Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:11:38.725Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - Arabia

from PART III - REGIONALISM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2011

By
Ella Landau-Tasseron
Edited by
Chase F. Robinson
Chase F. Robinson
Affiliation:
The Graduate Center, The City University of New York
Get access

Summary

The history of the Arabian Peninsula after the shift of the capital of the empire to Damascus is largely neglected by the universal histories. For example, al-Ṭabarī mentions in one line the conquest of Oman in 280/893, completely ignoring the major civil war that had led to it. Local sources for certain regions, such as Oman, Ḥaḍramawt and Najd, are very deficient as well. This fact is perhaps the reason for the assumptions sometimes voiced by modern scholars: that the central government was not interested in the Peninsula (except in the holy places), and that its history was largely tribal, cyclical and trivial. As will be shown below, these assumptions may be correct when applied to certain regions, such as Najd and Ḥaḍramawt, but not to others, such as Oman, Baḥrayn and the main parts of the Yemen.

Only a few generalisations may be made. The Peninsula never constituted one province, or one political unit, and its internal administrative and political divisions often changed. From the second/eighth century independent and semi-independent polities appeared, and regions underwent cycles of unification and fragmentation. Broadly speaking, society in Arabia, both settled and nomad, remained tribal, and ruling dynasties usually never became full-fledged states. The Peninsula in general lacked the features characteristic of other parts of the Islamic world, namely, court society, sophisticated central bureaucracy, highly developed civilisation and a fixed system of raising standing armies. Apart from that, there were great differences between the various regions.

Keywords

Hijaz settlementsCentral ArabiaEastern ArabiaArabian PeninsulaOmanYemenMedinaMecca
Type
Chapter
Information
The New Cambridge History of Islam , pp. 395 - 447
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ʿAbd al-Ghanī, ʿA., Taʾrīkh umarāʾ Makka al-mukarrama, Damascus, 1413/1992.
ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī, , Muṣannaf ʿAbd al-Razzāq, ed. al-Aʿẓamī, Ḥ., 11 vols., Beirut, 1403/1983.
ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUbaydallāh, ʿAlī, Sīrat al-Hādī Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, ed. Zakkār, Suhayl, Beirut, 1972.
ʿUmāra al-Yamanī, , al-Mufīd fī akhbār Ṣanʿāʾ wa-Zabīd wa-shuʿarāʾ mulūkihā wa-aʿyānihā wa-udabāʾihā, ed. Muḥammad b. ʿAli al-Akwaʿ, Ṣanʿāʾ, 1985.
Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣbahānī, , Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ, 10 vols., Beirut, 1405/1985.
al-ʿAlī, S. A., al-Ḥijāz fī ṣadr al-Islām: dirāsāt fī aḥwālihi al-ʿumrāniyya wa-l-idāriyya, Beirut, 1410/1990.
al-ʿAlī, S. A., ‘Mulkiyyāt al-arḍ fī al-Ḥijāz fī al-qarn al-awwal al-hijrī’, al-ʿArab, 3 (1969) –1005.Google Scholar
al-ʿnī, ʿA. ʿA., Taʾrīkh ʿUmān fī al-ʿuṣūr al-Islāmiyya al-ūlā, London, 1420/1999.
al-Ḥāmid, Ṣāliḥ, Taʾrīkh Ḥaḍramawt, Jiddah, 1968.
al-Ḥarīrī, M. ʿI. Dirāsāt wa-buḥūth fī taʾrīkh al-Yaman al-Islāmī, Beirut, 1418/1998.
al-Ḥibshī, ʿA. M., Maṣādir al-fikr al-Islamī fī al-Yaman, Beirut, 1408/1988.
al-Ḥibshī, ʿA. M., Muʾallafāt ḥukkām al-Yaman, ed. Elke Niewoehner-Eberhard, Wiesbaden, 1979.
al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, ed. Ibrāhīm, M. A., 10 vols., Cairo, 1960.
al-Ahdal, Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Tuḥfat al-zaman fī taʾrīkh al-Yaman, ed. al-Ḥibshī, ʿA. M., Beirut, 1407/1986.
al-Balādhurī, Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā, Ansāb al-ashrāf, vol. V, ed. Goitein, S. D., Jerusalem, 1936.
al-Balādhurī, Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā, Futūḥ al-buldān, ed. Riḍwān, R. M., Beirut, 1403/1983.
Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, ed. al-Arnāʾūṭ, S. and al-ʿArqasūsī, M. N., 23 vols., Beirut, 1413/1993.
Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, al-Fāsī, al-ʿIqd al-thamīn fī taʾrīkh al-balad al-amīn, ed. al-Faqī, M. Ḥ., Sayyid, F. and al-Ṭanāḥī, M. M., 8 vols., Cairo, 1378–88/1958–69.
Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, al-Fāsī, Shifāʾ al-gharām bi-akhbār al-balad al-ḥarām, vol. II, ed. ʿUmar ʿAbd al-Salām Tadmurī, , Beirut, 1405/1985.
Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, al-Fāsī, al-Zuhūr al-muqtaṭafa min taʾrīkh Makka al-musharrafa, ed. al-Ghazāwī, A. M., Beirut, 2000.
al-Hamdānī, Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad, Ṣifat jazīrat al-ʿArab, ed. ibn ʿAlī al-Akwaʿ, M., Beirut and Ṣanʿāʾ, 1403/1983.
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, al-Hamdānī, Takmilat taʾrīkh al-Ṭabarī, ed. Kanʿān, A. Y., Beirut, 1957.
al-Hayla, Muḥammad al-Ḥabīb, al-Taʾrīkh wa-l-muʾarrikhūn bi-Makka min al-qarn al-thālith al-hijrī ilā al-qarn al-thālith ʿashar, Mecca, 1994.
al-Izkiwī, Sirḥān ibn Saʿīd ibn Sirḥān (attrib.), Annals of Oman to 1728, trans. and annot. Ross, E. C., Cambridge and New York, 1984.
al-Izkiwī, Sirḥān ibn Saʿīd ibn Sirḥān (attrib.), Kapitel XXXIII de anonym arabischen Chronik Kasf al-Ghumma al-Gami` li-Akhbār al-Umma, ed. and trans. Hedwig, Klein, Hamburg, 1938.
al-Jāsir, Ḥamad, Fī shimāl gharb al-Jazīra, Riyadh, 1981.
al-Jāsir, Ḥamad, ‘al-Ḥafṣī wa-kitābuhu ʿan al-Yamāma’, al-ʿArab, 1 (1967) –91, 769–94.Google Scholar
al-Jāsir, Ḥamad, Madīnat al-Riyāḍ ʿabra aṭwār al-taʾrīkh, Riyadh, 1386/1966.
al-Jāsir, Ḥamad, ‘Muʾallafāt fī taʾrīkh al-Madīna’, al-ʿArab, 4 (1969) –100, 262–7, 327–34, 385–8, 465–8.Google Scholar
al-Jāsir, Ḥamad, ‘Muʾallafāt fī taʾrīkh Makka’, al-ʿArab, 4 (1970) –58.Google Scholar
al-Jāsir, Ḥamad, al-Muʿjam al-jughrāfī li-l-bilād al-ʿArabiyya al-Suʿūdiyya, Riyadh, 1399–1401/1979–81.
al-Jāsir, Ḥamad, ‘al-Rabadha fī kutub al-mutaqaddimīn’, al-ʿArab, 1 (1966) –27, 546–50, 625–31, 724–7.Google Scholar
al-Jāsir, Ḥamad, ‘Wulāt al-Aḥsāʾ fī al-ʿahd al-Umawiyy’, al-ʿArab, 1 (1966–7) –37.Google Scholar
al-Juddī al-Ḥijāzī, ʿAbd al-Qādir ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Faraj, al-Silāḥ wa-l-ʿudda fī taʾrīkh Judda, ed. al-Ḥudrī, M., Damascus, Beirut and Medina, 1988.
al-Juhany, U. M., Najd before the Salafī reform movement, Reading and Riyadh, 2002.
al-Kāf, Saqqāf ʿAlī, Ḥaḍramawt ʿabra arbaʿat ʿashar qarnan, Beirut, 1410/1990.
