ROBINSON - The Study of Islamic Historiography - A Progress Report

Review: The Study of Islamic Historiography: A Progress Report
Author(s): Chase F. Robinson

Source: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Jul., 1997), pp. 199-
227
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The Study of IslamicHistoriography:
a Progress Report
CHASE F. ROBINSON
Writing in the Supplement to the first edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam in 1938, Gibb
began his article on "Ta'rikh" by volunteering that the "[t]he problem of the origins of
Arabic is not yet solved."2 It was an to write. For
historiography finally astonishing thing
equipped as he was with al-Khat?b al-Baghd?d?, Ibn al-Nad?m, Hajj? Khalifa, Y?q?t's
Irsh?d, the first volume of al-Safadi, with W?stenfeld's Die Geschichtschreiber der Araber und
ihreWerke, aswell aswith all but Supplementband III of Brockelmann, Gibb certainly knew
how little of the historical tradition had survived. He was very much in the
early working
dark. It may be hard to now, but of al-Bal?dhur?'s Ansah was
imagine al-ashr?fhe probably
then familiar only with Ahlwardt's slim volume,3 and the final volume of Ibn Sacd had not
yet appeared. Meanwhile al-W?qid?'s Magh?zl (which he knew of), Ibn Actham's Fut?h,
cAbd al-Malik b. Habib's Ta'?kh, cUmar b. Shabba's Ta'?kh al-madina al-munawwara,
b. al-Fasaw?'s wo*7-ta1rikh, Abu Zur5 a Ta'rikh, and
Yaeq?b Sufy?n al-Macrifa al-Dimashqi's
finally Khalifa b. Khayy?t's Ta'rikh and Tabaq?t (all of which he did not), remained
?
inaccessible and this is just to mention some
third-century examples.
We often grouse about the lack of progress in the study of medieval Islam, but in Islamic
there is little to about. That Gibb's article was

historiography complain reprinted
unchanged in 1962,4 that is, after the contributions of Brunschvig, Schacht,

important
Abbott, Rosenthal, and even the Arabic Dun, reflects the festive character of the collection
rather than the pace of and in the time since Gibb's article was the
scholarship; reprinted
pace has even It has seen work on stra, hadith, ta'?kh,
quickened. important tabaq?t, maq?til;
on the oral and written transmission of historical material; on individual historians about
whom relatively little had been known (Abu cUbayda, al-Haytham b. cAdi,Wahb b.
Munabbih, Abu al-Husayn al-Razi), and about others much better known (al-Bal?dhur?,
al-Mascud?, al-Tabar?, Ibn al-cAd?m, and Ibn on the obscure

al-Yacq?bi, Khald?n);
beginnings of historical writing in the eighth and ninth centuries, and on itsmonumental
1
The following is a review of two recent works on Islamic historiography:
1. Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period. By Tarif Khalidi (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization.)
pp. xiii, 250. Cambridge etc., Cambridge University Press, 1994. ?35.00.
2. The Early Arabic Historical Tradition: A Source-Critical
Study. By Albrecht Noth (second edition, in collaboration
with Lawrence I. Conrad); translated from the German by Michael Bonner. (Studies in Late Antiquity and Early
Islam, 3.) pp. xi, 248. Princeton, NJ, The Darwin Press, 1994. US$27.50, ?18.00.
2
Leiden, 1938, p. 233.
3
The essay shows no awareness of S. Goitein's important introduction to the first of the Jerusalem volumes (v,
1936).
4
S. J. Shaw andW. R. Polk (eds.) Studies on the Civilization of Islam (Boston, 1962), pp. 108-37.
JRAS, Series 3, 7, 2 (1997), pp. 199-227

200 Chase F. Robinson
works of the fourteenth-sixteenth centuries. By eroding (and in some cases, the

shattering)
historiographical foundations on which

early Islam used to be reconstructed, tapping into
new sources (e.g. Ibn eAsakir), and thinking through old ones (e.g. Ibn Khald?n), a
? ?
generation of work has made the old standards Gibb almost entirely obsolete.
including
The of two works on Islamic in the same year reflects
publication major historiography
the great vitality of this edge of the field. T. Khalidi's Arabic Historical Thought in theClassical
Period is ambitious: in 250 pages it surveys no fewer than 800 years of
extraordinarily
"historical across genre and time, from text to text at breakneck
thought", cutting moving
speed. The hand on the wheel is very firm: the tour is both chronological and thematic,
"historical to Khalidi, in succession four
thought", according having experienced "epi
stemic canopies", hadith, adab, hikma, and siy?sa, each of these, in turn, in
being "implanted
social and political developments" (p. xi). The task Khalidi sets himself is to trace how the
works of authors as diverse as and Ibn Shadd?d
al-W?qidi, al-Yacq?bi, Miskawayh, (and
many, many reflect these "domes", or "umbrellas", and to situate

others) "canopies",
historical within a broader cultural ultimate purpose is to show how
writing dynamic: "My
historical writing evolved in step with the horizons of Arabic-Islamic culture
expanding
the attempt to understand the nature and causes of the process itself"
through evolutionary
(p. xii).
If Khalidi's work to oudine the whole classical tradition in broad strokes,
attempts
A. Noth's The Early Arabic Historical Tradition: A Source-Critical Study is concerned only
with the early stages of the tradition's growth; what Khalidi discusses in ca. 50 pp., Noth
discusses in ca. 220 if the of Khalidi's lies in his four

pp. Moreover, novelty approach
"dome" scheme, Noth's method is novel in that the Islamic historical tradition
only
- -
remains if not untouched form critics. The book is in fact a
largely entirely by
translation and revision of a work in German (Quellenkritische Studien
originally published
zu Themen, Formen und Tendenzen fr?hislamischer Geschichts?berlieferung [Bonn, 1973]), and in
view of the number of and the invaluable of his collaborator, Noth announces
changes help
that the first edition has been and that the reader is to refer to this second
"superseded",
edition as "Noth/Conrad". I shall follow his instructions, but itmust be said thatNoth has
been too modest. What is new only expands and more fully illustrates
altogether generally
what was written in 1973; and one material addition has been made: the
only important
publication of Abu Ish?q al-Thaqafi's Kit?b al-gh?r?t has persuaded Noth to add the gh?r?t
to his list of themes". This said, the book has been re-worked,
"secondary carefully
in the notes, which Noth's work, Conrad's numerous
particularly incorporate subsequent
contributions to the study of the early tradition (including his re-dating of al-Azdi's Fut?h
al-sh?m, which for the new with every
proved very productive edition), along virtually
else of real and relevance written in the last twenty yean. The result is a
thing importance
state-of-the-art of what is often identified as a or "revisionist"
presentation "sceptical"
to the Islamic tradition.
approach early
For all their differences in method, and conclusions, the two books can
scope, profitably
be discussed together. Not only do they both freely volunteer that they are intended to ask
new and stimulate further research, but in two
questions precisely reflecting contrasting
about method and evidence. In what
approaches they lay bare fundamental assumptions
The Study of IslamicHistoriography: A ProgressReport 201
follows I focus on where the two books the formative of Islamic

overlap: period
historiography.
After that contrast a homeostatic of time with a

preliminaries sharply j?hiti conception
vision of man and that is purposeful and moral, Khalidi starts with the
Qur'anic history
birth of historical inquiry under the first of his four "domes": "It was under the general
rubric of Hadith that the basic religious sciences of Islam, including historical writing, were
to collection is said to have but it was in the
develop" (p. 17). Hadith begun very early on,
Marw?nid that the "proto-historical consciousness" behind the collection and

period
of the hadith matured, as state power grew and
systematising particularly scholarly activity
became more differentiated and the century
specialised. Already by early eighth figures
such as cUrwa b. and al-Zuhri were rather than merely and
al-Zubayr composing, collecting;
in the hands of Ibn Ish?q, hadlths were being used to support and illustrate his manifestly
historical vision of prophecy. As the use of the isn?d was transformed into a
undisciplined
science, historical was from the more confined
systematic writing "emancipate[d]" (p. 43)
of hadith collection and verification, and those so inclined Ibn
activity (e.g. al-W?qid?,
were freer to more historical narratives. The work of these
al-Kalbi) develop synthetic
is examined to a more or less conventional (sacred
compilers according typology history;
and tribal and which also serves to
history, including genealogy conquest history), organise
the author's treatment of three conquest books, Ibn cAbd al-Hakam's, al-Azd?'s and
al-Bal?dhuri's. The chapter ends with al-Tabar?, the "imam" of hadith historiography.
In chapter 3 Khalidi turns to the influence exercised on historical writing by adab,
that historians to "its invitation to the of man, and nature
arguing responded study society
unfettered any to work within a formal, tradition"
by compulsion rigid, self-authenticating
13 if.)- The with a very discussion of the bureaucratic and
(pp. chapter begins suggestive
social origins of Umayyad and early cAbbasid adab, and of the attitudes towards the past in
two adlhs, and Ibn Qutayba. the of
al-J?hiz Abandoning (mostly) chronological approach
the previous chapter, he then discusses how adab-\nso\rz? historians Hamza
(chiefly
al-Isfah?n? and handled several themes: intention, space, time, and number.
al-Yacq?b?)
the most salient features of a dab are a clearer sense of both author
Among historiography
and his purpose; a new on direct and broader
emphasis testimony contemporary history;
and interests in non-Islamic cultures, and time; and a more literal use of
deeper geography,
numbers. In terms, narrative forced out atomistic, isn?d
stylistic ?zifofc-inspired styles
equipped akhb?r in favour of lengthier, and more historical narratives.

complex,
The concerns of /wfemd-inspired historiography, which Khalidi describes in chapter 4, are
said to have from adab. Al-Mascud? here serves as and of departure,
developed pivot point
his work - the "intellectual of history" -
apotheosis (p. 133) reflecting the increasing
theoretical sophistication of historical writing; history is now to be considered the "ultimate
science" 135). Much of the is thus devoted to an examination of al-Masc?d?'s
(p. chapter
theological and philosophical milieu, in particular the theologians' (Muctazil? and Ism?'?l?)
views on miracles and of akhbar in theories of knowledge was
prophecy ("The embedding
the achievement of the and the views on time and

theologians." [p. 151]), philosophers'
history. The concludes with Miskawayh and al-B?r?ni.

chapter
In chapter 5, "History and Khalidi turns to the great works of the eleventh to
Siyasa\
the fifteenth centuries. In Khalidi's view, the historiography of the period is not merely
or it represents an of power and
comprehensive thorough; unprecedented conjoining
one which was to serve the maml?k of the "It is the
knowledge, great empires period:
of this that a new came into under the umbrella of
argument chapter historiography being
most in what may be called the bureaucratic
siyasa, typically represented imperial
chronicle" (p. 183). Political and historical thought reflected the regimes' patronage of the
'ulam?*: rank and order are historians grow self-conscious of their
emphasised; increasingly
vis-?-vis the state; and to a now dominated
position historiography, large degree by
focuses on the careers of men "driven to and from power correct or
biography, through
incorrect calculation of opportunities and motives" (p. 204). Khalidi concludes by arguing
that Ibn Khald?n's is siy?sa-oriente?, and that of his Kit?b al-Hbar consistent
historiography
with the principles presented in the Muqaddima.
II
Below I shall make my fair share of criticisms, and I suspect others will too. But we should
begin by giving Khalidi his due. In the preceding I have not done the work justice; full of
bons mots, it is the of an and is much greater
product impressively synthetic imagination,
than the sum of its Most it forces one to reflect on fundamental
parts. important,
about and method. For in so far as the study of Islamic historiography
assumptions meaning
has relied on the practice of it has also relied on an
Quellenforschung,5 implicit epistemology
of its own: that to know a source is to know its sources (including their transmission) and
-
that a source-critical method us closest to and thus this In
gets objectivity reliability.6
?
of hadith that underpin (or at least
respect, ingredients methodology historiography orally
transmitted material, not a "cut
theoretically orally) arranged largely (but exclusively) by
-
and method serve to accentuate what has been called the "humanist "the
paste" fallacy":
naive notion that a text is just a kind of of the voice of a real man
literary transcript living
or woman us".7 Of course it could be said that we need more, rather than less,
addressing
if only because old sources remain understudied,8 and new sources are
Quellenforschung,
appearing all the time.9 But from the source-critical tradition Khalidi unrepentantly
and in outlining an to that is broadly cultural, he has
departs, approach historiography
not a new of organising an immense amount of material, but also a way
proposed only way
of interpreting it.
The book's principal contribution is thus its broad vision ? one might even say its
5 Cf.
R. S. Humphreys, IslamicHistory: a Framework for Inquiry (Princeton, 1991), pp. 74f
6 See
A. Cameron (ed.), History as Text: theWriting ofAncient History (London, 1989), pp. 207f.
7
T. Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction (Minneapolis, 1983), p. 120.
8
For two fairly recent examples, see S. G?nther, Quellenuntersuchungen zu den "Maq?til at-T?libiyytn" des Abu
H-Farag al-Isfah?ni (gest. 356V967) (Hildesheim, 1991); andW. Werkmeister, Quellenuntersuchungen zum Kit?b al-cIqd
al-farid des Andalusien Ibn Abdrabbih (246/860?328/940) (Berlin, 1983).
9
The most notable recent addition is Sayf b. cUmar, Kit?b al-ridda wa'l-futuh and Kit?b Jamal wa-mas?r A'isha
wa-Al?, ed. by Q. al-S?marr?'i (Leiden, 1995).
In our and academic world, who can claim the

