Deconstructing the Modular and the Authentic: Husayn Muroeh's Early Islamic History

The Works of Ibn Wāḍiḥ al-Yaʿqūbī (Volume 1)

Western writing on Islam, including early Islamic history, has roots reaching back to the medieval period. As far as early Islamic history is concerned, Western scholars of the Enlightenment began to consult key texts of the Islamic tradition itself in search of information. Contemporary scholars examines Islam's origins in depth mainly tend to follow the source-critical or tradition-critical school in their handling of the Islamic sources. Scholars of early Islamic history have shown increased interest in developing new approaches and methods, and in looking at such things as social history, gender relations, identity formation and economic history. Beyond the thorny problems posed by the heritage of the polemical tradition and by the deficiencies of the sources for early Islamic history, there exist other problems of perception and conceptualisation, as well as practical obstacles, that have affected Western approaches to early Islamic history.

Transformation is any displacement of science, the intellectual activity, from teacher to student and so in the context of the growth and development of education in the early history of Islam. The purpose of this discussion to determine the form peralihanilmu and development of Islamic education in the early history of Islam. This writing method descriptive analysis. Discussion regarding the form of change and transition of science in the early history of Islam. Makkah period, the process of transition of knowledge from the companions of the Prophet to be done with the system dealing directly with the Prophet (musyafahah) .After the system says, memorizing and teaching returned as received from the teacher (talaqqi). Both systems are considered to be very tested and most noble among sistempendidikan that ever existed in the world of education. Medina period, is aimed more at political and social education and citizenship. The subject matter of this education is basic thoughts contained in the Charter of Medina and also the teaching of the Koran remains a priority

The appearance of epidelmics in early Islamic history may be attributed in part to the cyclical recurrences of plague in the Middle East following the Plague of Justinian, beginning in A.D. 541. Based primarily on the Arabic plague treatises written after the Black Death (the second plague pandemic in the mid-fourteenth century), the history of the plague epidemics through the Umaiyad Period has been reconstructed. These epidemics provoked medical and religio-legal explanations and prescriptions, which have strongly influenced the attitudes and behavior of the Muslim community toward the disease. Besides the deaths of important men by plague, it is suggested that the endemic nature of plague during the early Islamic Empire may have significantly retarded population growth and debilitated Muslim society in Syria and Iraq during the Umaiyad Period.

To what extent is the present of Muslim societies influenced by their past? How do politics and historiography relate to each other in medieval and contemporary Islam? More specifically, can events from early Islamic history help us understand current events in Muslim countries? By discussing how some of these remote events have contributed to the emergence of certain political views, this article argues that they are still relevant to the present in Muslim countries (in our case here, Egypt) and can indeed help us understand an important part of the picture of a recent event that may have a long lasting influence on the present and future of both the country and the region where it occurred. This event was the removal of Egypt's first ever democratically elected president by a military coup on July 3, 2013, one year after he assumed office. By examining the various religious and political hermeneutic strategies used by some medieval and modern Sunni scholars to support or condemn certain acts of rebellion while opposing others, the article seeks to demonstrate — through the comparison of some of these strategies — the contradictory positions of medieval Sunni scholars regarding events from early Islam, and thus the dilemmas that their modern counterparts face when dealing with contemporary events.

The focus of this article is Jerusalem and its status in Islam through the verses of the Qur'a¯ n (the holiest text in Islam), hadi¯th literature, and early Islamic history. The importance of this study is two-fold. First, it deals with all the Qur'a¯ nic verses which include either unambiguous references to Jerusalem and al-Masjid al-Aqsa¯ (the Furthest Mosque), or those that imply ambiguous but likely references to the same, or else those that imply ambiguous but unlikely references. Second, it shows why Jerusalem is so intrinsically important to Muslim beliefs and mentality. Therefore, it tries to help readers at large to understand the Muslim attitude in relation to this city. This article is divided into an introduction, four major sections and a conclusion. In the Introduction, the article tries to explain the status of Jerusalem in Islam and why it is regarded as holy by the one billion Muslims now living on earth. The first section illustrates the merits of Jerusalem in Islam through the Qur'a¯ n, hadi¯th literature, and early Islamic history. It also discusses the construction and the purposes behind building the Dome of the Rock. The second section illustrates and discusses the Qur'a¯ nic verses which imply unambiguous reference to Jerusalem. The third section deals with the verses which imply ambiguous, but likely, references to the same. The fourth section deals with the verses that imply ambiguous, but unlikely, references. It was found that there are about 70 places in the Qur'a¯ n which fall into these two last categories. These places are scattered through 21 s u¯ ras . In order to discover and explain the verses related to Jerusalem, I have relied on various sources of exegeses, hadi¯th , history and geography. Further, contrary opinions about the interpretation of any verse have been addressed and a sort of balance between them has been provided. Finally, in the conclusion, the writer of this article expresses a desire for justice without which a comprehensive peace cannot be established in this holy city, so that all the followers of the three religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, will have their rights equally.

