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