Rituals of Islamic Monarchy: Accession and Succession in the First Muslim Empire

361 Pages·2009·1.25 MB·English

by  Andrew Marsham

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Rituals of
Islamic
Monarchy
Accession and succession in the
fi rst Muslim empire
Andrew Marsham
Edinburgh University Press
To Farrhat
© Andrew Marsham, 2009
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
www.euppublishing.com
Typeset in JaghbUni by
Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport Cheshire, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 2512 3 (hardback)
The right of Andrew Marsham to be identifi ed as author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Contents
List of maps and figures v
Acknowledgements vi
Map 1 viii
Map 2 x
Map 3 xii
INTRODUCTION 1
Part I. Late Antique Arabia and Early Islam
(C. 550–C. 660)
INTRODUCTION 21
1. ALLIANCE AND ALLEGIANCE IN PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA 24
2. THE VERB BĀYAʿA IN THE QURʾĀN: ALLEGIANCE TO
MUḤAMMAD 40
3. THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE IN THE ‘CONQUEST SOCIETY’
(C. 628–C. 660) 60
Part II. The Umayyad Caliphate (C. 660–750)
INTRODUCTION 81
4. SUFYANID ACCESSION AND SUCCESSION, C. 660–683 86
iv Rituals of Islamic Monarchy
5. THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE IN THE EARLY TRADITION AND
POETRY, C. 680–C. 710 96
6. THE MARWANID PATRIMONY AND DYNASTIC
SUCCESSION 113
7. MARWANID RITUALS OF ACCESSION AND SUCCESSION 134
8. WRITING AND THE BAYʿA IN THE MARWANID PERIOD 145
9. THE QURANIC CONTENT OF THE MARWANID
DOCUMENTS 168
Part III. The Early Abbasid Caliphate (C. 750–809)
INTRODUCTION 183
10. THE CONSOLIDATION OF ABBASID POWER: AL-MANṢŪR
AND AL-MAHDĪ (754–785) 192
11. THE CALIPHATES OF MŪSĀ AL-HĀDĪ (785–786) AND HĀRŪN
AL-RASHĪD (786–809) 216
12. ‘DISPOSITIVE DOCUMENTS’ FOR THE EARLY ABBASID
SUCCESSION 230
Part IV. The Middle Abbasid Caliphate (809–865)
INTRODUCTION 253
13. FROM THE CIVIL WAR TO SAMARRA (809–847) 259
14. THE CALIPHATE OF AL-MUTAWAKKIL (847–861) 274
15. THE OUTBREAK OF THE SECOND NINTH-CENTURY CIVIL
WAR (861–865) 283
16. ABBASID DOCUMENTS FOR CALIPHAL ACCESSION 294
CONCLUSION 309
Genealogical table of Quraysh 318
Genealogical table of the Abbasid caliphs 319
Bibliography 320
Index 338
Maps and fi gures
MAP 1. MAP OF THE LATE ANTIQUE AND EARLY ISLAMIC
NEAR EAST viii
MAP 2. MAP OF SAMARRA x
MAP 3. PLAN OF THE DĀR AL-KHILĀFA xii
FIGURE 1. GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE MARWANID
CALIPHS 119
FIGURE 2. GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE BANŪ HĀSHIM 187
FIGURE 3. GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE FIRST ABBASID
CALIPHS 193
FIGURE 4. GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF QURAYSH 318
FIGURE 5. GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE ABBASID CALIPHS
IN THE EIGHTH AND NINTH CENTURIES 319
Acknowledgements
My greatest academic debt is to Chase Robinson, who supervised the graduate
work that informs parts of this book and who gave very generously of his time
during the course of the composition of the book itself, reading and comment-
ing upon a draft of every chapter. I could not have asked for a more diligent
and professional graduate supervisor nor, latterly, a more careful and scholarly
reader and critic, and would like to record my heartfelt thanks here. Four more
scholars also very kindly read and commented on the whole book, or substan-
tial portions of it: Paul Cobb, Patricia Crone, John Healey and James Howard-
Johnston. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all four of them. It is
impossible to name all those who have directly influenced my ideas or helped
me with specific assistance, information or criticism, but I would particularly like
to thank Tamima Bayhom-Daou, Rocco Bernasconi, Teresa Bernheimer, Kevin
van Bladel, Dominic Brookshaw, Ron Buckley, Lawrence Conrad, Kate Cooper,
Geert Jan van Gelder, Tim Greenwood, Muntasir F. al-Hamad, Julia Hillner,
Mohamed Hussein al-Kurdi, Colin Imber, Nadia Jamil, Jeremy Johns, Oliver
Kahl, Hugh Kennedy, Geoffrey Khan, Conrad Leyser, Simon Loseby, Michael
MacDonald, Dalia Mustafa, Donald Richards, Philip Sadgrove, Alexander
Samely, Adam Silverstein, Richard Todd, Shawkat Toorawa, Luke Treadwell
and Mark Whittow. I apologise to anyone whom I have inadvertantly omitted
from this list and emphasise that none of those mentioned should be held in any
way responsible for any of the book’s shortcomings. Long before I knew that
I would be writing a history book, I was fortunate to have had many dedicated
and inspiring teachers and would like to thank my undergraduate tutors, John
Maddicott, Michael Hart, Bryan Ward-Perkins and the late Patrick Wormald and
my school history teachers, Roy Cook, Ian Crowe and Steve Pagan.
vi
Acknowledgements vii
The researching and writing of this book depended upon a postgradu-
ate scholarship from the Arts and Humanities Research Board, scholarships
from Exeter College and the Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford, an Abdullah
Mubarak al-Sabah Research Fellowship at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and
a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, held at the University of
Manchester. The research itself took place in the libraries of the universities of
Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester and in the library at SOAS, and I would
like to record my thanks to the library staff in all four places. That it appears in
published form is thanks to the staff of Edinburgh University Press. I am espe-
cially indebted to Nicola Ramsey and Eddie Clark for patiently guiding the book
through production. I would also like to thank Hilary Walford and Samy Ayoub,
who carried out the copy-editing of the typescript and Saeko Yazaki and Stephen
Burge for assistance with proof-reading. The maps of Samarra appear with the
kind permission of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq.
Many academic and institutional relationships also entail warm personal
ones. However, there are also more exclusively personal debts. Ben Brice,
Rebecca Loncraine and Ann and Simon Clark all inspired and supported this
book in very different ways. The support of my immediate family goes far beyond
any acknowledgement in words, but I would nonetheless like to thank my mother,
Judith Marsham, and my brother, John Marsham, for all of their love, help and
support, and to remember with gratitude my father, Dennis Marsham, whose love
of learning was an inspiration to me. Finally, there is my sixth reader, Farrhat
Arshad, who read and critiqued a draft of the whole book with characteristic
lawyerly rigour, and has been a source of constant love and support during its
writing, as in all other things. I dedicate this book to her.
Note on conventions
Translations are my own except where a specific one is cited. The exception is the
Qurʾān, where I have often adapted – sometimes quite freely – Abd Allah Yusuf
Ali’s 1938 translation. Arabic is transliterated as in the International Journal
of Middle East Studies. Some place names are transliterated, but place names
familiar in English are given their usual English spelling (for example, Medina,
Baghdad). For reasons of clarity, consistency and convention, dating throughout
is according to the Christian Era. When the Islamic lunar hijrī dates are also given
they usually appear in the format 72/691–2. Short references to the sources and
secondary scholarship upon which I have depended appear as endnotes at the
end of each chapter. Full bibliographic details are found in the Bibliography,
preceded by the list of abbreviations.
Map 1 Map of the late antique and early Islamic Near East.