audacity. fragmented over-specialised
across the genres and centuries necessary to such a off? In view of the
expertise pull project
scale of his Khalidi must of course cut some corners. Of the "social and
undertaking,
we in fact hear little, and what we do hear is occasionally so
political developments" very
schematic that one its usefulness.10 Moreover, the author's catholic view of
might question
historical in at least one case so much that his is
thought requires scene-setting argument
lost in the props: thus the thesis of 4, which is most clearly stated only in its
chapter
sentence ("Wherever history
was touched Hikma, it was left a more
concluding by
accurate, more law-like, more and more comparative discipline" [p. 181]) is
practicable
never demonstrated. He concedes that Miskawayh's al-umam is anomalous
actually Taj?rib
that al-B?r?n? was "not a historian" and in any case,
(p. 173), strictly speaking (p. 181),
in Khalidi's view, seems to have been a feature of historical almost
"accuracy", writing
from the start.11
? -
One is also to out that works are both and
inevitably compelled point shortchanged
omitted. Can one do to al-Bal?dhuri's Fut?h al-buld?n in 51 lines, to al-Dinawari's
justice
al-Akhb?r al-tiw?l in 9? Maml?k seems not a word on
historiography particularly slighted:
al-Sakh?w? and and Ibn Taghribird? to pass on
al-Suyut?, speaks only judgment al-Maqriz?,
who never at all. Chief among the omissions is perhaps the tradition of local
speaks history
and there are too many to cite, it is surprising that not a word is
writing; although examples
said of Ibn al-cAdim's Bughya, which has long been available in facsimile and was edited in
1988.12 Omissions are a reviewer's best friend, however, and crucial seems to be
nobody
More the omission of a obscure local historian in favour of
missing. importantly, relatively
cAbd or al-B?run? constitutes for On the contrary: the
al-Jabb?r hardly grounds complaint.
field has its share of surveys, and for asking
already quasi-bibliographical historiographical
questions of those usually considered literary figures, and literary (and epistemol?gica!)
of those considered (mere) historians, we should be to Khalidi.
questions usually grateful
The reader iswell rewarded. in and the
patient Although "ulamalogy" general, sociology
of in particular, are not central concerns of the book,13 page after page
history writing
serves to remind the reader that Muslim historians of the classical much like other
period,
historians of the pre-modern were first, and "more else.14
period, importantly", something
In sophistication and breadth his into the various that conditioned
inquiry epistemologies
the use of the khabar (pp. 137fF.) breaks new ground in the study of pre-Ibn Khald?n
historiography. Chapter 4 effectively contextualises in tenth and eleventh

historiography
century and the first half of 5 offers several very suggestive into
thought; chapter insights
the historiographie impact of the institutionalisation of knowledge.
Given the author's interest in epistemology, it comes as of a that a
something surprise
definition of "Arabic historical thought" is conspicuous by its absence. The principal virtue
of the "historical and "historical seems to be that are not
phrases thought" writing" they
and this clears the way for Khalidi to argue his thesis: that historians'
"historiography",
10 n
See, in particular, pp. i4f. and 183. On this matter, see below.
12
Ibn al-cAdim, Bughyat al-talabfl ta'rikhHalab (Aleppo, 1988).
13
Some words are said about the culama3on pp. 200-4.
14
See N. Partner, "The new Cornificius: medieval history and the artifice of words", Classical Rhetoric and
Medieval Historiography, ed. E. Breisach (Kalamazoo, 1985), p. 11.
work can be in the context of broad cultural movements. The

only adequately explained
terminology also helps him describe how the past was handled in other branches of Arabic
those called or mu'arrikh?n do not the This is
prose; akhbariyy?n monopolise past. point
made with great effect in chapters 3 and 4, which, not say much less about
coincidentally,
historians and than do 2 and 5. But it must also be said that
historiography chapters
the book terms are used very A is
throughout loosely. representative example "genre",
which is employed to identify the clusters that constitute the four stages of historical
thought ("One must now attempt to show in some detail how Adabi inspired historical
and writing to constitute a genre, and one distinct from
thought grew recognisable quite
Hadith in substance and form" as well as to describe a sub
historiography [p. 112]),
thus three histories" are described as to the same
category: "conquest belonging "genre"
65fr.). the great dissimilarities in material, method, and purpose, one can
(pp. Considering
only surmise that these third/ninth century historians (Ibn cAbd al-Hakam, al-Azd?, and
are because the word appears in the titles of

al-Bal?dhur?) brought together simply fut?h
their books.
As far as the title of this book is concerned, "Arabic historical as recorded

thought mostly
in the prose of Sunnis" is admittedly wooden, but it more precisely describes its contents.
The Khalidi asks of his prose texts could also be asked of other of
questions expressions
"historical thought" that do not happen to be in prose: if theMaq?m?t of al-Harir? make it
not, say, Abu Tamm?m's treatment of al-Mu'tasim's conquest of Amorium?
(p. 214), why
It is somewhat that Ism?'?l? ideas of time are brushed aside as but
surprising foreign (p. 162),
less so that is said about other sectarian views of the past, e.g. Kh?rijite.15
perhaps nothing
Ill
In a book as and ambitious as this, most readers will find to

wide-ranging something
with. That a "Arabic-Islamic culture" was the Qur'an and
disagree single produced by
Sunna, and than as the moved

developed continuously (rather discontinuously, caliphate
from Arabia to to is assumed rather than demonstrated, and so too that the
Syria Iraq),
historical tradition is sui and of its own of historical
generis productive categories
which are to be used almost About all of this much could be
interpretation, exclusively.16
said. But I suspect that the author's four domes" will attract the bulk of the
"epistemic
criticism; for to the of Khalidi's one must that

accept plausibility argument, accept
"epistemic domes" can be identified, be said to "influence" historical thought, and finally
be put to service to trends.
explain historiographie
Again, what is surprising is how fuzzy things are. Khalidi defines his "domes" in the
as the frameworks" within which historians about the past, as
preface "conceptual thought
the "dominant currents of and belief", and as the "inherited that
thought background"
"determined their attitude to truth and falsehood" Of course these are different
(pp. xi-xii).
15
As the editors note, Ibn Sailam al-Ib?d?'s Kit?b fihi bad* al-Islam wa-shatfi1 al-din (Wiesbaden, 1986; wr. after
273/886-^7) is significant not only because it is an early Ib?di history, but also because it comes so early in the
growth of theMaghribi historical tradition.
16
See, in particular, the criticism of Noth's work (p. 16, note 13), and the call for more study of hadith
methodologies (p. 17, note 20).
and as one the book it becomes clear that Khalidi means

things, proceeds through actually
different things. This is perhaps why the relation between his "domes" and historical
thought is never stated; instead, are shuffled: historical
precisely adjectives variously
is said to be "influenced", and "oriented". If the issue is epistemology
thought "inspired"
(as it plainly is in the case of then these too little; in some sense one's
hadith), adjectives say
must derive from one's the
historiography epistemology: epistemology underpinning
al-Tabari's Ta'?kh, one would is the same as that his But in
argue, underpinning Tafsir.17
other it is not seriously that the "domes" new at
chapters argued represent epistemologies
all: they merely reflect currents of thought, and the result is a The
woolly Kulturgeschichte.
argument for the influence of siy?sa, for is not an for a
example, argument siy?sa
and even if one concedes Khalidi's connection between Sufi
epistemology; "high"
epistemology and historiography,18 the siy?sa "dome" is of little help in explaining it.
Problems of definition aside, broad into which authors
outlining explanatory categories
and works are slotted almost results in some Khalidi is
carefully invariably imprecision.
aware of this it squarely with the which is stated in the
problem, addressing qualification,
preface and repeated in the conclusion, that the scheme is schematic: "There were of
course in a science as as one cannot strict
overlaps: cobwebby history, expect categoriza
tion" (p. 232). He also readily concedes that the work of a historian can be classified
single
to more than one "dome". With these in mind, there is no
according qualifications point
in that in Khalidi's view would is, his
enumerating examples merely prove (that test)
argument: that the and al-Dinawari ca. 25

difafc-inspired al-Yacqub? predecease by years
al-Tabari, the "imam" of hadith means that there was
historiography, only predictable
seepage from one to the next.
period
But the scheme's will some critics: the matter is not
conceding imprecision palliate only
just about fuzzy periodisation. In positing successive "domes" Khalidi is forced tominimise
to accentuate diachronic and to historio
synchronie variety, change, explain (apparent)
graphie innovation in monocausal terms. The transition from hadith to adab dome can serve
to illustrate these and related we can start with isn?ds.
problems;
Khalidi calls the isn?d an "ancient critical also
Although apparatus" (p. 17), he recognises
its "growing rigour" during the second half of the first century;
during the second, the
isn?d became "highly developed" (p. 22). So much ground being covered so quickly,
Khalidi might be excused for leaving things a little vague here; but it is very hard to pin the
argument down. The hadith dome is said to have influenced the akhb?ns, providing history
writing with "its chief vehicle for the establishment of the isnad,J But
veracity, (p. 81).
knowing that the evidence is less than clinching, Khalidi must also explain why the akhb?m
so fast and loose with isn?ds. Thus, before ca. 760 the rules isn?ds are said
played governing
to have been less than strict, so Ibn Ish?q can be excused for isnad-?d?e
being (pp. 38f);
"laxity" in the use of isn?d for and anecdotes "dates to
transmitting poetry literary probably
the late second/eighth century" (p. 99); and after ca. 800 the "isn?d debate" made the isn?d
17
Cf. C. Gilliot, r?cit, histoire du salut dans le commentaire
"Mythe, coranique de Tabari", JA, CCLXXII
(1994), pp. 244f.
18
"Sufism provided the vocabulary that historians would sometimes employ to describe the manner in which
they tried to arrive at the inner certainty of things and to relate the fleeting phenomena of history to a higher
reality which alone could endow them with ultimate meaning" (p. 215).
expendable to historians (pp. 39ff). It is all hard to follow. Be this as itmay, the final death
knell for the isn?d among historians is clear enough: itwas rung interests in
by adab-ms^ivc?
intentionality, conciseness, authorship, and non-Islamic history (pp. 99?100; 116; 122).19
The argument is thus it is also unconvincing. Leaving aside for the
slighdy overwrought;
moment the broad consensus that the isn?d only began to emerge at the tail end of the first
Islamic century, some of its classical features well into the second,20 there is no
achieving
reason to think that the akhb?ns held to the standards. It is not
generally lawyers' emerging
just Ibn Ish?q who was taken to task for his isn?ds: al-Zuhri (124/742), Sayf b. eUmar (180/
796) and al-W?qidi (207/823), to mention just a handful, were criticised aswell.21 In fact,
indifference to the standards of isn?ds may be taken to be one of the
rising principal
distinctions between those who collected hadith and those who collected akhb?r. Here we
arrive at a more for the trend Khalidi wishes to explain: the great
prosaic accounting
historians of the late ninth and tenth centuries did without full isn?ds - sometimes without
- accounts not
isn?ds at all and conflated discrete reports into because adab had
single
liberated them from hadith standards, but rather because they had never consistently held to
them.22 Besides, the towards ikhtis?r was neither as late in nor
impulse coming,23 necessarily
as as Khalidi's scheme would it is hard to see, for how one is
difofc-inspired permit: example,
to demonstrate adab influence on a sober and Andalusian M?liki such as cAbd
parochial
al-Malik b. Habib (238/8S2).24
The second illustration concerns In Khalidi's view, part of what distinguishes
astrology.
under the hadith umbrella from that under the adab umbrella is the influence
history writing
of astronomers and "who in the 3rd~4th/9th-ioth centuries seemed to have
astrologers,
established their usefulness and first of all to the proper of govern
credibility, ordering
mental affairs, and later on to the as a whole" 120). In particular,
scholarly community (p.
the introduction of derived historians to challenge
astronomically chronologies equipped
notions of time; the famous Abu Macshar al-Balkhi "who seems to
scriptural (272/886)
have made one of the earliest to correct use of astronomical
attempts chronologies by
calculations", is said to have influenced the work of Hamza al-Isfah?n?. Does it necessarily
follow that and Hamza's interest in the astronomical tradition is to be

al-Yacqubi's
in terms of contemporaneous adab?25
interpreted
Not After all, Abu Macshar came late in the game: in the
necessarily. fairly already
Muslims were up and with astronomi
second/eighth century drawing zijs experimenting
19
Theidea has been anticipated by others; see, for example, G. Rotter, "Zur ?berlieferung einiger historischer
Werke Mad?'inis in Tabaris Annalen", Oriens, XXIII-IV (1974), p. 105.
20
See, for example, G. Juynboll, Muslim Tradition (Cambridge, 1983), chapter 1. It is worth noting that
although Motzki's careful qualifications of Schacht's views may allow for some late first-century hadith, he does
not argue for an earlier systematization of isn?d procedures.
21
See E. Landau-Tasseron, "Sayf b. "Umar in medieval and modem scholarship", DI, LXVII (1990), pp. 6f;
Ibn Sayyid al-N?s, cUy?n al-athar (Beirut, 1982), pp. 2off. (noted by Landau-Tasseron). On the sorry reputation of
Wathima b. M?s? (237/847), seeW. Hoenerbach, Watima's Kit?b al-ridda aus IbnHagar (Mainz, 1951), pp. 23 if.
22
Cf. E. L. Petersen, All andMuc?uHya inEarly Arabic Tradition (Copenhagen, 1964), p. 17.
23 isn?ds by appealing to economy; see Ibn Sayyid
Thus al-W?qid? is given to defending his use of collective
al-N?s, tUy?n al-athar, pp. 23f.
24 al-tibb (Madrid, 1992), particularly
See his Kit?b al-Ta3r'tj (LaHistoria) (Madrid, 1991); and idem,Mukhtasarfi
p. 99.
25
Thus, "the use of astronomy" by al-Ya'q?b? and Hamza al-Isfah?ni is "typical of the influence that the
climate of Adab exercised on historiography in encouraging the investigation of chronography and in transcending
the traditional scriptural sources for the inquiry into ancient history" (p. 121).
based Al-Faz?ri is credited with a kit?b cal? sinln al-carab,

cally chronologies. (191/806) al-zlj
and he was active as as al-Mansur's the time of
early reign (136/754-158/775).26 By
M?sh?'a?ah several attempts had been made to write
(200/815), already astrological
histories of the was in the ninth and tenth
caliphate.27 Certainly astrology popular
centuries;28 but its marriage to came earlier and cannot be

