Notes

1. INTRODUCTION

1. J. Wansbrough, Quranic Studies (Oxford, 1977), 1–20. A. Rippin, “Interpreting the Bible Through the Qur’an,” Approaches to the Qur’an, ed. G. R. Hawting and Abdul-Kader A. Shareef (London: Routledge, 1993), 250–251.

2. Qur’ān 16:74: “So strike not any similitudes for God” (trans. A. J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted, 2 vols. [London, 1955], I, 294); Qur’ān 17:48: “Behold how they strike similitudes for thee, and go astray, and cannot find a way” (Arberry, I, 307). Qur’ān 25:9: “Behold, how they strike similitudes for thee, and go astray, and are unable to find a way” (Arberry, II, 57). Qur’ān 43:58: “And when the son of Mary is cited as an example, behold thy people turn away from it and say, ‘What, are our gods better, or he?’ They cite not him to thee, save to dispute; nay but they are a people contentious” (Arberry, II, 204). Numerous other verses describe the divine creation of a parable in reference to historical figures (Qur’ān 43:57, 66:10–11, 25:39, 30:58).

3. Qur’ān 12:3: “We relate to thee the fairest of stories in that We have revealed to thee this Qur’ān, though before it thou wast one of the heedless” (Arberry, I, 254).

4. This Qur’ānic exhortation to curtail storytelling may find a precedent in the biblical discouragement on adding further books to the scripture. D. S. Margoliouth, The Early Development of Mohammedanism (London, 1913), 24, 43.

5. F. Rosenthal, “The Influence of Biblical Tradition on Muslim Historiography,” in Historians of the Middle East, ed. B. Lewis and P. Holt (Oxford, 1962), 35–45; N. Abbott, Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri II: Qur’ānic Commentary and Tradition (Chicago, 1976), 15.

6. The fact that the detailed accounts about the Islamic fitan (sing. fitna) were not flattering to religious interests does not mean that they are factual (as per G. Schoeler’s comments about the affair of the slander: “Characteristics and anecdotes of this sort should be seen as being reliable, since they have resisted the tendency towards idealization” [G. Schoeler, “Character and Authenticity of the Muslim Tradition on the Life of the Prophet,” Arabica 48 (2002): 362]). The opposite of ḥadīth was not factual history, but another type of ḥadīth.

7. It is within this frame of parabolic history, which anticipates the coming discord among the companions, that some of ‘Umar’s prophesying words to the companions make sense as he attempts to forestall further discord. This happens most notably in a report appended at the end of ‘Uthmān’s reign when the second caliph is seen discouraging the companions who had fought in the early battles of Islam on the side of the Prophet from seeking to join the conquest campaigns against the Persians and the Byzantines. “You have obtained your reward by your campaign with the Messenger of God,” [‘Umar would tell the companions]. “It is better for you to avoid entanglement in worldly affairs than to go on campaigns now [wa khayrun laka min al-ghazw al-yawm allā tarā al-dunyā wa lā tarāka].” The narrators then continues, “When ‘Uthmān took power, however, he freed them from such restrictions. They betook themselves to the conquered territories, where the people attached themselves to them. Therefore (the Quraysh) preferred (‘Uthmān) to ‘Umar.” Ṭabarī, Tā’rīkh al-Rusul wa’l-Mulūk, ed. M. J. De Goeje, III series (Leiden, 1879–1901), I, 3026. Trans. R. S. Humphreys, The History of al-Ṭabarī, XIV: The Crisis of the Early Caliphate (Albany, 1990), 224 (with minor modification). ‘Alā’ al-Dīn al-Muttaqī al-Hindī, Kanz al-‘Ummāl fī Sunan al-Aqwāl wa‘l-Af‘āl, ed. Ṣafwat al-Saqqā and Bakrī al-Ḥayyānī (Beirut, 1985), XVI, 47 (no. 37978).

8. Although political achievement is viewed as a key outcome of the religious triumph, it is heavily downplayed. In this context one thus understands the bleak remarks of ‘Umar upon receiving news of the conquest of Jalulā’. As the caliph began to weep, ‘Abd al-Raḥman b. ‘Awf reportedly asked: “Why do you lament, O Commander of the Faithful, this is indeed a time for gratitude [inna hādhāla-mawṭina shukr].” ‘Umar then replied: “By God, this is not why I weep but God never gave this kind of wealth to a people who found themselves spared jealousy, rivalry, and eventual conflict among themselves.” Ṭabarī, I, 2466–2467.

9. Hence the religious saying (sometimes attributed to ‘Umar), “The community renders [its duty] to the imām so long as the imām renders his duty toward becomes lax, his followers will become so as well [idhā rata‘a al-imām rata‘ū].” Abū ‘Abdallāh Muḥammad b. Sa‘d, al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā (Beirut, 1957–1968), III, 292. Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-Ashrāf, Sā’ir Furū‘ Quraysh, ed. I. ‘Abbas (Wiesbaden, 1996), V, 405. Furthermore, this system in fact included keeping the faith not only within the community, but equally with the non-Muslim populations being conquered. There are numerous examples from the reigns of Abū Bakr and ‘Umar where the caliph cautions his troops that a transgression against fair dealing with the enemy is still a transgression of the covenant.

10. Ya‘qūbī, Aḥmad b. Abī Ya‘qūb b. Wāḍiḥ, Mushākalat al-Nās li-Zamānihim (Beirut, 1962), 13–15. The translation partly draws on that by W. Millward, “The Adaptation of Men to Their Time: An Historical Essay,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 84 (1964): 329–344. Similar stories about the fortunes some companions made are also attested in other sources, where they are linked to the good fortune of the companions in making commerce. In one sense, such success is usually described to legitimize the practice of commerce by showing the companions active in it, as well as to show divine favor upon them in their prosperity. However, the same descriptions, especially when set in ‘Uthmān’s reign, are meant to show some licentiousness in the companions’ imitations of the practices of the caliph. The idea that a political leader usually set the norms of the time in practical and mystical terms was a widely accepted tenet in the social and political philosophy of medieval Islam. Hence al-Aḥnaf reportedly tells Mu‘āwiya, “You represent the times to your people. If you act well, they will act righteously as well.” Abū’l-Faraj ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. al-Jawzī, al-Miṣbāḥ al-Muḍī’ fī Khilāfat al-Mustaḍī’, ed. Nājiya ‘Abdallāh Ibrāhim (Baghdad, 1976) I, 183, 244.

11. Ṭabarī, I, 358.

12. G. H. A. Juynboll, Muslim Tradition (Cambridge, 1983), 200–202.

13. About this controversy, al-Juwaynī for example states: “It is incumbent on the believer that he interpret all controversies that he relates [about these matters] in a positive way [yanbaghī [li’l-mutadayyin] an lā ya’lū jahdan fī ḥaml kull mā yanqul ‘alā wajh al-khayr].” The last phrase is misread by the editor as “‘ alā wajh al-khabar.” Abū’l-Ma‘ālī ‘Abd al-Malik b. ‘Abdallāh al-Juwaynī, Kitāb al-Irshād, ed. Muḥammad Yūsuf Mūsā and ‘Alī ‘Abd al-Mun‘im ‘Abd al-Ḥamīd (Cairo, 2002), 433. Ibn al-‘Arabī concludes his defenses on this topic by quoting ‘Umar b. ‘Abd al-‘Azīz, who reportedly responded when asked about the companion controversies by saying (quoting a Qur’ānic verse): “That is a nation that has passed away; there awaits them that they have earned, and there awaits you that you have earned; you shall not be questioned concerning the things they did” (Qur’ān 2:134 [Arberry, I, 46]). Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. al-‘Arabī, al-‘Awāṣim min al-Qawāṣim fī Taḥqīq Mawāqif al-Ṣaḥāba ba‘d Wafāt al-Nabī, ed. Muḥibb al-Dīn al-Khaṭīb (Cairo, 1968), 202.

14. Humphreys, HT, XVI, xvi.

15. When one companion, for example, asks the Prophet: “Will there be trouble after this phase of good?,” the answer comes in the affirmative. Abū ‘Abdallāh Muḥammad b. Ismā‘īl al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, ed. Muḥammad Muḥsin Khān, 9 vols. (Riyad, 1997) (kitāb al-fitan), IX, 160 (no. 206).

16. “mā akhāfu ‘alaykum an tushrikū ba‘dī wa lakin akhāfu ‘alaykum an tatanāfasūfīhā.” Muslim b. al-Ḥajjāj al-Qurashī al-Nīsābūrī, Ṣaḥīḥ, ed. M. M. ‘Abd al-Laṭīf, 18 vols. in 9 (reprinted, Beirut), V (pt. 15) (no. 2296), 57. Bukhārī (kitāb farḍ al-khums), IV, 254 (no. 385); V, 257 (no. 374).

17. Other ḥadīths confirm the aforementioned fear. In one, the Prophet declares, “Do not turn against one another after my death, striking each other with swords [lā tartaddū ba ‘ dī kuffāran yaḍribu ba‘ḍukum riqāba ba‘ḍ].” Bukhārī (kitāb al-fitan), IX, 156 (no. 200); (kitāb al-maghāzī), V, 485 (no. 687). Another version replaces “la tartaddū” with “lā tarji‘ū bad‘ī ḍullālan…” and the context of the statement is placed in the Prophet’s farewell speech (Ḥijjat al-Wadā‘). (kitāb al-tawḥīd), IX, 406 (no. 539). Abū ‘Īsā Muḥammad b. ‘Īsā al-Tirmidhī, al-Jāmi ‘ al-Ṣaḥīḥ wa huwa al-Sunan, ed. Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir, 5 vols. (Beirut, 1987), kitāb al-fitan, IV, 421 (no. 2193). Ibn Māja, Sunan, II, 1300 (no. 3943). Ibn Sa‘d’s version includes “lātarji‘unna ba‘dī kuffāran yaḍribu ba‘ḍukum riqāba ba‘ḍ.” Ibn Sa‘d, II, 184. Muḥammad b. ‘Umar al-Wāqidī, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, ed. Marsden Jones, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1966), III, 1113 (Wāqidī’s account is narrated on the authority of ‘Ikrima and Ibn ‘Abbās). Also, in excerpt, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Musnad, ed. Shu‘ayb al-Arna’ūṭ, 50 vols. (Beirut, 1993–2001), IX, 411. Ṭabarī’s version of the farewell speech, reliant on Ibn Isḥāq, omits the aforementioned line (fa-lā tarji‘ū ba‘dī kuffāran…), but it seems clear from the context of that speech, with its emphasis on the promise of the believers and the inviolability of blood and property, that the line is original to the main version but was omitted because it sounded a very jarring note in a convivial context. Isolating the comment in ḥadīth, however, made it less damaging to the upward drift of the Islamic historical narrative. For a more likely version of the speech, see Abū ‘Umar Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. ‘Abd Rabbihi, Kitāb al-‘Iqd al-Farīd, ed. A. Amīn et al., 8 vols. (Cairo 1940–53), IV, 58. Al-‘Iqd’s texts are generally among the closest to Ṭabarī’s history. Also, ‘Amr b. Baḥr al-Jāḥiẓ, al-Bayān wa’ l-Tabyīn, ed. Abd al-Salām Muḥammad Hārūn, 4 vols. (Cairo, 1948), II, 33. Aḥmad, Musnad, XXXIV, 299–301.

18. In a followup meant to deflect the ominous meaning of the statement, Abū Bakr is portrayed as weeping, and asking the Prophet, “Are we going to live after you? [wa innā la-kā’ inūna ba‘daka].” Mālik b. Anas, Kitāb al-Muwaṭṭa, ed. M. F. ‘Abd al-Bāqī, 2 vols. (Beirut, 1988), kitāb al-jihād (faḍl al-shuhadā’ fī sabīl allāh), II, 462. This ḥadīth is recounted as a statement in praise of martyrs in general, and is capped with a conclusion that is meant to soften the earlier prophetic warning by making the main focus of the conversation Abū Bakr’s awareness that the Prophet would one day pass away.

19. Aḥmad, Musnad, XXXIV, 133. This ḥadīth, which has elements resembling, ḥadīthal-shafā‘a has the Prophet ask God why the companions are barred from entry to the ḥawḍ, and the answer given is: “You do not know what they did after you, they retreated backwards [innaka lā tadrī mā aḥdathū ba‘daka, innahum irtaddū ‘ alā a‘qābihim al-qahqarā].” Bukhārī, Saḥīḥ (kitāb al-qadar), VIII, 382 (no. 585). Another version states: “inna ha’ulā lam yazālū murtaddīn ‘alā a‘qābihim mundhu fāraqtahum.” Bukhārī (kitāb al-tafsīr), VI, 236. A similar version in Muslim, V, pt. 15, 55–57 (nos. 2294–2297). In another version, when the Prophet inquires why the companions are kept away, the answer states: “You do not know what they changed after you [innaka lā tadrī mā baddalū ba‘daka].” And whereas in the previous version the Prophet expresses a helpless regret for what happened, in this one the Prophet expresses approval for punishment. Here he adds: “Punishment to those who changed their ways after me! [suḥqan, suḥqan li-man baddala ba‘dī].” Bukhārī (kitāb al-fitan), IX, 144 (no. 174). A similar ḥadīth given by Bukhārī (kitāb al-qadar), VIII, 383 (no. 587). Abū ‘Abdallāh Muḥammad b. Yazīd b. Māja, Sunan, ed. Muḥammad Fu’ād ‘Abd al-Bāqī, 2 vols. (Beirut, 1980), kitāb al-zuhd, II, 1440 (no. 4306).

20. Al-Nasā’ī, Ṣaḥīḥ Sunan al-Nasā’ī, kitāb al-janā’iz, bāb dhikr awwal man yuksā, II, 449 (no. 1973).

21. The relevant verses read, “And when God said, ‘O Jesus son of Mary, didst thou say unto men, “Take me and my mother as gods, apart from God”?’ He said, ‘To Thee be glory! It is not mine to say what I have no right to. If I indeed said it, Thou knowest it, knowing what is within my soul, and I know not what is within Thy soul; Thou knowest the things unseen. I only said to them what Thou didst command me: “Serve God, my Lord and your Lord.” And I was a witness over them, while I remained among them; but when Thou didst take me to Thyself, Thou wast Thyself the watcher over them; Thou Thyself art witness of everything. If Thou chastisest them, they are Thy servants; if Thou forgivest them, Thou art the All-mighty, the All-wise’” (Qur’ān 5:116–117 [Arberry, I, 147]).

22. Needless to say, Islamic orthodox writings later sought to cleanse the narrative of the early caliphate by discouraging any historical commentary on companion behavior. Hence one reads the frequent exhortation in various biographical dictionaries that the most anathemous activities are three: discussing the subject of qadar (fate), the subject of the stars (i.e., astronomy or astrology), and telling stories about the companions. Abū al-Qāsim al-Sahmī, Ta’rīkh Jurjān (Beirut, 1987), 295, 429. The two ḥadīths are narrated on the authority of Ibn ‘Umar and Ibn ‘Abbās. A variant version on this ḥadīth is given by ‘Abd al-Karīm b. Muḥammad al-Rāfi‘ī al-Qazwīnī al-Tadwīn fī Akhbār Qazwīn, ed. ‘Azīz allāh al-‘Uṭāridī, 4 vols. (Beirut, 1987), II, 39.

23. The comparison of the day after ‘Uthmān’s assassination to the episode of the golden calf is attested in a conversation between al-Ashtar and Masrūq (according to Sufyān al-Thawrī). Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi, al-‘Iqd, IV, 295. It is within this context of comparison that much of the representation of the Kufan dissidence during ‘Uthmān’s reign was intended to be understood. Sayf b. ‘Umar’s characterization of the rowdy Kufan opponents to Sa‘īd b. al-‘Āṣ with the term “al-sufahā’” was meant to evoke the Qur’ānic verse in which Moses pleads with God, “Wilt Thou Destroy us for what the foolish ones of us have done? [a-tuhlikanā bi-mā fa‘ala al-sufahā’ minnā]” (Qur’ān 7:155 [Arberry, I, 189]). In reading narratives within this frame of representation, a reader can start to piece together other fragments in Rāshidūn history so that they begin to make sense. ‘Umar’s famous denial at the Saqīfa—that the Prophet had died, and that it was not a death that had occurred but that the Prophet had departed (in spirit) to meet with God, as Moses had done, and that he would come back in both body and spirit and punish those who claimed he died—shows a narrative conflation of two different prophetic experiences, those of both Moses and Jesus (the latter being the one departed in spirit). Two different reports given by Ibn Sa‘d about the elevation of Jesus and Moses in spirit (the first reported on the authority of al-Wāqidī, and the second on that of ‘Ikrima) show the intertextual inspiration for the discourse attributed to ‘Umar about Muḥammad’s elevation in spirit. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 266, 271

24. In a range of ḥadīths the Prophet is said to comment that his community is “the most resembling for the Banū Isrā’īl…” or that they “shall follow exactly in their footsteps,” “be afflicted as the Israelites were,” and “divide into 72 sects as the Christians and Jews before them.” All these ḥadīths originated from a sense of resemblance in historical fate and the transition from triumph to temptation. For such ḥadīths, see al-Hindī’s Kanz, XI, 246 (no. 31396). This can be found in the ḥadīth that states, “There shall come upon my nation exactly what has happened to the Banū Isrā’īl [la-ya’tiyanna ‘alā ummatī mā atā ‘alā banī isrā’īl mithlan bi-mithlḥadhwa al-na‘li bi’l-na‘l]. The Banū Isrā’īl dispersed into 72 sects and my community will divide into 73 sects.” Kanz, I, 183 (no. 928).

25. The famous ḥadīth: “You shall follow the sunan of those who came before you—shibran bi-shibr” (the reference is confirmed as being to both Christians and Jews). Aḥmad, Musnad, XVIII, 357. Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ al-Bārī (kitāb aḥādīth al-anbiyā’), VI, 613 (no. 3456). Sayf b. ‘Umar, Kitāb al-Ridda wa al-Futūḥ and Kitāb al-Jamal wa Masīr ‘Āisha wa ‘Alī, ed. Q. al-Samarrā’ī (Leiden, 1995), I, 131. It should be mentioned here that the Islamic view of the past established a collectivity between Christians and Jews under the term “Israelite” (Banū Isrā’īl). Whenever used in ḥadīth literature the term refers to both groups in a historical sense as a national continuum rather than distinguishable religious sects.

26. Here ‘Umar’s famous statement, “Do you not find [in the tradition] that the Prophet is followed by the caliph, and the latter by the kings?” al-Hindī, Kanz, XVI, 686 (no. 14191). The Prophet reportedly states in a ḥadīth, “Prophets used to run the affairs of the Banū Isrā’īl [kānat banū isrā’īl tasūsuhum al-anbiyā’]. Every time a prophet died, he was succeeded by a prophet. There shall be no prophet after me, but there will be caliphs who will become many in number.” Then when asked by his companions how they should deal with them, he said, “Give them the oath of allegiance and your loyalty. God will question them about how they ran your affairs.” Aḥmad, Musnad, XIII, 340; al-Hindī, Kanz, V, 785 (no. 14380–14381); VI, 51 (14805). Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. ‘Alī al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Ta’rīkh Baghdād, 14 vols. (Cairo, 1931), V, 473. Muslim, V (pt. 10), 231 (no. 1842). Another ḥadīth declares that the history of the Islamic state would comprise twelve caliphs in equal number to the twelve disciples (nuqabā’) of Moses. Abū al-Faḍl ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Suyūṭī, Ta’rīkh al-Khulafā (Cairo, 1964), 13 (the hadith is quoted from Aḥmad’s Musnad, and on the authority of Ibn Mas‘ūd). U. Rubin has noted the influence on this tradition by the idea of twelve princes projected from the line of Ishmael in Genesis 17:20, and the attestation for disciples in Numbers 7:2. U. Rubin, Between Bible and Qur’ān (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1999), 252–256. Also relevant is an ‘Abbāsid version of the ḥadīth that is provided in the biography of the caliph al-Manṣūr. Ibn ‘Abbās there reportedly predicts a line of twelve amīrs to be followed by the rule of ahl al-bayt (the family of the Prophet), and then the rule is concluded with the reigns of al-Manṣūr, al-Mahdī, and, afterward, Jesus. Abū’l-Qāsim ‘Alī b. al-Ḥasan b. ‘Asākir, Ta’rīkh Madīnat Dimashq, ed. ‘Umar b. Gharāma al-‘Amrawī, 80 vols. (Beirut, 1995–2000), XXXII, 303. The mention of the twelve rulers is sometimes not specified as caliphs (just as those in charge of authority). However, a followup clarification that all of these will be from the Quraysh provides the main message about the path of Islam’s political history (irrespective of whether the Rāshidūn or the Umayyads were being counted within this process). Muslim, VI (pt. 12), 201–203.

