The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate ad 661-750

Appendix 2 
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Recently, though, the method of source analysis used by
Wellhausen has been criticised as inadequate, or even wrong, so that
some scholars would now question whether a detailed history of the
period is possible at all. Already by the mid-1950s the general
scepticism towards Muslim tradition as a source for the history of
early Islam, which Goldziher’s work had fostered, had been
intensified by the work of his pupil, J.Schacht. By his historical
researches into the origins of Muslim law, Schacht claimed to have
confirmed and provided detailed evidence for the views of his
teacher about the relatively late origin of Muslim tradition and the
great influence upon it of, especially, legal disputes. Those who
accepted Schacht’s findings now had additional ammunition with
which to attack the traditional accounts of early Islamic history.
In 1973 A.Noth published his 
Quellenkritische Studien,
 in which
he attacked the basis of Wellhausen’s analysis of the sources. Noth
stressed the constant reworking of the historical tradition in the
course of its collection and transmission, and emphasised that even
the earliest 
akhbariyyun,
 whose works are excerpted and
summarised in our written sources, do not stand at the beginning of
the tradition. They too were merely collectors and compilers of
material which had already undergone development before it
reached them. He argued that it is not possible to get to the origin of
the material which has come down to us or to attach the eighth-
century 
akhbariyyun
 to particular ‘schools’ with clearly defined
characteristics, or to describe the bias of a particular scholar. Each
of them in fact transmits material reflecting a variety of points of
view. Noth then concentrated on isolating the different literary
forms and stereotypes within the sources, tending to imply that the
sources are little more than a collection of literary 
topoi
 with a
questionable basis in historical reality.
The result is very pessimistic about the possibility of using such
sources to reconstruct early Islamic history in detail. It seems that
Noth intended his work as an introduction to his own account of the
early history of Islam, but in fact the sequel has never appeared.
Other historians have continued to write Umayyad history more
or less after the manner of Wellhausen, treating the sources critically
but believing that after due criticism it is possible to use them for
historical reconstruction. In Germany one may mention Redwan
Sayyid and Gernot Rotter as scholars who have attempted to follow
the same sort of methods as Wellhausen but to go beyond him by
using a wider amount of source material and with the benefit of

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Appendix 2
more modern social and economic concepts. In the United States
F.McGraw Donner has produced a history of the Arab conquests and
promised a methodological justification for his work. There is no
doubt, however, that many now feel inhibitions in this sort of work,
and turn instead to source analysis or historiography. Werner Ende
and E.L.Petersen come immediately to mind.
One recent major work has attempted to accept the findings of
Goldziher, Schacht and Noth and still find a methodology for using
the Muslim source material. In her 
Slaves on horses
 Patricia Crone
argued for a biographical or prosopographical approach. Indicating
that whenever we can check the basic information given in the
Muslim sources (names and dates of caliphs and governors, and so
on) by reference to independent sources (for instance, coins,
inscriptions, non-Muslim literature) the two usually provide mutual
confirmation, she maintained that it is unlikely that all of the
information in Muslim sources can be dismissed as later invention or
merely literary 
topoi
. Such apparently incidental details as those
regarding an individual’s status and tribal or factional alignment, his
marriage ties and his social or political links, are likely to be based
on reality, and it is this sort of information, rather than, for example,
the accounts of the motives of rebels or caliphs engaged in the major
events, which the historian should concentrate on. From this point of
view the cohesiveness of Dr Crone’s book is as impressive as its
conceptual sophistication. A consequence of this approach, and one
which has been anticipated or shared by others, is a movement away
from the straightforward narrative of political events towards a
greater interest in institutions, social and religious history.
M.G.Morony’s work is another example of this trend.
In the modern Islamic, and especially Arab, world Umayyad
history has sometimes served as a mirror reflecting current political
and religious preoccupations. This does not mean that all modern
Arab or Muslim writing on the period should be read as a comment
on current affairs or that one can forecast what a particular writer
will say if one knows his religious or political position first. But
since the Umayyad period was crucial for the arabisation and
islamisation of the Middle East, it is obvious that Arabs or Muslims
pondering their identity in the modern world will find much food for
thought in the history of the dynasty.
In particular, the possible tension between Islam and Arab
nationalism could affect views of the Umayyads. From the Arab
nationalist perspective the dynasty could be seen as one of potential

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