chronology building explained
with reference to adab. and Hamza were not so much to
simply Al-Yacq?bi responding
current fashion as were a tradition of
they reflecting long-standing astronomically
influenced history writing.
Here there is a larger point
to make. The world that early Muslims lived in is very hard
to up, and it is particularly difficult to reconstruct the of

conjure variety historiographie
resources (material and conceptual) that were available to those on the past. To
reflecting
do so on a late literature that is almost as as
by drawing exclusively relatively homogeneous
it is voluminous is how the was understood and
probably impossible: describing past
is really a of cultural rather than intellectual To remain for a
represented question history.
moment with astronomy and a feature of Qusayr cAmra ca. 715) is
astrology: striking (built
the dome's which features a view of the heavens as seen on a celestial
fresco, they would be
There is no reason to think that this chart was

fully understood its artisans,
globe.29 by
much less by Qusayr cAmra's inhabitants, but it nonetheless reflects an cultural
Umayyad
heterogeneity that the muhadith?n and akhb?riyy?n have almost entirely effaced. Monotheist
? -
be itMuslim, Christian or did not prevent monotheists from
polemics Jewish reputable
an active in astronomy and Little wonder then that a Christian
having curiosity astrology.30
historian of the could wear an hat;31 and so too could Muslims:
eighth century astrologer's
appears to have been among the broad interests of Wahb b. Munabbih ca.
astrology (d.
112/730), who is otherwise known for his expertise in isr?'lliyy?t and magh?zl;32 and Abu
Macshar himself started out as a hadith to turn to astronomy, to
specialist, only according
Ibn al-Nad?m, at the age of 47.33
26
See D. Pingree, "The fragments of the works of al-Faz?ri", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, XXIX (1970),
pp. 103-23.
27
E.g. M?sh?'all?h's F? qiy?m al-khulafa> wa-macrifat qiy?m kull malik; see E. S. Kennedy and D. Pingree, The
Astrological History ofMashc?allah (Cambridge, MA, 1971), in particular pp. i29fF.
28
For a list of astrological works available in ninth-century libraries, see F. Rosenthal, "From Arabic books and
manuscripts, X", JAOS, LXXXIII (1963), pp. 454f.
29
K. A. C. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, 2nd edition (Oxford, 1969), pp. 40if. (particularly F. Saxl, "The
Zodiac of Qusayr cAmra", pp. 424-32).
30
For evidence on the Jewish side, see J. H. Charlesworth, "Jewish interest in astrology during the Hellenistic
and Roman period", Aufstieg und Niedergang der r?mischenWelt, 20:2 (Berlin and New York, 1987), pp. 926-50; for
Christian astrology in general, see now T. Barton, Ancient Astrology (London and New York, 1994), chapter 3; for
"
the Armenians' interest, R. W. Thomson, 'Let now the astrologers stand up': the Armenian Christian reaction to
astrology and divination", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, XLVI (1992), pp. 304-12.
31
On the historiographie significance for the Islamic tradition of Theophilus of Edessa (d. 785), translator of
Homer, historian, and court astrologer to al-Mahd?, see Lawrence I. Conrad, "The conquest of Arw?d: a source
critical study in the historiography of the early medieval Near East", in A. Cameron and L. I. Conrad, The
Byzantine and Early IslamicNear East I: Problems in theLiterary SourceMaterial (Princeton, 1992), pp. 33 if.
32
R. G. Khoury, "Un Fragment astrologique in?dit attribu? ?Wahb b. Munabbih", Arabica, XIX (1972),
pp. 139-44
33
Ibn al-Nad?m, Kit?b al-Fihrist (Leipzig, 1872), p. 277.
TV
Those who have been following the controversies about the Islamic tradition will
early
find much of Chapter I frustrating. We have already seen that in the matter of hadith the
author's is about the Prophet and his Companions was
position pre-Schachtian: knowledge
transmitted in hadith form from a very early period,34 and thus isn?ds grew forwards, with
the passage of time. Now since Khalidi argues that hadith the dome"
provided "epistemic
in which historical thought developed, one might have expected a defence of the hadith
literature, ? la Azmi,35 or at least some of the Schacht thesis, ? la Motzki.36
qualifications
For if hadith methodology is suspect, what are we to think of the historiography that
Khalidi argues it produced?37 If hadith form only a small percentage of the corpus of cAt?*
b. Ab? Rab?h how can we assume that it was normative for
(115/733),38 history writing?
Finally, and most crucially, if a Prophetic past was "recalled" systematically only from the
century on, what do we make of the material that purports to record his, and his
eighth
community's, experience?
Instead of meeting sustained we are reassured. First we are told
argumentation, merely
that the evidence is carefully little doubt remains that a substantial
"[w]hen weighed,
corpus of written Hadith existed by at least as early as the first half of the first century AH,
while the stage of classified works was in all likelihood reached by the first half of the
second The reader is then directed to a footnote that begins with al
century" (p. 20). long
Khat?b al-Baghd?d?'s Taqyld al-Hlm and with G. Schoeler, but which makes no genuine
effort to convince: "To substantiate the of this paragraph would
arguments require lengthy
documentation" (p. 20,
note 6). Five pages later we return to the
authenticity question, but
once we are left hungry. it is conceded that scholars

again Although third-century engaged
in and that hadith can function to express "sectarian" views,
"mythopoeic activity",
towards the material is firmly first on the that the "radical
scepticism rejected, grounds
view" is unpopular; second, on the grounds that it has not alternative
"inspired strategies"
to Islam; and third, because the critics fail to the "massive
interpret early explain
that hadith and the Qur5an. The last point is certainly a
conspiracy" produced misrepre
sentation of much of the criticism of the material; and the first two can be
early hardly
called The closest we come to a sustained concerns the of
compelling. argument question
the oral/written nature and transmission of the but here, once the
early reports; again,
is to reassure, rather than to convince: "In of fact, however, a close
approach point reading
of the Hadith literature would unearth evidence in plenty that written materials existed
34
By "early Islamic scholarship", which "begins in earnest in the early years following the death of the
Prophet" (p. 14), we are clearly to understand the transmission o? hadith which was "[Recorded in both memory
and writing from the earliest decades after the death of the Prophet" (p. 19).
35
M. M. Azmi, On Schacht's Origins ofMuhammadan Jurisprudence (Riyadh, 1985).
36
H. Motzki, Die Anf?nge der islamischen Jurisprudenz: Ihre Entwicklung bis zur Mitte des 2. /8. Jahrhunderts
(Stuttgart, 1991); idem, "The Musannaf of 'Abd al-Razz?q as-San'?m as a source of authentic ah?d?th of the first
century A.H.",JNES, L (1991), pp. 1-21. Motzki's work suggests that some hadith may date from the late first
century.
37
For a demonstration of how isn?ds can misrepresent the transmission of parallel accounts, see S. Leder, "The
literary use of the khabar. a basic form of historical writing", in Cameron and Conrad, Problems in theLiterary Source
Material, pp. 284f.
38 of others played only a
Motzki, "The Musannaf", pp. I2f: "... traditions conveying opinions and practices
minor role in his legal teaching."
oral transmission from the very beginning ..." (pp. 26-7). A footnote surveys
alongside
and criticises some of the literature, but fizzles out with a
occasionally secondary eventually
call for new research.
So the argument for the existence of written collections from the early is simply
period
not made. Of course, even were the case made, it would prove about
nothing reliability;
for this we can assess once we understand the cultural of writing. In fact,
only practices
recent scholarship has shown in growing detail how, in the very period Khalidi is
much was in fact done for and how its co-existence
describing, writing "private" purposes,
with oral transmission was not but intertwined.39 Lecture notes, notes, aide
parallel, study
?
m?moires these to reflect the normative use of
appear scholarly writing.40 Writing activity
of this kind did not "authored" material, which, once
generally produce "published",
remained stable and fixed; to the contrary, it produced material that was subject
to serial
revision and redaction.41 We cannot the gap between our extant sources, which
bridge
generally date from the post-Sh?fic? period of classical Islam, to the formative period, from
which historical testimony is negligible, simply by asserting a continuity of written
transmission.
Assertions also suffice to demonstrate the emergence of recognisable historiographie

is said to have been in the and the emergence
activity. Change generally rapid early period,
of was no In of this view, Khalidi first adduces
historiography exception. support
Mu'awiya's "crowded life", in the light of which "reports which make him out to be the
first of Islamic seem credible"; he then alludes to the
systematic patron historiography
"very early adoption" of the hijrl dating system (p. 14). The first of these points silently
alludes to Abbott's spirited defence of the authenticity of the Akhb?r of cUbayd b. Sharya,42
which, for all its enthusiasm, has hardly broad acceptance since it in
enjoyed appeared
I957-43 At any rate, this reader cannot follow the argument that because lots of things
happened in the caliph's life, his employment of cUbayd must have been one of them,
since elsewhere Khalidi concedes that stories were later told about
particularly Mu'?wiya
(p. 84). Meanwhile, Noth, whom he criticises in another footnote, squarely addresses the
introduction of that the of material to the

hij? dating, arguing organisation according hijra
the results of a later and did not in itself constitute
chronology "comprised syst?matisation,
an theme of historical tradition" one can
original early (Noth/Conrad, p. 42). Again, agree
or with the which is based on as well as evidence;
disagree argument,44 epigraphic literary
but one should engage it. Here one recall that it is not the who
surely might just "sceptics"
39
too (Studies, p. 9), who writes of the "parallel oral transmissions".
Pace Abbott
40
I draw on several studies by G. Schoeler ("Die Frage der schriftlichen oder m?ndlichen
Here ?berlieferung
derWissenschaften im fr?hen Islam", DI, LXII [1985], pp. 201-30; "M?ndliche Thora und Hadit: ?berlieferung,
Schreibverbot, Redaktion", DI, LXVI [1989], pp. 213-51; and "Schreiben und Ver?ffendichen. Zu Verwendung
und Funktion der Schrift in den ersten islamischen Jahrhunderten", DI, LXIX [1992], pp. 1-43), as well as on
S.Leder, Das Korpus al-Haitam ibn tAd\ (Frankfurt am Main, 1991), pp. 8f., G?nther, Quellenuntersuchungen', and
N. Calder, Studies inEarly Muslim Jurisprudence (Oxford, 1993), chapter 7.
41
In addition to the note above, see E. Landau-Tasseron, "Processes of redaction: the case of the Tam?mite
delegation to the Prophet Muhammad", BSOAS, XLIX (1986), pp. 253-70.
42
N. Abbott, Studies inArabic Literary Papyri I:Historical Texts (Chicago, 1957), pp. 9f.
43
For amore circumspect view, see F. Rosenthal, A History ofMuslim Historiography (Leiden, 1952), p. 64; and
idem, "Ibn Sharya", EP, where ?Ubayd's historiographical role is characterized as "entirely conjectural".
44
On precisely this, see below.
question the reliability of early dates; even those with relatively pragmatic and positivist
attitudes towards the sources stop short of proposing precise chronologies.45
The author's of a report the battle of Badr is worth at in
reading concerning looking
some detail (pp. 3 if), since it can illustrate this and other issues; the report in question is
attributed to cUrwa b. and in al-Tabari (Leiden ed., ser. i, pp. 1284?
al-Zubayr, preserved
are first in our sources as an a
8). We told that cUrwa "is frequently depicted interrogator,
man who his sources in search of to the
questioned closely accuracy". Turning report
Khalidi then writes that cUrwa was a "careful composer of historical narrative",
proper,
that the is given to "an accurate estimate of enemy numbers", that the
Prophet provide
conclusion is "a precise answer to the that is not difficult to
report's caliph's inquiry", "[i]t
gauge from this account of cUrwa's concern for and that his
something precision", finally,
lists of sah?ba also reflect his "precision". All this is intended to illustrate that cUrwa
in the life of the Prophet, and that as an historian, rather than a mere collector,
specialized
he had "juristic and historical skills". It also speaks to the larger point that Khalidi makes
about the imprint of hadith methodology on history: "With cUrwa we detect the hand of
the legal expert moulding his materials into fairly short and manageable units that allow
him to dates and exact references to the events
assign precise Qur'anic reported."
Much could be said about the role of cUrwa in the early historical tradition.46 Suffice it
to say here that Khalidi goes well beyond Abbott, who was concerned only to establish that
cUrwa wrote aKit?b al-magh?zl, and who explicidy disengaged the issue of attribution from
that of "scientific or ... There must be evidence
reliability factuality adequate supporting
-
for materials thus transmitted a branch of historical criticism that calls for its own special
treatment".47 The attribution of a Kit?b to cUrwa may or may not be taken as
al-magh?zl
demonstrated whether it is fair to infer cUrwa's method from a
by previous scholarship;
passage in al-Tabari is disputable as well. But what of this oft-repeated "care",

single
and Since no evidence is on offer, there is no
"accuracy", "precision"?48 corroborating
of knowing how "accurate" the details are; and, almost when one
way actually inevitably,
does refer to other accounts, one finds confusion instead of corroboration. There is no
need to go over old here: suffice it to say that the dating of Badr (the 17th, 19th, and
ground
21st of Ramadan as well as in were the
being favoured),49 Qurash? trading Syria,50 subject
of all sorts of controversy; and that the number of Abu Sufy?n's horsemen is
(seventy),
about as as numbers come.51 The is that details need not attention to
symbolic point imply
45
The difficulty of dating the conquests is a recurrent theme in L. Caetani, Annali dell'Islam (Milan, 1905-26),
and F. Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton, 1981).
46
The role played by eUrwa in the emergence of the sira has featured prominently in the literature since
Horovitz's time; for some examples, see Sezgin, GAS, i, pp. 278f.; A. A. Duri, Rise ofHistorical Writing among the
Arabs, ed. and tr. by Lawrence I. Conrad (Princeton, 1983), pp. 25f.; and Werkmeister, Quellenuntersuchungen,
pp. 432f.
47
Abbott, Studies, p. 26.
48
On 'Urwa, cf. N. A. Faruqi (Early Muslim Historiography [Delhi, 1979], p. 226: "The style of 'Urwa in
and presenting the historical material was quite simple and far from any complexity or ambiguity. His
writing
approach is quite realistic, clear and free from exaggeration"; and Duri, The Rise ofHistorical Writing, p. 25 (as
translated from the i960 original): "'Urwa's style of writing is direct and far removed from literary affectation, and
at the same time his attitude is realistic, unequivocal, and free from exaggeration."
49
See Caetani, Annali dell'Islam, i, pp. 472f.
50
P. Crone, Meccan Trade and theRise of Islam (Princeton, 1987), pp. 226f.
51
This was pointed out nearly a century and a half ago by M. Steinschneider, "Die kanonische Zahl der
Muhammedanischen Secten und die Symbolik der Zahl 70-73", ZDMG, IV (1850), pp. 145-70. The topologjcal
much less concern for or In general, reflect

precision, historicity "factuality". they may
only the increasingly high standards of verisimilitude set by succeeding generations,52 or, in
this of the relentless historicisation of scripture (the
particular example slra/magh?zl,
account includes three Qur'anic references), and elaboration of the Prophetic paradigm
(the Prophet divines the number of Quraysh).53

