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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.

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This thesis is a study of the oldest Islamic chronological history still extant: the Tārīkh (‘Chronicle’) of the Basran ḥadīth scholar and historian Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ al-ʿUṣfurī (d. 240/854), which covers the political and administrative history of the Muslim polity between year 1/622 and 232/847. Despite its early date, Khalīfa’s Tārīkh has received little attention in modern scholarship and its value for understanding the development of early Islamic historiography has generally been disregarded. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to reassess the Tārīkh by analysing both the text and its context of compilation. After outlining Khalīfa’s biography (Ch. 1) and his social and intellectual context (Ch. 2), the thesis examines different aspects of Khalīfa’s Tārīkh in comparison to the wider Islamic historical tradition: his sources (Ch. 3), methods (Ch. 4), arrangement of material (Ch. 5) and narrative treatment of key themes in the early tradition (Chs. 6–7). The thesis thereby provides an in-depth study of one of the earliest Muslim historians and his methods of compilation, which is important for both the study of Islamic historiography and the usage of such sources in historical scholarship on early Islam. It is argued that Khalīfa’s role as a ḥadīth scholar and his early Sunnī outlook is reflected throughout the content of the Tārīkh. This is particularly evident in Khalīfa’s selection of sources, which consist of mainly Basran transmitters including numerous major ḥadīth scholars, and in his narration of controversial events such as the early civil wars, which displays an early Sunnī perspective. It is also suggested that Khalīfa’s particular selection and arrangement of material was largely determined by his aim to compile a critical and concise chronology of the political and administrative history of the Muslim community. Moreover, the thesis shows that, while the Tārīkh differs from many other early histories, it bears some resemblance to other chronographies compiled by early ḥadīth scholars—such as the works of al-Fasawī (d. 277/890), Ibn Abī Khaythama (d. 279/892) and Abū Zurʿa al- Dimashqī (d. 282/895) as well as the sections on post-Prophetic history in some ḥadīth collections such as Ibn Abī Shayba’s (d. 235/849) Muṣannaf. By comparing Khalīfa’s Tārīkh with these works, the thesis draws attention to this type of historical writing among some early ḥadīth scholars, which has so far been neglected in modern studies on early Islamic historiography.

This thesis explores the meaning and significance of the form of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah. It asks the questions: What are the possible reasons for Ibn Ishaq choosing a narrative form for this biography of Muhammad? What does a narrative format grant the text? Are there historical factors which could have influenced the decision? What other influences affected the text? Finally, what are the implications of Ibn Ishaq’s decision to use a narrative form? Taking into consideration narrative theory, the historical setting, and textual evidence, the thesis argues that Ibn Ishaq chose the format most likely to control the image of Muhammad, thus controlling the conversation of what Islam should be. The implications of this view affect how one understands the usages of the Sira as well as the historicity of the text.

Though relatively unknown to non-specialists, Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī is a fundamental member of the community of Muslims who founded Islamic Philosophy. In his tenth-century work, On the Perfect State, al-Fārābī tackles questions of eminent importance to society of Muslims still deciding who they were. These questions and their inevitable solutions were, for a time, a source of much turmoil for the young Ummah; and we argue that the Perfect State should be read as an effort to take part in, even to lead, the conversation that would decide how these questions were answered. A school of thought championed by Richard Walzer argues that the most important thing to know about al-Fārābī is that he repeated in Arabic many things already said better in Greek by the ancients. According to this school of thought, al-Fārābī’s main intention was to transmit specifically Greek learning to posterity, not to participate in the world of Islam and Muslims. It is our contention that this view is mistaken and misleading. Through an examination of tenth-century Islamic history, a close reading of al-Fārābī’s work in Arabic, and a thorough discussion of the mistakes made by the Walzerian school of thought, we will show that al-Fārābī used philosophy as a tool for solving problems particular to the Muslim community of his age. / Religion