57 See, for example, Koren, J. and Nevo, Y. D., “Methodological approaches to Islamic studies”, DI, LXVIII (1991), pp. 87–107 Google Scholar, which concedes that the “‘revisionist’ approach is by no means monolithic”, but then proceeds to treat it as such.

58 See, for example, Crone, P., “Two legal problems bearing on the early history of the Qur’ān”, JSAI, XVIII (1994), pp. 14fGoogle Scholar.

59 Cf.Sharon, M., (“The military reforms of Abū Muslim”, Studies in Islamic History and Civilization in Honour of Professor David Ayalon [Jerusalem, 1986], p. 109, note 15)Google Scholar, cites Bashear, whose study, according to Sharon, “proves beyond doubt what has long been partly known and partly suspected that Islamic tradition was invented and adapted by the Muslim scholars who felt obliged to meet the necessities of Islam after it had already emerged as an independent state religion and acquired its individual form from the time of Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik (685–705) onwards.” Contrast Lecker, M., The Banu Sulaym: A Contribution to the Study of Early Islam (Jerusalem, 1989), x Google Scholar: “Yet there is no ‘plot” masterminded by cunning Islamic historians to make us believe in a past that has never existed.”

60 Morony, M., Iraq after the Muslim Conquest (Princeton, 1984), p. 572 Google Scholar; (Noth is later considered to be an example of “hypercritical skepticism” [p. 573]).

61 See above, note 59.

62 See Crone, P., Slaves on Horses: the Evolution of the Islamic Polity (Cambridge, 1980), p. 14 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 See his “Die literarisch überlieferten Verträge der Eroberungszeit als historische Quellen für die Behandlung der unterworfenen Nicht-Muslime durch ihre neuen muslimischen Oberherren”, Studien zum Minderheitenproblem im Islam I (Bonn, 1973), pp. 282–314 Google Scholar; and “Eine Standortbestimmung der Expansion (Futūḥ) unter den ersten Kalifen (Analyse von Tabarī I, 2854–2856)”, Asiatische Studien, XLIII (1989), pp. 120–36Google Scholar.

64 See, for examples, the fitan material used by Madelung, W., “Apocalyptic prophecies in Ḥimṣ in the Umayyad age”, Journal of Semitic Studies, XXXI (1986), especially p. 180 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the Ibāḍī material used by Cook, M., Early Muslim Dogma (Cambridge, 1981)Google Scholar.

65 “Futūḥ thus constituted a – if not the – principal historical rubric under which the early traditionists considered the first decades of Islamic history after the death of Muhammad” (p. 31).

66 See p. 204; and cf.Noth, A., “ Futūḥ-history and futūḥ-historiography: the Muslim conquest of Damascus”, al-Qanṭara, X (1989), p. 455 Google Scholar.

67 See Juynboll, , Muslim Tradition, pp. 12fGoogle Scholar.

68 The maqtal of ‘Uthmān is in fact mentioned as one of the earliest sub-themes of fitna (pp. 33f.); for a full discussion, see now Günther, S., “ Maqātil literature in medieval Islam”, Journal of Arabic Literature, XXV (1994), pp. 192–212 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 Here I follow what is now the conventional wisdom, but there are qualifications to be made: see Conrad, L. I., “Abraha and Muhammad: some observations apropos of chronology and literary topoi in the early Arabic historical tradition”, BSOAS, L (1987), p. 239 Google Scholar.

70 Wansbrough, J., The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition ofblamic Salvation History (Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar.

71 Lecker, M., Muslims, Jews and Pagans: Studies on Early Islamic Medina (Leiden, 1995), p. xi, note 8Google Scholar: “the first two centuries are best studied as a whole”.

72 See p. 32, where it is called unlikely that “a complex of traditions, originally all-embracing in character, would later have been divided up into separate parts”.

73 Duri, , The Rise of Historical Writing, pp. 24 and 76, note 1Google Scholar; but he also seems to imply (p. 26) that ‘Urwa's material on the early caliphs was drawn from his maghāzī work.