With the evidence at hand, we cannot say that in the isn?d hadith "instilled into it
[history] something of its own dry factuality and attention to detail" (p. 81). Of course this
does not mean that cUrwa's material does not reflect some kind of historical
necessarily
vision; under a lens of sufficient "the germ of a historical attitude"
put magnifying strength,
be detected.54 But to find this and to measure its spread in later material, is
might "germ",
an different from Khalidi's. The most we can is that cUrwa
altogether project presently say
was to what a rhetoric
(if we concede the attribution) given might be called of precision;
and I, for one, find it tempting to conclude that many of the details are and
secondary
elements of tradition added later redactors in order to
tertiary building, by probably
for what had since as the tool used to realism and
compensate emerged primary express
and one which cUrwa was notorious for the isn?d.55
reliability, ignoring:
To sum up: Arabic Historical is a work of broad and
Thought great learning, reading,
terrific ambition. Khalidi's "domes" can serve to an immense amount of material,
organise
to remind us that histories are more than their sources, and to contextualise historical
in Arabic letters. The domes also tend to a of sources,

thinking homogenise diversity
however, and as a result the work is less successful in trends.
explaining historiographie
Much contemporary rather than his treatment of
scholarship being disregarded engaged,
the early period is largely uncritical.
The Early Arabic Historical Tradition begins with an introduction that demolishes the "theory
of schools", here used Noth/Conrad to describe the view "that two main groups
by
transmitted material", i.e., the Medinan/Hij?z?s (Ibn al-Mad?'ini), and
Ish?q; al-W?qid?,
the Iraqis (Sayf b. cUmar, Abu Mikhnaf).56 Pace Wellhausen, Caetani, Duri and others,
these collections are of material, and do not reflect
composed broadly comparable they
consistent and coherent tribal or hadith "As far as their view of
approaches (e.g. oriented):
is concerned, therefore, no one of the collections can be considered as a self
history single
contained unit" established that the cannot be taken as a
(p. 17). Having compilations
character of this number in the conquest traditions was also pointed out by E. Landau-Tasseron in her review of
Dormer, The Early Islamic Conquests in JSAI, VI (1985), pp. 509f; and for a detailed discussion of 7, see
U. Hartmann-Schmitz, Die Zahl Sieben im sunnitischen Islam. Studien anhand von Koran und Hadit (Frankfurt am
Main, 1989).
52
See Conrad, 'The conquest of Arw?d", pp. 393f.
53
On the exegetical nature of much of what purports to Prophetic history, see Crone, Meccan Trade, pp. 204f.
54
I borrow the phrase from the "Introduction" to S. Hornblower (ed.), Greek Historiography (Oxford, 1994),
p. 8.
55
For the isn?d as a rhetorical feature to endow narrative with authority, see Leder, "Literary use of the
khabar"; and cf. J. Bellamy, "Sources of Ibn Abi'l-Duny?'s Kit?b Maqtal Amir al-Mtfmimn cAl?\ JAOS, CIV
(1984), p. 17.
56
The argument was first made by Noth in his "Der Charakter der ersten grossen Sammlungen von
Nachrichten zur fr?hen Kalifenzeit", DI, XLVII (1971), pp. 168-99.
Noth/Conrad propose to take an view of the forms and

starting point, "all-encompassing
biases of Islamic tradition as a whole" Individual traditions or of
early (p. 18). groups
traditions must be with an eye towards formal similarities. in this way can
compared Only
we differentiate between the "reporting of history" and the "deployment of literary
stereotypes" (p. 19).
To this set out to and describe
end, they identify literary forms, topoi and schemata. The
task is initially deferred, however. 1 with a discussion of themes

Chapter begins "primary"
(ridda, fut?h, fitna, administration, sirat al-khulaf?\ ansah, Iran), and then turns to
"secondary" themes (gh?r?t, hij? dating, the organisation of material by years and by
law and administration, cities, court and central government, and causal links).
caliphates,
A theme is defined as a area which, so far as the extant evidence allows
"primary" "subject
us to a of interest, as to an offshoot derived
judge, represents genuine topic early opposed
- -
from and therefore to one or several such themes
secondary early topics". "Secondary"
are thus d?finition derivative, "formulations which result in a of material
by recasting
which is already available, material which would originally have belonged to other thematic
(p. 27). Evidence for the existence of the "primary" themes is by and
groups" large
conventional: tides drawn from Ibn al-NacUm's Kit?b al-Fihrist. Naturally, evidence for the
"secondary" themes is almost entirely inferential.
In chapter 2 we leave the themes for their constituent forms: the Islamic historical
early
tradition admits 3 "formal elements": literary forms, topoi, and schemata. The first, discussed
in this is itself sub-divided into five forms: documents (viz., treaties), letters,
chapter,
lists, and aw?*il. documents and letters may preserve fragments of
speeches, Although
material, or in some cases the character of very material, the reader is
original early
warned them as authentic; the of the of
repeatedly against accepting question authenticity
for "does not even need to be asked: we must view them as fictions
speeches, example,
from beginning
to end"
(p. 87). In chapter 3 we come to the topos, the "narrative motif
which has as its primary function the of content", and in chapter 4, to the
specification
schema, the "narrative motif which is, first and foremost, concerned with matters o? form,
with and matters of content" The are

connecting, relating, organizing (pp. iooi*.). topoi
under 5 rubrics, each their characteristic feature: a motif
organised illustrating literary
which, though initially anchored in "reality", has broken off, drifted, and lodged itself
elsewhere in the tradition. In the absence of a firm system, the schemata (transitional
dating
formulae, undifferentiated functioned to

pseudo-causes, aetiologies, systemisation, reports)
organise and link narrative pieces.
VI
The translation of Noth's work will serve the important purpose of making available in
English a work whose influence has been limited by its original language. It is to the
? were
unconverted those who have not bothered to read the German; those who
-
unconvinced the German; or those who have not pace with the that
by kept scholarship
the work is presumably directed. Modern on medieval Islam has a habit of
scholarship
on to new without old ones; but in this case we can be
moving problems solving grateful
to the collaborators for that Noth's contribution circulates widely, since
seeing particularly
? -
the at issue the nature of the tradition is so crucial for Islamic
problem early early
-
in general. One with the translation "tendencies", for
history might occasionally quibble
-
instance, seems too tame for "Tendenzen" but it is straightforward and clear,
altogether
and we are fortunate to have a classic of the "revisionist" in revised form.
scholarship
Of course anyone who knows the field that can take many forms,
recognises scepticism
even if those partial
to the new approaches occasionally lump them all If one is
together.57
to of a "revisionist one has to accommodate its in a very tent
speak camp" membership big
indeed, and the differences in method and conclusions are so great that it is probably not
worth pitching at all.58 One of the few striking additions to the first edition in fact alludes
to this very it comes at the end of the introduction, and locates the work vis-?-vis
problem;
other contributions to the debate about the tradition: "Since the of the
early publication
original German edition of this book in 1973, the field of early Islamic studies has become
- ?
embroiled in controversy over the central of whether and if so, to what extent
question
the Arab-Islamic sources can be used to reconstruct the events and trends of earliest Islamic
times"; the work of Wansbrough, Crone and Cook, and Bashear are then cited as
illustrations. In the minds of some this is dubious company indeed, and lest the reader
that Noth/Conrad would have us abandon the tradition the authors

suppose altogether,
reassure us that the aims of the book are "A central
quickly present entirely pragmatic:
argument of this book will continue to be that the tradition offers much material which, if
in need of careful examination, is still of historical value for the early period" (p. 24). The
is not to dismiss the tradition as a whole, or to argue, as it has been that it was
point argued,
"invented",59 but rather to and isolate material that is useful for

monolithically identify
historical reconstruction. Morony has written that "[t]here is a difference between being
critical and being skeptical";60 the book is obviously intended to be the former.
In their insistence on the nature of the tradition, Noth/Conrad follow
fragmentary early
form critical the accounts as we have them were not en bloc, but are
principles: composed
and the task of the source critic is to the once-discrete that have
compound; identify pieces
been assembled during the process of collection, redaction, and elaboration. In this
connection one that "falsification" a game

might complain (Verf?lschung), despite attempt
to its meaning, remains an unfortunate choice of words. who has read any
clarify Anyone
form criticism will understand that it is intended to describe the end
immediately product
of this process, rather than the wholesale invention of a historical tradition; but since the
57
See, for example, J. Koren and Y. D. Nevo,
" "Methodological approaches to Islamic studies", DI, LXVIII
(1991), pp. 87-107, which concedes that the 'revisionist' approach is by no means monolithic", but then
proceeds to treat it as such.
58
See, for example, P. Crone, "Two legal problems bearing on the early history of the Qur'an", JSAI, XVIII
(1994), PP- Hf
59
Cf. M. Sharon, ("The military reforms of Ab? Muslim", Studies in IslamicHistory and Civilization inHonour of
Professor David Ayalon [Jerusalem, 1986], p. 109, note 15), cites Bashear, whose study, according to Sharon,
"proves beyond doubt what has long been partly known and partly suspected that Islamic tradition was invented
and adapted by the Muslim scholars who felt obliged to meet the necessities of Islam after it had already emerged as
an independent state religion and acquired its individual form from the time of Caliph Abd al-Malik (685-705)
onwards." Contrast M. Lecker, The Banu Sulaym: A Contribution to the Study of Early Islam (Jerusalem, 1989), x:
"Yet there is no 'plot' masterminded by cunning Islamic historians to make us believe in a past that has never
existed."
60 M.
Morony, Iraq after theMuslim Conquest (Princeton, 1984), p. 572; (Noth is later considered to be an
example of "hypercritical skepticism" [p. 573]).
of the tradition is described in terms as stark as these,61 the terms

genesis occasionally beg
to be misunderstood. I press this not because the first edition was taken to
point only
- -
demonstrate the extraordinary difficulty perhaps the of form
impossibility applying
critical methods to identify early material,62 but also because within the field of Islamic
form and redaction criticism has on the whole been those with
history, practiced by only
the most modest faith in the prospects for reconstructing in terms of New
early history;
Testament the is towards Bultmann rather than Dibelius.
scholarship tendency Though
robustly critical of the tradition, Noth/Conrad still cling to the notion that early history
can be recovered; and in several articles Noth has applied his method to precisely this
end.63 Like other attempts to isolate anomalous material that preserves pre-classical
features,64 theirs is simply an initial attempt to form critical in order to
apply principles
leave ninth and tenth-century Iraq, where the academic lines had for the most part been
drawn and so many issues settled, for the messier seventh and
major altogether eighth
centuries. It is an attempt to recover rather than to demolish.
The Early Arabic Historical Tradition is, however, mistitled. The great bulk of the evidence
is drawn from a modest number of sources, al-Tabari's Ta*nkh, al
fairly particularly
Bal?dhuri's Fut?h al-buld?n, Ibn A'tham al-K?fi's Kit?b al-fut?h, and al-Azd?'s Fut?h al-sh?m,
- -
and the concern common to these works the great Islamic conquests generates virtually
all of the as well as a fair share of the adduced for the
topoi, examples by Noth/Conrad
forms. The "themes" are broader, but even here the concentration on
literary considerably
material is clear among the themes are not ridda, and
conquest enough: "primary" only
but also "administration", which is reduced to cUmar's diw?n and the of
fut?h, founding
the garrison cities, and "Iran", which is identified as "the of Iran at the time of the
history
first Islamic Fut?h material is also very in two of the
conquests" (p. 39). prominent
"secondary" themes, "law and administration" and "cities". A more accurate title would
therefore run something like The Early Arabic Historical Tradition: A Source-Critical Study of
(Mostly) Conquest Accounts.
In view of the attached to the fut?h
singular importance by Noth/Conrad accounts,65
and too the claim that conquest accounts may the historical tradition
considering exemplify
as a whole,66 one needs that other "themes" have strong credentials as well.
reminding
Several candidates spring to mind, chief among them being fad?*il67 and maq?til,68 but
61
See above, note 59.
62
See P. Crone, Slaves onHorses: theEvolution of the Islamic Polity (Cambridge, 1980), p. 14.
63
See his "Die literarisch ?berlieferten Vertr?ge der Eroberungszeit als historische Quellen f?r die Behandlung
der unterworfenen Nicht-Muslime durch ihre neuen muslimischen Oberherren", Studien zum Minderheitenproblem
im Islam I (Bonn, 1973), pp. 282-314; and "Eine Standortbestimmung der Expansion (Fut?h) unter den ersten
Kalifen (Analyse von Tabari I, 2854-2856)", Asiatische Studien, XLIII (1989), pp. 120-36.
64
See, for examples, the fian material used by W. Madelung, "Apocalyptic prophecies in Hirns in the
Umayyad age", Journal of Semitic Studies, XXXI (1986), especially p. 180; and the Ibadi material used by M. Cook,
Early Muslim Dogma (Cambridge, 1981).
65 a - if not the - principal historical rubric under which the early traditionists
"Fut?h thus constituted
considered the first decades of Islamic history after the death of Muhammad" (p. 31).
66
See p. 204; and cf. A. Noth, "Fwf?/i-history and/wfw/i-historiography: the Muslim conquest of Damascus",
al-Qantara, X (1989), p. 455.
67
Seejuynboll, Muslim Tradition, pp. I2f.
68 as one of the earliest sub-themes of fitna (pp. 33f.); for a full
The maqtal of 'Uthman is in fact mentioned
discussion, see now S. G?nther, "Maq?til literature in medieval Islam", Journal of Arabic Literature, XXV (1994)?
pp. 192-212.
be with their own favourite

