Medieval Arabic Historiography: Authors as Actors

193 Pages·2011·1.64 MB·English

by  Konrad Hirschler

MEDIEVAL ARABIC HISTORIOGRAPHY
Medieval Arabic Historiographyis concerned with social contexts and narrative structures
of pre-modern Islamic historiography written in Arabic in thirteenth-century Syria
and Egypt. Taking up recent theoretical reflections on historical writing in the
European Middle Ages, the study combines approaches drawn from social sciences
and literary studies and focuses on two well-known texts by Abn Shmma (d. 1268),
The Book of the Two Gardens, and Ibn Wmxil (d. 1298), The Dissipater of Anxieties. Both
texts describe events during the life of the sultans Nnr al-Dln (d. 1174) and Xalm.
al-Dln (d. 1193), who are primarily known as the champions of the anti-Crusade
movement. This book shows that the two authors were active interpreters of their
societies and had considerable room for manoeuvre in both their social environment
and the shaping of their texts.
Through the use of a new theoretical approach to pre-modern Arabic historiography,
this book presents an original reading of the texts. Medieval Arabic Historiography
provides a significant contribution to the burgeoning field of historiographical
studies and is essential reading for those with interests in Middle Eastern Studies and
Islamic and Arabic History.
Konrad Hirschlergained his PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies,
London. He is Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Kiel, Germany. His
main research interests include modern and medieval historiography, as well as social
and cultural history.
SOAS/ROUTLEDGE STUDIES ON THE MIDDLE EAST
Series Editors
Benjamin C. Fortna, SOAS, University of London
Ulrike Freitag, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
This series features the latest disciplinary approaches to Middle Eastern Studies. It
covers the Social Sciences and the Humanities in both the pre-modern and modern
periods of the region. While primarily interested in publishing single-authored
studies, the series is also open to edited volumes on innovative topics, as well as
textbooks and reference works.
1 ISLAMIC NATIONHOOD AND COLONIAL INDONESIA
The Umma below the winds
Michael Francis Laffan
2 RUSSIAN-MUSLIM CONFRONTATION IN THE CAUCASUS
Alternative visions of the conflict between Imam Shamil and the Russians,
1830–1859
Thomas Sanders, Ernest Tucker and G.M. Hamburg
3 LATE OTTOMAN SOCIETY
The intellectual legacy
Edited by Elisabeth Özdalga
4 IRAQI ARAB NATIONALISM
Authoritarian, Totalitarian and pro-Fascist inclinations, 1932–1941
Peter Wien
5 MEDIEVAL ARABIC HISTORIOGRAPHY
Authors as actors
Konrad Hirschler
MEDIEVAL ARABIC
HISTORIOGRAPHY
Authors as actors
Konrad Hirschler
First published 2006
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2006 Konrad Hirschler
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN10: 0–415–38377–3
ISBN13: 978–0–415–38377–6
iv
CONTENTS
List of illustrations vi
Acknowledgements vii
Notes on romanization and terminology viii
1 Introduction 1
2 Historical and historiographical background 7
3 Social contexts 15
4 Intellectual contexts 43
5 Textual agency I: titles, final sections and historicization 63
6 Textual agency II: micro-arrangement, motifs and
political thought 86
7 Reception after the seventh/thirteenth century 115
8 Conclusion 122
Appendix 124
Notes 127
Bibliography 159
Index 173
v
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
1 Network Ibn Wmxil 124
2 Ibn Wmxil in Egypt (643–early 660s) 126
Tables
1 Arrangement ‘Campaign to Mosul’ 89
2 Translation ‘Siege of Castle Ja^bar’ 94
3 Arrangement ‘Siege of Castle Ja^bar’ 98
4 Arrangement ‘Conquest of Bmniyms’ 104
vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study developed out of a PhD thesis on Arabic historical writing submitted to
the School of Oriental and African Studies. I would like to express my gratitude in
the first place to Ulrike Freitag. My discussions with her were a constant source of
inspiration and her support, even in rather extraordinary circumstances, was crucial
in many regards. I am indebted to Gerald Hawting for following this project through
to completion with much care. Peter Holt and Carole Hillenbrand helped me to
sharpen the argument with their detailed and thorough critique.
I wish also to thank those people who were kind enough to read parts or all of the
manuscript and to make encouraging and helpful comments: Benjamin Fortna,
Stefan Conermann, Edwin Towill, Achim Rohde, Joachim Hirschler and Albrecht
Hirschler. Furthermore, I wish to thank Stefan Sperl, Guido Steinberg and Stefan
Heidemann, who provided me with copies of unpublished work or helped with other
information. Michael Brett supported me in a variety of ways and the conversations
with him were always especially enlightening.
As I complete this study, I am prompted to express gratitude for guidance received
at different stages from two people to whom I owe in very large measure my interest
in historiography: Richard Rathbone and the late Albrecht Noth.
Drafts of some chapters were presented at the Tenth Colloquium on the History of
Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras, Leuven, 9–11 May 2001,
the XXVIII Deutscher Orientalistentag, Bamberg, 26–30 March 2001, the Eleventh
Colloquium on the History of Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk
Eras, Leuven, 16/17 May 2002 and the First World Congress for Middle Eastern
Studies, Mainz, 8–13 September 2002. Those present helped me with their insight-
ful comments and their questions to rethink aspects of the argumentation. I am
indebted to the SOAS History Department and the Evangelisches Studienwerk
Villigst – Germany for their financial support.
And finally, I wish to thank especially my parents, my brothers, my wife and my
children who have supported me in a variety of ways during the last years.