74 Hinds, M., “«Maghāzi« and «sira« in early Islamic scholarship”, La vie du prophète Mahomet (Paris, 1983), pp. 64fGoogle Scholar.

75 Shayba, IbnAbi, al-Musannaf (Beirut, 1989), viii, pp. 434fGoogle Scholar.

76 al-Ṣan‘āani, ‘Abd al-Razzāq, al-Muṣannaf (Beirut, 1972), v, pp. 482fGoogle Scholar.

77 Shoufani, E., al-Ridda and the Muslim Conquest of Arabia (Beirut, 1972), chapter 4Google Scholar; cf.Donner, , The Early Islamic Conquests, p. 90 Google Scholar: “The Islamic conquest of the Near East cannot be viewed, then, as something separate from the career of Muhammad the Apostle or from the conquest of Arabia during the ridda wars.”

78 Cf. Leder's comment that sira, maghāzi, futūḥ “are kept distinct, although not entirely separate.” See his “Literary use of the khabar”, p. 278 Google Scholar.

79 As long ago as 1891 Goldziher wrote that “[f]ables about the conquests of Islam were written down already under the Umayyads, in connection with data from the biography of the Prophet, and read with predilection at court“; see his Muslim Studies (London, 1971), ii, p. 191 Google Scholar.

80 Humphreys, , Islamic History, p. 86 Google Scholar.

81 The example adduced by Noth/Conrad, Ibn al-Kalbi's Kitāb Musaylima al-kadhdhāb, is drawn from Ibn al-Nadim; but the case could be strengthened by several examples from the ridda material embedded in al-Kalā‘i’s, al-Iktifā’ (New Delhi, 1970 Google Scholar).

82 “God sent down a disturbance/confusion” (khrovutium) upon the Ismaelites, and as a result “their unity was splitȍ. See Ps.-Sebeos, , Histoire d’Héraclius, tr. Macler, F. (Paris, 1904), p. 148 Google Scholar.

83 Later, in the so-called “Zuqnin Chronicle” (ca. 775), fetnā reappears in an account that appears to be independent of the Islamic tradition. The texts are translated and discussed in Palmer, A., The Seventh Century in the West-Syrian Chronicles (Liverpool, 1993) pp. 49 and 58 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; I very briefly discuss the two references in a review of Palmer, (JRAS, 3, V [1995], p. 98 Google Scholar). The middle of the eighth century thus strikes me as altogether too late for the appearance of fitna in the sense of “civil war”; see Juynboll, G. H. A., “The date of the great fitna ”, Arabica, XX (1973). pp 142–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84 The case that the da‘wa functioned to express mawālī claims is made persuasively, even if the dating proposed is too precise for the evidence adduced. But the view that the da‘wa/hijra combination is almost certainly Prophetic cannot survive the recent argument that hijra remained an ongoing practice well into the Umayyad period; see Crone, P., “The first-century concept of hiğra ”, Arabica, XLI (1994), pp. 352–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

85 Elsewhere (“Zum Verhältnis von kalifer Zentralgewalt und Provinzen in umayyadischer Zeit: die “Ṣulḥ-‘Anwa” Traditionen für Ägypten und den Iraq”, Die Welt des Islams, XIV [1973], pp. 150–62Google Scholar) Noth proposes that the ṣulḥ/‘anwa formulation dates from the late Umayyad period. But this does not figure in their list of topoi.

86 The issue is mentioned only in passing on pp. 41 and 72: “a long process of (mostly likely oral) transmission, in the course of which they [documents] have been subjected to all sorts of changes”.

87 Things are naturally different in Qur’anic studies, since scripture had clear liturgical uses; see, for example, Neuwirth, A., “Vom Rezitationstext iiber die Liturgie zum Kanon’, The Qur’ān as Text, ed. Wild, S. (Leiden, 1996), pp. 69–105 Google Scholar.

88 Here one might note in passing that the printed editions of al-Thaqafi’s Kitāb al-ghārāt may not be complete; see Kohlberg, E., A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work: Ibn Ṭāwūs and his Library (Leiden, 1992), pp. 170fGoogle Scholar.