27. A report attributed to Ka‘b declares, “no nation ever escaped being tried after more than thirty-five years of the passing away of its prophet had elapsed.” Nu‘aym b. Ḥammād al-Marwazī, Kitāb al-Fitan, ed. S. Zakkar (Beirut, 1993), 421, 426. Other ḥadīths also highlight the thirty-five-year horizon of the successful community. Aḥmad, Musnad, VI, 276, 300–301. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 572. Ṭabarī seems to use this time horizon consistently for states, such as when he notes that the Turks began their depredations against the Persian kingdom in Kayanid times, after thirty-five years had elapsed from the rule of Manushihr, and then uses the event as the background for Manushihr’s famous speech calling on his people to reform their ways. Ṭabarī, I, 436. See appendix III. Other traditionalist texts set the history of the caliphate at thirty years, and categorize what followed as kingship (mulk). ‘Imād al-Dīn Ismā‘īl b. ‘Umar b. Kathīr, al-Nihāya fī’l-Fitan wa’l-Malāḥim, ed. A. ‘Abd al-Shāfī (Beirut, 1988), 6 (also citing Aḥmad, Abū Dāwūd, al-Nisā’ī and al-Tirmidhī).

28. S. Sandmel, Judaism and Christian Beginnings (Oxford, 1978), 361.

29. Best strengthening such a linkage here are the numerous warning statements attributed to ‘Abdallāh b. Sallām, a former Jew. Whereas Ka‘b al-Aḥbār warned about what would happen after ‘Umar’s death, Ibn Sallām cautioned about the aftermath of ‘Uthmān’s overthrow. On the eve of ‘Uthmān’s death, Ibn Sallām warned the attackers, saying, “Do not unleash the sword of God upon you…. today your community is governed with the whip [al-darra], but if you kill him [i.e., ‘Uthmān] it will only be governed with the sword. Woe to you! Your city is today guarded by the angels, but if you kill him, they shall abandon the place.” Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr Yaḥyā al-Māliqī, al-Tamhīd wa’l-Bayān fī Maqtal al-Shahīd ‘Uthmān, ed. Maḥmūd Yūsuf Zāyed (Beirut, 1964), 135. The travails of Ismā‘īl’s lineage of prophets thus turn out to run parallel to those faced earlier by Isaac’s lineage, and the whole cycle of religious salvation concludes with the divine unleashing of a monarchal power that brings an expiating conquest to the elected nation (the Jews and the Hāshimites). A close reading of the scene of ‘Uthmān’s downfall also shows direct borrowing from the story of Jesus’ surrender.

30. ‘Abdallāh b. Sallām is said to have cautioned that the death of a caliph would bring punishment on the community with the death of thirty-five thousand people, much as the murder of a prophet in the past had led to the punishment of fifty thousand people. Ibn Sa‘d, Ṭabaqāt, III, 83. Balādhurī, Ansāb al-Ashrāf, Banū ‘Abd Shams, ed. ‘Abd al-‘Azīz al-Dūrī (Wiesbaden, 1979), I, 565, 582. Abū’l-‘Arab Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Tamīmī, Kitāb al-Miḥan, ed. Y. al-Jubūrī (Beirut, 1983), 82. A report quoting Ibn ‘Abbās states, “Had the people not sought vengeance for the death of ‘Uthmān, they would have been struck down by stones falling from the sky.” Ibn Sa‘d, III, 80.

31. Al-Hindī, Kanz, XI, 223 (no. 31306). Ibn ‘Asākir, XXXIX, 447. Another tradition adds, “When ‘Uthmān is killed, the sword is unleashed until Judgment Day.” Ibn ‘Asākir, XXXIX, 444. The perception of ‘Uthmān’s death as causing cataclysm is also included in ‘Alī’s initial warning speech to ‘Uthmān at the onset of the Kufan opposition. Ṭabarī, I, 2938. It should be noted here that narrators also expected readers to recognize that the first dajjāl (fraudulent leader) was ‘Abdallāh b. Saba’, who was compared to Paul of Tarsus. Sayf b. ‘Umar, Kitāb al-Ridda wa’l-Futūḥ, 135.

32. Occasional ḥadīths in fitan literature can perhaps provide guiding parameters for how to read underlying moralizing themes in the historical narratives. One such ḥadīth addressing the muhājirūn declares that five traits bring on certain cataclysms. Paraphrased, these are: the spread of sin (al-fāḥisha), which leads to the plague; tampering with trading scales (inqāṣ al-mikyāl), which leads to inflation and oppression (shiddat al-ma’ūna wa jūr al-sulṭān); the holding back of almsgiving (zakāt), which leads to droughts; the breaking of covenants, which leads to invasions by the enemy; and the neglect of divine injunctions (ḥukm al-a’imma bi-kitāb allāh), which leads to civil war. Ibn Kathīr, al-Nihāya, 19.

33. Ṭabarī, I, 1846. Donner, HT, X, 12.

34. Ṭabarī, I, 1847. Donner, HT, X, 13.

35. In a speech that ‘Uthmān reportedly made shortly after being designated caliph, he declares, “Surely this world harbors deceit [inna al-dunyā ṭuwiyat ‘alā al-ghurūr], ‘so let not the present life delude you,’ and ‘let not the deceitful one delude you concerning God.’ Consider those who have gone before you, then be in earnest and do not be neglectful, for you will surely not be overlooked. Where are the sons and brothers of this world who tilled it, dwelt in it, and were long granted enjoyment therein? [ayna abnā’ al-dunyā wa ikhwānuhā alladhīna athārūhā wa ‘amarūhā wa mutti‘ū bihā ṭawīlan ?] Did it not spit them out? Cast aside this world as God has cast it aside and seek the hereafter, for verily God has coined a parable for it and for that which is better. The Almighty has said: ‘And strike for them the similitude of the present life [mathal al-ḥayāt al-dunyā]: it is as water that We send down out of heaven, [and the plants of the earth mingle with it; and in the morning it is straw the winds scatter; and God is omnipotent over everything. Wealth and sons are the adornment of the present world; but the abiding things, the deeds of righteousness, are better with God in reward, and better in hope.’] (Qur’ān 18:42–44).” Ṭabarī, I, 2800–2801. Humphreys, HT, XV, 3–4.

36. Ṭabarī, I, 2802–2803. Humphreys, HT, XV, 6.

37. ‘Uthmān here declares: “Verily you are the guardians and protectors of the Muslims and ‘Umar laid down for you [instructions] that were not hidden from us; on the contrary, they were in accordance with our counsel. Let me hear of no change or alteration on the part of any one of you, lest God change your situation and replace you with others [wa lā yablughannī ‘an aḥadin minkum taghyīr wa lā tabdīl fa-yughayyir allāhu mā bi-kum wa yastabdil bi-kum ghayrukum]. So examine your conduct, for I shall examine what God has required me to examine and watch over [fa-innī anẓur fī-mā alzamanī allāhu al-naẓara fīhi wa’ l-qiyāma ‘alayhi].” Ṭabarī, I, 2803. Humphreys, HT, XV, 6. Ṭabarī, I, 2803–2804. Humphreys, HT, XV, 7. In another speech, ‘Uthmān also advises, “Beware of the Divine wrath. Adhere to your community; do not divide into hostile sects [ilzamū jamā‘atakum, lā taṣīrū aḥzāban]. ‘Remember God’s blessing you when you were enemies, and He brought your hearts together, so that by His blessings you became brothers’ (Qur’ān 3:98).” Ṭabarī, I, 3059. Humphreys, HT, XV, 257.

38. ‘Uthmān declares: “To proceed: You have attained so much only by strict adherence to sound models [of conduct]. Let not this world turn you away from your proper concerns [amrikum], for this community will become involved in innovation after three things occur together among you: complete prosperity [takāmul al-ni‘am], the attainment of adulthood by the children of the captive women, and the recitation of the Qur’ān by both Arabs and non-Arabs [qirā’ at ala‘rāb wa’l-a‘ājim al-Qur’ān]. The Messenger of God has said, ‘Unbelief stems from speaking Arabic badly [al-kufru fī’l-‘ujma]; if something seems foreign to them, they will do it awkwardly and [thereby] bring about innovation [fa-in ista‘jama ‘alayhim amr takallafū wa ibtada‘ū].’” Ṭabarī, I, 2803–2804. Humphreys, HT, XV, 7. The uncanny resemblance of these letters to what ‘Umar would say led another source to cap this letter attributed to ‘Uthmān with a concluding statement from ‘Umar. After the statement “takallafū wa ibtada ‘ū,” al-Māliqī’s version states: “‘Umar b. al-Khaṭṭāb stated: ‘The affairs of Banū Isrā’īl remained stable until their offsprings from foreign women [captives of war or slaves] increased among them, and these began to interpret religion in speculative ways. Thus, they went astray and led the Israelites astray [inna amra banī isrā’ īl lam yazal mu‘tadilan ḥattā kathura fīhim al-muwalladūn abnā’ sabāyā al-umam fa-qālū fīhim bi’l-ra’y fa-ḍallū wa aḍallū banī isrā’ īl].’” Al-Māliqī, al-Tamhīd wa’ l-Bayān, 31. Yūsuf b. ‘Abdallāh b. ‘Abd al-Barr, Jāmi‘ Bayān al-‘I lm wa Faḍlihi, II, 138. Later a similarly constructed declaration assigned to Mālik b. Anas would attribute the bane to Abū Ḥanīfa (lam yazal amru al-Kūfa mu‘tadilan ḥattā nasha’ fihim Abū Ḥanīfa fa-qāla bi’l-qiyās). Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, Jāmi‘, II, 147.

39. Ṭabarī, I, 2409. When ‘Umar inquires about this prophecy, Ka‘b tells him the story of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, and the prediction of one prophet, who came to the city after the arrival of the Muslim armies, and declared, “Rejoice O Jerusalem. Al-Fārūq will come to you and cleanse you.” This was hence the context through which ‘Umar came to be recognized as “al-Fārūq.” The title was therefore acquired not on the grounds of the ḥadīth that reflects Sunnī hagiography wherein the Prophet gives this title to ‘Umar, but through the context of parabolic narration, which wove a different myth around the conquest. See chap. 3.

40. Isaiah 45.1. About the image of Cyrus as a conqueror, see G. Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences to Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Princeton, 1992), 138.

41. Ṭabarī, I, 673.

42. One contemporary of ‘Umar reportedly commented on the significance of ‘Umar’s death for the fortunes of Islam, saying: “Today Islam has set in retreat. Not even a man running away from an enemy pursuing him on the open plains is faster in flight than Islam is today.” Ibn Sa‘d, III, 369. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 501. Another commented in memory of ‘Umar later, “He [i.e., ‘Umar] was the fortress of Islam, which Muslims entered and did not leave. When ‘Umar died the fortress was breached, and the people have been leaving Islam and not rejoining it.” Ibn Sa‘d, III, 371. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 502. Another report declares, “The death of ‘Umar created a breach in Islam that will not be closed until the Day of Judgment.” Ibn Sa‘d, III, 372; Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 503. Related to this theme is also the commentary of Salmān after the conquest of Ctesiphon where, impressed by the rapidity of the conquest across the Tigris River, he declared, “Islam is at fresh start, the waters have been made obedient to them as the overland passages…. Verily, they shall abandon [the faith] in droves just as they entered it in droves.” Ṭabarī, I, 2437.

43. Ka‘b al-Aḥbār’s prediction to Mu‘āwiya, “You are to be the amīr after him [i.e., ‘Uthmān], but you will not obtain [this office] until you dismiss what I have just related.” Ṭabarī, I, 2947. In another account Sayf uses another Jewish sage (ḥabr) in Oman to convey the prediction about Mu‘āwiya’s succession (after the four caliphs, whom he describes) to the caliphate. This prediction was made to ‘Amr b. al-‘Āṣ when he came as envoy of the Prophet to Oman, and became intrigued reportedly to find out from this credible scholar what events would transpire after the Prophet’s death. Ṭabarī, I, 3251–3252. Ka‘b also attributes a reference to ‘Uthmān’s death in the Torah. Abū Zayd ‘Umar b. Shabba, Kitāb Ta’rīkh al-Madīna al-Munawwara (Akhbār al-Madīna al-Nabawiyya), ed. ‘Alī Muḥammad Dandal, 2 vols. (Beirut, 1996), II, 192.

44. It is worth noting that Mu‘āwiya in turn reportedly praised Ka‘b al-Aḥbār after his death for having been a genuine scholar (aḥad al-‘ulamā’) who did not receive his due recognition. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 358.

45. Some traditions also attribute to Ka‘b al-Aḥbār a statement about the divine right of rulers.

46. Thus the historian Ya‘qūbī quotes Abū Mūsā al-Ash‘arī as finding an analogy for the Taḥkīm episode in Israelite history, while a report attributed to Ka‘b al-Aḥbār declares a similarity between the first fitna war and previous Jewish wars. Stopping once at the locale of Ṣiffīn in Syria, Ka‘b reportedly declared, “The Israelites fought one another nine times with these rocks [on the road], and the Arabs will fight one another in the tenth time using the same stones.” Ya‘qūbī, Ta’rīkh, II, 191; Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya wa’l-Nihāya, 14 parts in 8 vols. (Beirut, 1985), IV (pt. 7), 286. Ibn Shaddād, al-A‘lāq al-Khaṭīra fī A‘lām al-Shām wa’l-Jazīra (Damascus, 1991), I (pt. 2), 30.

47. Others who make a similar reference to “al-kitāb al-awwal” include Zayd b. Khārija al-Anṣārī. ‘Umar b. Shabba, T a’rīkh al-Madīna, II, 184–185.

48. It is within this frame of meaning that ‘Alī’s comment at the conclusion of the selection process for a caliph at the Shūrā makes sense: “God’s decree will come in its time [sayablugh al-kitābu ajalahu].” Ṭabarī, I, 2786.

49. ‘Umar b. Shabba, Ta’rīkh al-Madīna, II, 225–228.

50. It is worth noting in this context a report that depicts Ka‘b al-Aḥbār asking al-‘Abbās to grant him his shafā‘a (intercession for forgiveness) on Judgment Day. Balādhurī, Ansāb al-Ashrāf, al-‘Abbās b. ‘ Abd al-Muṭṭalib wa waladuhu, ed. A. al-Dūrī (Wiesbaden, 1987), III, 17. Chain of transmission: ‘Umar b. Ḥammād b. Abū Ḥanīfa←Muḥammad b. al-Fuḍayl b. Ghazwān←Zakariyya b. ‘Aṭiyya←‘Aṭiyya. On one occasion Ibn ‘Abbās is described beginning a ḥadīth session with Ka‘b al-Aḥbār by saying, “I shall ask you about certain matters. Do not narrate to me what has been modified in tradition [mā ḥurrifa min al-kitāb] or what has been reported in later time [wa lā bi-aḥādīth al-rijāl]. If you do not know, then just say ‘I don’t know’ for this gives a better judgment of you [fa-innahu a‘lam laka]. Ansāb (al-‘Abbās), 38. Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm al-Dawraqī←Shujā‘ b. Mukhlad al-Fallās← al-‘Awwām b. Ḥawshab←al-Qāsim b. ‘Awf al-Shaybānī. Another report depicts a Jew from al-Ḥīra who is knowledgeable about biblical lore deferring to the wider expertise of Ibn ‘Abbās. Ansāb (al-‘Abbās), 37.

51. One need only survey the concluding chapter of Muir’s study of the caliphate to discern the wide-ranging contrasts and challenges that the author draws between the West and the Islamic world during his time period, and to recognize that he perceived the study of the classical Islamic period to be a didactic and relevant exercise for Western interaction with the contemporary Islamic culture. W. Muir, The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (Edinburgh, 1915), 603–609.

52. While this challenge has come mainly from scholars of religious studies, the historical literature on the early Islamic period has remained until recently largely traditional in its approaches of credulity and synthesis. A sampling of studies that sought to analyze in positivist terms political, social, and religious issues for the early Islamic period includes the following: Hichem Djaït, La Grande Discorde: Religion et politique dans l’Islam des origines (Paris: Gallimard, 1989); Fred Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton, 1981); M. Hinds, “Kufan Political Alignments and Their Background in the Mid-Seventh Century A.D.,” International Journal of Middle East Studies II, 1971; H. Lammens, “Le Tirumvirat Abou Bakr, ‘Omar et Abou ‘Obaida,” Mélanges de la Faculté Orientale de l’Université St Joseph de Beyrouth IV (1910): 113–144; M. A. Shaban, Islamic History, A New Interpretation (Cambridge, 1976); W. Madelung, The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate (Cambridge, 1997). A fuller list of relevant titles is given in the bibliography.

53. Only rarely does one encounter a blunt admission of this reality, such as when Stanley Lane-Poole states in the preface to a collection of commentaries by Edward Lane on The Thousand and One Nights, “To the records of these medieval writers [referring to Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Maqrīzī, and al-Suyūṭī, among others], Mr. Lane added the results of his personal experience; and in doing so he was guilty of no anachronism: for the Arabian society in which a Saladin, a Beybars, a Barkook, and a Kait-Bey moved, and of which the native historians have preserved so full and graphic a record, survived almost unchanged to the time of Mohammad ‘Alee, when Mr. Lane spent many years of intimate acquaintance among the people of Cairo. The Life that he saw was the same as that described by El-Makreezee and Es-Suyootee; and the purely Muslim society in which Mr. Lane preferred to move was in spirit, in custom, and in all essentials the same society that once hailed a Haroon er-Rasheed, a Jaafar el-Barmekee, and an Aboo-Nuwas, among its members. The continuity of Arabian social tradition was practically unbroken from almost the beginning of the Khalifate to the present century, at least in such a metropolis of Islam as Cairo, or as Damascus, or Baghdad” (Edward William Lane, Arabian Society in the Middle Ages, Studies from the Thousand and One Nights [London, 1883], xxi). A similar view of a continuity that is monolithic in cultural and textual terms is propounded by R. B. Serjeant, who uses the examples of diplomatic dealings in Arabia, and especially Yemen, in the post-WWI period as evidence for how the early Muslim state might have functioned: R. B. Serjeant, “Early Arabic Prose,” in Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period, ed. A. F. L. Beeston et al. (Cambridge, 1983), 150.

