Pre-Modern History
Reprinted from the Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Summer  2002 (with changes in orthography to HTML standards).
Copyright 2002 by the Middle East Studies Association of North America
La Principauté Ayyoubide d’Alep (579/1183-658/1260), by Anne-Marie Eddé (Freiburger Islamstudien, 21) 727 pages, bibliography, index, maps. Stuttgart, Germany: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1999. (Paper) ISBN 3-515-07121-0

On first inspection, La Principauté Ayyoubide d’Alep appears to be an impressive tome, consisting of over seven-hundred pages, including ninety-two figures providing a plethora of maps, illustrations, and tables. Closer reading indicates that this appearance is not deceiving. Eddé has produced not only an excellent study of Ayyubid Aleppo, but also a valuable sample study of a Levantine Muslim principality during the sixth/twelfth and seventh/thirteenth centuries.

The introduction to Eddé’s work begins by highlighting some of the questions the author proposes to consider, then gives a detailed examination of the sources available for study of the topic. The main body of the work is divided into two parts. The first part gives a detailed political history of the principality during the period considered, and is subdivided into chapters dealing in turn with the reign of al-Zahir (579/1183-613/1216), the regency of Tughril and reign of al-`Aziz (613/1216-634/1236), and the effective regency of Dayfa Khatun and reign of al-Nasir (634/1236-658/1260), including the loss of the principality to the Mongols. An epilogue describes the defeat of the Mongols and reconquest of Aleppo by the Mamluks in 658/1260-659/1261.

The second and larger part examines the institutions, economy, and society of the principality in three chapters. The first considers the powers and institutions of the state, including the powers, rights, and institutions associated with the Ayyubid princes, state defense, and civil administration. The second chapter deals with religious and cultural life, including both mainstream Sunni practice and institutions, and also the positions of ascetics, Sufis, Shi`ites, and dhimmis. Literary and scientific activities are also studied. The third chapter examines rural and urban life, including how water was obtained, land-use by both settled and nomadic inhabitants, crafts and commerce, and finishing with a survey of Aleppo and its territory. Eddé concludes her work by drawing attention to certain features of the history of the principality, including the position of women, the extent and character of Ayyubid power and institutions, and the economic, religious, and cultural life of the region. Finally, she places the period of Ayyubid rule within the greater context of the history of Aleppo. The appendices to the work include family trees, tables containing lists of revenues, emirs, jurisprudents, and other important figures from the period, maps, and illustrations. A bibliography concludes the volume.

Eddé’s use of sources is wide and thorough. While she makes particular use of Arabic primary sources, she also uses works from Persian, Syriac, Armenian, Latin, and Hebrew literature, in addition to non-textual sources, including architectural, epigraphic, numismatic, and artistic evidence, and secondary works by modern scholars. The result is a detailed work covering a wide range of topics in the history of Aleppo, which will also be of great value to students and scholars of the Ayyubid era in general.

Niall Christie
Cornell University

Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography: Harun al-Rashid and the Narrative of the `Abbasid Caliphate, by Tayeb El-Hibri. (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization) 236 pages, bibliography, index. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1999. $64.95 (Cloth) ISBN 0-521-65023-2

This fascinating book interprets historical writing on the early Abbasid caliphs as attempts “to provide commentary on a certain political, religious, social, or cultural issue that may have derived from a real and controversial historical episode” (p. 13). In a series of chapters on Harun al-Rashid, his sons Amin and Ma`mun, and the civil war between the sons, El-Hibri analyzes dozens of anecdotes, dreams, and prophecies recorded in the historical sources. His careful attention to details of grammar and style, and his encyclopedic knowledge of the texts, allow him to draw surprising, and often convincing, conclusions about the ultimate goals of these accounts.

In an important introductory chapter, El-Hibri points out some obvious inconsistencies in the sources, including their fascination with certain events (such as the fall of the Barmakids) over others. He then adds stylistic and intertextual analysis, arguing that “these texts do form a cohesive array of narratives that were meant to be read in a specific way, even when that way is in itself indeterminate” (p. 15). His method of identifying and ascribing meaning to specific tropes has a powerful cumulative effect, as images of death, water, and judgment recur in visions and prophecies throughout these accounts. El-Hibri demonstrates the ways that these narratives expressed anxiety over regicide and also a longing for an era of orthodoxy before the divisive inquisition (mihna) of 833-48.

Despite the significant achievements of the book, El-Hibri works with some implicit presumptions about historical writing that could be problematic for his project. First, he argues that the sources are not intended to provide factual information. Those who want to know the true events of Harun’s life will have to settle for a “slimmer version” of some three or four pages (p. 21). Yet we are given few guidelines for accepting the factual claims that El-Hibri does make, such as that the purpose of Harun’s journey to Khurasan in 809 was “to use his own appearance as a charismatic counterweight to other rebellious pretensions” (p. 28).