al-Kalāʿī, Sulaymān ibn Mūsā, al-Iktifāʾ bi-mā taḍammanahu min maghāzī rasūl allāh wa-l-thalātha al-khulafāʾ, ed. ʿAlī, M. K., 4 vols., Beirut, 1417/1997.
al-Madʿaj, ʿAbd al-Muḥsin Madʿaj M., The Yemen in early Islam 9–233/630–847: A political history, London, 1988.
al-Maqrīzī, Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī, Ittiʿāẓ al-ḥunafāʾ bi-akhbār al-aʾimma al-Fāṭimiyyīn al-khulafāʾ, ed. Jamāl al-Dīn al-Shayyāl, , Cairo, 1368/1948.
al-Muṭāʿ, A. ibn A., Taʾrīkh al-Yaman al-Islāmī min sanat arbaʿ wa-miʾatayn ilā sanat alf wa-sitt, ed. al-Ḥibshī, ʿA. M., Beirut, 1986/1407.
al-Muqaddasī, Shams al-Dīn, Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm, ed. Goeje, M. J., Leiden, 1906.
al-Naboodah, Ḥasan M., ‘Banū Nabhān in the Omani sources’, in Smith, G. R., Smart, J. R. and Pridham, B. R. (eds.), New Arabian Studies, 4 (Exeter, 1997) –95.Google Scholar
al-Rāshid, Saʿad, Darb Zubayda: The pilgrim road from Kūfa to Mecca, Riyadh, 1980.
al-Rāshid, Saʿad, al-Rabadha: A portrait of early Islamic civilization in Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, 1986.
al-Rāzī, Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh, Taʾrīkh madīnat Ṣanʿāʾ, ed. ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAmrī, Ḥ., Ṣanʿāʾ, 1401/1981.
al-Sakhāwī, Shams al-Dīn, al-Tuḥfa al-laṭīfa fī taʾrīkh al-Madīna al-sharīfa, 3 vols., Cairo, 1376/1957.
al-Sālimī, Nūr al-Dīn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥumayd, Tuḥfat al-aʿyān bi-sīrat ahl ʿUmān, vol. I, Cairo, 1380/1961.
al-Sayyābī, Sālim ibn Ḥamūd, al-Ḥaqīqa wa-l-majāz fī taʾrīkh al-Ibāḍiyya bi-l-Yaman wa-l-Ḥijāz, Muscat, 1400/1980.
al-Sayyābī, Sālim ibn Ḥamūd, Isʿāf al-aʿyān fī ansāb ahl ʿUmān, Beirut, 1384.
al-Shāmī, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad, Taʾrīkh al-Yaman al-fikrī fī al-ʿaṣr al-ʿAbbāsī, 4 vols., Beirut, 1407/1987.
al-Sinjārī, ʿAli ibn Tāj al-Dīn, Manāʾiḥ al-karam fī akhbār Makka wa-l-bayt wa-wulāt al-ḥaram, ed. Muḥammad al-Miṣrī, J. ʿA., 6 vols., Mecca, 1419/1998.
al-Yaʿqūbī, Aḥmad ibn Abī Yaʿqūb, Taʾrīkh, 2 vols., Beirut, 1379/1960.
,Anonymous, Taʾrīkh ahl ʿUmān, ed. ʿshūr, S. ʿA., Oman, 1986.
Bāshā, Ayyūb Ṣabrī, Mirʾāt jazīrat al-ʿArab, trans. Mutawallī, A. F. and al-Mursī, A., Cairo, 1419/1999.
Bathurst, R. D., ‘Maritime trade and imamate government: Two principal themes in the history of Oman to 1728’, in Hopwood, D. (ed.), The Arabian Peninsula: Society and politics, London, 1972 –106.Google Scholar
Casey Vine, P. (ed.), Oman in history, London, 1995.
Cook, Michael A., ‘The historians of pre-Wahabī Najd’, Studia Islamica, 76 (1992) –76.Google Scholar
Dresch, P., Tribes, government and history in Yemen, Oxford, 1989.
