The First Arabic Annals: Fragments of Umayyad History

Edward Zychowicz-Coghill

Published by De Gruyter 2021

The First Arabic Annals

Fragments of Umayyad History

Edward Zychowicz-Coghill

Volume 41 in the series Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712896

Overview
Contents

About this book

The earliest development of Arabic historical writing remains shrouded in uncertainty until the 9th century CE, when our first extant texts were composed. This book demonstrates a new method, termed riwāya-cum-matn, which allows us to identify citation-markers that securely indicate the quotation of earlier Arabic historical works, proto-books first circulated in the eighth century.

As a case study it reconstructs, with an edition and translation, around half of an annalistic history written by al-Layth b. Saʿd in the 740s. In doing so it shows that annalistic history-writing, comparable to contemporary Syriac or Greek models, was a part of the first development of Arabic historiography in the Marwanid period, providing a chronological framework for more ambitious later Abbasid history-writing.

Reconstructing the original production-contexts and larger narrative frames of now-atomised quotations not only lets us judge their likely accuracy, but to consider the political and social relations underpinning the first production of authoritative historical knowledge in Islam. It also enables us to assess how Abbasid compilers combined and augmented the base texts from which they constructed their histories.

Author / Editor information

Edward Zychowicz-Coghill, King's College, University of Cambridge, UK.

Reviews

"[L]’auteur met au jour des « fragments d’histoire omeyyade » et vient combler un vide historiographique important. À ce titre, ce petit ouvrage mérite d’être salué." Antoine Borrut in: Bulletin critique des Annales islamologiques, 3772023

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	V
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
Introduction: An Arabic History from 8^th-Century Egypt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 Using isnāds to Identify Quotations of Books Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	5
2 Repeated riwāya-isnāds to al-Layth’s –Taʾrīkh Presenting Common Information Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	8
3 Five Independent Witnesses to Ibn Bukayr’s Recension of al-Layth’s -Taʾrīkh Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
4 Al-Layth’s –Taʾrīkh or Ibn Bukayr’s? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
5 The Scope and Content of al-Layth’s –Taʾrīkh Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	30
6 Al-Layth and Ibn Bukayr Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
Conclusions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
Edition and Translation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	117
Index of Names and Places Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Islamwissenschaftler, Arabisten, Mediävisten, Historiker
Pages
- Front matter: 8
- Main content: 127
Keywords: Early Arabic prose; historical annals; Egypt; Umayyad history writing; al-Layth b. Saʿd

eBook

Published: March 22, 2021
ISBN: 9783110712896

Hardcover

Published: March 22, 2021
ISBN: 9783110712650