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

Introduction
his successor, was thus a line of kings. Yazid’s personal failings,
which are certainly underlined by tradition, merely seem to
reinforce the message and are not really the source of opposition to
his appointment.
19
It should be clear, then, that tradition is generally hostile to the
Umayyad dynasty. It is, nevertheless, true that the same Muslim
tradition transmits some material which is more ambiguous,
sometimes even overtly favourable to the Umayyads. For example,
the administrative and political ability of caliphs like Mu‘awiya and
‘Abd al-Malik is admitted, and some of the ‘Abbasids are said to
have expressed admiration for this aspect of their predecessors’
work. Even on more strictly religious questions, the tradition
sometimes seems less clear-cut than one would expect. The name
‘the year of the (reestablishment of the) community’, which is
applied both to the year in which Mu‘awiya received
acknowledgment in Kufa after his defeat of ‘Ali and to that in which
‘Abd al-Malik similarly ended the second civil war, recognises the
virtues of these two caliphs in rescuing the community from a period
of internal dissension. Indeed, one often finds in tradition a
fearfulness for the fate of the community under such enemies of the
Umayyads as ‘Ali and Ibn al-Zubayr, whatever their personal merits
might have been. In legal traditions some Umayyads, notably
Marwan, himself caliph for a short time and ancestor of one of the
two branches of the Umayyad family to acquire the caliphate, are
frequently referred to as makers of legal rulings, and they often
come out quite favourably even in comparison with some of the
most important of the Prophet’s companions. On occasion a maxim
which one tradition ascribes to, say, Marwan will appear elsewhere
as a maxim of the Prophet himself. Even the bombardment of Mecca
and the consequent damage to the Ka‘ba, which is a key point in the
traditional complaints against the dynasty, can be toned down.
Among the various reports of these events, some say that the fire
which damaged the Ka‘ba while Mecca was being bombarded came
about accidentally, and some even say that it was caused by the
carelessness of one of the defenders of Mecca, even Ibn al-Zubayr
himself being named. Here we are not concerned with the historical
accuracy of these reports, merely with the fact that they are
transmitted even though the tenor of Muslim tradition is broadly
anti-Umayyad.
20
Even the treatment of the one Umayyad caliph who is recognised
as such in tradition and exempted from the accusation of kingship

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Introduction
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levelled at the others, ‘Umar b. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz (‘Umar II, 717–20),
may be ambiguous. In one way to nominate him as the only caliph in
a line of kings serves, of course, to underline the contrast between
the pious ‘Umar and the rest of the dynasty, but equally it could be
argued that the existence of ‘Umar to some extent rescues the
dynasty from complete condemnation. While the traditions about
him emphasise the links on his mother’s side with ‘Umar I, the
second successor of Muhammad and one of the four Rightly Guided
Caliphs, they also do not hide the fact that on his father’s side he was
a leading member of the Umayyad family. His father was brother of
the caliph ‘Abd al-Malik and governor of Egypt for most of the
latter’s caliphate. Evidently, therefore, the Umayyads could produce
a genuine caliph and one could conclude that there was nothing
inherently bad in the family.
21
In order to understand both the generally negative attitude
towards the Umayyads in Muslim tradition and the fact that the
tradition transmits material which is apparently more favourable to
the dynasty, it is necessary to understand the way in which the
tradition came to be formed—the way in which our Muslim literary
sources originated, were transmitted, collected and finally
committed to writing in the form in which we know them.
It seems likely that it was not until the later part of the Umayyad
period that traditions, religious or historical (and the distinction is
not always clear), came to be committed to writing with any
frequency. Before that time they were generally transmitted orally in
short, separate reports which were self-contained and relatively easy
to memorise. As it became more common to put them in a written
form, however, these short reports could be united into more
complex units, compiled around a theme or organised in a narrative
framework. In the later Umayyad and early ‘Abbasid period, then,
scholars such as Abu Mikhnaf (d. 774), Ibn Ishaq (d. 761), or
‘Awana (d. 764) began to compile ‘books’ by collecting the
traditions available and organising them around a theme such as the
battle of the Camel, the second civil war, or even the history of the
caliphate. They may have simply dictated the relevant material to
their disciples, which would account for the different versions of
works attributed to a particular scholar which have come down to us
from different disciples, or they may have put it in writing
themselves.
The material thus collected was then transmitted to later
generations which treated it in a variety of ways. It might be again

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