Duldul, a beloved she-mule of the Prophet Muhammad and ʿAli b. Abi Talib (d. 661), fourth caliph and Muhammad's son-in-law, was a venerated riding beast in early Islamic tradition. The article argues that Duldul reflected the transmission of political authority and became a tool of legitimation for hadith compilers and medieval Muslim writers to use, contest, and navigate an emergent Shiʿa-Sunni rift. Exploring the responsive relationship between hadith construction and the Shiʿa-Sunni polemic, the article first analyzes three literary genres—maghāzī, hadith, and sīra—to describe Duldul and her role in early Islamic history. Second, the article examines the writings of al-Jahiz (d. 868) and al-Damiri (d. 1405) to understand medieval Muslim attitudes toward Duldul and she-mules in general. By taking Duldul more seriously as a historical actor, we can gain deeper insight into the disputes over Muhammad's legacy in medieval Islam.

The past few decades have witnessed increasing calls in modern scholarship for revisions of the portrayal of early Islamic rule history. Such calls not only challenge older historiographic paradigms but also encourage historians to seek answers in sources hitherto neglected. Accordingly, in recent years there has been a dramatic proliferation of studies offering new historical conceptions, many of which are indebted to new kinds of source material, including coinage, official documents, inscriptions, and material artifacts, alongside more conventional forms of data like historiographic treatises, biographical dictionaries, apologetic literature, theological essays, and scriptural texts. Assembled together, new and older historical materials were now being processed, synthesized, and analyzed through the lenses of fresh paradigms and often in collaboration with other disciplines, especially the social sciences and comparative literature.The present contribution offers further support of this latter approach by highlighting the utility of legal sources for discussing the process of conversion to Islam in the early Islamic period. Following a brief historical survey, the discussion turns to address one of the central, yet highly elusive, episodes in early Islamic history – the process of conversion to Islam. The goal of this sample analysis of legal sources is twofold – to provide new historiographic insights, but also, from a methodological perspective, to underscore the remarkable utility of these sources for historians.

Scholars and students of Sufism and Islamic studies, Sufi adepts and all those with an interest in mystical thought owe a debt of gratitude to Edinburgh University Press and Professor Ahmet Karamustafa for this newly published history of Sufism's formative period, covering approximately the third/ninth to the sixth/twelfth centuries across the Muslim world. This work however, should not be mistaken for another ‘introduction’ to Sufism. Written in the historicist mode, its appearance represents an important ‘contribution to the ongoing attempt to situate Sufism in its proper historical context’ (p. viii). Presented for the first time in a book-length monograph, Sufism: The Formative Period focuses on the ‘emergence, development, spread and blending among different mystical trends in early Islamic history’ (p. vii). Its primary aim is to present a ‘comprehensive and up-to-date contextualization of the early history of Sufism’ (p. viii) and its role in the creation and transmission of the ethical norms that have defined Islamic society and normative Islamic behaviour since that time.

This pilot study presents a lunar and Gregorian chronology of the Sira, that is the biography of the prophet Muhammad. The paper discusses the problems surrounding the chronology of very early Islamic history, namely, the pre‐Hijra era. This history is not covered by the Hijra calendar, and therefore, historians dated its events using other primitive dating systems, resulting in considerable difficulties and inaccuracies when comparing Gregorian dates of this early Islamic history. In order to overcome this problem and establish an accurate chronology of the early Islamic history, the introduction of a new lunar calendar (the Muhammadi calendar) which starts with the birth month and year of the prophet Muhammad, and covers all Islamic history including the pre‐Hijra era, is suggested. The Muhammadi calendar was used to study the earliest three versions of the Sira. All dated events of the Sira were compiled from these sources and presented, for the first time, according to their historical order....