many, many others could identified, each, perhaps, topoi. The
material into seems to have stabilised at a
compiled slra/magh?zl relatively early period,69
and has an rich source for Wansbrough's form criticism;70 one
proved extremely might
have a word or two here. It is true that Noth/Conrad stress the
expected repeatedly
character of their work, which makes this line of criticism somewhat unfair;
preliminary
but their on the fut?h traditions is striking, since it contrasts
emphasis particularly sharply
with the view that to evaluate the historical tradition we must cast our net
early widely.71
So much made of the fut?h, it is perhaps more to Noth/Conrad's
being important qualify
insistence on the "self-contained" character of the ridda and fut?h themes, particularly
because it forces them to argue the kind of evidence on which
against precisely they
otherwise so titles drawn from Ibn al-Nadim's Fihrist, viz. b. cUmar's
frequently rely: Sayf
Kit?b al-kablr wa'l-ridda and Kit?b al-ridda wa'1-d?r. to Noth/
al-fut?h al-W?qid?'s According
Conrad, these titles cannot be taken as evidence that the combined ridda and
early figures
in one and the same work, for in the later works in which these are
fut?h preserved (e.g.
al-Bal?dhur?, al-Tabari, and Ibn Actham the two are not linked. How the handling
al-K?fi),
late ninth and historians of material attributed to of a
by early tenth-century compilers
-
century earlier constitutes evidence for its earlier organisation that is, al-Tabari
clinching
and al-Bal?dhur? distinguished between ridda and fut?h and therefore so did Sayf and
?
is not for the reason that the form critic
al-Waqid? explained, probably simple generally
assumes that narratives and grow over time:72 if the reverse were considered,
compound
(i.e., the articulation into distinct categories of what had been compound), the approach
would go nowhere.
matters aside, there is also a with the evidence. In the case of

Methodological problem
al-Tabari, Duri is invoked in the footnotes, but there is little of use here, since he
especially
takes the now outdated view that the material collected under the rubric was
magh?zl
limited to the life.73 But Hinds demonstrated almost fifteen years ago that the
Prophet's
term did narrow slowly: it was in the third century that material
magh?zl only only relating
?
to the first to be out of the magh?zl and then,
khulafa* began edged only incompletely.74
Among other sources, Hinds adduced the magh?zl section in the Musannaf of cAbd al
al-Sanc?n? and here one note that the section of the

Razz?q (211/827); might magh?zl
Musannaf o?Ibn Ab? Shayba (235/849), which was edited only in 1989, illustrates the point
as well.75 The former is of interest here since its kit?b includes a
particular al-magh?zl
section on which connects the with
ghazaw?t al-Q?disiyya wa-ghayrih?, explicitly conquests
69
Here I follow what is now the conventional wisdom, but there are qualifications to be made: see L. I.
Conrad, "Abraha and Muhammad: some observations apropos of chronology and literary topoi in the early Arabic
historical tradition", BSOAS, L (1987), p. 239.
70
J.Wansbrough, The SectarianMilieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History (Oxford, 1978).
71
M. Lecker, Muslims, Jews and Pagans: Studies on Early IslamicMedina (Leiden, 1995), p. xi, note 8: "the first
two centuries are best studied as awhole".
72
See p. 32, where it is called unlikely that "a complex of traditions, originally all-embracing in character,
would later have been divided up into separate parts".
73
Duri, The Rise ofHistorical Writing, pp. 24 and 76, note 1; but he also seems to imply (p. 26) that 'Urwa's
material on the early caliphs was drawn from his magh?zl work.
74
M. Hinds, "?Maghazi? and ?sira? in early Islamic scholarship", La vie du proph?te Mahomet (Paris, 1983),
pp. 64f.
75
Ibn Abi Shayba, al-Musannaf (Beirut, 1989), viii, pp. 434f.
2l6 Chase F. Robinson
the ridda wars.76 The material thus makes clear what Shoufani devoted a
musannaf chapter
to
demonstrating, viz., that the wars of conquest grew out of the ridda wars,77 that Kh?lid
b. al-Wal?d's campaigns against the recalcitrant tribesmen of the Peninsula continued into
the Fertile Crescent proper. Of course this is not to say that the never
early compilers
compiled ridda and fut?h material separately; it is only to say that the method has to be
handled in such a way as to accommodate all of the evidence.78 The titles ascribed to
Sayf
and are not instead, are anomalous because
al-W?qid? probably misleading: they they may
retain an undifferentiated, form.79
pre-classical
VII
The first edition of Noth's work was criticised as achronic",80 but in fact one
"generally
can infer a chronology of the tradition. The largely synthetic works of the late eighth and
ninth centuries are said to have drawn on earlier, focused that in
relatively compilations
some cases of interest these of a
represent "original" topics ("themes"), being composed
common corpus of akhb?r. For one of the forms" a terminus quern of ca. 80/700
"literary post
is in fact proposed: the date derives from the establishment of the band system, which is
presupposed by the "brisk exchange" of letters, and also from thefloruits of maw?ll tradents,
is then corroborated events of the second and
which by fitna early Marw?nid period (e.g.
the rebellions of al-Mukhtlr and Ibn al-Ashcath). As a rule it appears that
general "primary"
themes are not "When we deal with themes, we do not
strictly speaking primary: primary
find that all, or even most, of the traditions which offer us are It is rather
they "original".
the case that all these traditions have a of development. The is that this
long process point
with a very old core of traditions, a core which we find in the primary
development began
themes, but which is lacking in the secondary themes" (p. 27). Thus, the ridda compilations
are of (earlier) "subdivisions" concerned with, inter alia, tribes, tribal
composed exclusively
leaders, and battles are the of a process

specific (p. 3o);81ywfw/i compilations end-product
that with and conquests, and continued (and grew) with the conquests of
began sieges
and territories, with the as we have them the
provinces finally ending compilations (p. 32);
are of older themes: the murder of cUthman, the Battle of the
fitna compilations composed
Camel, and SifBn and "administration" is made up of shorter accounts
(p. 35); finally,
the establishment of the dlw?ns and the of the ams?r. This leaves us
concerning founding
with three more "themes": slrat al-khulaf?'; ansah; and "Iran". Unlike the others, however,
these are clearly (and in two of the three cases explicitly) taken to be "original".
76
'Abd al-Razz?q al-San'?n?, al-Musannaf (Beirut, 1972), v, pp. 482f.
77
E. Shoufani, al-Ridda and theMuslim Conquest of Arabia (Beirut, 1972), chapter 4; cf. Donner, The Early
Islamic Conquests, p. 90: "The Islamic conquest of the Near East cannot be viewed, then, as something separate
from the career of Muhammad the Apostle or from the conquest of Arabia during the riddawars."
78
Cf. Leder's comment that s'ira, magh?zl, fut?h "are kept distinct, although not entirely separate." See his
"Literary use of the khabar", p. 278.
79
As long ago as 1891 Goldziher wrote that "[fjables about the conquests of Islam were written down already
under the Umayyads, in connection with data from the biography of the Prophet, and read with predilection at
court"; see his Muslim Studies (London, 1971), ii, p. 191.
80
Humphreys, IslamicHistory, p. 86.
81
The example adduced by Noth/Conrad, Ibn al-Kalbi's Kit?b Musaylima al-kadhdh?b, is drawn from Ibn
al-Nadim; but the case could be strengthened by several examples from the ridda material embedded in al-Kal?Vs
al-Iktifi3 (New Delhi, 1970).
It is curious that nothing is made of this, that the discussion of these three is much
briefer, that Ibn al-Nadim, whose titles so in the
figure prominently demonstrating
existence of the earlier themes and their constituent sub-themes, out of view, and
drops
that the argumentation becomes decidedly fuzzier, particularly concerning "Iran".
finally,
We read that "it can be contested that the of Iran at the time of the first
hardly history
Islamic was an theme of tradition", but are not made to the
conquests original early privy
"thoroughly individual traits" that distinguish these traditions from those describing the
unstated to this distinction are away for unstated
Byzantines (p. 39); exceptions argued
reasons; and the relation of "Iran" to the fut?h theme goes
precise unexplained. Anyone
who has read the conquest literature will probably agree with Noth/Conrad that traditions
about the of Iran are different from those about the Byzantine but the
conquest provinces;
is and one is tempted to conclude that for now the "Iran" theme is
point underdeveloped,
too to be useful.
altogether imprecise
It is perhaps more to out that Noth/Conrad do not a
important point although propose
scheme for their "themes", in the case of fitna, it just so that non
general dating happens
Islamic sources can That the Muslims had a civil war was clear to an Armenian
help. fought
source that was written ca. 66s;82 this might be taken to that in the
fairly suggest already
middle of the seventh century Muslims some attention to the matter as well. 724
paid By
our evidence has improved considerably: by this date we have a Syriac list of caliphs that
draws on an Arabic the term in Now whether the
original, borrowing "fetri?" particular.83
theme illustrates a broad is hard to say; but a model for the of the
fitna pattern emergence
themes will almost have to make late room for
certainly seventh-century developments
that only appear in works attributed to and akhb?ns.
eighth ninth-century
If, then, Noth/Conrad's "themes" are not "achronic", it can still be said that
entirely
The Early Arabic Historical Tradition diachronic questions (i.e. the redactional
shortchanges
activity that produced the historical tradition), in favour of an emphasis on its homogeneity
- ?
and the formulaicness of the conquest tradition. With one the dacwa
exception topos84
no attempt is made to situate the into and datable Sitzen im Leben.85 In this
topoi specific
the work is not a of form and redaction criticism, and we
respect systematic application
therefore have no clear results. For inasmuch as form critics are at heart determined to
unearth the oral forms that lie behind written narratives, Noth/Conrad stop short: of orality
82
"God sent down a disturbance/confusion" (khrovutium) upon the Isma?lites, and as a result "their unity was
split". See Ps.-Sebeos, Histoire d'H?raclius, tr. F. Macler (Paris, 1904), p. 148.
83
Later, in the so-called "Zuqnin Chronicle" (ca. 775), fetn? reappears in an account that appears to be
independent of the Islamic tradition. The texts are translated and discussed in A. Palmer, The Seventh Century in the
West-Syrian Chronicles (Liverpool, 1993) pp. 49 and 58; I very briefly discuss the two references in a review of
Palmer (JRAS, 3, V [1995], p. 98). The middle of the eighth century thus strikes me as altogether too late for the
appearance of fitna in the sense of "civil war"; see G. H. A. Juynboll, "The date of the great fitna", Arabica, XX
(1973), PP- I42-59
84
The case that the da cwa functioned to express mawali claims ismade persuasively, even if the dating proposed
is too precise for the evidence adduced. But the view that the dacwa/hijra combination is almost certainly Prophetic
cannot survive the recent argument that hijra remained an ongoing practice well into the Umayyad period; see
P. Crone, "The first-century concept ofhigra\ Arabica, XLI (1994), pp. 352-87.
85 von kalifer Zentralgewalt
Elsewhere ("Zum Verh?ltnis und Provinzen in umayyadischer Zeit: die "$ulf>
*Anwa" Traditionen f?r ?gypten und den Iraq", Die Welt des Islams, XIV [1973], pp. 150-62) Noth proposes that
the sulh/^anwa formulation dates from the late Umayyad period. But this does not figure in their list of topoi.
2l8 Chase F. Robinson
almost is said.86 "In the was the sermon ..." is the formula
nothing beginning
ascribed to Bultmann; to Noth/Conrad we can ascribe no
conventionally analogy.87
Redaction critics also hold that redactional strata reveal themselves their exclusive use of
by
characteristic style, and ideas With
language, (e.g. legal, theological, apocalyptic). language
and style Noth/Conrad do relatively little, beyond dating the letter form and the dacwa
to the end of the seventh The "transitional formulae" are described, and are
topos century.
moreover as a function of the traditionists' indifference
explained ignorance (or to)
chronology and causality; but it is not (and indeed could not) be argued that these are
precise indicators of a particular stage in the tradition.
Instead of using or as devices, Noth/Conrad more use ideas.

