This thesis will demonstrate how prosopographical methods can be used to provide a narrative of social change for the Quraysh tribe of Late Antiquity. By applying these methods to records of their marriage behaviour, it will be shown that the pre-Islamic Quraysh led a far more marginal existence than is widely thought, and that in the post- Islamic period they were surprisingly flexible with regard to their marriage practices and ideas on group membership. The first three chapters focus on historiography and methodology. Chapter One introduces the methodological preliminaries that lie at the heart of this research; these concern the nature of the data, the manner in which it is extracted and the way it will be structured within databases. Issues regarding the quality and reliability of the marital records as preserved in the nasab (tr: genealogical) literary tradition are also discussed in this section. Chapter Two provides a historiography of the nasab tradition, paying particular attention to the nature of its emergence and the possible effects of social and cultural contexts on the quality of the marriage data. This provides the groundwork for Chapter Three which focuses more narrowly on the work from which most of our data are extracted – the Nasab Quraysh of al-Zubayrī (d. 851). The remaining five chapters outline how the data within the nasab tradition can be analysed and incorporated into existing secondary scholarship. Chapters Four and Five establish that the data show a rapid rise in concubinage at the same time as the Arab military conquests of the seventh century. This has implications for our current consensus on the nature of marriage and identity in the seventh and eighth centuries. Chapters Six to Eight investigate the marriages made by the Quraysh to Arab women in the sixth to eighth centuries, and will show how practice adapted to context. To conclude, it will be argued that this investigation not only establishes the high quality of the marriage data as preserved in the nasab tradition, but also the enormous potential of prosopographical methods when applied to the study of early Islamic history.

The Khārijites are usually regarded as the first faction to separate from the early Islamic community. They are viewed as rebels and heretics, constituting the first sect within early Islam. This thesis seeks to examine the narrative role and function of Khārijism in the historiographical tradition of the formative period of Islam. To that end, it looks at the major Islamic chronicles of the 3rd and 4th centuries AH/9th and 10th centuries CE and investigates their portrayal of Khārijite history. The analysis covers the period from the apparent emergence of the Khārijites at the Battle of Ṣiffīn in 37 AH/657 CE until the death of the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān in 86 AH/705 CE. The thesis’ methodological approach is based on the premise that the historiographical works under study need to be approached as literary artefacts, as texts rather than databanks that can be mined for hard facts in order to reconstruct early Islamic and thus Khārijite history ‘as it really was’. This literary analysis of the source material on Khārijism leads to two major conclusions: first, there is hardly any narrative substance to the Khārijites as presented in the sources. Instead, the reports on Khārijite activities are mostly made up of structural components such as names and dates on the one hand, and topoi and schemata on the other. Consequently, no distinct and tangible identity, literary or otherwise, emerges from the material, pointing out the pitfalls of positivist approaches to Khārijite history and by extension early Islamic history in general. This phenomenon is directly connected to the second conclusion: the historiographical sources approach Khārijism not as an end in itself, but as a narrative tool with which to illustrate, discuss and criticize other actors and subject matters. The thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapters One and Two address those characteristics of and topoi in the representation of Khārijism that pervade the source material across the entire period investigated here. It emerges that the historiographers’ major concern in the depiction of Khārijism is the discussion of the perils of the rebels’ militant piety that threatens the unity and stability of the Islamic community. Chapters Three to Five look at the periods of ʿAlī’s caliphate, Muʿāwiya’s rule and the second fitna as well as t he reign of ʿAbd al-Malik, respectively, and identify the specific narrative purposes of Khārijism in the portrayal of each period. Chapter Six offers a number of observations on the early historiographical tradition as derived from the analysis over the preceding five chapters, addressing issues such as whether it makes sense to distinguish between proto-Sunnī and proto-Shīʿī sources. The Conclusion summarizes the main findings of this thesis and provides some suggestions regarding future research on Khārijite history and thought as well as early Islamic history in general.

When considering the available sources for Islamic history between the seventh and eighth centuries CE, there are few which have greater importance than al-Balādhurī's (d. ca. 892 CE/279 AH) Kitāb Futūḥ al-Buldān (The Book of the Conquest of Lands). While the text and its author are recognized for their importance as a historical source for the early Islamic period, there has previously been no in-depth study of either. This dissertation works to correct these gaps in knowledge of the author and his text by investigating the construction, form, content, and early reception history of al-Balādhurī's book. This research begins by providing a manuscript tradition of Futūḥ al-Buldān, including a discussion of a previously unpublished manuscript. It thereafter illuminates the background of al-Balādhurī, bringing together much of the previous scholarship on the author while augmenting that information with an analysis of biographical sources and the text itself. It situates the author and his text in its ninth/third century milieu, a period of history where the early Arabic historical tradition was still in its infancy and only just being committed to writing. It suggests the text was likely completed at the end of the "anarchy at Sāmarrā'" in the late 860s CE, and highlights the author's role at the court of several 'Abbāsid Caliphs. After this, it discusses a number of al-Balādhurī's most important (and, in some cases, previously understudied) sources of information, and argues that the author chose to differentiate when he was learning information directly from a teacher and when he had access to written sources. It then analyzes the content and themes of the text, placing special attention on the unique form of Futūḥ al-Buldān and its importance in providing modern scholars with information on the conquest, settlement, and building projects of the early Islamic world. In considering these key themes, this research then argues that Futūḥ al-Buldān defies traditional modern genre classification by borrowing form and content from several different Arabic genres including conquest literature (futūḥ), legal texts, and administrative geographies. It contends that both the text's content and form suggest that it was written to be read by courtly administrators in the service of the state as both a site of memory (lieu de mémoire) and as an "administrator's handbook" during a time of upheaval in the 'Abbāsid realm. Finally, it considers the legacy of Futūḥ al-Buldān and the popularity of al-Balādhurī's book throughout the medieval period through an analysis of textual reuse.

No description available.