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

First Dynasty
 failed to mention the

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136
Bibliographical Postscript to the Second Edition
article of F.E.Peters, ‘Why did Abd-al-Malik Build the Dome of the
Rock?’, 
Graeco-Arabica,
 2 (1983), and that same question has been
used as a chapter heading by Amikam Elad in his 
Medieval
Jerusalem and Islamic Worship
 (Leiden: E.J.Brill 1995) and for his
contribution to Julian Raby and Jeremy Johns (eds.), 
Bayt al-
Maqdis. ?bd al-Malik’s Jerusalem
 (Oxford: Oxford University Press
1993). Elad has brought to light some extremely important source
material, and the Raby and Johns volume contains as well several
other significant contributions. A more recent and more general
discussion of Jerusalem in the early Islamic period is by Oleg
Grabar, 
The Shape of the Holy. Early Islamic Jerusalem
 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1996).
A continuing major area of debate concerns the political,
economic, social and religious factors which led to the demise of the
Umayyad caliphate. The polarized factionalism which split the Arab
forces on which the Umayyads depended was interpreted by
M.A.Shaban (see the original bibliography) as a conflict over policy,
mainly regarding military expansion and the treatment of the
conquered peoples. That interpretation has been criticized in detail,
and Shaban’s rather cavalier attitude to the evidence illuminated, in
an article by Patricia Crone which is of great importance for the
interpretation of Umayyad history in general: ‘Were the Qays and
the Yemen of the Umayyad Period Political Parties?’ (
Der Islam,
 71
(1994), 95–111). Also critical of Shaban’s interpretation and
methods are Elton L.Daniel, The “Ahl al-Taqadum” and the Problem
of the Constituency of the Abbasid Revolution in the Merv Oasis’
(
Journal of Islamic Studies,
 7 (1996), 150–79) and Saleh Said Agha,
‘The Battle of the Pass: Two Consequential Readings’ (
Bulletin of
the School of Oriental and African Studies
 (forthcoming)). Daniel’s
book, 
The Political and Social History of Khurasan under Abbasid
Rule,
 Minneapolis 1979, ought to have been listed in the
bibliography of the 1986 edition of the present work.
The extent and nature of Arab settlement in the north-eastern
Iranian province of Khurasan, important for understanding the
character of the revolt against the Umayyads which began there in
747, have been reexamined too by Parvaneh Pourshariati, ‘Local
Histories of Khurasan and the Pattern of Arab Settlement’ (
Studia
Iranica,
 27 (1998), 41–81), and by Saleh Said Agha, ‘The Arab
Population in ?urasan during the Umayyad period—some
demographic computations’ (
Arabica,
 46 (1999), 211–29).

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Bibliographical Postscript to the Second Edition  
137
Finally, aspects of the revolt which overthrew the Umayyad
caliphate are examined by Jacob Lassner, 
Islamic Revolution and
Historical Memory: An Enquiry into the Art of ?bbasid Apologetics
(New Haven: Yale University Press 1986); Patricia Crone, ‘On the
Meaning of the ?bbasid Call to al-Ri?a’, in C.E.Bosworth 
et al
.
(eds.), 
The Islamic World from Classical to Modern Times. Essays in
Honor of Bernard Lewis
 (Princeton: The Darwin Press 1989), 95–
111; and by Moshe Sharon, 
Revolt: the Social and Military Aspects
of the ?bbasid Revolution
 (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Press
1990).
Naturally, the footnotes and bibliographies of the above
mentioned works will serve as sources for even deeper explorations
of various aspects of Umayyad history.
 

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139
Bibliography
 
Abel, A., ‘Le khalife, presence sacrée’, SI, 7 (1957)
Barthold, W., ‘The caliph ‘Umar II and the contradictory information about
his personality’,