54. For a survey of the state of debate between these two camps among historians, see F. Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1998), 1–31; and H. Motzki’s survey of the debate in the fields of law and ḥadīth, The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence: Meccan Fiqh Before the Classical Schools, trans. Marion Katz (Leiden, 2002), 1–49. Also, H. Berg, “Competing Paradigms in the Study of Islamic Origins: Qur’ān 15:89– 91 and the Value of Isnāds,” in Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins, ed. H. Berg (Leiden, 2003), 259–290. Although the skeptical approach was well established among specialists of religious studies (or more typically specialists whose work fell mainly in the sphere of religious studies, such as I. Goldziher, H. Lammens, R. Brunschvig, and J. Schacht), it was not until the publication of M. Cook and P. Crone’s Hagarism that historians began debating questions about historical authenticity for the early Islamic period anew. Cook and Crone’s work was influential in the way it again highlighted the picture of religious interaction among Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as a background and an influential context for reading the process of Islam’s crystallization in the period of the seventh–ninth centuries. However, the authors’ speculative theses about an alternative historical reality, based on the use of scant non-Muslim texts from the early period and combining these whenever convenient with the traditional Arabic sources, presented problems of methodology and inconsistency that made it difficult to corroborate their work. A crucial problem with Hagarism (as well as with the even less compelling work of G. Hawting) is its early dating of the formative period of religious flux (the “sectarian milieu”) to the seventh century and, more significantly, its authors’ neglect of the phenomenon whereby texts can often be representational and derivative rather than factual—whether written by Muslims or non-Muslims. Be that as it may, the ensuing historical debate has once again rekindled among religion specialists the question of the authenticity of Islamic tradition. Recently, however, a new cluster of opinion has emerged that argues for the credulous point of view, declaring that ḥadīth material does in fact seem to preserve within it some authentic record about the past. A key example of this latest trend is the work of H. Motzki, “The Muṣannaf of ‘Abd al-Razzāq al-Ṣan‘ānī as a Source of Authentic Aḥādīth of the First Century A.H.,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 50 (1991): 1–21. It should be recognized, however, that the endeavors of this latter camp of scholars have primarily focused on isnād criticism rather than on analysis of the content of ḥadīth or on trying to place these texts in a historical context. For a survey of this literature, see H. Berg, The Development of Exegesis in Early Islam: The Authenticity of Muslim Literature from the Formative Period (London, 2000), 69–73.

55. As J. Wellhausen puts it, “The accounts are sifted, edited, and blended together by them [i.e., the later narrators]” (J. Wellhausen, The Arab Kingdom, xii). P. Crone puts the process of growth in accounts somewhat differently, stating, “It is obvious that if one storyteller should happen to mention a raid, the next storyteller would know the date of this raid, while the third would know everything that an audience might wish to hear about it” (Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam [Princeton, 1987], 224). And elsewhere Crone characterizes the work of the compilers of accounts as something that is “strikingly devoid of overall unity” (Slaves on Horses [Cambridge, 1980], 13). J. Lassner also emphasizes the ways in which the story is changed over time with reference to the ‘Abbāsids; Islamic Revolution and Historical Memory (New Haven, 1986), 25. And, finally, A. Noth and L. Conrad agree with the previous opinions in stating that the historical documents underwent “a long process of transmission, in the course of which they have been subjected to all sorts of changes” (The Early Arabic Historical Tradition: A Source-Critical Study [Princeton: Darwin Press, 1994], 72). The most recent survey of this secondary literature, F. Donner’s Narratives of Islamic Origins : The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing, provides an introductory survey of the debate about the sources, but generally maintains the categories of analysis introduced by Noth and Conrad, without giving additional textual analysis.

56. A. Noth and L. Conrad, The Early Arabic Historical Tradition, 4–17. R. S. Humphreys, Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry (Princeton, 1991), 102 (with reference to a discussion of Balādhurī’s sources). E. L. Petersen, ‘ Alī and Mu‘āwiya in Early Arabic Tradition: Studies on the Genesis and Growth of Islamic Historical Writing Until the End of the Ninth Century, trans. P. L. Christensen (Copenhagen, 1964), 73–74, 88.

57. It should be noted that Wansbrough’s notion of salvation history in the Islamic context did not take into account an apocalyptic and messianic component in the narrative of the Prophetic dispensation or in the historiography of the early period in general; The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History (Oxford, 1978), 88–89, 138, 142, 146–150. Wansbrough’s notion of salvation history in the Islamic context remained centered on the idea of a reworked covenant with its more developed concept of law. As noted earlier in regard to the traditions about the transformation of the community during the fitna, however, and as can be discerned from the chiliastic Meccan sūrās of the Qur’ān, there is considerable evidence that make his restrictive opinion untenable.

58. The Sīra and the Maghāzī, for example, can take on additional methodological meanings—besides the aspects of salvation history and religious triumph—when examined in light of the wider scope of the Islamic historical narrative. The Qur’ānic verse about the Prophet’s share of the war booty (Qur’ān 8:41) that Wāqidī includes at the end of the story about the Battle of Badr, for example, was not merely ornamental or superfluous to a story of salvation history, as Wansbrough argued (Sectarian Milieu, 29–30), but legitimist and polemical, relating more to the financial controversy of ‘Uthmān’s reign and contentions in the ‘Abbāsid period than to the context of the Sīra. In general, Wansbrough’s emphasis on the construct of salvation history reduced the Sīra to being an aetiology of the law, and a story of consistent success where ideal and reality coincide, unlike the case of the Judaic and Christian experiences. Sectarian Milieu, 148. This, however, oversimplified the aims of the Sīra. There are in fact a variety of instances where the Prophet had to manage a situation of uncooperative companions, and theology is not usually the foundation of much of this discourse as much as morality (D. S. Margoliouth had already pointed to this odd representation of the Companions in the Sīra when he stated that “the character which [Ibn Isḥāq] gives the Companions of the Prophet is rarely pleasing, even if it is not actually repulsive” [The Early Development of Mohammedanism, 237]). This limited perception of the Sīra, however, leads to a more general misreading of Islamic historiography when Wansbrough asserts that “a dialectic of theology and history is hardly attested in Islamic literature,” and speaks of history as simply being “the proving ground for the claims made by revelation” (Sectarian Milieu, 137). If indeed this were the case, Ṭabarī’s chronicle should not have been about the history of prophets and kings, but only of prophets.

59. This absence of an Islamic historical sense reduced Wansbrough’s judgment about textual composition to a contradictory set of opinions. His view that religious texts originated in an environment of inter-confessional polemic (akin to that of Qumran vs. Karaism) can conjure up an earlier, and militantly combative, period of sectarian strife in Islamic history such as between the Khārijites and Sunnīs in the seventh century. Sectarian Milieu, 40. However, the author later proposes a more leisurely and pedantic environment for literary composition of religious history that presumes a secure academic environment in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. Sectarian Milieu, 59, 138; Qur’anic Studies, 47, 70. And even then, Wansbrough could not but accept some texts about the early period as authentic (such as the text that deals with the conversation between the Prophet and Ḥuyayy b. Akhṭab, simply because it is “witty and spicy”); Sectarian Milieu, 16 (another example is the author’s acceptance of the group of the Qurrā’ who figure among Islamic armies as a historical fact reminiscent of biblical parallels; Sectarian Milieu, 69). The variety of such opinions meant that questions of historical context and motivations for composition got oversimplified, such as in Wansbrough’s observation that the primary aim of Ibn Isḥāq’s Sīra was to provide (or justify) a Ḥijāzī context for the origin of Islam. Sectarian Milieu, 58, 79.

60. P. Crone and M. Cook, Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (Cambridge, 1977), 18–19. G. Hawting, The Idea of Idolatry in Early Islam (Cambridge, 1999), 14. J. Johns, “Archaeology and the History of Early Islam: The First Seventy Years,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 46 (2003): 411–436. Others who have emphasized the Umayyad background for the coalescence of the Islamic historical tradition include U. Rubin, who finds that the story of the Islamic conquest of Syria (Palestine and Jerusalem, more specifically) shows the incorporation of biblical-messianic notions in a way that was “designed to serve the apologetic Umayyad needs and mainly to legitimize the Islamic presence in the Holy Land.” Rubin then compares the conquest of Syria to the notion of a “new exodus,” marking Jewish deliverance and the emergence of a new community of believers, and argues that this adaptation of theme was done by Ka‘b al-Aḥbār. Between Bible and Qur’ān, 5, 17. There are a number of problems with this reading, including the fact that it mistakes a parabolic cycle of narrative for a propagandistic one, and that it shows the author as accepting of the historical reality of Ka‘b al-Aḥbār’s sayings. An Islamic conquest of Syria (unlike the usurpation of caliphal succession rights such as between the ‘Abbāsids and the ‘Alids) did not require an apologist enterprise, and the Syrian front in the grand sweep of the early Islamic chronicles was at any rate not the main story that commanded Islamic attention about triumph and tribulation; it was the Iraq–Iran trajectory that commanded the logic of religious and literary composition. Syria figured prominently as a haven for a return to orthodoxy after the closure of the fitna narratives. More recent studies have begun doubting and rejecting the notion that Islam underwent its critical formation during ‘Abd al-Malik’s reign and that this happened in the vicinity of late seventh-century Syria. C. Robinson, ‘ Abd al-Malik (Oxford, 2005), 113. And for a more perceptive rebuttal of Hagarism and its followers see R. Hoyland, “New Documentary Texts and the Early Islamic State,” BSOAS 69 (2006): 395–416. Also, F. Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origin, 275–290.

61. For Schacht’s opinion that ḥadīth and sunna reflected Umayyad practice in certain spheres of law, see The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (Oxford, 1950), 190–198. Also, Schacht’s An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford, 1964), 23– 27; “A Revaluation of Islamic Traditions,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1949): 152–153; and “The Law,” in Unity and Variety in Muslim Civilization, ed. G. Von Grunebaum (Chicago, 1955), 68–70. In this, Schacht built on the conclusions of Goldziher, who placed considerable emphasis on the Umayyad patronage of the ḥadīth scholar al-Zuhrī. I. Goldziher, Muslim Studies, trans. S. Stern, 2 vols. (London 1967–71), II, 43–47. P. Crone and M. Hinds would follow the same chronological frame for dating the tradition but placed even stronger emphasis on the Umayyads as promulgators of the law. God’s Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (Cambridge, 1986), 45–53.

62. Whatever application Schacht envisaged for his work beyond the scope of law was based on a theory of isnād, rather than a theory of historical context, which would have allowed a more critical evaluation of the polemical, political, and even legalistic interests of later times. As he put it with respect to the Sīra, “historical information on the Prophet is only the background for legal doctrines and therefore devoid of independent value” (“A Reevaluation of Islamic Traditions,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society [1949]: 149). If it is not with reference to the Umayyads as the authority that shaped the context for the systematization of ḥadīth, Schacht and others have been fixated on using that time period as the earliest possible time for the beginning of isnād formation. Historians have tended to adopt Schacht’s conclusion for their research as well. E. L. Petersen, ‘ Alī and Mu ‘āwiya, 25. Recently, H. Berg also accepted Schacht’s scheme about isnād attribution and the back-projection of traditions to the sphere of exegetical narratives. The Development of Exegesis in Early Islam: The Authenticity of Muslim Literature from the Formative Period (London, 2000), 209.

63. Others who accepted the historicity of reports about al-Zuhrī include I. Goldziher. J. Horovitz, N. Abbott, A. Duri, G. Juynboll, M. Lecker, and G. Schoeler. The starting point for this flaw among modern scholars is thus twofold: credulity regarding the idea that al-Zuhrī was the pioneer of the writing down of ḥadīths, and acceptance of what the primary sources say about the Umayyad use of al-Zuhrī to propagate information (both their own propaganda and ḥadīth in general). The starting point in a trail of anecdotes that are strung together to produce the traditional (and revisionist) reading probably begins with al-Zuhrī’s purported statement, “We disliked writing until the authorities [the umarā’] compelled us to do so; then I decided not to prevent any Muslim from doing likewise.” Ibn Sa‘d, II, 389 (narrated on the authority of ‘Abd al-Razzāq). Who those “umarā’” were is a glaring question; they should have been easily identified with one Umayyad ruler, but instead there is a range of evidence referring to ‘Abd al-Malik or his much later successor, Hishām (a thirty-or forty-year margin of error). M. Lecker, “Biographical Notes on Ibn Shihab al-Zuhrī,” BSOAS 61 (1996): 26. The next report in this cluster of information is Ṣāliḥ b. Kaysān’s, which describes how al-Zuhrī went about the task of ḥadīth collecting. Ṣāliḥ states, “Ibn Shihāb and I were looking for ‘ ilm [religious knowledge] and we agreed to record the sunna. Thus we wrote down everything we heard about the Prophet. Then al-Zuhrī said, ‘Let us write down what we can find attributed to his companions.’ But I said, ‘No, that is not sunna.’ Al-Zuhrī, however, insisted that it was and recorded this also.” Ṣāliḥ then added with some regret, “I did not record it, so al-Zuhrī became a successful traditionist, whereas I did not.” Ibn Sa‘d, II, 388 (narrated on the authority of ‘Abd al-Razzāq); Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, Jām i‘, I, 76. G. Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, 35. Once al-Zuhrī’s reputation as an avid ḥadīth collector was established, he is described as having served the Umayyads in various official tasks, including being a tax collector, a chief of the police, and a tutor of Hishām b. ‘Abd al-Malik’s children. The most notable ḥadīth that al-Zuhrī reportedly narrated in connection with Umayyad interests was the Jerusalem ḥadīth when ‘Abd al-Malik told the public, after seeking to promote the Dome of the Rock as an alternative pilgrimage site during the revolt of ‘Abdallāh b. al-Zubayr, “Here is Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī who transmits to you the Prophet’s saying: ‘The saddles of the camels shall only be fastened for a journey to three mosques, namely the Ka‘ba, my own mosque [i.e., in Medina] and the mosque of Jerusalem.’” Ya‘qūbī, Ta’rīkh, II, 261. Goldziher, Muslim Studies, II, 47. Also, Josef Horovitz, The Earliest Biographies of the Prophet and Their Authors, ed. L. Conrad (Princeton: Darwin Press, 2002), 53–63. N. Abbott, Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri, I, 25–40. A. A. Guillaume, The Traditions of Islam: An Introduction to the Study of Hadith Literature (Oxford, 1924), 47–50. A. A. Duri, “Al-Zuhrī: a Study of the Beginnings of History Writing in Islam,” BSOAS 19 (1957): 1–12. G. Schoeler, The Oral and the Written in Early Islam, trans. Uwe Vagelpohl (London, 2006), 73–83. M. Cook has pointed to the range of contradictory evidence relating to the process of the writing down of tradition: M. Cook, “The Opponents of the Writing of Tradition in Early Islam,” Arabica 64 (1997): 459–463. G. Juynboll also stresses the Umayyad role in shaping the early ḥadīth, but cites the caliph ‘Umar II and his pietistic impulses as the reason behind a crucial Umayyad motive in codifying ḥadīth. G. Juynboll stresses that ḥadīth underwent its main development in the last decades of the first century (700s– 720s), and places emphasis on the founding role in ḥadīth formation to al-Zuhrī, al-Sha‘bī, and al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (but excludes Sa‘īd b. al-Musayyib). G. Juynboll, Muslim Tradition, 19, 39, 34–35, 73, 74. While rejecting an Umayyad political or pietistic role in stimulating the development of ḥadīth, J. Burton does place credence in the saying of Ṣāliḥ b. Kaysān about the precedence of al-Zuhrī in having initiated the writing down of the sayings of the companions. J. Burton, An Introduction to Hadith (Edinburgh, 1994), xxiii, 51. In his later work, Schacht was careful not to associate his theory about Umayyad administrative practice transformed into the religious law of Islam with al-Zuhrī, and conspicuously omitted any mention of al-Zuhrī’s name from a relevant chapter on “The Umayyad Administration and the First Specialists” (A History of Islamic Law, 23–27). Instead, he used the term “pious specialists” to generalize about those who served Umayyad interests or challenged them, and only conceded mention of the names of Rajā’ [b. Ḥayawa] and Abū Qilāba as “among the familiars of the Umayyad caliphs” (p. 26). It seems clear, however, that any theory about the Umayyad interaction with Islam in the seventh century could go nowhere without a recognition for the crucial role of al-Zuhrī, and that Schacht was almost unconvinced of the working of his theory (he was also contradicting what he had earlier conceded about al-Zuhrī’s contribution, Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence, 246–247).

64. This process of caliphal patronage had already begun with al-Manṣūr’s support for Ibn Isḥāq’s writing of the Sīra, and would continue during the reign of al-Ma’mūn. The exact functioning of this belles-lettrist exercise is not clear, and it may well have continued outside caliphal control, among traditionist scholars, without further caliphal support after the beginning of the Miḥna. As for al-Wāqidī, one should note some remarkable references about him that show that he had a greater role in the composition of Islamic history than other narrators. Ibn al-Nadīm claims that al-Wāqidī was a pro-Shī‘ī (yatashayya‘) and then adds that he had a proper attitude (or approach) to religion, and that he exercised secrecy (ḥasan al-madhhab, yalzam al-taqiyya). These characterizations would not normally invite great scrutiny were it not for the fact that Ibn al-Nadīm begins al-Wāqidī’s biography by saying that he used to believe that ‘Alī was one of the signs or miracles of the Prophet Muḥammad, much as Moses and Jesus had their famous miracles. Abū’l-Faraj Muḥammad b. Abī Ya‘qūb Isḥāq al-Warrāq b. al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-Fihrist, ed. G. Flügel, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1871–1872), 98. In light of the particular frame of Rāshidūn historiography, which heavily centers on the tragic career path of ‘Alī, Ibn al-Nadīm’s reference could well be meaningful only as a reference to the parabolic aspect of ‘Alī’s biography.

65. T. El-Hibri, Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography: Hārūn al-Rashīd and the Narrative of the ‘Abbāsid Caliphate (Cambridge, 1999).

2. ABŪ BAKR: THE MOMENT OF CONFIRMATION

1. Later narrators would use ‘Āisha’s monopoly over the final hours of the Prophet to stress that the latter did not designate ‘Alī as successor. ‘Āisha reportedly said, “He [the Prophet] died while I was alone in his company, so when would he have designated a successor?” Abū ‘Abdallāh Muḥammad b. Yazīd b. Māja, Sunan, ed. Muḥammad Fu’ād ‘Abd al-Bāqī, 2 vols. (Beirut, 1980), kitāb al-janā’iz, I, 519 (no. 1626). Ibn Sa‘d, II, 261. The intended target of this ḥadīth was the Shī‘a, whose argument regarding waṣiyya (official investiture of a religious successor through designation and a testament) implied another setting of closeness between the Prophet and his presumed legatee. In any case, the argument from silence also helped the ‘Abbāsids, whose involvement in both discourses of legitimacy (ḥadīth vs. waṣiyya-qarāba) would strip the ‘Alids of claims to inheritance of the Hāshimite leadership at the same time that it placed them as allies of the Sunna. Al-‘Abbās is portrayed specifically as asking if anyone from the companions had a will (‘ahd) from the Prophet. In the absence of an answer, al-‘Abbās declares: “Let anyone who claims later he heard the Prophet grant him an exclusive testament be known as a liar.” Ibn Sa‘d, II, 272.

2. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 249.

3. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 250; Ṭabarī, I, 1808. The whole account, from the Prophet coming to ‘Āisha’s house accompanied by ‘Alī and al-‘Abbās till the final will, is also accepted by Bukhārī. Ṣaḥīḥ, bāb hibat al-mar’a li-zawjihā, III, 460 (no. 761); kitāb al-ṭibb, VII, 411–412 (no. 612).

4. Ṭabarī, I, 1754. Trans. I. K. Poonawala, The History of al-Ṭabarī: The Last Years of the Prophet (Albany, 1990), IX, 112. Bukhārī (kitāb al-tafsīr), bāb inna ‘iddata al-shuhūri, VI, 148. (no. 184).

5. Ya‘qūbī, Ta’rīkh, 2 vols. (Beirut, 1960), II, 114.

6. Ṭabarī, I, 1816, 1828. Hence the disappointment of some tribes at his death, which impelled them to renounce Islam during the Ridda. Ibn al-Ṭiqṭiqā, Muḥammad b. ‘Alī b. Ṭabātabā, Kitāb al-Fakhrī (Beirut, 1966), 74.

7. Not satisfied with the news, some would wonder: “How could he die before he had conquered the world? By God, he has only been lifted in spirit like Jesus was before, and he shall return.” Ibn Sa‘d, II, 271.

8. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 274.

9. Ṭabarī, I, 1816; Ya‘qūbī, II, 114.

10. Ibn Sa‘d adds in a similar account that Abū Bakr addressed the Prophet, saying: “Verily you are far honored by God to drink twice [i.e., from the cup of death].” Ibn Sa‘d, II, 265, 268, 270. Ṭabarī, I, 1816. Poonawala, HT, IX, 184. Bukhārī (kitāb al-janā’iz), II, 188 (no. 333); kitāb al-maghāzī, bāb maraḍ al-nabī, 5:523 (no. 733). Al-Nisā’ī, Sunan, kitāb al-janā’iz, II, 397 (no. 1737).