89 See, for example, the reconstruction proposed for the conquest of Egypt on pp. 182f.

90 See Leder, , “Literary use of the khabar”, p. 282 Google Scholar: “Even in the case of a narration which is obviously biased, it often remains difficult to relate the underlying tendency to the evolution of dogmatic thought, so that any conclusions as to chronology will remain somewhat hazardous.” Cf. also Lassner, J., Islamic Revolution and Historical Memory (New Haven, 1986), pp. 30fGoogle Scholar.

91 Of the many, many examples that could be adduced: Maymūn b. Mihrān reports that tribute in al-Jarira was initially taken in kind, and that ‘Umar replaced it with a system that combined kind and cash; see al-Balādhuri, , Futūḥ al-buldān (Leiden, 1866), p. 178 Google Scholar. The account illustrates ‘Umar's clemency; it may also preserve some history. This is precisely the type of material that Dennett adduced against Becker (see Dennett, D. C., Conversion and Poll Tax in Early Islam [Cambridge,Mass., 1950], p. 11 CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Here I obviously think he is right; but he then goes too far, and practically turns second and third-century jurists into annalistes.

92 For criticisms of Noth/Conrad's view on the decentralised character of the conquests, see now Donner, F.M., “Centralized authority and military autonomy in the early Islamic conquests”, The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East III: States, Resources and Armies, ed. Cameron, A. (Princeton, 1995), pp. 337–60Google Scholar.

93 See Crone, P. and Hinds, M., God's Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (Cambridge, 1986 Google Scholar), chapter 4.

94 al-Balādhuri, , Futūḥ al-buldān, p. 306 Google Scholar; al-Ya’qūbi, , Kitāb al-buldān (Leiden, 1885 [Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum, vol. 5]), p. 259 Google Scholar. That al-Khwārizmi, (Mafātīḥ al-‘ulūm [Leiden, 1895], p. 123 Google Scholar) explains the confusing terms suggests that the original arrangements had been forgotten by many.

95 al-Isfahāni, Abū Nu‘aym, Ta’rikh Isfahān (Beirut, 1990), i, p. 49 Google Scholar.

96 Cf.Kennedy, H., “The financing of the military in the early Islamic state”, The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East III: States, Resources and Armies, p. 367 Google Scholar.

97 Unfortunately, the challenge is not taken up by Ibrahim, A., Der Herausbildungsprozeβ des arabisch-islamischen Staates (Berlin, 1994), especially at pp. 237fGoogle Scholar.

98 Crone, and Cook, (Hagarism, p. 156, note 30Google Scholar), translate “governor”.

99 See ps.-Sebeos, , Histoire d’Héradius, p. 148 Google Scholar (I am indebted to Prof. R. Thomson for his help with the Armenian text). Noth/Conrad's argument against the significance of ps.-Sebeos, for the da’wa topos (p. 164 Google Scholar) is not an argument against the use of ps.-Sebeos in general.

100 See al-Ṭabari, , Ta’rikh al-rusul wa’l-mulūk (Leiden, 1879–1901), i, p. 2804 Google Scholar; Sayf b., ‘Umar, Kitâb al-Ridda, p. 18 Google Scholar.

101 Duri, , Rise of Historical Writing, pp. 55fGoogle Scholar.

102 See, for example, the tradition unearthed by Kister, M. J. (“Social and religious concepts of authority in Islam”, JSAI, XVIII [1994], p. 122)Google Scholar, according to which Ibn ‘Abbās enjoins jihād (for the sake of the afterlife) even if under the leadership of amirs interested only in this one.

103 That a distinction is drawn between Paradise and booty ( Ṭabarī, , Ta’rīkh, i, pp. 2292 and 2458)Google Scholar, and dīn and dunyā ( Ṭabarī, , Ta’rīkh, i, p. 2293 Google Scholar; cited by Noth/Conrad, 94) is clear enough. That the two are as starkly contrasted as Noth/Conrad would have it is not nearly as clear, however. Thus a variant on p. 229210 (al-janna aw al-ghanīma) reads al-janna wa’l-ghanīma; and on aw in the sense of wa, see Lane, E. W., Arabic-English Lexicon (London, 1863–1893), p. 122 Google Scholar.