language style dating readily
For the theme is identified as because it reflects "a
example, gh?r?t "secondary" fully
developed cAlid/Shici doctrine of the historical significance of the First Civil War to which
this that the events of the First Civil War were could
reinterpretation [viz. merely "raids"]
be made to adhere"
(p. 40).88 Precisely when this doctrine crystallised is not said; in any
case, the theme is seen to

post-date that of fitna. Similarly, many of the letters
gh?r?t
sent the to commanders in the field are said to reflect later notions
purportedly by caliphs
of central control are to be while accounts that are such as
(and rejected), treaty provisional,
of are said to reflect the and character of the
guarantees safety, "unplanned unorganized"
are to be at least in part). This criticism is potentially a
conquests (and accepted, powerful
one, and much of Donner's evidence for his reconstruction of the early Islamic conquests
would not survive Noth/Conrad's of the tradition: the careful co-ordination of
reading
armies a Madinan elite in and their
conquest by (reflected largely "letters"), policies
-
towards the bedouin and dhimmls (reflected in "letters" and "treaties") these and similar
would be dismissed as the anachronistic of a centralised and

points patently retrojections
bureaucratic Islamic state. Rather than a series of co-ordinated a Madinan
campaigns by
elite, the would re-emerge as a series of battles and won

conquests presumably fought by
field commanders on their own initiative.89
acting largely
The argument is therefore quite potent; but it must be admitted that dating by doctrine
and idea entails some risks.90 Few would to the unstated that adminis
object assumption
trative and in the were ad hoc, and this could almost
legal arrangements conquest period
be demonstrated in the former Byzantine provinces by the Syriac sources, which
certainly
frequently give the impression that itwas only during and shortly after the second fitna that
Christians to come to terms with what was out to be Muslim
began turning long-term
of course, the Islamic tradition itself concedes that administration and
hegemony; openly
86
The issue ismentioned only in passing on pp. 41 and 72: "a long process of (mostly likely oral) transmission,
in the course of which they [documents] have been subjected to all sorts of changes".
87
Things are naturally different in Qur'anic studies, since scripture had clear liturgical uses; see, for example, A.
Neuwirth, "Vom Rezitationstext ?ber die Liturgie zum Kanon', The Qur'?n as Text, ed. S. Wild (Leiden, 1996),
pp. 69-105.
88
Here one might note in passing that the printed editions of al-Thaqafi's Kit?b al-gh?r?t may not be complete;
see E. Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar atWork: Ibn Jaunis and his Library (Leiden, 1992), pp. i7of.
89
See, for example, the reconstruction proposed for the conquest of Egypt on pp. i82f.
90
See Leder, "Literary use of the khabar", p. 282: "Even in the case of a narration which is obviously biased, it
often remains difficult to relate the underlying to the evolution of dogmatic thought, so that any
tendency
conclusions as to chronology will remain somewhat hazardous." Cf. also J. Lassner, Islamic Revolution andHistorical
Memory (New Haven, 1986), pp. 3of.
taxation evolved in the One can also with Noth/Conrad

post-conquest period.91 agree
that this was unable to power as as modern states
pre-modern empire project thoroughly
can, and that the circulation of Muhammad's or the letters was as
early caliphs' hardly
efficient as that of the eAbbasid post. But that "the concept of strong central is
authority
anachronistic where the early is concerned" (p. 56) is, in the present state
entirely caliphate
of knowledge, put much too boldly.92
We cannot strip the Umayyad caliphs of all their effective authority. Not only did the
in but much administration was in their hands.
caliphs legislate general,93 early Umayyad
Al-Bal?dhuri tells us that Nih?wand was first considered a Kufan conquest and al-Dinawar
a Basran but when the former grew, effected a thus,

conquest, Mu'awiya simple exchange:
Nih?wand, the Kufans, came to be called m?h al-Basra, and D?nawar,
conquered by
the Basrans, m?h Elsewhere we are told that until Mucawiya's time
conquered by al-K?fa.94
Isfahan had been considered a Basran domain, but the withdrew it from the Basrans
caliph
and gave it to the Kufans; he then compensated the Basrans by giving them eUman and al
Bahrayn, which he had taken from the Hij?z?s.95 Objections to this kind of evidence are of
course and it may be that Mucawiya's role is exaggerated; but there can be no
possible,
doubt that the circumstances, in which a oversees the diwan of a tribal are
caliph army, early
Moreover, it must be said that Noth/Conrad's argument itself generally pre
Umayyad.96
empts, rather than addresses, How, to their criteria, could

potential objections: according
one argue centralised the one go
for decision-making by early caliphs?97 Again might
outside of the tradition, and it just so that our Armenian chronicler
happens quite clearly
discerns two distinct levels of among the Muslims: the or "chief
hierarchy "prince"
who leads an army in Damascus, but who is "second after their
(ishkhan) Mucawiya,98
who stands at the head of all the Isma?lites. It is this king, moreover,
[unidentified] king",
who writes a letter to the Emperor Constans II, proposing to Isma?lite
appoint governors
over lands and to leave him with a of the revenues.99 As it stands, the
Byzantine quarter
91
Of the many, many examples that could be adduced: Maym?n b. Mihr?n reports that tribute in al-Jazira was
initially taken in kind, and that cUmar replaced itwith a system that combined kind and cash; see al-Bal?dhuri,
Fut?h al-buld?n (Leiden, 1866), p. 178. The account illustrates cUmar's clemency; it may also preserve some
history. This is precisely the type of material that Dennett adduced against Becker (see D. C. Dennett, Conversion
and Poll Tax in Early Islam [Cambridge, Mass., 1950], p. 11). Here I obviously think he is right; but he then goes
too far, and practically turns second and third-century jurists into annalistes.
92
For criticisms of Noth/Conrad's view on the decentralised character of the conquests, see now F. M.
Donner, "Centralized authority and military autonomy in the early Islamic conquests", The Byzantine and Early
IslamicNear East III: States, Resources and Armies, ed. A. Cameron (Princeton, 1995), pp. 337-60.
93
See P. Crone and M. Hinds, God's Caliph: Religious Authority in theFirst Centuries of Islam (Cambridge, 1986),
chapter 4.
94
al-Bal?dhuri, Fut?h al-buld?n, p. 306; al-Yacq?bi, Kit?b al-buld?n (Leiden, 1885 [Bibliotheca Geographorum
Arabicorum, vol. 5]), p. 259. That al-Khw?rizmi (Mafit?h al-cul?m [Leiden, 1895], p. 123) explains the confusing
terms suggests that the original arrangements had been forgotten by many.
95 Abu
Nu'aym al-Isfah?ni, Ta'rikh Isfahan (Beirut, 1990), i, p. 49.
96
Cf. H. Kennedy, "The financing of the military in the early Islamic state", The Byzantine and Early Islamic
Near East III: States, Resources and Armies, p. 367.
97
Unfortunately, the challenge is not taken up by A. Ibrahim, Der Herausbildungsproze? des arabisch-islamischen
Staates (Berlin, 1994), especially at pp. 237f.
98
Crone and Cook (Hagarism, p. 156, note 30), translate "governor".
99
See ps.-Sebeos, Histoire d'H?raclius, p. 148 (I am indebted to Prof. R. Thomson for his help with the
Armenian text). Noth/Conrad's argument against the significance of ps.-Sebeos for the da'wa topos (p. 164) is not
an argument against the use of ps.-Sebeos in general.
letter is presumably inauthentic; even so, we can assume that had a stake
hardly ps.-Sebeos
in inflating caliphal authority.
In Noth/Conrad's hands, anachronistic ideas thus serve to late material;
primarily betray
can also In the
but they flag early material. otherwise relatively late material that composes
for Noth/Conrad what consider to be evidence for a
speeches, example, identify they
Fortleben of Arab But I fail to see accounts that contrast carab with
paganism. why cajam
"have to do with and reflect "the old of carab against
nothing religion", opposition cajam"
(p. 94). The notion of carab was itself constructed in the religious maelstrom of early Islam,
and it continued to be influenced by religious debates: al-kufrft al-cujma, Muhammad is
to and even Duri concedes that the influenced
given opine;100 shuc?biyya controversy
historiography.101 I also fail to see why booty and religion, which certainly came to be seen
as dichotomous some of the pious of a later should be understood as such in
by period,102
the Pre-Islamic known to us in the Safaitic
conquest period.103 pastoral populations
? ?
that is, populations among those called "Arab" a
inscriptions conventionally expected
range of services of their these included, inter alia, Among the

gods; furnishing booty.104
Arabs of the Peninsula, what could bear witness to God (and his
early seventh-century
and better than the fabulous taken at al-Mada'in?105
Messenger din) spoils
VTII
For of the past to as must be more than serial;

representations qualify historiography, they
must be in such a way as to reflect a sense of the "coherent of the
they organised sequence"
Here it is worth the absence of such a framework among Noth/
past.106 considering
Conrad's themes, and the presence of three (hij? dating; annalistic style, and
"primary"
arrangement to among the themes. How, except in

according caliphates) "secondary"
those rare instances where clear are or material evidence
synchronisations possible,107 (e.g.
100
See al-Tabari, Ta'rikh al-rusul wa'1-mul?k (Leiden, 1879-1901), i, p. 2804; Sayf b. IJmar, Kit?b al-Ridda,
p. 18.
101
Duri, Rise ofHistorical Writing, pp. ssf
102
See, for example, the tradition unearthed by M. J. Kister ("Social and religious concepts of authority in
Islam", JSAI, XVIII [1994], p. 122), according to which Ibn 'Abbas enjoins jih?d (for the sake of the afterlife) even
if under the leadership of amirs interested only in this one.
103
That a distinction is drawn between Paradise and booty (Tabari, Ta'rikh, i, pp. 2292 and 2458), and din and
duny? (Tabari, Ta'rikh, i, p. 2293; cited by Noth/Conrad, 94) is clear enough. That the two are as starkly
contrasted asNoth/Conrad would have it is not nearly as clear, however. Thus a variant on p. 229210 (al-janna aw
al-ghanima) reads al-janna wa'l-ghanima; and on aw in the sense of wa, see E. W. Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon
(London, 1863-93)^. 122.
104 c. 370-529 (Leiden, 1992),
For a convenient summary, see F. Trombley, Hellenic Religion and Christianization
ii, pp. I73f.; (Trombley's imprecise use of the term "Safaitic" is corrected by M. Macdonald, "Nomads and the
liawran in the late Hellenistic and Roman periods: a reassessment of the epigraphic evidence", Syria, LXX [1993],
pp. 303-414). See also Crone, Meccan Trade, pp. 237f.
105
See Tabari, Ta'rikh, i, pp. 2444f.
106
See B. Halpern, The First Historians: theHebrew Bible and History (San Francisco, 1988), p. 6. Cf. a more
minimalist definition in Cameron, History as Text, p. 33: "History may be descriptive, or synchronie, but its
-
subject is still located in time that iswhat distinguishes it as history."
107
The Syriac tradition, for example, can occasionally provide independent corroboration for the Islamic; but
as its dependence on the Arabic grows clearer (see L. I. Conrad, "Theophanes and the Arabic historical tradition:
some indications of intercultural transmission", Byzantinische Forschungen, XV [1990], pp. 1-44), its value in this
respect grows weaker.
available, are we to write on foundations as as these? The stakes

coins) history shaky being
so high, itmight be useful to look at the matter of dating a little more closely.
Making an important distinction between the attestation of the use of hij? dating in
and and its appearance as a feature of Noth/Conrad
papyri inscriptions, historiography,
that the former is spotty and the latter late. On this crucial issue are
argue relatively they
convincing, and in line with what has been said about the slra.108 The secondary
generally
of a scheme can also us understand authorities are
appearance hij? help why early
out for their in and further ninth and tenth
occasionally singled expertise dating,109 why
historians such as al-Bal?dhuri and al-Tabari devoted so much attention to
century
out
working chronology.
This said, Iwonder if the has been made a shade too The results of
argument absolutely.
survey of may not be of the Hij?z in

Livingston's inscriptions necessarily representative
and it is also hard to see how confusion about the date of
general,110 widespread
Muhammad's birth, which was demonstrated Conrad,111 constitutes
conclusively by
evidence for the late of an Islamic that took its start when he was
adoption dating system
middle aged (pp. 4if); after all, the tradition itself openly concedes that dating schemes
before 'Umar were unstable.112 Indeed, one argue the that the contrast
might opposite:
between the unstable (and manifestly of many events of the
radically topological) "dating"
Prophet's life (e.g. his birth, the beginning of his prophecy, the symmetry of the Meccan
and Madinan on the one hand, and the very broad consensus that he died in Rabic
periods)
I of a.h. 11 on the other, demonstrates an firm on and one
increasingly grip chronology,
which ismost easily explained
as the result of a new dating Al-Tabari tells us that
system.113
guesses about "Uthm?n's age at death from 63 to 90, but that there was wide
ranged
agreement that he died in year 35 or 36.114 Surely it cannot be coincidental that the one
Arab date takes us back to 632.115

given by ps.-Sebeos
Now as as datable evidence for the use of the collectors
long securely hij? dating by early
o?akhb?r remains late,116 this is not an argument that Iwould care to
relatively necessarily
make; indeed, the burden of must now fall on those who would that
proof argue early
108
Wansbrough, Sectarian Milieu, p. 35.
109
For this reason al-Azdi (Ta'rikh al-Mawsil [Cairo, 1967], p. 226) held Khalifa b. Khayy?c in particularly high
regard. See also the case of Ibn Abd Rabbih inWerkmeister, Quellenuntersuchungen, pp. I43f.
110
The percentage of dated inscriptions around Ruw?wa (south of Madina) (see S. al-R?shid, Kit?b?t Isl?miyya
ghayr mansh?ra [Riyadh, 1993] is substantially higher than those discussed by Livingston, et al. ("Epigraphic survey,
1404-1984", al-Atl?l, IX [1985], pp. 128-44). For a useful summary and discussion of dated first-century
epigraphy, see B. Gruendler, The Development of theArabic Scripts (Adanta, 1993), pp. I5f. Clearly the epigraphic
evidence remains too thin to saymuch.
111
Conrad, "Abraha and Muhammad", pp. 225-30.
112
For some early examples, see Abd al-Malik b. Habib, Kit?b al-ta'?j, pp. I03f; Khalifa b. Khayya?, Ta'rikh
(Beirut, 1995), p. 13; al-Mas'udi, Kit?b al-tanb?h wa'1-ishr?f (Leiden, 1893), pp. 204f; and more generally, S. A. A.
S?lim, al-Ta'rikh wa'l-mu'arrikh?n al-'arab (Cairo, 1967), pp. 2of.
113 see now U. Rubin,
On the patterning of Muhammad's chronology, The Eye of the Beholder: The Life of
Muhammad as viewed by the Early Muslims (Princeton, 1995), pp. 190fr. The evidence from several non-Islamic
sources, which put the Prophet at the head of conquest armies (see Crone and Cook, Hagarism, p. 4, with note 7
thereto), is uneven (only two are from the seventh century, one of which [e.g. the Kh?zist?n Chronicle] is
ambiguous), and, in view of the difficulties of conquest chronology, inconclusive as far as dating is concerned.
114
Tabari, Ta'rikh, i, pp. 305of.
115
"... in the 19th year of the dominion of the Isma?lites"; see ps.-Sebeos, Histoire d'H?raclius, eh. 35.
116
Is it too naive to hope that the occasional hij? date in Sayfs Kit?b al-ridda wa'1-jut?h might be examined in
such away as to rule out redactional intrusions? (See Noth/Conrad, p. 43.)
akhb?r contained much in the way of at all. But as we have to