This study examines the historiography of early Islam by assessing the reliability of Qurʾānic exegeses as sources documenting the early history of Islam and the biography of the Prophet Muḥammad in Mecca. Focusing on Qurʾānic exegetical practices from late antiquity to the medieval period, this article argues that there is a significant discontinuity in how Qurʾānic exegeses align with the historical context of the Qur’an, especially in relation to Meccan sūras such as Q 107. Significantly, this challenges the continuity of tradition, the fundamental concept upon which the “Islamic sciences” are based. This discontinuity is herein revealed through a historical–critical analysis of the exegesis of Q 107:4 that demonstrates how Qurʾānic exegetical practices have reinterpreted and reshaped early Islamic history in response to the pressures of new identity formation and made Qurʾānic exegeses more reflective of the social and political contexts of the exegetes than of the historical milieu of the Qurʾān itself. This analysis contributes to the ongoing discussion of the role exegesis played in reshaping the history of Islam. Indeed, it emphasises the importance of critically evaluating these sources in order to uncover a more nuanced historical narrative of early Islam.

Following the monumental translation project of al-Ṭabarī’s History (40 vols., Albany: SUNY Press), completed in 2007, the editors of this three-vol- ume work have supervised the translation of the writings of another im- portant early historian: Ibn Wāḍiḥ al-Yaʿqūbī (d. shortly after 295/908). It contains fully annotated translations of al-Yaʿqūbī’s History (Tārīkh), his Geography (Kitāb al-buldān), his short political essay The Book of the Adap- tion of Men to Their Time and Their Dominant Characteristics in Every Age (Mushākalat al-nās li-zamānihim wa-mā yaghlibu ʿalayhim fī kull ʿaṣr) and a few fragmentary texts found in other pre-modern Arabic works. The first volume (the subject of this review) contains The Adaption of Men, The Ge- ography, and the fragmentary texts, while the latter two volumes contain The History divided into two parts. Because of their early date and richness of information on a wide range of historical subjects, al-Yaʿqūbī’s works are important sources to consider for anyone interested in early Islamic history and the historical tradition that developed in the first centuries AH. That was also, as stated in the introduction, the main reason for this translation project that took over two decades to complete. In the first introductory chapter (1:1-8), Matthew S. Gordon makes clear that the translation project sought to address two main groups of readers: (1) “scholars in related fields who, in most cases, are unable to read al-Yaʿqūbī in the original Arabic” and (2) “students of early Near Eastern and Islamic history” (1:2). These are important clarifications and answers to the question that might otherwise arise: What is the use of translating these rather specialized Arabic texts into English? One answer is, as Gor- don points out, that they are useful to scholars in related fields. In the case of al-Yaʿqūbī, considering his broad interests as a historian and geographer, the translation of his works will be particularly useful for historians of Late Antiquity from outside the field of Arabic and Islamic studies. Another answer would be, as also pointed out, that they are useful for undergradu- ate and graduate students of Islamic history, as well as teachers and course organizers, who usually have to rely on texts in translation. A third answer that is not explored in the introduction—except perhaps alluded to in the reference to the translation of al-Ṭabarī’s History as an “invaluable resource for scholars and students alike” (1:2)—is that critical and fully-annotat- ed translations of classical works may function as “commentaries” on the original Arabic texts and can thus be useful to scholars who are capable of reading the original texts. This is, for example, how the translation of al- Ṭabarī’s History has often been used; scholars may (or rather should) read the text in the original Arabic, but for clarifications of difficult passages, meanings of certain words in context or questions how to translate terms or passages, they may consult the critical and annotated translations. Gordon’s introduction briefly introduces al-Yaʿqūbī and his three surviving works, noting their general content, some of their characteristics and, especially in relation to The History, al-Yaʿqūbī’s Shīʿī views and his “Shiʿite reading of Islamic history” (1:5). The introduction is useful in what it contains, but would have benefitted from a more thorough discussion of how al-Yaʿqūbī worked as a historian and geographer—including subjects such as his intel- lectual context, audience, sources, methods of compilation, and historical views. Instead, it is simply noted that some of these topics “deserve further investigation” (1:6). The second introductory chapter contains a “biographical sketch” of al-Yaʿqūbī by Sean Anthony and Matthew S. Gordon (1:9-22). Despite the