104 For a convenient summary, see Trombley, F., Hellenic Religion and Christianization c. 370–529 (Leiden, 1992), ii, pp. 173f.Google Scholar; (Trombley&s imprecise use of the term “Safaitic” is corrected by Macdonald, M., “Nomads and the Ḥawrān in the late Hellenistic and Roman periods: a reassessment of the epigraphic evidence”, Syria, LXX [1993], pp. 303–414 CrossRefGoogle Scholar). See also Crone, , Meccan Trade, pp. 237fGoogle Scholar.

105 See Tabari, , Ta’rikh, i, pp. 2444fGoogle Scholar.

106 See Halpern, B., The First Historians: the Hebrew Bible and History (San Francisco, 1988), p. 6 Google Scholar. Cf. a more minimalist definition in Cameron, , History as Text, p. 33 Google Scholar: “History may be descriptive, or synchronic, but its subject is still located in time – that is what distinguishes it as history.”

107 The Syriac tradition, for example, can occasionally provide independent corroboration for the Islamic; but as its dependence on the Arabic grows clearer (see Conrad, L. I., “Theophanes and the Arabic historical tradition: some indications of intercultural transmission”, Byzantinische Forschungen, XV [1990], pp. 1–44 Google Scholar), its value in this respect grows weaker.

108 Wansbrough, , Sectarian Milieu, p. 35 Google Scholar.

109 For this reason al-Azdī, (Ta’rīkh al-MawṢil [Cairo, 1967], p. 226)Google Scholar held Khalifa b. Khayyāṭ in particularly high regard. See also the case of Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih in Werkmeister, , Quellenuntersuchungen, pp. 143fGoogle Scholar.

110 The percentage of dated inscriptions around Ruwāwa (south of Madina) (see al-Rāshid, S., Kitābāt Islāmiyya ghayr manshūra [Riyadh, 1993]Google Scholar is substantially higher than those discussed by Livingston, , et al. , (“Epigraphic survey, 1404–1984”, al-Aṭlāl, IX [1985], pp. 128–44)Google Scholar. For a useful summary and discussion of dated first-century epigraphy, see Gruendler, B., The Development of the Arabic Scripts (Atlanta, 1993), pp. 15f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Clearly the epigraphic evidence remains too thin to say much.

111 Conrad, , “Abraha and Muḥammad”, pp. 225–30Google Scholar.

112 For some early examples, see ‘ Ḥabīb, Abd al-Malik b., Kitāb al-ta’rij, pp. 103fGoogle Scholar; Khayyāṭ, Khalifa b., Ta’rikh (Beirut, 1995), p. 13 Google Scholar; al-Mas’ūdī, , Kitāb al-tanbīh wa’l-ishrāf (Leiden, 1893), pp. 204f.Google Scholar; and more generally, Sālim, S. A. A., al-Ta’rīkh wa’l-mu’arrikhūn al-‘arab (Cairo, 1967), pp. 20fGoogle Scholar.

113 On the patterning of Muḥammad&s chronology, see now Rubin, U., The Eye of the Beholder: The Life of Muḥammad as viewed by the Early Muslims (Princeton, 1995), pp. 190ffGoogle Scholar. The evidence from several non-Islamic sources, which put the Prophet at the head of conquest armies (see Crone, and Cook, , Hagarism, p. 4 Google Scholar, with note 7 thereto), is uneven (only two are from the seventh century, one of which [e.g. the Khūzistān Chronicle] is ambiguous), and, in view of the difficulties of conquest chronology, inconclusive as far as dating is concerned.

114 Ṭabari, , Ta’rikh, i, pp. 3050fGoogle Scholar.

115 “… in the 19th year of the dominion of the Ismaelites"; see ps.-Sebeos, Histoire d’Héraclius, ch. 35.

116 Is it too naive to hope that the occasional hijrī date in Sayf&s Kitāb al-ridda wa’l-futūḥ might be examined in such a way as to rule out redactional intrusions? (See Noth/Conrad, p. 43.)