Elad, A., ‘The rebellion of Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥasan (known as al-Nasf al-Zakiyya) in 145/762’, in Montgomery, J. E. (ed.), ʿAbbasid studies: Occasional papers of the School of ʿAbbasid Studies, 6–10 July 2002, Leuven, Paris and Dudley, MA, 2004 –98.Google Scholar
Hinds, M., ‘An early Islamic family from Oman: al-ʿAwtabī’s account of the Muhallabids’, Journal of Semitic Studies, Monograph 17, Manchester, 1991.Google Scholar
Horovitz, J., The earliest biographies of the Prophet and their authors, ed. Conrad, Lawrence, Princeton, 2002.
Hourani, G. F., Arab seafaring in the Indian Ocean in ancient and medieval times, Princeton, 1951.
Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr al-Namarī al-Qurṭubī, Yūsuf ibn ʿAbd Allāh, al-Istīʿāb fī maʿrifat al-aṣḥāb, ed. al-Bījāwī, ʿA. M., 4 vols., Beirut, 1992/1412.
Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī, al-Iṣāba fī tamyīz al-ṣaḥāba, ed. al-Bījāwī, A. M., 8 vols., Beirut, 1992/1412.
Ibn Ḥazm, ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad, Jamharat ansāb al-ʿArab, ed. Hārūn, ʿA. M., Cairo, 1382/1962.
Ibn al-Athīr, , ʿIzz al-Dīn, , al-Kāmil fī al-taʾrīkh, 10 vols., Beirut, 1415/1995.
Ibn Fahd, ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿUmar, Ghāyat al-murām bi-akhbār salṭanat al-balad al-ḥarām, vol. I, ed. Fahīm Muḥammad Shaltūt, , Mecca, 1406/1986.
Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ al-ʿUṣfurī, , Taʾrīkh, ed. al-ʿUmarī, A. Ḍ., 2 vols., Beirut and Damascus, 1397/1976.
Kister, M. J., ‘The battle of the Ḥarra: Some socio-economic aspects’, in Rosen-Ayalon, M. (ed.), Studies in memory of Gaston Wiet, Jerusalem, 1977 –49.Google Scholar
Kister, M. J., ‘The struggle against Musaylima’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 27 (2002) –56.Google Scholar
Landau-Tasseron, E., ‘Zaydī imams as restorers of religion: Iḥyāʾ and tajdīd in Zaydī literature’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 49 (1990) –63.Google Scholar
Madelung, W., ‘The Fāṭimids and the Qarmaṭīs of Baḥrayn’, in Daftary, F. (ed.), Medieval Ismāʿīlī history and thought, Cambridge, 1996 –74.Google Scholar
Madelung, W., ‘The origin of the Yemenite hijra’, in Jones, A. (ed.), Arabicus Felix: Luminosus Britanicus, essays in honour of A. F. L. Beeston on his eightieth birthday, Oxford, 1991 –44.Google Scholar
Mayy, Muḥammad al-Khalīfa, Min Sawād al-Kūfa ilā al-Baḥrayn, Beirut, 1999.
Motzki, H., The origins of Islamic jurisprudence: Meccan fiqh before the classical schools, Leiden, 2002.
Muṣṭafā, S., al-Taʾrīkh al-ʿarabī wa-l-muʾarrikhūn, vol. I, Beirut, 1979.
Nāṣer-e Khosraw, , Book of travels (Safarnāma), trans. Thackston, W. M.., Bibliotheca Persica, Albany, 1986.
Rotter, G., Die Umayyaden und der zweite Bürgerkrieg (680–692), Wiesbaden, 1982.
Sayyid, A. F., Walker, P. and Pomerantz, M. A., The Fāṭimids and their successors in Yaman: The history of an Islamic community, Arabic edn and English summary of Idrīs ʿImād al-Dīn’s ʿUyūn al-akhbār, vol. VII, London and New York, 2002.
Sayyid, Ayman Fuʾād, Taʾrīkh al-madhāhib al-dīniyya fī bilād al-Yaman, Cairo, 1988/1408.
Sayyid, Ayman Fuʾād, Maṣādir taʾrīkh al-Yaman fī al-ʿas¯r al-Islāmī, Cairo, 1974.
