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2 results

  • 4 - The Last Years of Yaḥyā b. ‘Abd Allāh (d. 187/803)

  • Najam Haider, Barnard College, New York
  • Book:
    The Rebel and the Imãm in Early Islam
    Published online:
    06 September 2019
    Print publication:
    19 September 2019, pp 193-255

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses the last eleven years of the life of Ya?ya b. ‘Abd Allah (d. 187/803). The Sunni sources express an interest in Ya?ya only insofar as he helps explain other developments in the ‘Abbasid world. In other words, Sunni historians are vested in an interpretive framework shaped by the larger tapestry of ‘Abbasid caliphal history in which Ya?ya plays a marginal role. The Zaydi sources exist within a different conceptual world where the ‘Abbasid caliphs play the role of tyrants in a broad ‘Alid led struggle for the establishment of a just state. In Ya?ya b. ‘Abd Allah, they rehabilitate a figure generally accepted as a Zaydi Imam but saddled with a history of accommodating ‘Abbasid power through interpretive frameworks that place him in the mold of an ideal Imam. The chapter demonstrates that Sunni and Shi‘i works adhere to the same rhetoricized model of historical writing despite the modern tendency to deem the latter as either hopelessly polemical (in the case of Twelver sources) or to ignore them altogether (in the case of Zaydi sources).

The Rebel and the Imãm in Early Islam
  • Najam Haider
  • Published online:
    06 September 2019
    Print publication:
    19 September 2019
  • Engaging with contemporary debates about the sources that shape our understanding of the early Muslim world, Najam Haider proposes a new model for Muslim historical writing that draws on Late Antique historiography to challenge the imposition of modern notions of history on a pre-modern society. Haider discusses three key case studies - the revolt of Mukhtar b. Abi 'Ubayd (d. 67/687), the life of the Twelver Shi'i Imam Musa al-Kazim (d. 183/799) and the rebellion and subsequent death of the Zaydi Shi'i Imam Yahya b. 'Abd Allah (d. 187/803) - in calling for a new line of inquiry which focuses on larger historiographical questions. What were the rules that governed historical writing in the early Muslim world? What were the intended audiences for these works? In the process, he rejects artificial divisions between Sunni and Shi'i historical writing.