scarcity of biographical information (“there is little that can be known for certain about al-Yaʿqūbī and his life,” 1:10), Anthony and Gordon provide a useful summary of what we can know about him, based on a few accounts of other historians who cite his works and what might be inferred from his own writings: his hardline Shīʿism, the works he compiled, the approxi- mate date of his death (shortly after 295/908), his many travels, some of the places in which he lived from al-Fusṭāṭ to Iṣfahān, his links to certain dynasties (Ṭāhirids in Iran and Ṭūlūnids in Egypt), his involvement in the bureaucratic circles of the ʿAbbāsid era and his particular attachment to, and historical interest in, the ʿAbbāsid dynasty. Either here or in the first introductory chapter, however, a lot more could be said about al-Yaʿqūbī as a historian and a geographer; after all, what we really know about him and have access to is the results of his historical and geographical writings: The History and The Geography. The third and final introductory chapter, by Everett K. Rowson, out- lines the manuscripts, printed editions and translations of al-Yaʿqūbī’s three works (1:23–27). Rowson notes “that three of al-Yaʿqūbī’s works have been preserved, although not in optimal form, and that they have received con- siderable scholarly attention” (23). Most of the discussion pertains to The History. He points out that there are two more or less identical surviving manuscripts of The History, one of which is based on the other. The stan- dard and “only respectable” Arabic edition of the text (ed. M. Th. Houtsma, 2 vols., Leiden: Brill, 1883) is based on the later of the two manuscripts, while the translators in this project have prioritized the earlier one as the “only independent source for text readings” and mainly used the later copy (including Houtsma’s published edition) for interpretations of words and phrases that are hard to read. This raises the question if it would not have been a good idea to provide a critical edition of the Arabic text before a translation (of the manuscript text) into English; after all, a new critical and accessible edition of the original Arabic text is needed in the field. However, it is possible that such a project of re-editing al-Yaʿqūbī’s History is already underway, which would make this question unnecessary. The first of the three volumes contains the translation of The Adap- tion of Men (31-60, trans. Michael Fishbein), The Geography (64-199, trans. Elton Daniel and Paul M. Cobb), and some fragmentary texts (203-34, trans. Cobb, Gordon and Fishbein). The first is a short political essay com- prised of chronologically arranged anecdotes about the caliphs—begin- ning with Abū Bakr (r. 11-13/632-4) and ending with al-Muʿtaḍid (r. 279- 89/892-902)—and examples of how the people of their times, according to al-Yaʿqūbī, tended to follow them in their conduct and tastes. Fishbein’s translation is clear and the annotation is very informative, essentially functioning as a useful commentary with information about mentioned indi- viduals, places, and events as well as clarifications of terms and difficult passages. It is interesting to note that al-Yaʿqūbī’s image of the first three caliphs is surprisingly positive for a “hardline” Shīʿī historian—Abū Bakr, for example, is described as “the most abstemious of men, the most humble and sparing in his clothing” and ʿUmar, among other things, as “strict in matters relating to God” (31-33)—which might illustrate the difficulty of categorizing al-Yaʿqūbī’s Shiʿism. The second translated text is The Geography, which, as Gordon notes, is a book of “administrative geography” that al-Yaʿqūbī seems to have com- piled in order to “provide his fellow regional functionaries with the kind of information required to carry out their administrative duties” (6). It con- tains descriptions of the major towns and cities in the Muslim world of al-Yaʿqūbī’s time and information about practical matters such as distanc- es, agriculture, crafts, products, successions of governors, and the religious and ethnic composition of the local populations. The translation is clear and very readable, despite the sometimes difficult terminology and numer- ous place names, and the annotation is extensive and useful. Altogether, this translation of al-Yaʿqūbī’s works is a very welcomed addition to the field of early Islamic history and historiography, comparable in this respect to the translation of al-Ṭabarī’s History, which has proven its importance for both students and scholars. Similar to that project, the translations of al- Yaʿqūbī’s writings are carried out by twelve specialists in the field, which is evident from the translated texts as well as the accompanying annotations and the concise but useful introductory material. One does, however, hope that the translations will be complemented by new critical editions of the Arabic texts, at least in the case of The History, and new detailed historio- graphical studies on al-Yaʿqūbī as a historian and as a geographer.
 Tobias Andersson Faculty Member Department of Theology