117 The best example may be the dating of Yarmūk, first discussed by Nöldeke, T., “Zur Geschichte der Araber in I. Jahrhundert d. H. aus syrischen Quellen”, ZDMG, XXIX (1875), pp. 79fGoogle Scholar; see also Donner, , Early Islamic Conquests, pp. 142fGoogle Scholar.

118 See Crone, and Cook, , Hagarism, p. 157, note 39Google Scholar; and p. 160, note 56, to which should be added two more. Writing in 689, Hnānīshō‘’s scribe records the date as “year 69 of the Arabs’ rule” (shulṭānā d-ṭayyāyē); see Sachau, E., Syrische Rechtsbücher (Berlin, 1908), ii, pp. 6f./182fGoogle Scholar. And writing ca. 689–90, John Bar Penkāyē uses the same phrase (“year 67 of the Arabs’ rule”); see Mingana, A., Sources Syriaques (Mosul, 1908), p. 160 Google Scholar*; and Brock, S.P., “North Mesopotamia in the late seventh century: Book XV of John Bar Penkāyē&s Rīš Mellē ”, JSAI, IX (1987), p. 68 Google Scholar.

119 Crone, “The first-century concept of Hiġra”.

120 The eighth-century “Zuqnin Chronicle”, by one count, uses no fewer than eight dating systems; see Witakowski, W., The Syriac Chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius of Tel-Maḥrē (Uppsala, 1987), pp. 119f.Google Scholar; and also Bernhard, P. Ludger, Die Chronologie der Syrer (Vienna, 1969), chapter 5Google Scholar.

121 One might note in passing that their list of early annals is not complete. Passages from the Ta’rīkh sīnī mulūk al-‘ālam by Abū ‘Īsā Ibn al-Munajjim (fl. late third century), which was familiar to Ibn al-Nadim and al-Mas’ūdī among others, survive in quotations (see Stern, S. M., “Abū ‘Īsā Ibn al-Munajjim&s Chronography”, Islamic Philosophy and the Classical Tradition [Festschrift for R. Walzer] [ed. Stern, S. M. et al. , Oxford, 1972], pp. 437f.Google Scholar). ‘Umāra b. Wathima (289/901) is credited with a Ta’rīkh ‘alā al-sinīn, which apparendy has not survived, but which Rosenthal had noticed as long ago as 1952 (see Rosenthal, , History, p. 64 Google Scholar; and also Khallikān, Ibn, Wafayāt ala’yān [Beirut, 1977], vi, p. 13 Google Scholar).

122 Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri, i, pp. 80fGoogle Scholar.

123 Since the former&s Ta’rīkh (or Akhbār) al-khulafā’ was an important source for later historians, e.g. Rabbih, Ibn ‘Abd (Werkmeister, Quellenuntersuchungen, pp. 152f.)Google Scholar and al-Balādhurī, (Petersen, , ’Alī and Mu’āwiya, p. 147)Google Scholar, it might be reconstructed.

124 The work is missing presumably because it is not mentioned by Ibn al-Nadim. I leave aside the problem of Hishām b. al-Kalbī, to whom Ibn al-Nadim attributes not only a Kitāb al-ta‘rikh, but also a Kitāb ṣifāt al-khulafā’ (Fihrist, p. 97).

125 See Sezgin, , GAS, i, pp. 29If.Google Scholar; al-Tabarī, , Ta‘rikh, i, p. 2516 Google Scholar; al-Azdi, , Ta’rikh al-Mawṣil, pp. 4, 16, 10, 18, 108, 123, 137, 16 of., 173, and 231Google Scholar. Al-Sakhāwi, (Rosenthal, History, p. 315)Google Scholar also knew Abū Ma‘shar as a specialist in dating.

126 That Ibn al-Nadim knew of Ibn Isḥaq's work only in the recension of Yahyā b. Sa‘id is inconclusive; and it is revealing that the authors tread very gingerly here (“It may well be that al-Umawī authored this work and compiled it largely from materials that had earlier been transmitted in Ibn Isḥāq's name”). As Abbott discussed in some detail (Studies, pp. 9 of.), Salama b. al-Faḍl's recension was at least as important as Yahyā's.