Schmucker, W., ‘Die Christliche Minderheit von Najrān’, Studien zum Minderheitenproblem im Islam, 1 (1973) –281.Google Scholar
Serjeant, R. B., ‘Historians and historiography of Ḥaḍramawt’, in Serjeant, R. B., Studies in Arabian history and civilization, Variorum Collected Studies, Aldershot and Brookfield, VT, 1981, X.Google Scholar
Serjeant, R. B., ‘The interplay between tribal affinities and religious (Zaydi) authority in the Yemen’, al-Abḥāth, 30 (1982) –47.Google Scholar
Serjeant, R. B., ‘Materials for South Arabian history’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 13 (1950) –307, 581–601.Google Scholar
Serjeant, R. B., ‘The sayyids of Ḥaḍramawt’, in Serjeant, R. B., Studies in Arabian history and civilization, Variorum Collected Studies, Aldershot and Brookfield, VT, 1981, VIII.Google Scholar
Serjeant, R. B., ‘South Arabia’, in Serjeant, R. B., Studies in Arabian history and civilization, Variorum Collected Studies, Aldershot and Brookfield, VT, 1981, IX.Google Scholar
Shalabī, Aḥmad, Mawsūʿat al-taʾrīkh al-Islāmī wa-l-ḥaḍāra al-Islāmiyya, vol. VII, Cairo, 1982.
Shoufani, E., al-Riddah and the Muslim conquest of Arabia, Toronto and Beirut, 1975.
Smith, G. R., ‘The political history of the Islamic Yemen down to the first Turkish invasion (1–945/622–1538)’, in Smith, G. R., Studies in the medieval history of the Yemen and Arabia Felix, Variorum Collected Studies, Aldershot and Brookfield, VT, 1997, I.Google Scholar
Smith, G. R., ‘Yemenite history: Problems and misconceptions’, in Smith, G. R., Studies in the medieval history of the Yemen and Arabia Felix, Variorum Collected Studies, Aldershot and Brookfield, VT, 1997, II.Google Scholar
Stookey, R. W., Yemen: The politics of the Yemen Arab Republic, Boulder, 1978.
Arendonck, C., Les débuts de l’imamat zaidite du Yemen, trans. Ryckmans, J., Leiden, 1960.
Veccia Vaglieri, Laura, ‘L’Imāmato Ibāḍita dell’ Oman’, Annali (Istituto Universitario Orientale, Napoli), n.s. 3 (1949) –82.Google Scholar
Vidal, F. S., The oasis of al-Ḥasā, Dhahran, 1955.
Oppenheim, M. F., Die Beduinen, vol. II, ed. Bräunlich, E. and Caskel, W., Leipzig, 1943.
Oppenheim, M. F., Die Beduinen, vol. III, ed. Caskel, W., Wiesbaden, 1952.
Zambauer, Edward, Muʿjam al-ansāb wa-l-usarāt al-ḥākima fī al-taʾrīkh al-Islāmī, Beirut, 1980.
Wilkinson, J. C., ‘Bibliographical background to the crisis period in the Ibāḍī imamate (end of the ninth to end of the fourteenth century)’, Arabian Studies, 3 (1976) –64.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, J. C., ‘The Julandā of Oman’, Journal of Oman Studies, 1 (1975) –108.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, John C., The imamate tradition of Oman, Cambridge, 1987.
Wüstenfeld, F., Akhbār Makka al-musharrafa, 3 vols., Göttingen, 1274/1857.
Yaḥyā ibn al-Ḥusayn, , Ghāyat al-amānī fī akhbār al-quṭr al-yamānī, ed. ʿshūr, S. ʿA. and Ziyāda, M. M., Cairo, 1388/1968.
Zabāra al-Ḥasanī, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad, al-Inbāʾ ʿan dawlat Bilqīs wa-Sabaʾ, Ṣanʿāʾ, 1404/1984.
Zabāra al-Ḥasanī, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad, Itḥāf al-muhtadīn bi-dhikr al-aʾimma al-mujaddidīn, Ṣanʿāʾ, 1343/1925.
Zakkār, Suhayl, al-Jāmiʿ fī akhbār al-Qarāmiṭa fī al-Aḥsāʾ, al-Shām, al-ʿIrāq, al-Yaman, Damascus, 1407/1987.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×