11. Ṭabarī, I, 1804. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 227–228, III, 176. Muslim (faḍā’il Abī Bakr), V (pt. 15), 150–153 (no. 2382). Bukhārī (faḍā’il aṣḥāb al-nabī), V, 5–6.

12. In a curious account the Prophet appears aware of the coming rivalry over succession between Abū Bakr and ‘Alī but refuses to settle it, telling ‘Āisha: “I have been inclined to summon your father and your brother to settle the matter and bind the succession [fa-aqḍī amrī wa a ‘had ‘ahdī] so that no one will grow ambitious over it and I can put an end to rumor.” An added variation claims he then said, “But, no. God does not will it, and the believers will have to cope [ya’bā allāh wa yadfa ‘al-mu’minūn or yadfa ‘ allāh wa ya’bā al-mu’minūn].” Ibn Sa‘d, II, 226. The last comment is very ambiguous, but the more significant is the aforementioned statement “I have been inclined to summon your father and brother [hamamtu an ursila ilā abīki wa ilā akhīki fa-aqḍī amrī wa a‘had ‘ahdī].” The reference to “your brother” here does not mean ‘Āisha’s kin brother but rather her symbolic one, namely ‘Alī. This symbolism functioned on two levels: first, in reference to the rivalry and eventual war between ‘Āisha and ‘Alī, which made brotherhood here an epithet of irony or reconciliation; and second, in reference to the Qur’ānic verse that portrays the Jews addressing the Virgin Mary with the interporlated comment “O Sister of Hārūn [yā ukhta Hārūn], your father was not an unrighteous man …” (Qur’ān 19:28). Some commentators assert that Hārūn was not meant here as her brother but as the man equivalent in situation (Moses’ brother Hārūn, who found himself in a similar situation of misunderstanding after Moses’ return from the Mount and the beginning of the crisis of al-Sāmirī, the man implicated in the ruse of the Golden Calf). The deployment of signifiers arising from such a comparison of interpretive examples—a not uncommon condition in parabolic narration—would have been combined with the comparison established in the Prophet’s famous ḥadīth about ‘Alī: “You are to me like Hārūn was to Moses.” As this ḥadīth was well known, it seems obvious that this statement, with its oblique reference to father and “brother,” assumed a reader’s understanding of previously interpreted narratives anchored in other religious contexts.

13. This exercise of using memories of religious merit to build legitimacy was later to be used in an opposite fashion to detract from ‘Uthmān’s political legitimacy by his opponents.

14. Ṭabarī, I, 1806. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 242–243. Bukhārī, VII, 389 (no. 573). Poonawala, HT, IX, 174.

15. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 242. A slightly variant version given also by Ṭabarī drives home the biblical connection even further when the Prophet asks for “al-lawḥ” (a stele)—“or al-katif,” a narrator hastens to add—to write on. The concept of “al-lawḥ” was closely identified with Moses and the tablet, and so the narrator tried to contain two opposite images in the account. Ibn Sa‘d omits the variation of “al-lawḥ,” clearly because of its Hebraic implications. Ṭabarī, I, 1807. Ibn ‘Abbās is named as the narrator of Ṭabarī’s account, which sheds light on the ‘Abbāsid interest in the waṣiyya principle of succession and the Israelite (biblical) imagery that was borrowed to build a continuity between prophecy and imamate and to make its judgment as binding as the law of Moses.

16. Bukhārī (kitāb al-marḍā), bāb qawl al-marīḍ ‘qūmū ‘annī, ’ VII, 389 (no. 573); (kitāb al-waṣāyā), bāb hal yustashfa ‘ ilā ahl al-dhimma wa mu‘āmalatihim, IV, 183 (no. 288); (kitāb farḍ al-khums), IV, 260 (no. 393); (kitāb al-tawḥīd), IX, 347 (no. 468). Bukhārī (kitāb al-maghāzī), V, 512 (no. 717).

17. This account’s style where it describes the Prophet’s purported three wishes reproduces a standard form of ḥadīth technique used elsewhere, as when, for example, the Prophet declares that Abū Bakr and ‘Umar will be among the people of paradise in the afterlife, but then the narrator holds back on naming the third figure (‘Uthmān or ‘Alī), allowing ambiguity.

18. There is great significance in the fact that Ṭabarī’s versions of this story generalize this remark, usually attributed to ‘Umar in other accounts, to the community of companions. This was clearly an attempt by Ṭabarī to downplay the role of ‘Umar in shaping the action that deprived ‘Alī of the succession. Other Sunnī sources, including ḥadīth texts that cite ‘Umar’s direct responsibility for turning away the crowd, clearly did not care about the artful aims of historical redaction that Ṭabarī was applying. The ‘Umar-specific account (reported on the authority of Ibn ‘Abbās) is given by Aḥmad, Musnad, V, 135. In spite of the demands of Sunnism, Ibn ‘Abbās would hedge the need for regret over the loss of the opportunity to name a specific successor by saying elsewhere, “Truly, it was a day of calamity that the Prophet was prevented”—note here the critical ambiguity as to whether it was a person or a malady that prevented the Prophet from proceeding with a specific political testament—“from writing down a testament of succession [inna al-raziyya, kull al-raziyya, mā ḥāla bayna rasūl allāh wa bayna an yaktub lahum dhalika al-kitāb].”

19. Ṭabarī, I, 1807. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 245. Ibn Sa‘d adds another version in which ‘Alī tells al-’Abbās that the caliphate undoubtedly belongs to his family (Ibn Sa‘d, II, 246).

20. Ṭabarī, I, 1807. Poonawala, HT, IX, 173–174. Bukhārī (bāb maraḍ al-nabī), V, 519 (no. 728). Aḥmad, Musnad, V, 139. Ibn Hishām, Sīra, IV, 305. Ibn Isḥāq←al-Zuhrī←’Abdallāh b. Ka‘b b. Mālik←Ibn ‘Abbās. Ibn Hishām’s version of ‘Alī’s statement varies slightly in style but includes the essential points in Ṭabarī’s account.

21. See chap. 6.

22. The trepidation of ‘Alī also has to be read in light of a previous report in the Sīra according to which he asked the Prophet, after the conquest of Mecca, for the honorific title to guarding al-ḥijāba wa’l-siqāya (the religious custodianship of the Ka‘ba). At the time his request was declined, since the Prophet wanted to bestow this honor either on ‘Uthmān b. Ṭalḥa, according to Ibn Isḥāq, or on al-‘Abbās, according to al-Wāqidī. ‘Abd al-Malik b. Hishām, al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya, ed. ‘Umar Tadmurī, 4 vols. (Beirut, 1993), IV, 55; Maghāzī, II, 832–833, 837–838.

23. The reference is to the women friends of Potiphar’s wife, who exacerbated her pursuit of Joseph with gossip and machinations.

24. Ṭabarī, I, 1811. Muslim, II (pt. 4), 140 (no. 418). A similar version exists in Bukhārī (kitāb aḥādīth al-anbiyā’), bāb qawlihi ‘laqad kāna fī yūsuf wa ikhwatihi ayātun li’l-sā’ilīn,’ IV, 391 (no. 598).

25. This account of Abū Bakr leading the prayer until the Prophet’s arrival is included by Bukhārī under a different heading, besides the final prayer episode. Ṣaḥīḥ, kitāb al-ṣulḥ (mā jā’a fī’l-iṣlāḥ bayna al-nās), III, 532 (no. 855). There the Prophet was simply late on one occasion and then caught up with Abū Bakr. Bukhārī includes this story under the heading: abwāb al-‘amal fī’l-ṣalāt: ‘bāb man raji ‘ a al-qahqarā fī’l- ṣalāt bi-amrin yanzil bihi, ’ II, 166 (no. 297). Also, Ṣaḥīḥ, kitāb al-aḥkam, IX, 227–228 (no. 300). Muslim, II (pt. 4), 144–148 (no. 421).

26. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 217, 219, 225. Ibn Hishām, Sīra, IV, 302 (reported on the authority of al-Zuhrī).

27. D. Spellberg, Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past. The Legacy of ‘ Aisha b. Abi Bakr (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994); also, “Niẓām al-Mulk’s Manipulation of Tradition: ‘Āisha and the Role of Women in the Islamic Government,” Muslim World 77 (1988): 111–117.

28. Ṭabarī, I, 1811.

29. Ṭabarī, I, 1810–1811. Poonawala, HT, IX, 179.

30. Tradition frequently portrays ‘Umar as being unaware of the machinations of his daughter in the Prophet’s household, and then as becoming angry with her over her actions, unlike Abū Bakr, who never criticizes his daughter for her more well-known whimsy.

31. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 221.

32. There is a sudden change here in the address.

33. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 221. An abbreviated version with a different isnād given by Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, kitāb al-sunna, IV, 215 (no. 4661). A similar version of this account in Bukhārī has a telling twist. There Ḥafṣa issues the command to have ‘Umar lead the prayer not of her own thinking but on ‘Āisha’s advice. When the whole episode ends in embarrassment for Ḥafṣa, she reportedly turns to ‘Āisha and tells her: “I knew I wouldn’t get benefit out of you! [mā kuntu li-uṣība minki khayran].” Bukhārī, IX, 299–300 (no. 406). Tirmidhī, Sunan, kitāb al-manāqib, 573 (no. 3672).

34. It is worth noting that later on, at the episode of the Saqīfa, neither Abū Bakr nor the others refer to the prayer leadership as an argument to legitimize his rule.

35. Bukhārī (kitāb al-ṣulḥ), III, 532 (no. 855). Muslim, II (pt. 4), 146. For this version, Ṭabarī gives the phrasing: “fa-lammā danā min Abī Bakr, ta’akhkhara Abū Bakr [When [the Prophet] approached Abū Bakr, Abū Bakr went backwards].” Ṭabarī, I, 1811.

36. Bukhārī (abwāb al-‘amal fī al-ṣalāt), bāb man raji ‘ a al-qahqarā fī al-ṣalāt, II, 166 (no. 297). In the similar version, Ṭabarī phrases the retreat as: “nakaṣa [Abū Bakr] ‘ an muṣallāh [Abū Bakr retreated from his prayer place].” Ṭabarī, I, 1813.

37. The relevant verses from sūrat al-anfāl urging the believers to show devotion during battle state: “O believers, whensoever you encounter a host, then stand firm, and remember God frequently; haply so you will prosper. And obey God, and His Messenger, and do not quarrel together, and so lose heart, and your power depart; and be patient; surely God is with the patient. Be not as those who went forth from their habitations swaggering boastfully to show off to men, and barring from God’s way; and God encompasses the things they do. And when Satan decked out their deeds fair to them, and said, ‘Today no man shall overcome you, for I shall be your neighbor.’ But when the two hosts sighted each other, he withdrew upon his heels [nakaṣa ‘alā ‘aqibayhi], saying, ‘I am quit of you; for I see what you do not see. I fear God; and God is terrible in retribution’” (Qur’ān 8:46–48 [Arberry, I, 202–203]).

38. Bukhārī, VIII, 382–383 (nos. 585, 587). The alternate phrasing: “innahum irtaddū ‘ alā adbārihim al-qahqarā” or “innahum raji‘ū ‘alā adbārihim al-qahqarā .” Other ḥadīths state the divine warning to the Prophet: “innaka lā tadrī mā aḥdathū ba‘daka” In a different ḥadīth the Prophet intercedes with God in the manner of Noah for his companions, saying: “O Lord, my companions?” He is then told: “You do not know what they did after you [innaka lā tadrī mā aḥdathū ba‘daka].” The Prophet then says: “I therefore answer like the saintly servant [al-‘abd al-ṣāliḥ (i.e., Jesus)]: ‘And I was witness over them, while I remained among them; but when Thou didst take me to Thyself, Thou was Thyself the watcher over them; Thou Thyself art witness of everything’ (Qur’ān 5:117 [Arberry, I, 147]). I would then be told: They (i.e., these companions) had stepped back since you left them [inna hā’ulā’ lam yazālū murtaddīn ‘alā a‘qābihim mundhu fāraqtahum].” Bukhārī (kitāb al-tafsīr), VI, 236 (no. 264).

39. Ṭabarī, I, 1816. Bukhārī (faḍā’il aṣḥāb al-nabī), V, 13 (no. 19).

40. Qur’ān 3:144.

41. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 267. Ṭabarī, I, 1817. Poonawala, HT, IX, 185. Bukhārī (kitāb al-maghāzī), V, 524 (no. 733); kitāb al-janā’iz, II, 189 (no. 333). Bukhārī states: “It is as if people did not know that this was a revealed verse until Abū Bakr recited it at that hour. People afterwards took cognizance of it and everyone began to recite it” (no. 333). The account is recounted by al-Zuhrī on ‘Āisha’s authority.

42. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 270.

43. Aside from the rare occasion when ‘Alī advises ‘Umar about whether to lead the Arab armies at Qādisiyya in person, ‘Alī does not appear an active organizer for Islamic society, as for example ‘Umar is represented in Abū Bakr’s reign. The ḥadīths that speak of ‘Umar’s frequent consultation of ‘Alī on juristic matters are a pure Sunnī fiction meant to restrict the image of ‘Alī to religious erudition as a judge alongside other companions who have equally restricted qualities (Qur’ān recitation, asceticism, military bravery, etc.).

44. The content of Abū Bakr’s accession speech after the Saqīfa episode confirms all these implications. His famous words, “Now then: O people, I have been put in charge of you although I am not the best of you. Help me if I do well; rectify me if I do wrong. Truthfulness is loyalty and falsehood is disloyalty. The weak among you shall be strong in my eyes until I ensure his right, God willing; and the strong among you shall be weak in my eyes until I wrest the right from him, God willing. No one from you should refrain from fighting in the cause of God, because if it is forsaken by a people, God will smite them with disgrace. Foul things never become widespread in a people but God brings calamity upon them. Obey me as long as I obey God and His Messenger; if I disobey them, you are not bound to obey me. Perform your prayers. May God have mercy upon you!” Ṭabarī, I, 1829. Poonawala, HT, IX, 201. Anas b. Mālik←al-Zuhrī←Muḥammad b. Isḥāq←Salama←Ibn Ḥumayd.

45. Ṭabarī, I, 1823.

46. Ṭabarī describes how, when word reached the Prophet of grumbling among the Anṣār—after he coincidentally had not been warned of this by Sa‘d b. ‘Ubāda (in a clear sign that it was the Khazraj that caused this disruption as they would later at the Saqīfa)—he asked Sa‘d: “Where do you stand in this matter, O Sa‘d?,” to which the latter responded, “I stand with my kinsfolk.” So the Prophet said: “Then gather your people in [this] enclosure.” When Sa‘d assembled the crowd, the Prophet appeared to them and addressed them saying: “O community of Anṣār, what is this talk I hear about you? [What is] the grudge you have harbored in your hearts [against me]? Did I not come to you when you were erring and God guided you; [were you not] needy and then made rich by God; [were you not] enemies and [did not] God reconcile your hearts?” They answered, “Yes indeed, God and His Messenger are gracious and kind.” He said, “Why do you not answer me [directly], O Anṣār?” They said, “What shall we answer you, O Messenger of God? Kindness and graciousness belong to God and His Messenger.” He said: “Now then, by God, had you wished you could have said—and you would have spoken the truth and have been accepted as truthfull—‘You came to us [when your message] was rejected [by the Quraysh] and we believed in you; [you were] forsaken and we assisted you; [you were] evicted and we sheltered you; [you were] needy and we comforted you.’ O Anṣār, that people should take away sheep and camels while you go back to your homes with the Messenger of God. By Him in whose hand is the soul of Muḥammad, were it not for the migration [hijra], I would have been one of the Anṣār myself. If all the people went one way and the Anṣār another, I would take the way of the Anṣār. O God, have mercy on the Anṣār, their sons, and their sons’ sons!” The narrator concludes by saying: “The people wept until the tears ran down their beards and said that they were pleased with the Messenger of God as their lot and good fortune.” Ṭabarī, I, 1684–1685. Poonawala, HT, IX, 36–37. Muslim (bāb i‘ṭā’ al-mu’allafa wa man yukhāf ‘alā imānihi), III (pt. 7), 151–157 (nos. 1059, 1061); Bukhārī (manāqib al-Anṣār), V, 80 (no. 122); (kitāb al-maghāzī), V, 433 (no. 619), V, 435 (no. 621); V, 438 (no. 626). Also, more briefly cited in Ibn Sa‘d, II, 154.

47. This will be immediately evident next, when Abū Bakr responds to the Anṣār’s demand that they have their caliph by saying: “The rulers shall be from us, and the vizirs from you,” in reference to the Persian vizirs who would serve the Arab caliphs.

48. Qur’ān 3:144. Poonawala, HT, IX, 185.

49. Ṭabarī, I, 1817. This version is shared by Ya‘qūbī. However, he mixes elements from version IV below. Ya‘qūbī, II, 123. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 269.

50. Poonawala, HT, IX, 186. Ibn al-Athīr, ‘Izz al-Dīn ‘Alī b. Aḥmad b. al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fī’l-Ta’rīkh, 13 vols. (Beirut, 1965–1967), II, 325. A hidden irony here is “illā ‘aliyyan”—meaning “only the lofty or powerful”—thus inadvertently predicting and admiring ‘Umar’s pressure at that incident.

51. Poonawala, HT, IX, 187. Ya‘qūbī, II, 126. Ya‘qūbī adds a vivid description of Fāṭima’s agonized outrage over the attack on her house, in which she threatens to invoke divine wrath on the intruders (la-a‘ujjanna li-llāh). The event is similar to Nā’ila’s anger over the intrusion into the house of ‘Uthmān in A.H. 36/ A.D. 656, but the particular use of the word “la -a‘ujjanna” (verbal noun: “‘ ajīj,” the sound of a camel) invokes the Qur’ānic reference to the miraculous camel of Thamūd. Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi’s version states that when ‘Umar came threatening, Fatima confronted him, saying, “Have you come to set our house on fire?,” and he answered, “Yes, or you join what the community has agreed on.” Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi, al -‘Iq d, IV, 260. Balādhurī, Ansāb al-Ashrāf, ‘Alī wa Banūh, ed. W. Madelung (Wiesbaden, 2003), II, 14. Balādhurī’s account (based on al-Madā’inī) concludes with ‘Alī’s stepping out to give the bay ‘ a . ‘Alī’s justification for his delay in coming out to give the bay ‘ a is that he had intended not to do so before he had collected the Qur’ānic text.

52. Ṭabarī, I, 1819. The phrasing here borrows the Qur’ānic wording in surat Yāsīn, “wa jā’a min aqṣā al-madīnati rajulun yas‘ā … [then came a man from the furthest part of the city, running; he said, ‘My people, follow the Envoys! Follow such as ask no wage of you, that are right-guided’].” Qur’ān 36:20 (Arberry, II, 145). However, Ṭabarī’s narrator reverses the thrust of the phrase from being one of glad tiding to ill omen and fitna. The narrator’s full meaning here can be gauged only in relation to the ḥadīth “al-qā’im fī’l fitna khayrun min al-sā‘ī bihā … [he who is standing (al-qā’im) in fitna is better than the one riding with it (al-sā‘ī bihā)].” See below.

53. The two actions, electing the caliph from the Anṣār and calling for a leader for each camp, were undoubtedly contradictory. Narrators, however, always insisted on adding the remark “A commander from us and a commander from them” to add another layer of presumption to the Anṣār’s action, since such language brought the Saqīfa challenge very close to the rhetoric of the Ridda apostates (minna nabiyy wa min Quraysh nabiyy, “a prophet from us and a prophet from them”). See below, narrative 3.

54. Ṭabarī, I, 1819–1820. Poonawala, HT IX, 188–189.