127 Here one might note that al-Zuhri clearly had some expertise in – and perhaps penned a work on – the caliphs’ ages ( Tabari, , Ta‘rikh, ii, pp. 199 and 428 Google Scholar), the second of which Sezgin [ GAS, i, p. 283 Google Scholar] takes to indicate a book title ([kitāb] asnān al-khulafā’). And note too that some of the titles attributed to al-Madā’ini reflect a similar interest, e.g. his kitāb tasmiyat al-khulafā’ wa-kunāhum wa-a‘mārihim and kitāb ta‘rikh a‘mār al-khulafā’; see al-Nadim, Ibn, Fihrist, p. 102 Google Scholar.

128 Events are consistently dated to the years of ‘Uthmān's imāra; there are too many examples to cite thoroughly, but see Sayf, , Kitâb al-Ridda, pp. 25; 42; 55fGoogle Scholar.; 58; 60; 62; 70; 77; 87f; 91 (sub-governor); 107; 122.

129 Ta’rikh, passim.

130 What may be the skeleton of caliphate-based histories – lists of caliphs with tht: length of their reigns – is already attested by two Syriac lists of the early eighth century. The first of the two (composed ca. 705) may have had an Arabic model (see Crone, , Slaves on Horses, p. 214 Google Scholar, note 102); the second (composed ca. 724) certainly did.

131 Cf. Lecker's views on the growth of the tradition in his “The death of the Prophet Muhammad's father”.

132 Cf. Hornblower's use of “story” rather than “development” to describe early Greek historiography; the question he puts to his sources (“… should Greek historiography be seen as an organically developing coral reef rather than as a set of pigeon-holes?”) could be profitably put to ours. See Greek Historiography, pp. 55f.

133 See his translated volume, The History of al-Ṭabarī Volume xiii: The Conquest of Iraq, Southwestern Persian, and Egypt (Albany, 1989), p. xvii Google Scholar.

134 See Rosenthal, , History, pp. 64fGoogle Scholar.

135 The heterogeneity of material and idiosyncracies of the work in general are stressed by Juynboll, G. H. A. in ahis review in Bibliotheca Orientalis, L (1993), pp. 509–11Google Scholar.

136 An example is al-Suyūṭi, 's Ta’rikh al-khulafā’ (Beirut, 1989)Google Scholar.

137 See p. 96 (“structures of thought”).

138 Cf. the very different views of Patterson, L., Negotiating the Past: the Historical Understanding of Medieval Literature (Madison, 1987), p. 45 Google Scholar: “… the methodological assumption that historical context can produce interpretative correctness inevitably serves to stigmatize the discordant, the variant, and the deviant as incorrect – as, in effect, nonexistent”.

139 See, for examples, pp. 121 (“reality”); 124 (“what actually took place”); and, in particular, the contrast between “the domain of life” and “that of literature” (p. 109). For a very different view of “fects” and “events”, see Veyne, P., Writing History, trans, by Moore-Rinvolucri, M. (Middletown, 1984), chapter 3Google Scholar.

140 Morony, , Iraq, p. 573 Google Scholar: “Noth is commonly and easily criticized for failing to recognize that stereotyped formulas and topoi can be used to describe separate but similar real events”. See also Crone, , Slaves on Horses, p. 12 Google Scholar, where the topological character of a specific account is criticised. Noth/Conrad address the criticism at p. 144, although she accepts the general point on p. 208, note 68 (“The examples of takbirs adduced by Noth certainly are topoi and legends”). For some examples of Byzantine battle cries, see McCormick, M., Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Early Medieval West (Cambridge, 1986), p. 4, note 12Google Scholar.

141 See, for example, p. 47, note 31: “Whenever it is maintained that the movement of the conquests came to a halt under the third caliph ‘Uthmān, this is a defamation of ‘Uthmān on the part of his opponents.”