chronology just explain why
the traditions are as a rule so so too do we need to
conquest chronologically imprecise,
the remarkable when accounts are accurate as far as
explain exceptions, astoundingly dating
is concerned.117 Several non-Islamic texts, as well as sources, in
literary early documentary
fact attest to the Arabs' use of a that was theirs, and which ca. 620.118
dating system began
Whether this dating system was consistently identified as hij? in this early period is
something else; it may have taken the eighth-century articulation of the classical notion of
to settle the matter In any case, the near total monopoly of

hijra completely.119 dating by
the era became a remarkable feature of the Islamic annalistic tradition, and
hijra eventually
one which is particularly when with the much older tradition.120
striking compared Syriac
There are no for Noth/Conrad's view that the annalistic form as
grounds arguing against
an established historiographical feature is a product of the late eighth or early ninth
centuries.121 But what of works to Noth/Conrad, these
arranged by caliphates? According
arose no "earlier than the late ninth and
probably second/early century" (p. 46), appeared
after, and derived from, the annalistic scheme, largely because such
probably "original"
themes asfut?h andfitna "clash with a thematic outlook oriented towards everything that
happened under each individual caliph"; in other words, since thefut?h andfitna occurred
more than one the material could not have been fitted into a
during caliphate, caliphate
based Noth/Conrad are thus forced to argue the attribution of a
arrangement. against
Ta'rikh (or Kit?b) al-khulaf?3 to Ibn Ish?q (151/761), which Abbott used to identify a
papyrus,122 and which may also lie behind Khalidi's tentative suggestion that "[i]t is not
impossible that both Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi used an annalistic format in some of their
works" (Khalidi, p. 80, note 128, citing al-Tabar?, i, pp. 2479T. and 2516); it is argued that
the work was probably written by Yahy? b. Sac?d al-Umaw? (194/809). Other early
attributed to al-Mad?'in? and Muhammad b. Habib are now lost,123 the oldest
examples
117
The best example may be the dating of Yarm?k, first discussed by T. N?ldeke, "Zur Geschichte der Araber
in 1. Jahrhundert d. H. aus syrischen Quellen", ZDMG, XXIX (1875), pp. 79f.; see also Donner, Early Islamic
Conquests, pp. I42f.
118 should be added two more.
See Crone and Cook, Hagarism, p. 157, note 39; and p. 160, note 56, to which
Writing in 689, Hn?nish?"s scribe records the date as "year 69 of the Arabs' rule" (shult?n? d-(ayy?ye); see
E. Sachau, Syrische Rechtsb?cher (Berlin, 1908), ii, pp. 6f./i82f. And writing ca. 689-90, John Bar Penk?y? uses the
same phrase ("year 67 of the Arabs' rule"); see A. Mingana, Sources Syriaques (Mosul, 1908), p. 160*; and S.P.
Brock, "North Mesopotamia in the late seventh century: Book XV of John Bar Penk?y?'s Ris Melle', JSAI, IX
(1987), p. 68.
119
Crone, "The first-century concept of Higra".
120
The eighth-century "Zuqnin Chronicle", by one count, uses no fewer than eight dating systems; see
W. Wittkowski, The Syriac Chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius ofTel-Maltr? (Uppsala, 1987), pp. n?f.; and also P. Ludger
Bernhard, Die Chronologie der Syrer (Vienna, 1969), chapter 5.
121
One might note in passing that their list of early annals is not complete. Passages from the Ta'rikh sini mul?k
al-'?lam by Abu 'Isa Ibn al-Munajjim (fl. late third century), which was familiar to Ibn al-Nadim and al-Mas'?di
among others, survive in quotations (see S. M. Stern, "Abu ?Is? Ibn al-Munajjim's Chronography", Islamic
Philosophy and the Classical Tradition [Festschrift for R. Walzer] [ed. S. M. Stern et al, Oxford, 1972], pp. 437Q.
IJm?ra b. Wathima (289/901) is credited with a Ta'rikh 'ala al-sin?n, which apparently has not survived, but
which Rosenthal had noticed as long ago as 1952 (see Rosenthal, History, p. 64; and also Ibn Khallik?n, Wafay?t al
a'y?n [Beirut, 1977], vi, p. 13).
122
Studies inArabic Literary Papyri, i, pp. 8of.
123
Since the former's Ta'rikh (or Akhb?r) al-khulaf?' was an important source for later historians, e.g. Ibn cAbd
Rabbih (Werkmeister, Quellenuntersuchungen, pp. 152Q and al-Bal?dhuri (Petersen, 'Ali andMu'?wiya, p. 147), it
might be reconstructed.
extant examples being the Kit?b al-khulaf?' by Ibn Maja (273/886) and the Ta'rikh of
al-Yaeq?bi (284/897) (p. 46).
Several may be raised this reconstruction. here is any note of
objections against Missing
Ab? Maeshar who stands between Ibn and Yahy? b. Sacid, and to whom
(170/786), Ish?q
one can attribute a Ta'rikh Needless to say, the of titles
confidently al-khulaf?\124 instability
makes their contents difficult, but in this case there is material
inferring extremely enough
cited in later sources Ibn Sacd, al-Tabari, al-Fasawi, and Yaz?d b. Muhammad al
(e.g.
that we can reach conclusions. In al-Azdi's Ta'rikh al-Mawsil, for
Azd?), safely example,
Ab? Macshar's material is almost concerned with matters of and
uniformly caliphal politics
the attribution and of the work could be handled in such a
dating.125 Perhaps organisation
way as to Noth/Conrad's scheme intact, but there are other

keep evolutionary problems.
Ibn is argued away in a less than satisfactory fashion,126 works as dissimilar as Ibn
Ish?q
Ta'rikh and Yacqubi's Ta'rikh are and the Sitz im Leben
Maja's al-khulaf?' awkwardly paired,
to the genre ("This trend must rather have with the
given explain emerged gradually,
establishment of an official under a central, is
historiography strong, caliphal government")
so as to be almost useless; in any case, the time of Ibn Maja and the
imprecise by al-Yacqubi
central" was in decline. the short life of the
"strong, caliphate signal Finally, curiously span
adduced as the earliest and cAbd al-Malik b.
genre (al-Mad?'ini [228/843] being example,
Habib characterised as "transitional"), is left unexplained.
[238/852]
The only obvious advantage in locating the emergence of caliphate-based in
organisation
the ninth seems to be that the annalistic is given in an inexorable
early century style priority
development of forms; al-Haytham b. cAdi (207/822) and his annalistic Ta'rikh thus retain
of place. This is not the place to argue the point but there is some evidence that
pride fully,
would revene Noth/Conrad's sequence. That the were concerned with
early compilers
the lives dates; death dates; is conceded
caliphs' (e.g. bayca genealogy) by Noth/Conrad,
who identify as a "primary" theme (p. 37) precisely the type of material that one finds
much later in Ibn M?ja's work.127 In the surviving parts of b. cUmar's Kit?b al-ridda
Sayf
there are very clear of a and in Khalifa b.
wa'1-fut?h signs caliphate-based dating system;128
Khayy?t's (241/855) awkward handling of administrative history (e.g. al-qud?h fl khilafat

Yazld; tasmiyat wul?t cAbd al-Malik, etc.) within the chronicle framework we may have
124
The work ismissing presumably because it is not mentioned by Ibn al-Nadim. I leave aside the problem of
Hish?m b. al-Kalbi, to whom Ibn al-Nadim attributes not only a Kit?b al-ta'rikh, but also a Kit?b sif?t al-khulaf?'
(Fihrist, p. 97).
125
See Sezgin, GAS, i, pp. 29if; al-Tabari, Ta'rikh, i, p. 2516; al-Azdi, Ta'rikh al-Mawsil, pp. 4, 16, 10, 18,
108, 123, 137, i6of, 173, and 231. Al-Sakh?wi (Rosenthal, History, p. 315) also knew Ab? Machar as a specialist in
dating.
126
That Ibn al-Nadim
knew of Ibn Ishaq's work only in the recension of Yahy? b. Sa?id is inconclusive; and it
is revealing that the authors tread very gingerly here ("It may well be that al-Umawi authored this work and
compiled it largely from materials that had earlier been transmitted in Ibn Ishaq's name"). As Abbott discussed in
some detail (Studies, pp. 9of), Salama b. al-Fadl's recension was at least as important as Yahy?'s.
127 -
Here one might note that al-Zuhri clearly had some expertise in and perhaps penned a work on - the
caliphs' ages (Tabari, Ta'rikh, ii, pp. 199 and 428), the second of which Sezgin [GAS, i, p. 283] takes to indicate a
book tide ([fcitift] asn?n al-khulaf?'). And note too that some of the titles attributed to al-Mad?'ini reflect a similar
interest, e.g. his kit?b tasmiyat al-khulaf?' wa-kun?hum wa-a^m?rihim and kit?b ta'rikh a'm?r al-khulaf?'; see Ibn al
Nadim, Fihrist, p. 102.
128
Events are consistently dated to the years of 'Uthm?n's im?ra; there are too many examples to cite
thoroughly, but see Sayf, Kit?b al-Ridda, pp. 25; 42; 55f.; 58; 60; 62; 70; 77; 87f.; 91 (sub-governor); 107; 122.
signs of earlier, of material.129 Of course at this the

caliphate-based organisation point
evidence is less than but the reconstruction here has several
clinching; proposed advantages
over Noth/Conrad's: we now have a better and fit
(late eighth early ninth-century)
between Sitz im Leben and we need no Ta3?kh
genre;130 longer argue against al-khulaf?3
works, such as Abu Ma'shar's and Ibn that b. cAd?'s Ta3rlkh
Ishaq's, precede al-Haytham
cal? al-sinln; and we can now better understand annalistic historians so drew
why frequently
on these works. If itmarks a transition at all, the Ta3rlkh of cAbd al-Malik b. Habib may
mark the transition from ta3?kh to ta3rtkh cal? al-sinln.
al-khulaf?3
But does it mark a transition? To answer this we need to be certain of two
question
first, that the appearance of several forms, as were
things: historiographical produced they
from to al-Andalus, and from the second Islamic to the fourth,
Iraq early century early
should be in unilinear and terms;131 and second, that the evidence at
represented genetic
hand can the The first is difficult
accurately represent proposed trajectory. enough: given
that Islam was a of cultural we to
early period extraordinary experimentation, might expect
find an abundance of good ideas and bad ideas, of false starts and dead ends, and that ideas
and schemes did not march in a but and

single parade, competed, appearing, disappearing,
The second is even harder to maintain: the later tradition
re-appearing.132 generally
preserved only what it found meaningful; governs the discovery of manuscripts;

serendipity
and the onerous work of these remains unfinished. In 1989 G. H. A.
editing manuscripts
Juynboll noted the difficulty of understanding Sayfs material in al-Tabari, there being so
few sources to consult;133 six years later a chunk of work has now been
parallel huge SayPs
published. Similarly, itwas not so

long ago that al-Tabari's Ta3?kh was the earliest surviving
annalistic history, behind which lay only informed guesses;134 now we know that cAbd al
Malik b. Habib, whose Ta3?kh was edited five years his material
only ago, organised
?
to an eclectic mix of schemes not and
according extremely only by hijra years caliphates,
but also and a of The work is apparently whether
by tabaq?t variety topics. experimental;135
it was transitional is much harder to say: after all, the ta3?kh genre was alive and
al-khulaf?3
well seven hundred years later.136
IX
-
Implicit in the overall scheme of Khalidi's work the "epistemic domes" under which
-
historical evolves and made elsewhere,137 is the view that notions of
thought explicit
129
Ta'rikh, passim.
130 - lists -
What may be the skeleton of caliphate-based histories of caliphs with the length of their reigns is
already attested by two Syriac lists of the early eighth century. The first of the two (composed ca. 705) may have
had an Arabic model (see Crone, Slaves onHorses, p. 214, note 102); the second (composed ca. 724) certainly did.
131 Cf. Lecker's views on the
growth of the tradition in his "The death of the Prophet Muhammad's father".
132 use of "story" rather than "development"
Cf. Hornblower's to describe early Greek historiography; the
question he puts to his sources ("... should Greek historiography be seen as an organically developing coral reef
rather than as a set of pigeon-holes?") could be profitably put to ours. See Greek Historiography, pp. s$f.
133
See his translated volume, The History of al-Tabari Volume xiii: The Conquest of Iraq, Southwestern Persian, and
Egypt (Albany, 1989), p. xvii.
134
See Rosenthal, History, pp. 64f.
135
The heterogeneity of material and idiosyncracies of the work in general are stressed by G. H.A. Juynboll in
his review in Bibliotheca Orientalis, L (1993), pp. 509-11.
136
An example is al-Suyu??'s Ta'rikh al-khulaf?' (Beirut, 1989).
137
See p. 96 ("structures of thought").
historical truth are variable, and conditioned by social life (in its broadest sense) and politics.
It should be clear by now that I am not entirely convinced that Khalidi has practiced what
-
he and at the one where he does the heart of the issue the
preaches; point approach
-
akhb?ns consensual view of the truth it seems to me that he moves on all too
quickly
Be this as it may, the matter is important because it is the first he directs at
(pp. 43f). charge
Noth/Conrad's work, which in his view "suffers from the lack of any of the
analysis larger
theoretical issues within which one can assess historical sources, the definition of
e.g.
historical 'truth' in various periods" (p. 16, note 13). The second, which is made in the
same footnote, concerns "Noth also makes liberal, even use of the
topoi: arbitrary, concept
of but without it any theoretical framework, or a
'topos' placing larger explaining why
concept originally developed by Erich Auerbach and E. R. Curtius for the aesthetic
of medieval Latin literature is also relevant to the assessment of the of
appraisal facticity
I shall conclude with some comments about
early-Islamic historiography." general topoi
and method.
to much that is written about western literature, both Khalidi and Noth/
Compared
Conrad are conservative. For Khalidi, histories are not the wholly autonomous texts
fairly
of much contemporary criticism; emerges when related to "dome",
meaning only fully
and "dome" is only understood when anchored in a
specific social/political reality.138
Moreover, narrative is not referential to a but it is also stable, and such
only reality,
attention as he to it is for the purpose of a de texte, one
pays fairly straightforward explication
that seeks not to describe "difference", but rather to establish coherence and unity.
Meanwhile, although Khalidi is correct that Noth/Conrad do not explicitly define
"truth", their operating definition is obvious "facts" about the Islamic
enough: early
are recoverable, accounts to be
period and for literary historical they must offer narrative
representations that (generally) correspond with these "facts", with