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NOTES ON ROMANIZATION AND
TERMINOLOGY
Romanization
Terms commonly used in English, such as amir, caliph, fatwa, imam, Quran, Shiite,
sultan, Sunni, Sufism and vizier are reproduced without diacritics and are not
formatted in italics. Similarly, proper nouns are never formatted in italics. For those
referring to well-known places/regions and dynasties diacritics are omitted, except
the letter ^ayn in the beginning, that is Damascus, Cairo, and Syria; ^Abbasids,
Fatimids, Zangids, Saljuqs, Ayyubids and Mamluks. Other proper nouns are romanized
with full diacritics: al-Jazlra, >arrmn. All other terms from foreign languages are
formatted in italics and, if applicable, fully romanized according to the ALA-LC
Romanization Tables for Arabic (Transliteration Schemes for Non-Roman Scripts,
approved by the American Library Association and the Library of Congress) with two
changes. First, the final inflection of verbs, pronouns, pronominal suffixes and
demonstratives is also retained in pause, for example, .aymtuhu wa-^axruhuinstead of
.aymtuhu wa-^axruh. Second, the ‘h’ for tm6marbnyaat the end of nouns and adjectives,
which are either indefinite or preceded by the definite article, is omitted, for
example, madrasa and al-rismla instead of madrasah and al-rismlah.1 In order to
facilitate the text for readers who are not acquainted with Arabic, terms in plural are
generally given in the singular form with an English plural, that is, ^mlim/^mlims not
^ulamm6,.adlth/.adlths not a.mdlth.
References
Primary and secondary sources are referred to in the footnotes with dissimilar systems
in order to facilitate a clear differentiation. Primary sources are cited with ‘author,
title, page’, for example, Abn Shmma, Dhayl, 50. Secondary sources are cited with
‘author (year), page’, for example, Watt (1968), 86–7. Volume numbers are given in
Roman numbers, for example Hodgson (1974), I, 233–40 and al-Xafadl, Wmfl,
XVIII, 113–16. Footnotes referring to individuals do not provide all the available
primary sources, but only those relevant for the argumentation. Readers looking for
a more comprehensive list of the available sources should consult al-Dhahabl’s
Ta6rlkh al-islmm, which is indicated whenever a reference exists.
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NOTES ON ROMANIZATION AND TERMINOLOGY
Periodization
The terms ‘Middle Ages’ and ‘medieval’, which are the terms most currently
employed for the period dealt with in this study, are obviously neither neutral in a
geographical nor in a chronological sense. For the European context they generally
exclude certain regions, such as the Baltic and the Slavic parts, implying distinctively
what is perceived to be the centre of Europe. Furthermore, the terms imply clear
periods of break, which are mainly linked to the function of the Middle Ages as the
scorned or romanticized Other of modernity. Nevertheless, the terms remain widely
used, which is probably due to a further – sometimes quite helpful – characteristic:
the fuzziness of their exact delimitation in space and time.2The terms become even
more problematic for the region called presently ‘Middle East’. Although the terms
are widely used, one finds only rarely reflections on what period of Arab history can
be seen as ‘medieval’ and what the characteristics of such a ‘Middle Age’ would be.3
The traditional periodization according to ruling dynasties is not very helpful,
although it reflects to a large degree the schemes chosen by medieval Arab historians
themselves. It is highly questionable to what degree changes of dynasties marked
far-reaching shifts in the society as a whole.4 The widening of the field of history
toissues beyond the traditional ‘grand politics’ during the last century renders such
a narrowly defined periodization inapplicable for the variety of topics covered.
Hodgson has proposed an alternative to the dynasty-based periodization by dis-
tinguishing the High Caliphate (until 334/945) from the following Middle Periods.5
While this terminology is not focused too strictly on dynastic changes, it is still
mainly based on political developments. Furthermore, the perception of the cultural
sphere, the second factor Hodgson refers to in his discussion besides politics, follows
closely the approach of Rise (development of Islam during the first/seventh century),
Golden Age (height of the Umayyad and ^Abbasid caliphates until the fourth/tenth
and fifth/eleventh centuries) and Decline (periods thereafter). As it stands, his
proposition introduces merely the equivalent for the differentiation between Early,
High and Late Middle Ages current for the European context.
The employment of the relative neutral centuries, be it according to the Islamic or
the Julian/Gregorian calendars, is free of the burdened connotations of the other
periodizations. However, their coherent application merely avoids the problem
without proposing any substantial alternative. While the use of terms such as
‘medieval’ obliges the author at least to reflect upon his or her understanding of
periodization, the employment of ‘neutral’ centuries might lead to a periodization
devoid of any analytical value.
The only convincing solution for the moment seems to be a combination of the dif-
ferent possibilities. Despite the problems mentioned here I will often define the period
I refer to in this study by chronological terms, for example, ‘Arabic historical writing
in the seventh/thirteenth century’. This choice is a result of my study being mainly a
microstudy of two authors and their texts in a circumscribed period. This means that
the study’s results have to be understood within its well-defined temporal framework.
Consequently, terms implying a too high degree of generality have to be avoided.
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