55. Ya‘qūbī, II, 180.

56. Muslim (kitāb al-fitan), VI (pt. 18), 9 (no. 2887). Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, bāb ‘alāmāt al-nubuwwa fī’l-islām, IV, 514 (no. 799). Tirmidhī (kitāb al-fitan), IV, 422. (no. 2194). Aḥmad, Musnad, XIII, 207.

57. Muslim (kitāb al-fitan), VI (pt. 18), 9 (no. 2887).

58. Ṭabarī, I, 1824. Ibn al-Athīr, II, 331.

59. Ṭabarī, I, 1824.

60. Ṭabarī, I, 1940. A. Noth first noted this symmetry in phrasing between these two phrases, but found no “coherent tendency” for the literary resemblance. See A. Noth, Early Arabic Historical Tradition, 171. Noth’s assessment of this example is typical of his wider view of the narratives as representing compositions out of a common set of stock themes and motifs. This view would later be taken to an extreme with P. Crone’s perception of the early Islamic traditions and historical narrative as lacking in overall unity; she considered them mainly to reflect the wreckage of past tradition that was tidied up later in the eighth and ninth centuries, rather than being a back-projection of a coherent tradition from that time period, as the present study argues. P. Crone, Slaves on Horses, 6–13; Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, 225. One account explains the Anṣār’s reasoning for seeking to designate two leaders with the assertion of al-Ḥubāb b. al-Mundhir, “This way if the Muhājirūn [leader] does something wrong to the Anṣār, the Anṣār [leader] will correct him,” and vice versa. Balādhurī, Ansāb (‘Alids), 8. Muḥammad b. Sa‘d←al-Wāqidī←Abū Ma‘mar←al-Maqburī and Yazīd b. Rumān←al-Zuhrī. There is also the possibility that the Anṣār, in proposing two candidates, were being portrayed as invoking a precedent for the Taḥkīm, and more specifically emulating the Qur’ānic verse that ostensibly set the standard for the Taḥkīm, “If you fear a breach between the two, bring forth an arbiter from his people and from her people, if they desire to set things right; God will compose their differences [wa in khiftum shiqāqa baynahuma fa-ib‘athū ḥakaman min ahlihi wa ḥakaman min ahlihā, in yurīdā iṣlāḥan yuwaffi qu allāh baynahumā]” (Qur’ān 4:35 [Arberry, I, 106]). This verse will later be much contested by the Khārijites, who asserted that its content does not apply to political and military disputes and therefore that it does not justify the Taḥkīm. Such later developments in their argumentation, however, do not change the fact that they were the ones who accepted the call for the Taḥkīm when it was first proposed. As such, there is therefore a continuity in that group’s action and declarations from the time when they were still called al-Anṣār until some of them became the factions of al-Qurrā’ and the Khārijites later on.

61. Ibn Kathīr’s version adds: “and you will be in the company of the scholars and the elite [wa takhluṣ bi-‘ulamā’ al-nās wa ashrāfihim].” Al-Bidāya wa al-Nihāya, V, 215.

62. The Arabic in Ṭabarī’s version is “lā targhabū ‘an ābā’ikum fa-innahu kuf-run bi-kum an targhabū ‘an ābā’ikum .” Al-Zuhrī’s version, however, quotes ‘Umar as saying: “We used to recite ‘ wa lā targhabū ‘an ābā’ikum fa-innahu kufrun bi-kum’ or ‘fa-inna kufran bikum an targhabū ‘an ābā’ikum.’” Whichever version is used, al-Zuhrī’s account makes this statement appear as a lost Qur’ānic text. The phrase is repeated by al-Hindī, who includes it with other ḥadīths under the theme of one’s claiming a different genealogy or father (nafy al-nasab). Kanz, VI, 208 (no. 15371), Kanz, II, 596 (no. 4818). Al-Zuhrī’s account then adds another variation to ‘Umar’s statement when it quotes him adding that the Prophet said: “Do not flatter me as the Christians flattered the son of Maryam—peace be upon him, for I am merely the servant of God. Just say, ‘the servant of God and His messenger.’” Muḥammad b. Muslim b. ‘Ubaydallāh b. Shihāb al-Zuhrī, al-Maghāzī al-Nabawiyya, ed. Suhayl Zakkār (Damascus, 1980), 140.

63. This line seems to have been edited into anonymity because it challenged the Sunnī conception of cooperation among the companions. According to a brief account given by Balādhurī, however, ‘Umar states, “It has reached me that al-Zubayr has said, ‘If ‘Umar is dead, we shall give the oath of allegiance to ‘Alī. The bay‘a of Abū Bakr was just a falta .’ By God, he lies! The Messenger of God put him in his place, and chose him to strengthen the faith against others”—(‘ wa ikhtārahu li- ‘ imād al-d īn’ is an expression that encompasses the notion of leading the prayer as well)—“God and the believers refuse anyone [for the caliphate) besides Abū Bakr.” Balādhurī, Ansāb (‘Alids), 8. Bakr b. al-Haytham←Hishām b. Yūsuf←Ma‘mar←al-Zuhrī←‘Ubaydallāh b. ‘Abdallāh←Ibn ‘Abbās. This isolated account was no doubt intended to be dispensable for the more mainstream Sunnī audiences, since it names the political contenders for the caliphate and shows them in discord well into ‘Umar’s reign. The account is also remarkable for showing ‘Umar rejecting the occasion of Abū Bakr’s election as an accident (falta), which is something well known from other accounts as in fact being ‘Umar’s own characterization of the event. It is not therefore unlikely that the more extensive ‘Abbāsid account once accommodated such a characterization (falta) and attributed it to ‘Umar but kept the names of ‘Alī and al-Zubayr omitted. It seems clear that it was the proposition that ‘Alī should be nominated as successor that provoked ‘Umar into making his speech.

64. Ṭabarī, I, 1821–1824. This version is recounted in detail by Ibn al-Athīr, Al-Kāmil, II, 326–328. Also, Bukhārī (bāb idhā aqarra bi’l-ḥadd), VIII, 537–543 (no. 817).

65. In one version, the two declarations of the verses by Abū Bakr and ‘Umar are presented one after the other in the same scene. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 271.

66. It may be that this joining of a religious injunction with a historical anecdote was the exercise of iqrā ’ referred to at the outset of the account.

67. See the situation of Ṭulayḥa b. Khuwaylid (Ṭabarī, I, 1891).

68. Sa‘d b. ‘Ubāda was reprimanded for this remark by having the banner removed from his command and given to his son, Qays.

69. Bukhārī (faḍā’il aṣḥāb al-nabī), V, 13–14.

70. Ṭabarī, I, 1838.

71. This sense of accident is conveyed in a brief account that portrays ‘Alī’s dissatisfaction when he asked Abū Bakr: “Didn’t you consider the right we have to this matter [i.e., the succession]?,” to which Abū Bakr responded: “Yes, but I was afraid that a fitna might happen [i.e., if a nomination was not made quickly for someone who was present].” ‘Alī then reportedly praised Abū Bakr’s credentials for his companionship of the Prophet during the Hijra, and for having led the prayers during the Prophet’s illness, but then asked God to forgive Abū Bakr for his lapse on the succession issue. Balādhurī, Ansāb (‘Alī wa Banūh), II, 10. Ibn Sa‘d←Wāqidī←Abū Ma‘mar←al-Maqburī and Yazīd b. Rūmān←al-Zuhrī.

72. F. Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origin, 211.

73. Ṭabarī, I, 1825. Poonawala, HT, IX, 196. Also, Ibn Sa‘d, II, 315. Bukhārī, V, 248 (no. 368). Ibn Shabba, Ta’rīkh al-Madīna, I, 122.

74. Ya‘qūbī, II, 127.

75. Ṭabarī, I, 1826. Poonawala, HT, IX, 197. Another version pushes Sunnī defensiveness regarding the implicit idea of prophetic succession to an extreme when ‘Alī responds to Abū Bakr’s refusal to hand over Fadak by saying, “Solomon inherited David [waritha Sulaymān Dāwūd] [Qur’ān 27:16] and Zakariyya said: ‘One who inherits me and inherits the family of Ya‘qūb after me’ [Qur’ān 19:6].” Abū Bakr rebuffs the statement by saying, “Such are things [huwa hakadhā], and you know this as well as I do.” Ibn Sa‘d, II, 315.

76. Ṭabarī, I, 1825. Bukhārī (kitāb farḍ al-khums), IV, 208 (no. 325) (kitāb al-maghāzī), V, 382 (no. 546); (kitab al-farā’iḍ), VIII, 471–472 (no. 718). Curiously, Bukhārī includes a long account about this bitter exchange, which is to be found in Ṭabarī as well. Tirmidhī mentions that ‘Umar was present with Abū Bakr during this argument and that the two of them said the same thing to Fāṭima. In turn, Fāṭima vowed not to speak with either of them. Tirmidhī (kitāb al-siyar), IV, 135 (no. 1609). Ibn Shabba, Ta’rīkh al-Madīna, I, 122. Ibn Sa‘d briefly mentions the bad relations between Abū Bakr and Fāṭima after this incident. Ṭabaqāt, VIII, 28.

77. Tirmidhī (kitāb al-farā’iḍ), IV, 373 (no. 2114). Aḥmad, Musnad, I, 292 (no. 147).

78. The whole Fadak story is probably an invention from the early ‘Abbāsid period. In origin it was associated with the Prophet, as his exclusive share of the booty from the Jewish colony of Khaybar, to signal the passing of religious authority from Jews to Muslims. The full story of the changes in ownership of Fadak is described by Yaqūt al-Ḥamawī in his Mu‘jam al-Buldān, 5 vols. (Beirut, 1957), IV, 238–240. Also, Balādhurī, Futūḥal-Buldān, ed. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid, 2 vols. (Beirut, 1957), 45–47. Ibn Qutayba, al-Ma‘ārif, 195. L. Veccia Vaglieri, “Fadak,” EI, II (1965), 726. That Fadak was a well-known pro-Shī‘ī trope on the caliphate can be gleaned from an anecdote that describes a discussion between the caliph al-Rashīd and Mūsā b. Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq. When the caliph offers to return to him the estate of Fadak, the ‘Alid imām responds that he would only accept it with its complete boundaries, which he enumerated as the frontiers of Samarqand, Armenia, North Africa, and Aden. Zamakhsharī, Ra bī‘ al-Abrār, I, 180. The story of contention over a piece of real estate that is misappropriated by the ruler may well have been influenced by the biblical precedent of Ahab seizing the land of Naboth. 2 Kings 21.

79. I. Goldziher, Muslim Studies, II, 101. D. Powers, Studies in Qur’ān and Ḥadīth: The Formation of the Islamic Law of Inheritance (Berkeley, 1987), 114. N. Coulson, Succession in the Muslim Family, 128. W. Madelung, “Shi‘i Attitudes Towards Women as Reflected in Fiqh,” in Society and the Sexes in Medieval Islam, ed. Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid-Marsot, Giorgio Levi Della Vida Conferences, 6 (Malibu: Undena, 1979), 75.

80. ‘Umar would later continue with his plan for a shūrā succession along with this Sunnī-inspired effort to distance ‘Alī from the caliphate.

81. To erase any lingering doubt over the legitimacy of his viewpoint, Abū Bakr could also cite the fact that even if Fāṭima’s opinion was right, Islamic law (the Qur’ān) required two women for the testimony to be valid.

82. Al-Maqrīzī would later stress the fact that Abū Bakr kept on many officials who were originally appointed by the Prophet, and that the Prophet had in fact used members of the Umayyad clan for political office, but never any Hāshimites. Al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-Nizā‘ wa’l-Takhāṣumfī-mā bayn Banī Umayya wa Banī Hāshim, ed. H. Mu’nis (Cairo, 1984), 82, 92.

83. Ibn ‘Asākir, XLIV, 235. Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. ‘Alī al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Ta’rīkh Baghdād, 14 vols. (Cairo, 1931), XI, 47. Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi, al- ‘ Iqd, III, 241 (uses the phrase “ḍa‘īfun fī badanihi”).

84. The Prophet is also described in one ḥadīth as “rajulun raqīq .” Bukhārī, IX, 266 (no. 352).

85. In another reference the Prophet declares the analogy, “God has given me power among the angels with [the support of] Gabriel and Michael, and among the people of the earth, with [the support of] Abū Bakr and ‘Umar. He who opposes them opposes me.” Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 419.

86. Qur’ān 14:36.

87. Qur’ān 5:118.

88. Qur’ān 71:26.

89. Qur’ān 10:88.

90. Ṭabarī, I, 1356–1357. Trans. M. V. McDonald, History of al-Ṭabarī: The Foundation of the Community (Albany, 1987), VII, 82–83.

91. Hence the ḥadīth that quotes Muḥammad as saying, “I never summoned someone to Islam who did not show some hesitance of reflection, except for Abū Bakr. He accepted the faith without trepidation.”

92. The reference here is to the Qur’ānic verse that reads, “Then said a certain man, a believer of Pharaoh’s folk who kept hidden his belief, ‘What, will you slay a man because he says, “My Lord is God” [a-taqtulūna rajulan an yaqūla rabbiya allāh?], yet he has brought you the clear signs from your Lord? If he is a liar, his lying is upon his head; but if he is truthful, somewhat of that he promises you will smite you. Surely God guides not him who is prodigal and a liar’” (Qur’ān 40:28 [Arberry, II, 178]). This verse, set in the context of Pharaoh’s deliberation over killing Moses, is used in the Sīra as the rebuttal of Abū Bakr to the infidels who attacked the Prophet. When on one occasion Muḥammad was praying, Ṭabarī relates, the Meccans came upon him and attacked him. Abū Bakr came to his aid, making the declaration, “a-taqtulūna rajulan an yaqūla rabiyya allāh .” Ṭabarī, I, 1186; Bukhārī (kitāb al-tafsīr), VI, 321 (no. 339); Muḥibb al-Dīn Aḥmad b. ‘Abdallāh al-Ṭabarī, al-Riyāḍal-Naḍira fī Manāqib al-‘Ashara, 2 vols. (Cairo, 1953), I, 79.

93. Example stories of Abū Bakr’s dream interpretations include the following: Ibn Sa‘d, II, 293; Abū Nu‘aym, Dhikr Akhbār Iṣbahān, I, 2–4; Ibn Sa‘d, III, 177; Ṭabarī, I, 1803–1804. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 227–228, 231; Bukhārī (faḍā’il aṣḥāb al-nabī), V, 5–6 (no. 6); bāb manāqib al-Anṣār, V, 157 (no. 244). Muslim (faḍā’il Abī Bakr), V (pt. 15), 150 (no. 2392). Aḥmad, Musnad, XXV, 266; Ibn al-Jawzī, Ta’rīkh ‘ Umar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, ed. Usāma al-Rifā‘ī (Damascus, 1985), 262; Muslim (kitāb al-ru’yā), V (pt. 15), 28 (no. 2269). Bukhārī (kitāb al-ta‘bīr), IX, 137 (no. 170). Tirmidhī (kitāb alru’yā), IV, 471 (no. 2293); Ibn ‘Asākir, XXX, 29–30; al-Muḥibb al-Ṭabarī, al-Riyā ḍ al-Na ḍ ira, I, 70. For additional references to Abū Bakr’s dream-interpreting skill, see al-Muḥibb al-Ṭabarī, al-Riyāḍal-Naḍira, I, 141–142. A report by Wāqidī states that Abū Bakr passed on this dream-interpreting ability to his daughter Asmā’, who then passed it on to Sa‘īd b. al-Musayyib. Ibn Sa‘d, V, 124. Also in this context see Ibn Sīrīn’s observation: “There was no one more knowledgeable in dream interpretation after the Prophet than Abū Bakr.” al-Dhahabī, Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ‘Uthmān, al-Khulafā ’ al-Rāshidūn, ed. Ḥusām al-Qudsī (Beirut, 1992), 70. Ibn ‘Asākir, XXX, 328. In another statement, the Prophet says: “I was commanded to seek dream interpretation from Abū Bakr [umirtu an u’awwila al-ru’yā A bā Bakr].” Ibn ‘Asākir, XXX, 218. The narrator is Samura b. Jundub.

94. It is worth remembering here the accounts that stress Abū Bakr’s steadfast belief in Muḥammad’s story of the nocturnal journey, often considered a dream, even as many in Mecca were incredulous. Balādhurī recounts a story in which the Prophet declares to the angel Gabriel that the people will not believe the isrā’ story, and Gabriel says, “Abū Bakr will believe it, and he is ‘ al-Ṣiddīq .’” Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 123. Ibn Sa‘d, III, 170. It is also important to note, however, that the matter of Abū Bakr’s title was probably more complex in the historiography than a simple reference to Abū Bakr’s acceptance of the new faith. In Ṭabarī’s history, the concept of truth (ṣidq) represents a fundamental theme in the lives of both prophets and kings. Truth is treated as a manifestation of nature (fiṭra) in the character of these individuals, and it is something that is often beleaguered by the intrusiveness of corruption. And while the signal triumph of truth had occurred during the Prophet’s lifetime, the confirming nature of Abū Bakr’s career is used to reassert the continuing triumph of truth during the first caliphate. It is not a coincidence that the chief opponent of Abū Bakr is hence labeled “the liar,” and that Abū Bakr’s reign achieves its primary purpose with Musaylima’s overthrow.

95. Although ‘Umar is often included in this linkage as well, there is considerable evidence suggesting he died at age fifty-five. Ibn Qutayba, al-Ma‘ārif, 184. Ibn al-Jawzī, TalqīḥFuhūm Ahl al-Athar fī‘Uyūn al-Ta’rīkh wa’l-Siyar (Cairo, n.d.), 108.

96. Ṭabarī, I, 2127. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 156. Ibn al-Athīr, II, 419. Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Dhahabī, al-Khulafā’ al-Rāshidūn, ed. Ḥusām al-Dīn al-Qudsī (Beirut, 1992), 70. The account is narrated on the authority of al-Zuhrī. This story bears close resemblance to one account that says the Prophet’s death also resulted from poisoned food, specifically a slaughtered lamb, given to him by a Jewish woman. The reference is to a certain Zaynab b. al-Ḥārith, sister of the Jewish chief of Khaybar, the oasis outside Medina conquered in A.H. 7. Ṭabarī, I, 1583–1584. Ya‘qūbī, II, 56. Ibn Sa‘d, II, 200. Bukhārī (bāb qabūl al-hadiyya min al-mushrikīn), III, 475 (no. 786).

97. Ṭabarī, I, 2128. Ibn Qutayba, al-Ma‘ārif, 171. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 159. The account is narrated on the authority of al-Wāqidī. Ibn al-Athīr, II, 419. al-Dhahabī, al-Khulafā ’ al-Rāshidūn, 71.

98. There are few references to the length of the Prophet’s mortal illness, but Ya‘qūbī does indicate that it lasted fourteen days. Ya‘qūbī, II, 113. Ibn al-Jawzī gives various reports claiming that it lasted twelve, fourteen, or seventeen days, but makes it clear that both died on a Monday night. Ibn al-Jawzī, TalqīḥFuhūm ahl al-Athar, 82.

99. Ibn Sa‘d, III, 192–195. There is also a third version that cites agony over the passing of the Prophet as the reason behind Abū Bakr’s sudden death. Ibn al-Athīr, Usd al-Ghāba fī Ma‘rifat al-Ṣaḥāba, ed. ‘Alī Muḥammad Mu‘awwaḍ and Aḥmad ‘Abd al-Mawjūd, 7 vols. (Beirut, 1994), III, 331; ‘Abd al-Malik b. Ḥusayn al-‘Iṣāmī al-Makkī, Simṭ al-Nujūm al-‘Awalī fī Anbā’ al-Awā’il wa’l-Tawālī, 4 vols. (Cairo, 1961), II, 357.

