This study examines the climate of intellectual freedom that formed the backdrop of the work of the court historians Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih (246-328/860-940) and Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr (368-463/978-1071) writing in Umayyad al-Andalus. Like many Arabophone historians of early and medieval Islamic history, they wrote compelling and passionate accounts of pivotal events from earlier Islamic history, including those surrounding succession, following the death of the Prophet Muḥammad in 632, and subsequent fissures within and between Muslim communities.
Focusing on al-ʿIqd al-farīd and al-Istīʿāb, key works of these two Umayyad court historians, who wrote – whether against or supporting Umayyad legitimacy – without any apparent political or confessional constraints, I examine their apparent intellectual autonomy. I do so by analysing their portrayals of key figures and events, e.g., the Saqīfa (11/632), the Shūra (23/664), the killing of ʿUthmān (35/665 or 656), the Battle of the Camel (36/656), the Battle of Ṣiffīn (37/657), Karbalāʾ (61/680), and the Battle of al-Ḥarra (63/683). Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr wrote in the era of the Mulūk al-ṭawāʾif, writing in support of, not against, the Umayyads. Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih wrote ‘for’ the Caliph al-Nāṣir; however, he did not embrace the caliph’s Umayyad-centric ideology. I present a critical comparative examination of historical texts of the second Umayyad period, comparing them with those of their counterparts in eastern Islamic lands, to draw conclusions about the influence of the rulers on the historical writings produced during the Umayyad era in al-Andalus. In doing so, I present original translations of key selected passages of Arabic texts into English, making them accessible to new readers.
It is generally assumed that historical texts written during the reign – and under the auspices or patronage – of a particular ruler would be controlled so as to present that leader, and his dynastic ancestry and credentials, in the best possible light. It may be reasonably assumed that, in Islamic historiography, court historians wrote whatever the caliph or sultan wished, i.e., regarding legitimisation, interpretation of the formative Islamic past, or a favourable depiction. By ‘caliph’, I refer in this thesis to the combination of religious and political authority that developed in Arabia after the death of the Prophet Muḥammad in 632 CE.
Indeed, across several decades of Western scholarship on the premodern Islamic world, Islamic historical writings have often been the object of criticism by Western scholars, including Crone and Cook, Hagarism (1977) and Lewis, The Arabs in History (2002), who argue that Muslim Arabophone historians were intellectually dishonest, writing in support of rulers or with “sectarian” axes to grind, and did not, or could not, present reliably critical accounts of historical events, figures, and developments, owing to the hampering effects of political pressure, supposed “sectarian” affiliation, and court patronage. This thesis presents a detailed case study proving that Islamicate historical writing in Arabic in the medieval period could be – and often was – marked by independence of thought within a non-sectarian Islamic paradigm of interpretive yet normative historiography.