"reality".139
Just how this "reality" is misrepresented in the historical tradition is the of Noth/
point
Conrad's of use term
catalogue topoi. Noth's of the topos invited enough misunderstanding
and criticism that Noth/Conrad saw fit to it out more in the revised edition.140
spell clearly
Now there are no for confusion. to Noth/Conrad's use of the term,
grounds According
or may not, record an event; what is crucial is that "drift" An
topoi may, they (p. 109).
account that in one may preserve an authentic of an event
setting actually memory
becomes when it breaks anchor and comes to be
topological employed indiscriminately;
this process can rise to hollow narratives that consist of nothing more than
occasionally give
topoi strung and tied together by schemata (pp. 207f). On this indiscriminate use of topoi
138
Cf. the very different views of L. Patterson, Negotiating the Past: theHistorical Understanding ofMedieval
Literature (Madison, 1987), p. 45: "... the methodological assumption that historical context can produce
-
interpretative correctness inevitably serves to stigmatize the discordant, the variant, and the deviant as incorrect
as, in effect, nonexistent".
139
See, for examples, pp. 121 ("reality"); 124 ("what actually took place"); and, in particular, the contrast
between "the domain of life" and "that of literature" (p. 109). For a very different view of "facts" and "events",
see P. Veyne, Writing History, trans, by M. Moore-Rinvolucri (Middletown, 1984), chapter 3.
140
Morony, Iraq, p. 573: "Noth is commonly and easily criticized for failing to recognize that stereotyped
formulas and topoi can be used to describe separate but similar real events". See also Crone, Slaves onHorses, p. 12,
where the topological character of a specific account is criticised. Noth/Conrad address the criticism at p. 144,
although she accepts the general point on p. 208, note 68 ("The examples of takbirs adduced by Noth certainly are
topoi and legends"). For some examples of Byzantine battle cries, see M. McCormick, Eternal Victory: Triumphal
Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and theEarly Medieval West (Cambridge, 1986), p. 4, note 12.
22? Chase F. Robinson
Noth/Conrad are successful, and this iswhy I have said so little about this part
spectacularly
of the book. have shown that insofar as are in the literature,
They topoi ubiquitous conquest
the problem of its facticity is not occasional, but in fact systemic.
If there are to be made, it is only that Noth/Conrad have left to others the
complaints
task of qualifying their conclusions. Since the definition of a turns on its "drift" from
topos
one to another, and the nature of historical narrative is at least
setting topological
characterised in absolute terms,141 one task now at hand is to
occasionally brutally
between historical account as authentic and historical account as
distinguish memory
indiscriminate in this way can we to see where the anchors broke loose.
topos; only begin
Herein lies the point in citing sources that corroborate one case of takblr,142
Syriac specific
or one case of It is also worth that as Curtius was
specific siege/betrayal.143 noting just
criticised for what had been a restricted term of classical rhetoric to
broadening fairly
describe and textual elements,144 a similar criticism be made
recurring stereotypical might
of Noth/Conrad. For Arabic literature has more than its share of what might justifiably be
called the critics were interested to enumerate and and since

topoi, which keenly discuss;
many of these seem to reflect authentic mentalit?s, have been used to reconstruct
they
history.145 Should we not distinguish between topoi such as these, which circulated widely
in Arabic letters, and Noth/Conrad's, which seem to be restricted to a conquest rhetoric?
By demonstrating the thoroughly topological character of conquest literature, Noth/
Conrad have raised the standards of credibility; but they have said virtually nothing about
how the so Here too have left us more work. At
topoi became ubiquitous.146 they what
point did the topoi enter the tradition? Although one might be tempted to take their brevity
and formulaicness as of oral Noth/Conrad envision a written
signs composition, clearly
context: and schemata are devices which were available to and
topoi "literary universally
deployed by historical writers" (p. 109), "tools which every historical writer had
frequently
in his workshop" If, then, the are to be as features of a second
(p. no). topoi interpreted
and conquest rhetoric, "historical writers" employing them presumably in
third-century
the o?inventio, must we follow form critical them "collectors"
spirit imperatives by calling
and their works "collections"? to take stock of the of
Having begun conventionality
rhetoric, we now re-open the of authorship.147

conquest might thorny question
141
See, for example, p. 47, note 31: "Whenever it ismaintained that the movement of the conquests came to a
halt under the third caliph IJthm?n, this is a defamation of 'Uthm?n on the part of his opponents."
142
See above, note 140.
143 a historiographical
Such is the case in Tustar; see C. F. Robinson, "The conquest of Kh?zist?n:
reassessment", in History and Historiography in Early Islamic Times: Studies and Perspectives, ed. by L. I. Conrad
(Princeton, forthcoming).
144
The literature on his European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages is enormous, but very conveniently
discussed, listed, and summarised in E. J. Richards, Modernism, Medievalism and Humanism: A Research Bibliography
on theReception of theWorks ofErnst Robert Curtius (T?bingen, 1983).
145
Thus, al-Karkhi devotes ca. 140 pages to al-shawq wa'1-fir?q, and ca. 60 pages to al-hanin il? al-au^?n (see S. al
Hadrusi, Al-Muntah?fi l-kam?l desMuhammad Ihn Sahl Ibn al-Marzub?n al-Karhi (gest. ca. 345/956) Untersuchung und
kritische Edition von Bd 4-5 und 9-10 [Berlin, 1988]); the second of these (al-han?n il? al-awt?n) Conrad elsewhere
calls a "theme", and discusses to illustrate the Aradians' actual attitudes; see his "The conquest of Arw?d",
pp. 342f.
146
Although it is convenient and sensible, the typology of topoi (e.g., "Topoi connected with personal names"
vs. "topoi emphasizing feats of arms") throws no light on the matter.
147
Again, would it be too naive to hope that working distinctions between "collector", "redactor" and
"author" might be generated? The problem, it seems, has only struck those writing in German; see Schoeler's
work (above, note 40); G?nther, "Maq?tit', p. 109, note 19 (on Verfasserwerke); cf. S. Leder, "Authorship and
These minor aside, Noth/Conrad have done the invaluable service of

qualifications
historians of Islam to think about narrative. No one would now
forcing early seriously
with the notion that of the that purport to be "truthful"
argue literary representations past
share affinities with literary representations of the past (e.g., novels) that
(history writing)
? ?
do not.148 is about form narrative in order to create
History writing imposing
coherence; and in so doing it draws on the same resources on which fiction draws.
writing
-
Where the disagreement occurs is how or even if- a line is to be drawn between history
and other kinds of writing. It may be that students of pre-modern
writing historiography
will never have much use for Hay den White, but even someone who dismisses his work as
fatuous" still must come to with the intrusions into

"manifestly grips all-too-frequent
historical narrative of what the modern reader would consider "fictional" elements.149 In
Biblical studies too one can draw a line between those who see Biblical narrative as
"fictionalized and those who see it as "historicized fiction".150

history",
The of Islamic can no more than can
study historiography ignore literary approaches
other students of the Hebrew Bible have
put Auerbach to use,151 and in
disciplines: good
-
fact so too have Islamicists. What Auerbach said of Tacitus that he is blind to the "social
-
forces" that concern modern historians, and and oriented has
ethically rhetorically
been said of Ravandi, whose as Meisami somewhat it, is
already project, mischievously puts
admonish as to to
"to edify, exhort and (as well record)".152 Meanwhile, Leder has begun
address the affinities between fiction and history, arguing that realism is a feature of
discourse, and that the collectors were not after truth, but rather a "multivoiced
early
chorus".153 Islamicists, it appears, are to engage contemporary discussions about
beginning
mimesis: "The fictive, dimension in all accounts of events does not mean that
imaginary
the events did not but it does mean that any attempt to describe events
actually happen,
as are must on various forms of
(even they occurring) rely imagination."154
transmission in unauthored literature: the akhb?r attributed to al-Haytham ibn ?Adi", Oriens, XXXI (1988), esp.
p. 71 (".. . the process of transmission must be considered as endowed with a literary identity of its own.")
148
-phe point ismade particularly well by N. Partner, "Making up lost time: writing on the writing of history",
Speculum, LXI (1986), pp. 90-117.
149
See T. J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000?264
BC) (London, 1995), pp. i6f. On conventions and topoi in medieval historical writing, see R. Morse, Truth and
Convention in theMiddle Ages (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 92f.
150
Y^g terms are frequently used in the literature, but I borrow the contrast from I. Provan, "Ideologies,
literary and critical: reflections on recent writing on the history of Israel", Journal of Biblical Studies, CXIV (1995),
p. 592. Of the two responses to this article, also published in the same volume, the more useful is P. Davis,
"Method and madness: some remarks on doing history with the Bible", pp. 699-705.
151
J. Barton, "Gerhard von Rad on the world-view of early Israel", The Journal of Theological Studies, XXXV
(1984), pp. 33of; J. J. Collins, "Is critical Biblical theology possible?", The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters, ed.
H. H. Propp, et al. (Winona Lake, 1990), p. 11.
152
J. S. Meisami, "R?vandi's R?hat al-sud?r. history or hybrid?", Edebiy?t, n.s. V (1994), p. 203. Cf. eadem,
"Dynastic history and ideals of kingship in Bayhaqi's Ta'rikh-i Mas'udi", Edebiy?t, n.s. Ill (1989), pp. 57-77.
153
See his "The Literary use of the khabar', p. 314; and idem, "Features of the novel in early historiography -
the downfall of X?lid al-Qasri", Oriens, XXXII (1990), pp. 72-96. Cf. the comments by B. Radtke ("Towards a
typology of Abbasid universal chronicles", Occasional Papers of the School of Abbasid Studies [St. Andrews, 1991],
p. 13), for what might be called al-Mas'?di's rhetoric of authenticity.
154
L. Kramer, "Literature, criticism, and historical imagination", in L. Hunt (ed.), The New Cultural History
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1989), p. 101. On description and plot, see also Veyne, Writing History, part 1; and for a
view that literary techniques serve, rather than condition, historical narrative in the Hebrew Bible, see Halpern,
The First Historians, pp. 94f.
I am grateful to Julia Ashtiany-Bray and Michael Cook for reading and criticising a draft of this article.

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Review: The Study of Islamic Historiography: A Progress Report

Author(s): Chase F. Robinson

there is little to about. That Gibb's article was

unchanged in 1962,4 that is, after the contributions of Brunschvig, Schacht,

al-Mascud?, al-Tabar?, Ibn al-cAd?m, and Ibn on the obscure

JRAS, Series 3, 7, 2 (1997), pp. 199-227

works of the fourteenth-sixteenth centuries. By eroding (and in some cases, the

historiographical foundations on which

many, many reflect these "domes", or "umbrellas", and to situate

discusses in ca. 220 if the of Khalidi's lies in his four

follows I focus on where the two books the formative of Islamic

After that contrast a homeostatic of time with a

Marw?nid that the "proto-historical consciousness" behind the collection and

equipped akhb?r in favour of lengthier, and more historical narratives.

the achievement of the and the views on time and

history. The concludes with Miskawayh and al-B?r?ni.

In our and academic world, who can claim the

historiography. Chapter 4 effectively contextualises in tenth and eleventh

work can be in the context of broad cultural movements. The

are because the word appears in the titles of

As far as the title of this book is concerned, "Arabic historical as recorded

In a book as and ambitious as this, most readers will find to

Sunna, and than as the moved

criticism; for to the of Khalidi's one must that

and as one the book it becomes clear that Khalidi means

argument: that the and al-Dinawari ca. 25

follow that and Hamza's interest in the astronomical tradition is to be

based Al-Faz?ri is credited with a kit?b cal? sinln al-carab,

centuries;28 but its marriage to came earlier and cannot be

to up, and it is particularly difficult to reconstruct the of

There is no reason to think that this chart was

once we are left hungry. it is conceded that scholars

Assertions also suffice to demonstrate the emergence of recognisable historiographie

introduction of that the of material to the

passage in al-Tabari is disputable as well. But what of this oft-repeated "care",

much less concern for or In general, reflect

(the Prophet divines the number of Quraysh).53

in Arabic letters. The domes also tend to a of sources,

Noth/Conrad propose to take an view of the forms and

task is initially deferred, however. 1 with a discussion of themes

"secondary" themes is almost entirely inferential.

with and matters of content" The are

formulae, undifferentiated functioned to

organise and link narrative pieces.

that Noth/Conrad would have us abandon the tradition the authors

"invented",59 but rather to and isolate material that is useful for

connection one that "falsification" a game

of the tradition is described in terms as stark as these,61 the terms

be with their own favourite

matters aside, there is also a with the evidence. In the case of

al-Sanc?n? and here one note that the section of the

leaders, and battles are the of a process

Instead of using or as devices, Noth/Conrad more use ideas.

case, the theme is seen to

would be dismissed as the anachronistic of a centralised and

elite, the would re-emerge as a series of battles and won

taxation evolved in the One can also with Noth/Conrad

a Basran but when the former grew, effected a thus,

empts, rather than addresses, How, to their criteria, could

range of services of their these included, inter alia, Among the

For of the past to as must be more than serial;

arrangement to among the themes. How, except in

available, are we to write on foundations as as these? The stakes