100. Ṭabarī, I, 2120. Excerpts are translated by Khalid Yahya Blankinship, The History of al-Ṭabarī: The Challenge to Empires (Albany, 1993), XI, 121. Ibn al-Athīr, II, 416. This declaration may have once included another command that Abū Bakr gave to ‘Umar: “And beware a coterie of the companions of the Messenger of God [wa iḥdhar ha’ulā’ al-nafar min aṣḥāb rasūl allāh] who have grown fat, become ambitious, and each of them seeks only his own personal welfare. Verily, they shall find themselves deluded after the lapse of one of them [wa inna lahum la-ḥayratun ba‘da zallati wāḥidin minhum].”—(probably a reference to ‘Uthmān)—“Beware that you turn out to be that person. And know that they shall remain deterred by you so long as you are deterred by the fear of God, and obedient towards you so long as you are obedient to the true path of God [laka mustaqimīn ma-istaqāmat ṭarīqatuka]. This is my advice to you [hādhihi waṣiyyatī].” Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharāj (Beirut, 1979), 11–12. The statement is reported on the authority of Mūsā b. ‘Uqba←Asmā’ b. ‘Umays. Ṭabarī may have found this statement too strongly critical of the companions, and thus decided to keep only the more general word of caution to the public about the corrupting influence of worldly luxury. However, the statement is crucial for appreciating the continuity in criticism against the politically ambitious companions, first by the Prophet at his last pilgrimage and later by Mu‘āwiya just before he returned to Syria after visiting ‘Uthmān (see chapter 7).

101. Ya‘qūbī, II, 158.

102. Ṭabarī, I, 2137. Blankinship, HT, XI, 146.

103. It is hard to know what was intended by the reference to tattoos, since ḥadīth strongly rallies against this practice. Tirmidhī, Sunan, (kitāb al-adab), 5:97 (no. 2782).

104. Ṭabarī, I, 2138. Blankinship, HT, XI, 147.

105. Ṭabarī, II, 1342. Al-‘Uyūn wa’l-Ḥadā’iq fī Akhbār al-Ḥaqā’iq, ed. M. de Goeje (Leiden, 1869), 38–39. Ibn Sa‘d, V, 336–337. The scene is reminiscent of the way ‘Umar b. ‘Abd al-‘Azīz would be presented to the Umayyad family as their next successor by Rajā’ b. Ḥayawa, messenger of the dying caliph Sulaymān b. ‘Abd al-Malik. In a more extensive version by al-Wāqidī, the beginning secret conversation that Abū Bakr has with ‘Abd al-Raḥmān is strung together with the whole succession story. There, ‘Uthmān is also the one who asks the people if they agree to the undisclosed name of the successor. Ibn Sa‘d, III, 200.

106. Ṭabarī, I, 2138–2139.

107. There is in fact here a wider and continuing exercise of legitimation for the members of the shūrā, since, as noted by M. Watt, Abū Bakr is cited in the tradition for leading to the conversion of five out of the six members of the shūrā (‘Uthmān, Ṭalḥa, al-Zubayr, Sa‘d, and Ibn ‘Awf). “Abū Bakr,” Encyclopedia of Islam, I (1960), 110. Also, Ibn al-Jawzī, Talqīḥ, 105, citing a report by Ibn Ishaq.

108. Ṭabarī, I, 2793. Trans. G. Rex Smith, History of al-Ṭabarī : The Conquest of Iran (Albany, 1994), XIV, 159. This is how the stories explain ‘Alī’s loss of the succession. Historically we know that ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. ‘Awf was the brother-in-law of ‘Uthmān (Abū ‘Alī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Miskawayh, Tajārib al-Umam, ed. Abū’l-Qāsim Emāmī [Tehran, 1987], I, 264), which must have strengthened their alliance, as did their extensive trade interests and wealth.

109. It is partly for this reason that Ibn ‘Awf, rather than ‘Uthmān, voices some criticism of ‘Umar’s heavy-handed style. See ‘Uthmān’s argument with ‘Alī in chap. 5.

110. ‘Uthmān, as is well known, would later be accused of appointing his kinsmen to important governorships for reasons of tribal and kindred solidarity rather than merit or piety.

111. Ṭabarī, I, 2139–2140. Blankinship, HT, XI, 148. Translation slightly modified. Yūnus b. ‘Abd al-‘Alā←Yaḥyā b. ‘Abdallāh b. Bukayr←al-Layth b. Sa‘d←‘Ulwān←Ṣāliḥ b. Kaysān←‘Umar b. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. ‘Awf←‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. ‘Awf.

112. Ṭabarī, I, 2140. Blankinship, HT, XI, 149.

113. Ṭabarī, I, 2140–2141. Blankinship, HT, XI, 149–150. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 407.

114. Qur’ān 18:78 (Arberry, I, 327).

115. Although no details about this event exist in Ṭabarī (although they are found in Ya‘qūbī), Abū Bakr’s regret shows that it must have been redacted by Ṭabarī, but not completely.

3. ‘UMAR B. AL-KHAṬṬĀB: A SAGA OF LAW AND CONQUEST

1. For a range of ḥadīths admonishing hostility to Abū Bakr and ‘Umar, see Ibn ‘Asākir, XXX, 195, 144, 201, 392; XLIV, 222–227; Khaṭīb, Ta ’rīkh Baghdād, VII, 357, 387; al-Hindī, Kanz, XIII, 3–26.

2. The term originated from ‘Umar’s famous remark: “wāfaqtu rabbī fī thalāth, fī maqām Ibrāhīm wa fī’l-ḥijāb wa fī qawlihi ‘asā rabbuhu in ṭallaqakunna ’ [Divine scripture concurred with my opinion on three occasions: in establishing a place of worship at Abraham’s first building foundations at the Ka‘ba, in the matter of the veiling of women, and in the ruling relating to divorce] [Qur’ān 66:5].” Dhahabī, al-Khulafā’ al-Rāshidūn, 147. A core list of these incidents is included by ‘Umar b. Shabba in his Ta’rīkh al-Madīna, I, 45–51. Also, Suyūṭī, Ta’rīkh al-Khulafā’, 142–146. The main list of these concurrences usually includes ‘Umar’s pious opinion on different matters, especially those that elicited a Qur’ānic revelation. These issues include: imposing the ḥijāb on women (Qur’ān 33:53–54), the principle of seeking permission (Qur’ān 24:58), opposing funeral prayer service for the deceased of the hypocrites (Qur’ān 9:84), the prohibition of wine (Qur’ān 2:219), and the idea of using the commemorative foundation place where Ibrāhim began building the Ka‘ba as a special prayer location (Qur’ān 2:119). It should be noted that the second chapter of the Qur’ān (sūrāt al-baqara), where the latter verse appears, deals heavily toward its ending with themes of social organization, especially as regards women, and outlines rules of marriage, divorce, and inheritance (verses 221–241), and business contracts, all of which fall squarely within the range of topics that ‘Umar purportedly spoke about the most before and during his reign. These were topics that would have been integral to broader issues of social, political, and legalistic organization in the early ‘Abbāsid period. Other miscellaneous issues associated with ‘Umar include: the three-time divorce, the end of the mut‘a, the penalty of stoning for the married adulterer, abolishing the share of al-mu’allafatu qulūbuhum (i.e., the wavering converts to Islam) in war spoils, standardizing the takbīr for the funeral prayer, adding the tarāwīḥ prayer during Ramaḍān, and the idea to exile non-Muslims from Arabia.

3. There are anecdotes that portray ‘Umar holding leafs of biblical text (generically referred to as “al-tawrāt”) and that show the Prophet commanding him to discard them. Al-Suyūṭī, al-Khaṣā’ is al-Kubrā, ed. Muḥammad Khalīl Harrās, 3 vols. (Cairo, 1967), III, 132. Another account describes how ‘Umar used to go among the Jews on their study days (yawm madārisihim), and how he used to marvel at how the Torah confirms the Qur’ān and vice versa. Ibn Shabba, Ta’rīkh al-Madīna, II, 49. Such stories clearly served to highlight the meaning of the finality of the Prophet, or how the Qur’ān was confirming primary laws from biblical times. Whatever their origin, these accounts about ‘Umar’s learnedness link up with other accounts that show ‘Umar as someone versed in reading and writing (“wa kāna ‘Umar yaqra’ al-kutub”). Ibn Shabba, Ta’rīkh al-Madīna, I, 348; Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi, al- ‘ Iqd, IV, 157; al-Muḥibb al-Ṭabarī, al-Riyāḍal-Naḍira, II, 6.

4. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 358. Ibn Sa‘d, III, 270. Variations on this include a saying attributed to ‘Alī that “an angel speaks through the mouth of ‘Umar.” Abū Nu‘aym Aḥmad b. ‘Abdallāh al-Iṣbahānī, Ḥilyat al-Awliyā ’, 10 vols. (Cairo, 1932– 1938), I, 42. Aḥmad, Musnad, IX, 144.

5. Dhahabī, al-Khulafā ’ al-Rāshidūn, 147

6. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 355.

7. Another ḥadīth states: “If the faith of Abū Bakr was put in one scale, and the faith of all the people of the earth put in the other, Abū Bakr’s would be the more weighty.” Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad al-Bayhaqī, al-Maḥāsin wa’ l-Masāwi’, ed. M. Ibrāhīm (Beirut, n.d.), 35. Ibn ‘Asākir, XXX, 126.

8. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 355–356.

9. Tirmidhī, Sunan, V, 578. Aḥmad, Musnad, XXVIII, 624. Ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥakam, FutūḥMiṣr wa Akhbāruhā, ed. C. Torrey (New Haven, 1922), 288. Dhahabī, al-Khulafā’ al-Rāshidūn, 147. Another exuberant ḥadīth would state: “Had I not been sent among you [as a messenger], ‘Umar would have.” Al-‘Iṣāmī, Simṭal-Nujūm al- ‘Awālī, II, 383.

10. Tirmidhī, Sunan, V, 581. Muslim, V (pt. 15), 166 (no. 2398). Bukhārī (kitāb aḥādīth al-anbiyā’), IV, 449 (no. 675). Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 435. Dhahabī, al-Khulafā ’ al-Rāshidūn, 146. This most widely known form of the ḥadīth appears to be amended from an original that began as such: “The Israelites used to have individuals who were inspired. If any of them were to be counted in my nation, it would be ‘Umar [kāna fī Banī Isrā’īl muḥaddathūn, fa-in kāna fī ummatī minhum aḥad fa- ‘Umar b. al-Khaṭṭāb].” Ibn ‘Asākir, XLIV, 91; al-Muḥibb al-Ṭabarī, al-Riyāḍ al-Naḍira, I, 261. Bukhārī (bāb faḍā’il aṣḥāb al-nabī), 5:27 (no. 38); with some difference (laqad kāna fī man kāna qablakum min banī isrā’īl rijālun yukallamūna min ghayr an yakūnū anbiyā’, fa-in yakun min ummatī aḥad fa- ‘Umar).

11. The comparison of ‘Umar with Paul is especially rich, and several authors have noted the parallel in the key role that these two figures played as “second champions” in articulating and defending these two faiths. See W. Muir, Annals of the Early Caliphate (London, 1883), 283–284. D. S. Margoliouth, Mohammed and the Rise of Islam (London, 1905), 162–165, 167, 346. W. R. Smith, “Some Similarities and Differences Between Christianity and Islam,” The World of Islam (London, 1960), 52. And, most recently, Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, “‘Umar b. al-Khaṭṭāb—Paul of Islam?,” Some Religious Aspects of Islam, a Collection of Articles (Leiden, 1981), 1–16. The “second man” analogy, however, has mostly been drawn in symbolic or historic terms. A close reading of the portrait of ‘Umar, his discourse, and issues of concern can show that religious sources (whether ḥadīth or historical accounts) drew heavily on the New Testament in this context. ‘Umar’s social regulations, exhortations for modesty, restrictions on women, and injunction for the authority of men as husbands over wives and fathers over children, derive a lot from Paul’s First Letter to Timothy and First Letter to the Corinthians. Along with these influences were other miscellaneous issues, such as Paul’s deprecation of material things (money, jewelry, etc.) as the root of all evil, and discouragement of the flock not to preoccupy themselves with “myths … which promote speculations” (read: takalluf).

12. Ibn Sa‘d, III, 287.

13. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 351. Another statement declares: “Beware the anger of ‘Umar. God is made angry with his anger.” Ibn ‘Asākir, XLIV, 72.

14. Another ḥadīth would declare: “ashaddu ummatī fī amri allāh, ‘ Umar .” Ibn Sa‘d, III, 291.

15. Ibn Sa‘d, III, 283. Ibn al-Jawzī, Ṣifat al-Ṣafwa, ed. Ibrāhīm Ramaḍān, 2 vols. (Beirut, 1989), I, 143.

16. For examples of this advice literature given to Hārūn al-Rashīd about practices in ‘Umar’s time, see, Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharāj, 36–40.

17. There has been a significant discussion in recent scholarship of ‘Umar’s image as religious deliverer after the conquest of Jerusalem. This was first propounded by Michael Cook and Patricia Crone in their Hagarism. The authors there argued that the title “fārūq” constituted an Islamic fossilization of a certain Jewish idea of messianism, and that ‘Umar was awaited as messianic redeemer (p. 5). While the Jerusalem context of ‘Umar’s glorifics is real, I would argue that this web of messianism was woven around a single political achievement (the Jerusalem conquest) and lacked the religious substance that Muḥammad’s role occupied (e.g., a religious discourse, an aura of kinship magic, a sectarian following as the Hāshimite cause received, and other aspects). For a discussion of ‘Umar’s role as deliverer of Jerusalem, see Suliman Bashear, “The Title ‘Fārūq’ and Its Association with ‘Umar I,” Studia Islamica 22 (1990): 47–70.

18. Implications to this effect can be inferred from a variety of modern studies, such as B. Lewis, “An Apocalyptic Vision of Islamic History,” BSOAS 13 (1950): 305–338. On the Jewish affinity to the early Islamic narrative in general, see F. Rosenthal, A History of Muslim Historiography (Leiden, 1968), 46–47, 140–141.

19. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 356. Ibn Sa‘d, III, 270. Ṭabarī, Dhuyūl Ta’rīkh al-Ṭabarī, ed. M. Abū’l-Faḍl Ibrāhīm, 504. The account is related on the authority of al-Zuhrī. Other reports simply state that ‘Umar was mentioned in the books of the Christians but not by the epithet “al-fārūq .” Ibn Sa‘d, III, 326. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 465. Also, Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 572

20. As the common view will characterize ‘Umar’s life: “‘Umar’s conversion to Islam was a conquest, his hijra was a victory, and his reign was a mercy to the people” (Ibn Sa‘d, III, 270).

21. For an overview of these overt categories, see the work of A. Noth and L. Conrad; also, F. Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing.

22. Stories about the caliph advocating the use of the Arabic language are well known. Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, Jāmi‘, II, 168. “Learning Arabic,” ‘Umar declared, “enhances one’s chivalry [murū ’ a].” Ibn Qutayba, ‘ Uyūn al-Akhbār, I, 412. A similar report claims that ‘Umar ordered two Persians on pilgrimage to switch to speaking Arabic since Persian speaking leads to unworthy behavior (man takallama al-fārisiyya khabb). Al-Sahmī, Ta’rīkh Jurjān, 426. ‘Umar probably made a similar comment directed to al-Mughīra after the latter’s failure as a translator of Persian at the encounter between ‘Umar and al-Hurmuzān. ‘Umar commented: “It doesn’t seem you know it [Persian] that much. [Know that] any of you who masters it goes astray … [“mā arāka bihā ḥ ādhiqan, mā aḥsanahā minkum aḥadun illā khabb wa mā khabba illā daqqa, iyyākum wa iyyāha fa-innahā tanquḍu al-i‘rāb].” Ṭabarī, I, 2560. ‘Umar also commanded his governors to punish scribes who miswrote the language (al-laḥn). Al-Ṣūlī, Adab al-Kuttāb, 35, 129. These latter examples branch off from the image of the caliph in later times as the organizer of dīwans and administration, a process that in fact happened in the later Umayyad period.

23. Ṭabarī, I, 2725. Ibn Sa‘d, III, 346.

24. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 474. Ibn Sa‘d, III, 338, 349–350, 352.

25. All this discussion was no doubt meant to reflect on the ‘Abbāsids and their role in transforming the social basis of the Islamic state, and it was equally intended as a commentary on ‘Umar and the Arabs.

26. Ṭabarī, I, 2193.

27. The caliph is also said to have discouraged mixed marriages between Arabs and non-Arabs.

28. Ṭabarī, I, 2483–2485. There are different versions of ‘Umar’s statement here. These include: “inna al- ‘arab lā yuwāfiquhā illā mā wāfaqa ibilihā min al-buldān” (Ṭabarī I, 2483); “inna al- ‘araba lā taṣliḥu bi-arḍin lā taṣ liḥu bihā al-ibil” (Ṭabarī, I, 2484); “inna al- ‘arab lā yuṣliḥuhā min al-buldān illā mā aṣlaḥa al-shāt wa’l-ba‘īr” (Ṭabarī, I, 2485; Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharāj, 30). Some images of ‘Umar’s behavior are also clearly connected with the camel motif in the sources. One narrator states: “When two men with a dispute used to come to ‘Umar for a solution, he would kneel down, and say, ‘O Lord, help me against these two, for each of them wants me to compromise my religion.’” Ibn Sa‘d, III, 289. The expression used to describe ‘Umar’s action of kneeling down (baraka‘alā rukbatayh)—instead of jathā or qa‘ada—is the image associated with the camel’s action, and was pointedly selected to be consistent with other motifs about the camel described above. The intent in these texts was to paint the image of a stern leader with a natural sensibility for fairness that drew on nomadic values and blended with the ecological environment of Arabia.

29. Ṭabarī, I, 2483.

30. Ṭabarī, I, 2144.

31. A plethora of colloquial or nonliterate Arabic expressions are attributed to ‘Umar in the sources. In asking Abū Lu’lu’a about his profession, ‘Umar’s question was “aysh ṣinā ‘tuka [what is your profession?]” (Ṭabarī, I, 2722), and in answering ‘Amr b. al-‘Āṣ, ‘Umar would say “(ī) walladhī nafsu ‘Umar bi-yadihi” (Ṭabarī, I, 2742) rather than “(ay)…” Such bedouin colloquialisms are not assigned to the other companions, and certainly not to ‘Alī.

32. Later, in the times of ‘Uthmān, ‘Alī, and the fitnas, the Khārijites become the realization of ‘Umar’s warnings about the danger of corrupting the A‘rāb. Not coincidentally, in a clear narrative linkage, they are shown as being fond of ‘Umar even when there is no clear religious or political reason for them to cherish his memory at a time of conflict with ‘Alī.

33. Qur’ān 44:25–28 (Arberry, II, 208). Ṭabarī, I, 2443.

34. Debate on the extent of the Islamic conquests in ‘Umar’s reign never theless continues. Tilman Nagel casts reasonable doubt on the possibility that ‘Umar was genuinely interested “in expanding the territory of Islam beyond the borders of Arabia,” and surmises that the early conquests were only permitted out of Basra and Kufa to thwart the annual raids the Sasanids waged against southern Iraq. T. Nagel, “Some Considerations Concerning the Pre-Islamic and the Islamic Foundations of the Authority of the Caliphate,” in Studies on the First Century of Islamic Society, ed. G. H. A. Juynboll (Southern Illinois University Press, 1982), 188.

35. When the booty from the conquest of Persia was sent to ‘Umar, he reportedly displayed it in the mosque of Medina, and on that occasion wept. When ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. ‘Awf asked, “Why do you weep, Commander of the Faithful, is this not an occasion to express thanks to God? [inna hādhā min mawāqif al-shukr],” ‘Umar replied, “Indeed, but that is not the reason why I cry. By God, He never gave such as this to any people without that giving rise to mutual envy and hatred [mā a‘ṭā allāhu hādhā qawman illā taḥāsadū‚ wa tabāghaḍū, wa lā taḥāsadū illā alqā ba’sahum baynahum].” Ṭabarī, I, 2466–2467. Trans. G. Juynboll, History of al-Ṭabarī: The Conquest of Iraq, Southwestern Persia, and Egypt (Albany, 1989), XIII, 46 (with minor modification). Abū Yūsuf’s account phrases the caliph’s comment slightly differently (… wa lakinna allāh lam yu‘ṭi qawman hādhā illā alqā baynahum al-‘adāwata wa’l-baghḍā’). Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharāj, 47. The statement is reported on the authority of al-Zuhrī. See similarity to ‘Alī’s comments below.