This collection comprises fourteen papers delivered at a December 2010 conference
 held at Princeton University in honor of Michael A. Cook, as well as
 a preface and an introduction. Its four sections are designed to reflect the prin-
 cipal areas of Near Eastern and Islamic studies to which Cook has contributed:
 “Early Islamic History,” “Early Modern and Modern Islamic History,” “Juridical
 and Intellectual History,” and “Reinterpretations and Transformations.”
 The papers cover a broad geographic range from al-Andalus to Central Asia,
 and an extensive disciplinary range, with studies of calendars, conquest,
 fatāwā, tafsīr, and logic, among other subjects.
 Part 1 begins with Michael Bonner’s “‘Time Has Come Full Circle’:
 Markets, Fairs, and the Calendar in Arabia before Islam,” which addresses
 the intercalation of Arabia’s pre-Islamic calendar and the utility of sources
 for social history in dealing with this topic. He extends his confirmation of
 intercalation to a discussion of trade and social activity, noting that the shift
 to the Islamic lunar calendar indicated a shift to a new moral and social order
 and a true “revolution” in breaking with the past. In “The Wasiyya of Abū
 Hāshim: The Impact of Polemic in Premodern Muslim Historiography,”
 Najam Haider focuses on reports of the alleged testament (in 98/716-17) of
 Abu Hashim in which, written just before his death, he transferred his imamate
 and leadership to the Abbasid Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Abdullah. Relying
 primarily on Jacob Lassner’s approach to early material of this kind,
 which focuses on political propaganda and ideological debates, the author
 highlights the competition among reports of this testament and, later on in
 the Mamluk period, the processes of crafting a historical narrative that removed
 the polemical aspects. His study exemplifies the use of an alternative
 approach to early Islamic history, one that focuses on what compilations of
 historical reports tell us about contemporaneous political situations and religious
 doctrine, as well as about the historiographic methods of pre-modern
 historians ...

