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A Note on the Sources
Any history of the Umayyad caliphate which aims to do more than
supply a bare outline of the succession of the caliphs and most
important governors has to rely above all on the literature produced
in Arabic by Muslims and established in the form in which it has
come down to us some time after the dynasty had disappeared. The
attitude of these Muslim literary sources to the Umayyads, the way
in which they were compiled, and the difficulties arising from the
comparatively late redactions in which we have them, have been
discussed in chapter 1 under the subheading ‘The Umayyads in
Muslim Tradition’. This note is only intended to supply some
indication of the more important authors and their works.
Muslim literary sources may be divided into several categories,
according to their titles and their methods of organising their
material. However, to some extent the diversity produced by this
method of categorisation is illusory, since one often finds the same
basic material in works whose titles lead one to classify them as
different literary genres.
Among the chronicles (the titles of which frequently use the word
ta’rikh
), the fullest and most detailed by far of the early works is that
of Tabari (d. 923). It was the European edition of Tabari’s work in
the later part of the nineteenth century which, running to 15
volumes, made it possible for Wellhausen to put Umayyad history
on a new footing in his
Arab kingdom and its fall
. Other notable
early chronicles are that of al-Ya‘qubi (d. 897), which is relatively
more pro-Shi‘ite in flavour, and, for the later Umayyad period, an
anonymous eleventh-century chronicle edited by M.J.de Goeje in
his
Fragmenta Historicorum Arabicorum
.
Biographies of prominent figures of the Umayyad period are
usually contained in collections, organised according to different
principles, such as the
Ansab al-ashraf
of Baladhuri (d. 892), the
Appendix 1
121
Tabaqat
of Ibn Sa‘d (d. 845) or the
Ta’rikh madinat Dimashq
of Ibn
‘Asakir (d. 1176), which is a biographical dictionary in spite of its
title. ‘Umar II, unusually, was the subject of an individual early
biographical treatment by Ibn ‘Abd al-Hakam (d. 870).
In works written on the theme of the Arab conquests
(futuh),
such
as the
Futuh al-buldan
of Baladhuri, the
Futuh Misr
of Ibn ‘Abd al-
Hakam, and the
Kitab al-Futuh
of Ibn A‘tham al-Kufi (fl. early ninth
century) one also finds a wealth of material relevant for Umayyad
history.
Poetry from the period by poets such as Farazdaq and Jarir (both
died about 730) is perhaps not so explicitly informative for
historical purposes as we would like, but the collection of verses and
biographical information about poets, the
Kitab al-Aghani
by Abu’l-
Faraj al-Isfahani (d. 967), contains much of value for the history of
the period in general.
For the development of the Shi‘a and the Kharijites and the host
of sub-sects, there is a tradition of heresiographical works, in which
the beliefs, practices and main personalities are described. One of
the earliest was the
Maqalat al-islamiyyin
of al-Ash‘ari (d. 935).
One could continue to list such material for some time, for there
is certainly no shortage of it. Works in these genres and others
continued to be produced by Muslims down to modern times, and
one frequently finds material relevant for the Umayyad period, not
contained in the early writings, in relatively late works. The
problem, as has been stressed, is what reliance is to be placed on
Muslim literary sources in general, sources which from one point of
view are all secondary, in that they are produced at a late date on the
basis of material which has disappeared, but which are primary in
that we have nothing earlier to give us comparable detail on the
period.
Source material produced in the Umayyad period itself consists
of some literature produced by non-Arabs in languages such as
Syriac and Armenian, coins, inscriptions, buildings and other
artifacts, and the administrative documents on papyrus which have
survived. On these in general see the ‘Index of sources’ in
M.A.Cook and P. Crone,
Hagarism;
on Syriac sources, S.P.Brock,
‘Syriac sources for seventh century history’; on numismatics,
J.Walker,
Catalogue of the Arab-Byzantine and post-reform
Umaiyad coins,
and
Catalogue of the Arab-Sasanian coins;
for
epigraphy, E.Combe
et al., Répertoire chronologique d’épigraphie
arabe,
Paris 1931 f. provides the inscriptions in transcription
122
Appendix 1
together with French translations and bibliographical references; for
art and architecture, see K.A.C.Cresswell,
Early Muslim
Architecture,
and O.Grabar,
The formation of Islamic art,
New
Haven, Conn., 1973; for an introduction to the literature on
papyrology, see J.Sauvaget’s
Introduction to the history of the
Muslim East,
based on the second edition as recast by Claude Cahen,
Berkeley and Los Angeles 1965, 16–17. This last work is an
invaluable guide to resources (primary and secondary) for Islamic
history in general, and it should be the first port of call for further
information. Chapter 16 is especially relevant for the Umayyads.
123
Appendix 2
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