142 See above, note 140.

143 Such is the case in Tustar; see Robinson, C. F., “The conquest of Khūzistān: a historiographical reassessment” in History and Historiography in Early Islamic Times: Studies and Perspectives, ed. by Conrad, L. I. (Princeton, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

144 The literature on his European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages is enormous, but very conveniently discussed, listed, and summarised in Richards, E. J., Modernism, Medievalism and Humanism: A Research Bibliography on the Reception of the Works of Ernst Robert Curtius (Tübingen, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

145 Thus, al-Karkhi devotes ca. 140 pages to al-shawq wa‘l-firāq, and ca. 60 pages to al-ḥanin ilā al-awṭān (see al-Hadrusi, S., Al-Muntahā fi l-kamāl des Muḥammad Ibn Sahl Ibn al-Marzubān al-Karhi (gest. ca. 345/956) Untersuchung und kritische Edition von Bd 4–5 und 9”10 [Berlin, 1988]Google Scholar); the second of these (al-ḥanin ilā aṭ-awṭān) Conrad elsewhere calls a “theme”, and discusses to illustrate the Aradians’ actual attitudes; see his “The conquest of Arwād”, pp. 342fGoogle Scholar.

146 Although it is convenient and sensible, the typology of topoi (e.g., “Topoi connected with personal names” vs. “topoi emphasizing feats of arms”) throws no light on the matter.

147 Again, would it be too naive to hope that working distinctions between “collector”, “redactor” and “author” might be generated? The problem, it seems, has only struck those writing in German; see Schoeler's work (above, note 40); Günther, , “Maqātil”, p. 109 Google Scholar, note 19 (on Verfassenverke); cf.Leder, S., “Authorship and transmission in unauthored literature: the akhbār attributed to al-Haytham ibn ‘Adi”, Oriens, XXXI (1988), esp. p. 71 Google Scholar (“…the process of transmission must be considered as endowed with a literary identity of its own.”)

148 The point is made particularly well by Partner, N., “Making up lost time: writing on the writing of history”, Speculum, LXI (1986), pp. 90–117 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

149 See Cornell, T. J., The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 BC) (London, 1995), pp. 16fGoogle Scholar. On conventions and topoi in medieval historical writing, see Morse, R., Truth and Convention in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 92fGoogle Scholar.

150 The terms are frequently used in the literature, but I borrow the contrast from Provan, I., “Ideologies, literary and critical: reflections on recent writing on the history of Israel”, Journal of Biblical Studies, CXIV (1995), p. 592 Google Scholar. Of the two responses to this article, also published in the same volume, the more useful is Davis, P., “Method and madness: some remarks on doing history with the Bible”, pp. 699–705 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

151 Barton, J., “Gerhard von Rad on the world-view of early Israel”, The Journal of Theological Studies, XXXV (1984), pp. 330f.Google Scholar; Collins, J. J., “Is critical Biblical theology possible?”, The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters, ed. Propp, H. H. et al. (Winona Lake, 1990), p. 11 Google Scholar.

152 Meisami, J. S., “Rāvandi's Rāḥat al-ṣudūr. history or hybrid?”, Edebiyât, n.s. V (1994), p. 203 Google Scholar. eadem, , “Dynastic history and ideals of kingship in Bayhaqi's Ta’;rikh-i Mas‘udi ”, Edebiyât, n.s. III (1989), pp. 57–77 Google Scholar.

153 See his “The Literary use of the khabar”, p. 314; and idem, “Features of the novel in early historiography – the downfall of Xālid al-Qasri”, Oriens, XXXII (1990), pp. 72–96 Google Scholar. Cf. the comments by Radtke, B. (“Towards a typology of Abbasid universal chronicles”, Occasional Papers of the School of Abbasid Studies [St. Andrews, 1991], p. 13)Google Scholar, for what might be called al-Mas‘ūdi's rhetoric of authenticity.

154 Kramer, L., “Literature, criticism, and historical imagination”, in Hunt, L. (ed.), The New Cultural History (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1989), p. 101 Google Scholar. On description and plot, see also Veyne, , Writing History, part I Google Scholar; and for a view that literary techniques serve, rather than condition, historical narrative in the Hebrew Bible, see Halpem, , The First Historians, pp. 94fGoogle Scholar.

I am grateful to Julia Ashtiany-Bray and Michael Cook for reading and criticising a draft of this article.