يعد هذا البحث من الموضوعات الجديدة المهمة لاسيما في ظل تلك الهجمة الشرسة على تاريخ الإسلام وحضارته وبصفة خاصة تاريخ الإسلام المبكر من عصر الرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم (ت 11هجرية /632م) مرورا بعصر الخلفاء الراشدين (11-40هجرية/632-660م) وإنتهاءاً بالعصر الاموي( 41 -132 هجرية /661-750م)؛ ومصدر تلك الهجمة الشرسة هم من يطلقون على أنفسهم إسم المستشرقون أو المراجعون الجدد ويعرفون أيضاً بالتنقيحيين ويعتمدون في ذلك على منهج قاصر لايمت للمنهج العلمي السليم بصلة وخلاصة هذا المنهج أنه لا تاريخ بدون أثار وهو الأمر الذي يعني أن عدم وجود أدلة مادية أثرية لأي عصر أو أي شخص حتى ولوكان نبيا ورسولا فإن ذلك يعد دليلاً قوياً على عدم تاريخيته، ومن هذا المنطلق القاصر تم إثارة الشبهات والتشكيك حول التاريخ الإسلامي المبكر سواء كان الأمر يتعلق بالدين الإسلامي ونبيه صلى الله عليه وسلم والقرآن الكريم وسنته الشريفة أو يتعلق بتاريخ الخلفاء الراشدين وأحداث عصرهم والفتوحات شرقاً وغرباً أو يتعلق بعصر الخلفاء الأمويين واعتبارهم مسيحيين وليسوا مسلمين، وحجتهم في ذلك عدم وجود أدلة مادية آثرية (من وجهة نظرهم) تثبت وتؤكد تاريخية هذه الفترة المبكرة من تاريخ الإسلام وحضارته؛ ومن الغريب والملفت للنظر في ذات الوقت أنه عندما وجدوا بعض الأدلة المادية الأثرية من عصري الراشدين والامويين لم ينسبوها للعرب المسلمين بل إتخذوها دليلا لهدم وطمس التاريخ الإسلامي المبكر وحسبنا أن نشير هنا إلى نقش قبة الصخرة بالقدس الشريف المؤرخ بعام72هجرية/691م (أشكال 61-64) فقد أشار الدكتور كريستوف لوكسنبرج صاحب نظرية القراءة السريانية الآرامية للقرآن الكريم الي أن إسم محمد الوارد في هذا النقش ليس اسم علم يشير إلى محمد نبي المسلمين لأنه لم يكن قد ظهر بعد وإنما هو صفة تعنى الممجد للسيد المسيح - عليه السلام؛ وبالتالي هذا هو محمد الأول أما محمد الثاني أي نبي المسلمين فقد صنعه العباسيون قبل منتصف القرن الثاني الهجري /الثامن الميلادي؛ وقياساً على ذلك هناك آراء شاذة أخرى كثيرة حول تاريخ هذه الفترة؛ ومنها على سبيل المثال دراسة فولكر بوب بعنوان خفايا الإسلام وبداياته، إعادة قراءة في النقوش والمسكوكات حيث يتحدث عن ظهور المحمدية بوصفها دعوة عبد الملك بن مروان لفهم المسيح على انه عبد الله (خادم الله) المختار/ المحمود (المحمد) وذلك من خلال تفسيره العجيب واللاهوتى لنقش قبة الصخرة وهو ما سنعود إليه تفصيلا في دراسة تحليلية لاحقة، ومن هذا المنطلق تأتي أهمية هذا البحث وموضوعه الأدلة المادية لنماذج الخط العربي والنقوش في مصر قبل قيام الدولة العباسية عام132م /750م قراءة جديدة لاهمينها الأثرية والتاريخية والحضارية. وتكمن أهمية هذا البحث في وجود أدلة مادية كثيرة على مختلف المواد الأثرية من الآثار الثابتة (العمائر والنقوش الصخرية) أو الآثار المنقولة والتى تحتفظ بها العديد من المتاحف في مصر والعالم ترجع إلى عصري الخلفاء الراشدين والامويين؛ من البرديات والمسكوكات والصنج والاختام الرصاصية والمكاييل والمنسوجات والنقوش الشاهدية (شواهد القبور) وغيرها.وسوف نتناول في هذا البحث دراسة الأدلة المادية لنماذج الخط العربي والنقوش المسجلة على تلك المواد الأثرية لإثبات أهمينها وقيمتها الآثارية والتاريخية والحضارية، وبالتالي نسف كل ادعاءات هؤلاء المستشرقون أو المراجعون الجدد في الغرب وأنصارهم وأتباعهم وتلامذتهم في الشرق حول التاريخ الإسلامي المبكر؛ لأن هذه الأدلة الدامغة بخطها العربي وبنصوصها المختلفة تثبت بما لا يدع مجالاً للشك تاريخية التاريخ الإسلامي المبكر وحقيقة أحداثه العامة وعلى رأسها الفتوحات العربية الإسلامية وأعلامها من جهة كما أن تنوع نماذج الخط خلال تلك الفترة إنما يمثل الإرهاصات الأولى أو المبكرة لنشأة المدرسة المصرية في فن الخط العربى؛ تلك المدرسة التي إستطاعت أن تتبوأ مكانتها الرفيعة بين مدارس الخط العربي الأخرى في الشرق والغرب على السواء؛ والله يوفقنا لما فيه الخير والعلم النافع.

The question dealing with the reliability of early Islamic sources has been a source of discomfort for scholars as well as students of early Islamic history. The work of Josef Schacht first published in the fifties of the past century has created an overall attitude of skepticism toward early tradition and made it difficult to study early Islam without justifying the use of early sources and determining their authenticity. This made the whole field part away from the picture painted by the early sources about early Islam, giving rise to unfounded theories and speculations about this historical period. The purpose of this paper is to show that the work of Schacht is unfounded and to present an alternative method for studying Islamic history. Our efforts will not be just theoretical but we will build on the work of Harald Motzki and Gregor Schoeler by bringing a case study from this early period and show how analyzing early isnads, the chain of authority narrating a particular event, impacts matns, the narration attached to the isnad. This will show that scholars of Islamic history may rely on early historical narration for understanding early Islamic history given that they pay particular attention to who is narrating what to whom.