The State Archives in the Early Islamic Era

Abstract

Cl. Cahen's recently published article entitled Notes de diplomatique arabo-musulmane throws light on the inadequacy of reports with regard to the character and the treatment of documents of Arab-Muslim history as well as on the relatively uncertain form of the documents from these periods, insofar as such documents are transmitted at all. An important question in this connection seems to be whether, in the earliest stages of Arab-Muslim history, there has actually been something that could come close to the concept of tArchivest. The existence of a site specifically intended for the storage of documents, i.e., a kind of archives, is clearly proved through this tradition for the period of ʿUṯmān; and there is no reason to doubt that it represented an obvious and standard institution in the administration of the Islamic Community even during the rule of ʿUṯmān; 's predecessors.Keywords: Arab-Muslim history; early Islamic era; state archives