36. Qur’ān 47:38 (Arberry, II, 224)

37. In the opening of his work, Abū Nu‘aym states, “fa-bada’tu awwalan bi-dhikri aḥādītha ruwiyat fī faḍīlat l-furs wa’l- ‘ajam wa ’ l-mawālī wa-annahum al-mubashsharūn bi-manāl al-imān wa’l-taḥaqquq bihi wa in kāna ‘ inda al-thurayyā [I begin the narration with stories that have been told about the merits of the Persians and the non-Arabs, and about how they have been promised the true acquisition of faith even if it were as remotely positioned as the Pleiades].” Abū Nu‘aym, Dhikr Akhbār Iṣbahān, I, 1. The author then lists numerous other ḥadīths that foretell the coming rise of Persia. For other ḥadīths on the merits of Persia, see, Muslim (faḍl fāris), VI (pt. 16), 100 (no. 2546), “If knowledge were even in the Pleiades…” Bukhārī’s version of this ḥadīth makes it implicit that the reference is to Persians. Bukhārī (bāb qawlihi ‘wa ākharīn minhum lammā yalḥaqū bihim ’), VI, 390 (no. 420).

38. And here one can recall a whole slew of ḥadīths in which the Prophet praises Persia as the patron of the Hāshimites and endorses Persian culture and language. These ḥadīths were clearly meant to contradict ‘Umar’s insistence on Arabic and praise of the Arab element. In one ḥadīth, for example, the Prophet is reported to have said: “Persia is our close relation [fār is ‘usba tunā ahl al-bayt].” Abū Nu‘aym, Dhikr Akhbār Iṣbahān, I, 11. Ibn al-Faqīh al-Hamadhānī, Mukhtaṣar Kitāb al-Buldān, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden, 1885), 196. And in another ḥadīth : “He who converts among the Persians is considered from Quraysh [man aslama min fāris fa-huwa quraysh].” I. Goldziher, Muslim Studies, I, 112 (citing al-Suyūṭī, al-Jāmi ‘ al-Ṣaghīr). And, in another ḥadīth, the Prophet is quoted berating his grandson al-Ḥasan in a Persian phrase. Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, kitāb al-jihād, bāb man takallam bi’l-fārisiyya wa’l-raṭāna, IV, 195 (no. 306). Other statements show no aversion to reading the Qur’ān in Persian (Khaṭīb, Ta’rīkh Baghdād, XI, 164), and intermarriage with Iranians, especially Khurāsānīs, is encouraged. Al-Hamadhānī states that Khurāsānī women are envied because they bear mostly male offspring and that this is attested to by the abundance of male progeny in the line of ‘Alī b. Abī Ṭālib. Kitāb al-Buldān, 75.

39. Ṭabarī, I, 2741 (la tajlidū al- ‘ arab fa-tudhillūhā wa tujammirūhā fa-taftinūhā wa lā taghfilū ‘ anhā fa-taḥrimūhā). Abū Yūsuf’s Kitāb al-Kharāj substitutes the word” for “al-‘arab” in a variant, later tradition that tries to Islamize these historical words of advice. Kitāb al-Kharāj, 115. Ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥakam, Futūḥ Miṣr, 167

40. Ṭabarī, I, 2684. Smith, HT, XIV, 55.

41. Ṭabarī, I, 2613; Abū Ḥanīfa Aḥmad b. Dāwūd al-Dīnawarī, Kitāb al-Akhbār al-Ṭiwāl, ed. V. Guirgass (Leiden, 1888), 142.

42. ‘Alī, for example, is never cited as having accompanied ‘Umar on any of the four trips that he made to Syria, while all the significant men who later joined Mu‘āwiya, including Ibn ‘Abbās, make an appearance there.

43. The description in Ṭabarī and Ibn Sa‘d of the Saqīfa incident is well redacted to avoid an open correlation between the goals of ‘Alī and the Anṣār. However, other fragmentary texts preserve a memory of an original bond between the two oppositions. Al-Ma’mūn is quoted by al-Zubayr b. Bakkār as berating the Anṣār for having let down ‘Alī and al-‘Abbās when these figures were advocating the rights of the Anṣār at the Saqīfa. Al-Akhbār al-Muwaffaqiyyāt, ed. S. M. al-‘Ānī (Baghdad, 1972), 239

44. Ṭabarī, I, 3286

45. Ṭabarī, I, 2677. The accusation of the Kufans to ‘Ammār was, “He is inadequate, stingy, and has no political skill [huwa wallāhi ghayru kāfin wa lā mujzin wa lā ‘ālimun bi ’ l-siyāsa].” The contrast between the politicians and the pious was clearly a core message in this confrontation as well.

46. Ṭabarī, I, 2608.

47. Ṭabarī, I, 2704.

48. Note for example the tradition that has ‘Umar say of ‘Amr b. al-‘Āṣ: “It is not right that Abū ‘Abdallāh should be appointed to a position other than that of being a leader [amīr].” Ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥakam, Futūḥ Miṣr, 180. Dhahabī, Ta’rīkh al-“muslimīn Islām wa Wafayāt al-Mashāhīr wa ’, 29 vols. in 26, ed. ‘Umar Tadmurī (Beirut, 1990), IV, 92. In case the reader missed the intended tension between ‘Umar and ‘Alī, one narrator describes ‘Umar’s memory of the episode of the treaty of al-Ḥudaybiyya as follows: “The Messenger of God consented to a peace with the Meccans of the sort that were he [i.e., the Prophet] to appoint a leader who would command [law ammar ‘ alayya amīran] me to do what the Messenger of God had done [at al-Ḥudaybiyya], I would never have listened to him or obeyed him [in that deed].” Ibn Sa‘d, II, 101. This account, narrated on the authority of Ibn ‘Abbās, repeats ‘Umar’s usual angst at concessions to nonbelievers, but with a turn of witty pun on the words ‘alayya/ ‘Alī, we can find ‘Umar making a direct challange to ‘Alī

49. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 360, 363.

50. Ṭabarī, I, 1579. The incident is referred to in ḥadīth texts but without the competitive edge toward Abū Bakr and ‘Umar. Bukhārī (kitāb al-jihād), IV, 122, 156–157 (nos. 192, 253); al-Hindī, Kanz, X, 463 (no. 30121)

51. Ṭabarī, I, 2213–2214.

52. ‘Umar’s letter advised: “Do not be perturbed by the information that you receive about them nor by [the army] that they will muster against you … Send [to the Persian king] people of [impressive] appearance, sound judgment and endurance, in order to invite him to embrace Islam [lā yukribannaka mā ya’ tīka‘anhum wa lā mā ya’tūnaka bihi… wa ib‘ath ilayhi rijālan min ahl al-munāẓara wa’l-ra’y wa’l-jalad yad‘ūnahu].” Ṭabarī, I, 2235. Y. Friedmann, History of al-Ṭabarī: The Battle of al-Qā disiyya and the Conquest of Syria and Palestine (Albany, 1992), XII, 29.

53. Ṭabarī, I, 2220

54. Ṭabarī, I, 2680. Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi, al- ‘Iqd, I, 22. The exchange between the two makes the comparison seem like one that extends to include non-Muslims.

55. Ṭabarī, I, 2255. The Arabic here is “wa-allāh laqad ṣadaqa al-‘arabiyy… waallāh mā aslamanā illā a‘mālunā…. inna allāh kāna yanṣurukum ‘alā l-‘aduww wa yumakkinu lakum fī’l-bilād bi-ḥusn al-sīra wa kaff al- ẓulm wa’ l-wafā’ bi’l- ‘uhūd wa’l-iḥsān fa-ammā idh taḥawwaltum ‘an dhalika ilā hādhihi l-a‘māl fa-lā ‘arā allāh illā mughayyiran mā bikum wa mā anā bi-āman an yanzi ‘a allāhu sulṭānahu minkum.” Friedmann, HT, XII, 51 (with variation). These comments were crafted to be read in tandem with a narrative planted in the ‘Abbāsid period, where it showed a maturity and final resolution for the words of Rustam. The relevant later text surfaces when the Khurāsānī commander Qaḥṭaba tells his troops on the eve of the ‘Abbāsid revolution: “Men of Khurāsān [yā ahla Khurāsān], this land belonged to your] before you, and they were given victory over their enemies because they were just and behaved rightly [wa kānū yunṣarūna ‘alā ‘aduwwihim bi-‘adlihim wa ḥusni sīratihim]. God the Mighty and Glorious was then angered with them. Their authority was taken from them, and the humblest people to share the earth with them was given power over them and took their land and their women and enslaved their children [ḥattā baddalū wa ẓalamū fa-sakhiṭ a allāhu ‘alayhim fa-intaza‘a sulṭānahum wa sallaṭa ‘alayhim adhalla ummatin kānat fī’l-arḍ ‘indahum]. Yet this people ruled justly with all and kept their word and succored the oppressed [fa-kānū bi-dhālika yaḥkumūna bi’l-‘adl wa yūfūna bi’l-‘ahd wa yanṣurūna al-maẓlūm]. Then they changed and altered; they went astray in their governance, and people of probity and piety came to fear from the race of God’s Apostle, may God’s benediction be on him, and peace [thumma baddalū wa ghayyarū fa-jārū fī’ l-ḥukm…]! Thus God has empowered you against them in order that revenge be enacted through you, that you should be their greatest punishment, for you have sought them out for vengeance. The Imām has sworn to me that you would encounter them in numbers great as these, but that God would give you victory over them, and you will rout and slay them.” Ṭabarī, II, 2005. Trans. J. A. Williams, The ‘Abbāsid Revolution, XXVII, 110–111. Upon comparing the two speeches by Rustam and Qaḥṭaba, the reader is led to see how divine favor to people turns in relation to a process of “tabdīl,” and in both the goal is to show that Iran was the object of these historical cycles of moral change throughout. Both Rustam and Qaḥṭaba invoke in their respective speeches similar Qur’ānically inspired moral language and maintain a universal focus in their exhortations.

56. Ṭabarī, I, 2266.

57. Ṭabarī, I, 2243–2244. Ibn al-Athīr, II, 458. Ya‘qūbī, II, 143–144

58. Ṭabarī, I, 2266, 2286. In a variant version, the weapon of Persia is handed to the Prophet, who hands it to ‘Umar. Ibn al-Athīr, II, 460. Ṭabarī, I, 2352.

59. Ṭabarī, I, 2241–2242; also a similar exchange between al-Mughīra b. Shu‘ba and Bundār, the Persian commander, just before the Battle of Nihāwand. Ṭabarī, I, 2602, 2279. Dīnawarī makes the standoff between al-Mughīra b. Shu‘ba and Rustam (Dīnawarī, 137). Abū Nu‘aym sets the discussion in the context of the conquest of Nihāwand between al-Nu‘mān b. Muqarrin and Yazdajird. Abū Nu‘aym, Dhikr Akhbār Iṣbahān, ed. S. Dedering, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1931–1934), I, 21. Ibn al-Athīr mentions that the debate before Qādisiyya was between al-Nu‘mān b. Muqarrin and Yazdajird. Al-Kāmil, II, 456. Also see, A. Noth and L. Conrad, The Early Arabic Historical Tradition, 158. All these versions contain a similar moralizing essence, and could hardly have been accepted as total fact by a medieval audience. The question narrators wrestled with, as the account varied slightly, was which characters the audience wanted to see involved in this debate rather than what was literally said. On the Persian side, the choice of Yazdajird is the overwhelming one, but on the Arab side, division prevails. It could well be that the original account cast al-Mughīra b. Shu‘ba in the role but that he was later replaced. Al-Mughīra’s later political tilt to the Umayyads against ‘Alī and/or the story of his later sex scandal could have contributed to both Sunnī and Shī‘ī replacement of this commander with a more wholesome character. This switch of name, however, ultimately threw the network of ties in the story of the conquest of Persia in ‘Umar’s reign off balance, since al-Mughīra b. Shu‘ba had to be involved in this critical embassy to show the ironic ties among ‘Umar, Yazdajird, Hurmuzān, Abū Lu’lu’a, and al-Mughīra. Offshoot narratives about the debate between Mughīra and the Sasanids sometimes put Rustam in the position of the arrogant interlocutor, but these narratives, which tend to be more religiously zealous, are secondary imitations of the original account. Al-Maqdisī, al-Bad’ wa’l-Ta’rī kh, ed. C. Huart (Paris, 1899), V, 173; Ṭabarī, I, 2352; Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharāj, 29.

60. Within this frame of biblical coloring, the much-criticized statement of Sayf b. ‘Umar describing how the victorious Arab cavalry waded through the Euphrates River and conquered Ctesiphon makes sense as a reshaping of motifs from the Moses story. Ṭabarī, I, 2432–2441.

61. This moral contrast in the depiction of Rustam and Yazdajird was anchored to the early narrators in a systemic class difference between the two men, with Yazdajird being of obscure maternal lineage (known as “ibn al-ḥajjāma”). Ya‘qūbī, II, 144.

62. Ṭabarī, I, 2164. Ya‘qūbī, I, 173.

63. It should be said here that Ṭabarī’s account of those closing years of Sasanid rule is based less on an accurate sequencing in chronology than on the author’s ordering of characters. According to Ṭabarī, for instance, Būrān follows Āzarmidukht and is portrayed as the one who summons Rustam to organize the Persian state. Other sources on the Arab side (such as Ya‘qūbī, I, 173) and the Byzantine side, however, clearly place Āzarmidukht after Būrān. See M. Morony, “Sasanids,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., IX (Leiden, 1997), 80. R. Frye, The Heritage of Persia (New York, 1962), 240. “Dionysius Reconstituted” (as extracted from Michael the Syrian’s Chronicle of 1234) in The Seventh Century in the West-Syrian Chronicles, trans. A. Palmer, S. Brock, and R. Hoyland (Liverpool University Press, 1993), 143.

64. Ibn al-Athīr, II, 455–456. When Yazdajird called on Rustam to lead the armies, the latter reportedly replied, “It is better that you do not send me, for the Arabs will only keep fearing us so long as I am not the one sent to fight them. And perchance the kingdom will last better if I stay behind, and then God will have sufficed us and we will have followed a sound strategy. Sound opinion is verily more beneficial than warfare [la‘alla al-dawla an tathbita bī idhā lam aḥḍur al-ḥarb fa-yakūn allāh qad kafā wa nakūn qad a ṣ abnā al-makīda, wa’l-ra’y fī’l-ḥarb anfa‘ min ba‘ḍ al-ẓafr, wa’l-ināt khayrun min al-‘ajala].” This relatively long narrative of debate between Yazdajird and Rustam is only included in Ibn al-Athīr’s work, although the terminology used by Rustam (al-dawla, al-makīda, al-ra ’ y) meshes with Ṭabarī’s language for describing political debates and conflict among Muslims, especially during the fitnas.

65. Dīnawarī, 142. Ṭabarī, I, 2213–2217.

66. Ṭabarī, I, 2290 (Ṭabarī←al-Sarī←Shu‘ayb←Sayf←Hallam←Mas‘ūd. Also in another report narrated by Ṭabarī←al-Sarī←Shu‘ayb←Sayf←al-Naḍar←Ibn al-Rufayl).

67. Dīnawarī, 136.

68. Ibn Sa‘d, V, 89. The addition here is a clear reference to the twelve nuqabā’ of the Anṣār, who first pledged support to the Prophet before he made the hijra, and the twelve deputies of Moses.

69. The account follows up with an explanatory detail, “‘Umar had sat there to receive a delegation from the inhabitants of al-Kufa dressed in a hooded cloak. When he had finished talking to them and they had risen from the audience and left him alone, he took off his cloak, folded it to make a pillow and went to sleep. So the people from al-Basra, together with the bystanders, went to look for him…” Ṭabarī, I, 2557. Juynboll, HT, XIII, 137–138. The repeated focus in this account on describing in detail what ‘Umar was wearing, a burnous, for meeting the Ku-fans, and how he took it off afterward and put it underneath him in sleep was meant not just as an ascetic symbol. The reference to the burnous was no doubt an allusion to the Qurrā’ and the Khārijites (or more generally extremist dissenters from ‘Alī’s party—bedouins and Kufans, according to Sunnī valuation) who would get referred to as “aṣḥāb al-barānis” (Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi, al- ‘Iqd, IV, 347, 351). In keeping with the Arab theme described above, ‘Umar’s wearing of a bornous may depict him as a consistent fan of a particular desert garb that had cultural connotations of religious asceticism and zeal. But it may also be that the account intended to portray ‘Umar as a savvy leader who wears the particular garb of his visitors, in this case the Kufans who had just departed.

70. The relevant story represents a classic ‘Abbāsid anecdote about the caliph scouting the condition of his community of subjects at night. See Ṭabarī, I, 2743–2745.

71. Ṭabarī, I, 2557–2758.

72. Ṭabarī, I, 2558–2559; Juynboll, HT, XIII, 138–140. Ibn Sa‘d, V, 89–90.

73. Dīnawarī describes how Yazdajird entrusted Hurmuzān with leading a new defensive strategy against the Arabs from al-Ahwāz, clearly showing that his role succeeded that of Rustam. Dīnawarī, 136.

74. The same desire of an Iranian leader to convert in the presence of a caliph and/or at the well-spring of Islamic prophecy in Medina is later attributed to other important figures. Ṣūl, the ruler of Jurjān, for example, asks Yazīd b. al-Muhallab, commander of the Umayyad campaign to Jurjān, if there is a more important leader in Islam to whom he can offer a more honorable submission. When referred to the caliph Sulaymān b. ‘Abd al-Malik in Damascus, Ṣūl asks the caliph the same question, and he is told that the only place left that is more honorable is the tomb of the Prophet in Medina. Ṣūl finally heads to Medina and declares his conversion there, in essence establishing a link with the Hāshimite family. See R. Bulliet, Islam: The View from the Edge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 44, citing al-Sahmī, Ta’rīkh Jurjān (Hayderabad, 1967), 247. A similar myth is attributed to Barmak, the grandfather of Yaḥyā al-Barmakī, who, being the princely and religious leader of Balkh, travels to Medina to offer direct surrender to the caliph ‘Uthmān. Al-Qazwīnī, Āthār al-Bilād wa Akhbār al-‘Ibād (Beirut, n.d.), 331. Ibn al-Faqīh al-Hamadhānī, Kitāb al-Buldān, 323. I. ‘Abbās, “Barmakids,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, ed. E. Yarshater, III (London, 1989), 806. Al-Faḍl b. Sahl is later said to have converted at the hands of al-Ma’mūn, while another story attributes the conversion earlier to his father, Sahl, at the hands of the caliph al-Mahdī. Ibn al-Athīr, VI, 197. Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt al-A ‘yān, ed. M. ‘Abd al-Ḥamīd, 8 vols. (Cairo, 1948), III, 209. Another variant tradition says that al-Faḍl b. Sahl disliked converting at the hands of al-Rashīd or al-Ma’mūn; he thus went to the great mosque after performing a ritual bath and there he embraced Islam. Khaṭīb, T a’ rīkh Baghdād, XII, 340. The primary model of all of these stories would have been not just the Hurmuzān story but also that of Salmān al-Fārisī, who, as a representative of the Iranian nation, traveled widely in search of the true religion until he finally embraced Islam in Medina at the Prophet’s hands.

75. Ṭabarī, I, 2642. Mas‘ūdī, Murūj al-Dhahab, ed. Ch. Pellat, 5 vols. (Beirut, 1973), III, 66. Abū Nu‘aym, Dhikr Akhbār Iṣbahān, I, 21. Ibn Abī al-Shaykh, Ṭabaqāt al-Muḥaddithīn bi-Iṣbahān, I, 41. A similar story is in Bukhārī (kitāb al-khums), bāb al-jizya wa’l-muwāda ‘a, IV, 254 (no. 386).

76. For the story of ‘Umar’s conversion, see Ibn Sa‘d, III, 267–269. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 346–350.

77. Miskawayh, Tajārib al-Umam, I, 167. Ṭabarī, I, 1898.

78. Relevant to this issue is a famous ḥadīth that states: “al-ḥarbu khid‘a [warfare is guileful strategy].” Bukhārī (kitāb al-jihād), bāb al-ḥarbu khid‘a, IV, 167 (no. 268). Tirmidhī (kitāb al-jihād), IV, 166 (no. 1675). Ṭabarī, I, 1479.

79. As al-Mughīra b. Shu‘ba is said to have commented, “[‘Umar’s] virtue was greater than any need he had to make him resort to guile [kāna lahu faḍlun yamna ‘uhu min an yakhda‘].” Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi, al- ‘Iqd, IV, 270.

80. In all versions, we should recall, the key fight at the Saqīfa is between ‘Umar and Sa‘d b. ‘Ubāda. A secondary skirmish, however, occurs between al-Zubayr and ‘Umar (according to Ṭabarī, I, 1818), but ‘Alī instead of al-Zubayr (according to Ya‘qūbī, II, 126).

81. Ṭabarī, I, 2795. Miskawayh, Tajārib, I, 265. Ṭabarī adds a description of how ‘Amr convinced ‘Alī and ‘Uthmān, separately and duplicitously, before the meeting of the shūrā, to react to ‘Abd al-Raḥmān’s offer of the caliphate in a way that ultimately favored ‘Uthmān’s chances over ‘Alī. The incident explicitly foreshadows ‘Amr’s deception of Abū Mūsā al-Ash‘arī later. Balādhurī’s account does not have ‘Alī utter the statement about the “khid‘a” but does depict him exiting angrily from the meeting and being pressured to return and give the bay ‘a. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Banū ‘Abd Shams), 508. Al-Maqdisī describes the conclusion as follows: “‘Uthmān exited with a cheerful face, while ‘Alī departed ashen faced and gloomy [wa kharaja ‘Uthmān wa wajhuhu yatahallal wa ‘ Alī kāsif al-lawn arbad].” Al-Bad’ wa ’ l-Ta ’ rīkh, V, 193.

82. There is a well-known story about how ‘Amr b. al-‘Āṣ broke a stalemate siege at Ajnādayn when he decided to use the ruse of entering the city as a messenger from the Arab army. Once inside and having observed the outline of fortifications, he reportedly was suspected by the governor Arṭabūn of being a more significant officer and was about to be arrested when, recognizing the threat, ‘Amr suggested that he could bring other important officers to meet with Arṭabūn. Lured by the prospect of capturing more senior officers, the Byzantine governor allowed him to leave in expectation of his return, but ‘Amr departed for good. This occasioned the well-known remark of Arṭabūn, “I have been deceived by this man, verily he is the most cunning of people.” When news of this event reached ‘Umar in Medina, ‘Umar reportedly cheered and said: “We have sent the Arṭabūn of the Arabs to confront the Arṭabūn of the Byzantines. ‘Amr got the better of him. How excellent is ‘Amr! [laqad ramaynā Arṭabuna al-rūm bi-Arṭabūni l-‘Arab… . ghalabahu ‘Amr, li-llāhi ‘Amr!].” Ṭabarī, I, 2398–2400. The presence of ‘Amr in the succession story and the way he deceived ‘Alī about what to say at the succession provides a clearly intended link across three accounts (at Ajnādayn, at ‘Uthmān’s succession, and at Ṣiffīn). For ‘Umar’s admiration of Mu‘āwiya’s political savvy and khid ‘a, see Miskawayh, Tajārib, II, 34.

83. Ṭabarī, I, 2797. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 490. Ibn Sa‘d, III, 350, 355–356. On ‘Alī’s anger at ‘Ubaydallāh b. ‘Umar, see Balādhurī, Ansāb (Banū ‘Abd Shams), 510. Jufayna was randomly added in the story of the conspiracy to create a trio that stood in dialogue with the trio of the Muhājirūn at the Saqīfa.

84. Ibn Sa‘d, III, 347. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 485.

85. Mas‘ūdī, Murūj, III, 125.

86. Ṭabarī, I, 2722.

87. Ibn Sa‘d and Balādhurī do not include a mention of Abū Lu’lu’a’s religion as Ṭabarī does in the main story of the encounter between ‘Umar and Abū Lu’lu’a. They also mostly imply that Abū Lu’lu’a was a Magian in the report that describes him as belonging to a people who cannot touch meat except with a knife. Ṭabaqāt, III, 350. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 484. This mention is omitted in Ṭabarī, although he includes the story of the late-night conspiracy among Abū Lu’lu’a, Hurmuzān, and Jufayna. Ṭabarī, I, 2797, 2801.

88. Other accounts make Abū Lu’lu’a a “mill maker.” Ibn Sa‘d, III, 347.

89. The Arabic here is “qad balaghanī annaka taqūlu law aradtu an a ‘ mal raḥan taṭḥanu bi ’ l-rīḥi fa ‘ altu .” Ṭabarī, I, 2723.

90. Ṭabarī, I, 2722; Juynboll, HT, XIII, 90. Ibn Sa‘d, III, 345–347. A significant variant tradition in Balādhurī has ‘Umar ask ‘Alī, who happened to be in the caliph’s company, what Abū Lu’lu’a meant, and ‘Alī answered, “Verily he is threatening you, O Commander of the Faithful.” Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 482.

91. In fact, biographies of Hurmuzān highlight not only his companionship of ‘Umar but that he observed religious rites, such as the pilgrimage (hence ‘Ammār’s later comment to ‘Uthmān that Hurmuzān is “a Muslim who has performed the pilgrimage.” Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 492. Ibn Sa‘d, V, 16. (For the debacle of ‘Uthmān regarding how to deal with ‘Ubaydallāh b. ‘Umar, see chap. 4.)

92. Ṭabarī, I, 2632. Ṭabarī←al-Sarī←Shu‘ayb←Sayf←‘Amr b. Muḥammad← al-Sha‘bī. According to Ibn Sa‘d, Abū Lu’lu’a’s statement was, “The Arabs have eaten my liver.” Ibn Sa‘d, III, 347.

93. Perhaps a parallel symbolism to this can be traced to the role assigned to Kava, who joined the Iranian ruler Faridun in fighting the mythic figure Zohak. Kava, a blacksmith said to be from the people (al- ‘āmma) of Iṣbahān, sought in part to avenge the murder of his sons when he rose against the tyrant ruler Zohak (Puyrāsib). Turning his apron that guarded against the fire of metallurgical work into the famous banner dirafsh-i Kabiyān, Kava mobilized the people toward a reestablishment of just rule. The banner would continue to be the highest symbol of the Sasanid royal house until it was captured by the Arabs at the Battle of Qādisiyya. Ṭabarī, I, 207. Miskawayh, Tajārib, I, 8. On Kava and the blacksmith symbolism, see D. Davis, “Rustam-i Dastan,” Journal of Iranian Studies 32 (1999): 233. O. M. Davidson, Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of Kings (Cornell University Press, 1994), 11. D. Pickering, A Dictionary of Folklore (New York, 1999), 37.

94. Ṭabarī, I, 1537. Ibn Sa‘d, IV, 284–286.

95. When Ziyād’s turn for testimony came, ‘Umar reportedly declared: “Verily this is not the face of someone whose testimony will bring shame to a companion of the Prophet.” The implication here is that Ziyād will not ruin al-Mughīra. Although this brief account is set on its own in the story of al-Mughīra’s debacle, it was clearly part of the original frame of accounts. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 447–448.

96. The most famous criticism of Khālid related to the story of his hasty execution of Mālik b. Nuwayra al-Yarbū‘ī in Bahrain during the Ridda war and his betrothal to the latter’s widow.

97. Hence in this context Ya‘qūbī’s statement is meaningful, in that ‘Umar would say whenever he ran into al-Mughīra afterward: “O Mughīra, verily I fear every time I see you that I may be struck down by stones falling from the sky.” Ya‘qūbī, II, 146. For the detailed account of the Mughīra story, see Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 446–448. The woman’s name is reported as Umm Jamīl but the names in her ancestry seem fictitious (bint Maḥjan b. al-Afqam b. Shu‘aytha b. al-Ḥazm b. Ruwayba). Her belonging to Banū Hilāl b. ‘Āmir [b. Ṣa‘ṣa‘a] also alludes to a tribe that was typically associated with controversial actions in the sources. Also, Abū’l-Fidā, al-Mukhtaṣar, I, 162.

98. At the first assembly held by the new caliph ‘Uthmān, ‘Alī’s famous words to ‘Ubaydallāh b. ‘Umar after he killed Hurmuzān were, “You are a sinful aggressor [yā fāsiq]; should I have command over you one day, I shall certainly have you killed for your murder of Hurmuzān.” Balādhurī, Ansāb (Banū ‘Abd Shams), 510. Dīnawarī, 180. The narrator highlights the fact that Hurmuzān was viewed as someone without a direct heir in the community, and thus the Muslim community as a whole viewed itself as his patron or heir (walī).

99. It is worth noting the similarity of the pattern of this story to that of an account reported by Isḥāq b. Ibrāhīm al-Mawṣilī that describes the caliph al-Manṣūr’s initial attempt to demolish the arch of Khusraw in order to use its material in the construction of Baghdad. As is well known, the reaction of Khālid al-Barmakī at the time was first to discourage the caliph from taking this step, on the grounds that the monument symbolized the triumph of Islam and because it housed the prayer location (muṣallā) of ‘Alī b. Abī Ṭālib. Al-Manṣūr, however, dismissed this initial advice as a latent Persian sympathy on the part of the minister, saying, “Indeed, Khalid; you insist on partiality for your fellow-Persians [abayta illā al-mayl ilā aṣḥābika al- ‘ajam]”; he then proceeded with the project but later reconsidered and abandoned the plan when it became clear how costly and difficult it would be. Ṭabarī, III, 320.

100. Ka‘b’s answer here is clearly constructed with skillful attention to rhyme (ajidu ṣifataka wa ḥilyataka wa annahu qad faniya ajaluka) Ṭabarī, I, 2723. Smith, HT, XIV, 90. Other accounts have slightly more elaboration as Ka‘b tells the caliph that he appears in the Torah as the door guarding the community from falling into hell. On the representation of ‘Umar as the door protecting the community from fitna, see Nu‘aym b. Ḥammād al-Marwazī, Kitāb al-Fitan, 22–23. Ibn Sa‘d, III, 332–333, 371–373. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 469, 502. Bukhārī (bāb ‘alāmāt al-nubuwwa fī’l-islām), IV, 507 (no. 786) (kitāb al-fitan), IX, 168 (no. 216). Ibn Māja (kitāb al-fitan), II, 1306 (no. 3955).

101. Ibn Sa‘d, III, 354. ‘Affān b. Muslim←Ḥammād b. Salama←Yūsuf b. Sa‘d←‘Abdallāh b. Ḥunayn←Shaddad b. Aws←Ka‘b.

102. Ṭabarī, I, 2692–2693. Ibn al-Athīr, III, 37. Ibn al-Athīr follows up by stating that it was also said that the conquest of Khurāsān happened in the time of ‘Uthmān. Ṭabarī tries to iron out the discrepancy by claiming that Khurāsān, after this initial submission, rebelled two years into ‘Uthmān’s reign and that this led to a reconquest that ended with Yazdajird’s death. But ‘Umar’s reference to the death of Yazdajird in the speech is very clear.

103. Ṭabarī, I, 2691–2692. Smith, HT, XIV, 61–62.

104. We can see this dimension of Yazdajird’s image in an account that Ṭabarī relates about Yazdajird as he set out on his escape journey to the east. Ṭabarī describes Yazdajird’s experience of a vision of what lay ahead for Islam as follows: While on his escape to al-Rayy after the defeat at Jalūlā’, Yazdajird was traveling on a litter that was placed for him on the back of a camel, so that as the journey progressed, the emperor could sleep. “While [Yazdajird] was asleep in his litter,” Ṭabarī relates, “they woke him up so that he might be aware [of what was happening] and not be afraid when the camel forded over, [as he would be] if he were awakened from sleep. But he reproached [his men], saying, ‘You were wrong to do this! If you had left me alone, I would have found out how long this [Islamic] community will last. I saw in a dream Muḥammad and myself speaking together alone in the presence of God. [God] told [Muḥammad] that he would give them one hundred years’ power. He asked for more and [God] made it 110 years. [Again Muḥammad] asked for more and [God] made it 120 years. [Again Muḥammad) asked for more and [God] granted it, but then you woke me up. If you had left me alone, I would have found out how long this community will last!’” Ṭabarī, I, 2681: al-Sarī←Shu‘ayb←Sayf←Muḥammad, Ṭalḥa al-Muhallab and ‘Amr. Smith, HT, XIV, 51–52.

105. Dīnawarī, 146; Ṭabarī, I, 2872–2883; Tha‘ālibī, Ghurar Akhbār Mulūk al-Furs, ed. and trans. H. Zotenberg (repr., Tehran 1963), 746–748; Ya‘qūbī, I, 174; al-Maqdisī, al-Bad’ wa’l-Ta’rīkh, V, 197.

106. Also, Miskawayh, Tajārib, 270.

107. This symbolic interpretation is built on the explanation that Bayhaqī gives for a similar circumstance that occurs in a dream. Given that medieval Islamic society viewed signs about real life and dream situations as rooted in a unified cultural view of religious and moral meaning, and the degree to which the epic of the Sasanid kings itself rested on heuristic interpretations of life (for another example, see E. G. Browne, “Some Account of the Arabic Work entitled ‘Niháyatu’l-irab fī akhbári’l-Furs wa’l-‘Arab,’ particularly of that part which treats of the Persian Kings,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1900): 235–236, on the revolt of Bahrām Chūbīn), it seems the narrator of this story meant this anecdote to be read in the same light. The relevant story in Bayhaqī centers on a dream interpretation set in the ‘Abbāsid period. It states that the caliph al-Manṣūr once had a dream in the Umayyad era, long before his accession to power, that he happened to be riding a black donkey that also carried sacks of hay. When he inquired about its meaning, a soothsayer told him that the dream indicated that he would come to rule. After his accession, al-Manṣūr once again reportedly inquired into that dream story, asking the dream interpreter how he had known this dream signified a path to power. In answer, the soothsayer told him: “You said that you were riding a donkey, and a donkey signifies the luck of a person; and you added that donkey was black, and this color [sawād] is connected with the concept of good fortune [su’dud]; and finally you said that the donkey carried sacks of hay, and I thought to myself that ḥinṭa and sha‘īr are extracted from hay, and whoever came to sit on them would become in control of the sustenance of people. This was hence none other than someone who would come to rule over people.” Bayhaqī, al-Maḥāsin wa’ l-Masāwi’, 320. The significance attributed in this dream story to items such as barley and grain, and the situation of the individual in relation to them, was probably not an isolated or localized interpretation. It functioned as a code that permeated through layers of historical narration and would have been accessible as much to Ṭabarī as to Bayhaqī. Its use in articulating political themes, especially the responsibility of monarchs to subjects, is even further amplified in the story referred to earlier that described how ‘Umar once helped a destitute family by personally bringing them sacks of grain and preparing their sustenance meal. Ṭabarī, I, 2744–2745. The details of this story have wide political and cultural significance, but what concerns us here is the way it also evokes the theme of a ruler’s political control through dispensing a staple food. Both ‘Umar’s and Yazdajird’s stories here share a common link in an allusive sign of control and political responsibility.

108. For a discussion of the famous chain of power described in Persian treatises of political wisdom, see A. Lambton, State and Government in Medieval Islam, London Oriental Series, XXXVI (London: 1981), 137.

109. Another association of the number four is to the first four years of peace (fī di‘a) that Yazdajird experienced at the outset of his twenty-year reign.

110. Some narratives about Yazdajird’s end do in fact specify that the peasant who confronted him was “nāqir arḥā’,” which coincides with how Abū Lu’lu’a is sometimes described (“ṣāni‘arḥā’”). Ibn Sa‘d, III, 347; V, 46. The four dirhams Abū Lu’lu’a complained about to ‘Umar as high taxes from al-Mughīra also bear an uncanny symmetry to the four dirhams demanded from Yazdajird by the miller in Marw (also in Ibn Sa‘d and Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 482). It is useful here to note that those versions that do not cast Abū Lu’lu’a as a maker of mills, referring to him just as an artisan (naqqāsh, najjār, ḥaddād), also change the tax fees he grieves about to one hundred dirhams (according to one version in Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 480–481) or two dirhams (in Ṭabarī, I, 2722). The four-dirham grievance is most likely the original feature of the assassination story. We can be confident of this because of a report in Balādhurī that reconciles key features in the above-described novel about ‘Umar but also, and more importantly, because the author specifies that the tax grievance was four dirhams per day, adding up to 120 dirhams per month. The number 120 had already been used by Yazdajird to prophesy from a dream vision the age that the Islamic state would exceed. Ṭabarī, I, 2681. Balādhurī, Ansāb (Sā’ir), 482. The same version of Yazdajird’s fee and calculation is found in Ibn Sa‘d, III, 347. To conclude the cycle of the “four” motif, Ibn Sa‘d’s same account on Yazdajird alerts us that ‘Abdallāh b. ‘Āmir b. Kurayz, the conqueror of Khurāsān, left al-Aḥnaf b. Qays with a contingent of four thousand troops in Marw. Ibn Sa‘d, V, 46.

111. Ṭabarī, I, 1891.

112. There are numerous situations in which Ṭabarī uses this metaphor in narrating events. In his account of the Battle of Qādisiyya, Ṭabarī frequently compares the action of combat to the grinding motion of the mill. Describing how the tribe of Asad in particular withstood the brunt of the Sasanid attack, Ṭabarī’s account twice uses the phrase “wa raḥā al-ḥarb tadūru ‘alā Asad” (“while the mill of war turned around Asad”). Ṭabarī, I, 2300, 2301, 2304. The choice of the tribe of Asad as the one encircled by the mill of the Persian cavalry itself evoked another motif related to its name, “the lion,” which was meant as an oblique inversion of the name of the Persian empire, since the Arabs used to refer to the Sasanid empire as “the lion” (Ṭabarī, I, 2223). Narrators therefore were intentionally deploying a paradox in their construction of the battle narrative, as an ambiguous dialogue was set underway between the Sasanid “lion” and the Arab “lion,” where both victim and victor carry the same name in a symbolic twist on the irony of the fate of the Sasanid state and the continuity of both contenders within the Islamic fold. Elsewhere Sa‘d b. Abī Waqqāṣ himself is referred to by ‘Umar as “the lion with his paw nails drawn [al-asad fī barāthinih]” (Ṭabarī, I, 2215); and as “the lion charging [al-asad ‘ādiyan]” (Ṭabarī, I, 2216). Miskawayh, Tajārib, I, 198. ‘Umar himself received his share of this imagery, if we consider that his kunya “Abū Ḥafṣ” (given to him by the Prophet, according to Ibn al-Jawzī) meant “father of the lion.” Ibn al-Jawzī, Ta ’rīkh ‘Umar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, ed. U. A. al-Rifā’ī (Cairo, n.d), 20.

113. Ibn Rosteh, Kitāb al-A‘lāk an-Nafīsa, ed. M. J. De Goeje (Leiden, 1892), 8.

114. As Sa‘d b. Abī Waqqās would commemorate the Arab victory at Kutha by reciting the Qur’ānic verse “wa tilka al-ayyāmu nudāwiluhā bayna al-nās” (Qur’ān 3:140; Ṭabarī, I, 2424), a choice of words that referred to the cyclical process of history as well as to the transient nature of victorious days.

115. This dualistic image of the mill as a source of life and death is best captured by Ṭabarī in the scene of the Battle of Walja. Ṭabarī, I, 2035. Ṭabarī makes frequent use of the image of “the mill of battle” in other contexts. See, for example, Ṭabarī, I, 2258, 2300, 2304, 2330.