A second, more complicated methodological issue arises with El-Hibri’s arguments that certain anecdotes exemplify “symmetrical approaches of depiction” (p. 35), serve as “literary inspiration” for others (p. 63), or even “can only be understood in light of another fragment of medieval thought” (p. 117). These arguments rest on a theory of discernable narrative strands within larger texts, such as those by al-Tabari. One should, therefore, be able to identify these narrators, their historical situation, and their possible influences; indeed, El-Hibri occasionally seems to hint at such identification (pp. 65, 89), but does not undertake a thorough source analysis, reducing what must be a large variety of voices to a collective description (p. 219). As a result, the arguments for symmetry or inspiration sometimes come across as intuitive and impressionistic, and El-Hibri’s analysis seems, by his own skeptical stance, to be merely another imaginative reconstruction, one that raises questions about the intention of the medieval sources, but can provide us no answers. I doubt El-Hibri would be satisfied with this conclusion, however, and a methodological introduction would have helped clarify these issues while enhancing the usefulness of this book for non-specialists.

Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography is an important reading of early Abbasid history, but it presumes a detailed knowledge of the period, and often of Arabic as well. These facts, combined with the lack of methodological introduction, will restrict its readership. Nonetheless, it points the way to a new appreciation of these texts, and should be required reading for any serious student of Arabic historiography.

Jonathan E. Brockopp
Bard College

The Breaking of a Thousand Swords: A History of the Turkish Military of Samarra (A.H. 200-275/815-889 C.E.), by Matthew S. Gordon. (SUNY Series in Medieval Middle East History) 303 pages, notes, bibliography, index. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001. $26.95 (Paper) ISBN 0-7914-4796-0

This political and social history of the Samarran Caliphate fills a long-standing need in Abbasid history. Building upon Helmut Töllner’s work, Die türkischen Garden am Kalifenhof von Samarra, Gordon undertakes a close examination of the Samarran Turks not only as soldiers, but also as privileged members of a Turkish community within the Abbasid empire who achieved considerable political power, developing its own patronage networks and accessing various sources of revenue.

Gordon’s thorough and detailed knowledge of contemporary and nearly contemporary Arabic narrative sources, combined with insights gained from archaeological and numismatic studies as well as non-Arabic sources, enables him to create a more complete picture of the Samarran Turks than we have seen before. The evidence that illuminates their lives is scattered widely throughout the work of compilers many of whom, as Gordon notes, had ambivalent attitudes toward the Turks. Furthermore, much of this evidence is suggestive, rather than conclusive. Nevertheless, Gordon weaves disparate bits of information together masterfully, building thoughtful and plausible arguments.

Following a historiographical introduction, Gordon divides his examination of the Turkish guard into two periods. The first begins with its creation in 200/815-16 during the caliphate of al-Ma‘mun. The second begins with the foundation of Samarra in 221/836-37 under al-Mu‘tasim and concludes with the end of the Samarran caliphate. This periodization allows Gordon to place the Turkish guard in historical context and to examine how it developed over two generations. Thus, he is able to look beyond the Mamluk system and explore the role Turkish soldiers played in the complex internal politics of the Abbasid caliphate. He argues that Abu Ishaq began to create a Turkish military corps in the early third/ninth century by acquiring Bagdadi Turks, that al-Ma’mun supported his efforts, and that by the end of al-Ma’mun’s reign the Turkish guard exercised significant military power within the empire. Gordon goes on to examine the ways in which this power depended upon the relationships Turkish leaders developed with each other, members of the rank and file, and prominent Abbasids. Gordon explores the idea that changes in the land-tenure system by the middle of the third/ninth century provided Turkish leaders with increased revenue that furthered their power, but also notes that the weakening imperial economy impacted them along with everyone else. He suggests that the politicization of low-ranking Turks contributed to the end of the Samarran caliphate, observing that the authority of Turkish leaders depended upon their acceptance as defenders of Abbasid lands. It was not legitimated in terms of the urban Islamic institutions of the Abbasid Empire.

Gordon’s arguments engage all of the relevant secondary literature. The appendices that detail examples of retainer forces in early Islamic history and notable Turkish families are useful and the maps and illustrations are well chosen. This book demonstrates, for the first time, the complex roles Samarran Turks played in Abbasid history.

Kate Lang
University of Wisconsin—Eau Claire

Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society, by Roy P. Mottahedeh. 209 pages, index. New York, NY: I. B. Tauris, 2001. $24.50 (Paper) ISBN 1-86064-181-4

This is a revised edition of Mottahedeh’s classic study of the political culture of the Buyid period. For the most part, however, there is little here that is revised. In his introduction, the author indicates that he has corrected a few typographical errors, but, with the exception of the addition of a brief introduction, the text is largely unchanged.

Given that more than twenty years have passed since the publication of the original edition, it is fitting that the author devotes his new introduction to the critical response the original edition received. He notes that while critics correctly recognized that he intended to critique traditional Orientalist ideas about medieval Islamic political culture, they failed to recognize the significance of his methodology, namely to uncover the political practices which people of the period employed to structure their interactions. He attempts to expose such practices through an examination of anecdotes that appear in the chronicles of the Buyid period. In so doing, he consciously rejects a focus on the ‘unrealistic’ political theories devised by the jurists and theologians. He also implicitly rejects the thesis that medieval Muslim societies had a cynical and pessimistic view of politics that resulted in the absence of real public life.

Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society is divided into four chapters. The first chapter examines the development of political thought up to the Buyid period. Mottahedeh stresses that the political culture of the period is based on relationships between individuals, rather than between collectivities, thus distancing himself from Marxist theories of class agency as well as theories that emphasize the development of institutions as fundamental to political life. The second chapter deals with ‘acquired loyalties,’ analyzing the ways in which men formed bonds of political patronage through covenants, vows, ‘foster parentage,’ and so forth. The third chapter, “Loyalties of Category,” examines the social and political categories which the chroniclers used to describe the society in which they lived and to explain its political life. Here, the author widens his scope to include larger sectors of society (merchants, scholars, commoners, and so forth). The final chapter deals with kingship. Here the author emphasizes that the urban societies of the medieval Islamic world never considered the idea of self-government per se, rather they “yearned to be ruled” by a king who would respect their local prerogatives while at the same time guaranteeing their safety. This attitude was consonant with the increased decentralization of the Buyid period.

Mottahedeh’s book has suffered few serious challenges in the years since it was first published. In part, this lack of opposition results from the fact that many of the book’s arguments are widely accepted. At the same time, few scholars have taken up the challenge to examine Islamic political culture in its own terms. The basic premise of the book, that Islamic political culture is best described in its own terms, is not without problems (what would our understanding of American political life be like if we accepted its self-definitions at face value?), but the author’s approach is sufficiently critical to avoid naïve conclusions. One hopes that a new generation of scholars will take up the task of examining medieval Muslim political culture, and bring new periods, sources, and tools into play. Until then, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society will serve as an admirable introduction, and is still thought-provoking in its conclusions.

Adam Sabra
Cairo, Egypt

The Berbers and the Islamic State: The Marinid Experience in Pre-Protectorate Morocco, by Maya Shatzmiller. 280 pages, notes, bibliography, index, appendices. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishing, 2000. $26.95 (Paper) ISBN 1-55876-209-4

Author of a previous study on Marinid historiography,[21] Shatzmiller has here assembled more of her already published articles on the history and historiography of the Marinid period (thirteenth-fifteenth centuries). Although the original articles treat a range of topics, the author succeeds—with some revisions and an excellent introduction—in creating a cohesive monograph that persuasively challenges the assumption that Berber cultural identity was absent from the Islamic legacy in the Maghrib.

From their capital in Fez, a Zanata Berber confederation created the Marinid dynasty, the last of the three major Berber dynasties that ruled present-day Morocco and other parts of the Maghrib. The subtle argument in this book is that while the Berbers participating in the formation of the Berber-Islamic state by becoming an integral part of the Islamic community, the process of acculturation to Muslim norms and institutions gave expression to Berber particularism. Since Berbers did not write in their own language, as was the case with other ethnic groups of the Islamic world, the particular Berber contributions to culture have eluded historians. Shatzmiller traces Berber resistance to acculturation through the instruments of acculturation themselves: the Arabic language and Islamic institutions. Berbers attempted to inscribe themselves in the Islamic legacy by creating a myth of their attachment to the Prophet and early conversion to Islam that ran counter to the official version of Berber revolt against Arab conquest. Yet interestingly, the myth of the Arab origin of the Berbers, cultivated by Muslim historians in the east, was not widely adapted or believed by the Berbers themselves, and this failure itself, according to Shatzmiller, demonstrates the slow Arabization and Islamization process of all but a small minority of the population.

Challenging the prevailing view that the Marinids’ rise to power lacked ideological and religious motivation, Shatzmiller suggests that the new dynasty used Islam to legitimate its rule; yet state building also required recognition of the urban religious establishment. Because of the not infrequent hostility of the Arab Fasis to the Marinids, the dynasty sporadically relied on Jews in the financial administration of the state, or as court physicians. Shatzmiller refutes the notion of a benign attitude towards the Jews, for when the Marinids were able to gain greater support from the Fasi elite and ulama, they were quick to replace Jews with Muslim officials. The Marinids sought to exude an image of Muslim piety by increasing the public role of ulama, while preventing the clergy from gaining too much independent power and influence. Similarly, the Marinid state greatly expanded Islamic institutions, such as introducing madrasas to Morocco, yet appointing Berber ulama to challenge the privileged status of the Fasi religious establishment. The Marinids’ effort to control and expand religious endowment (waqf) was an even more powerful means to assert their role as legitimate Islamic rulers.

Much of the discussion in The Berbers and the Islamic State focuses on Fez and historical sources produced in Fez, and there is little discussion or evidence on how the Marinid state was received by or interacted with the vast majority of the Berber population that resided in the Moroccan countryside and in other cities. But the focus on Fez is for a good reason: if the perseverance of a Berber cultural identity can be detected within the Arab intellectual core in Morocco, then surely this is strong evidence for the enduring resistance of Berbers to Arabization, relevant, as the author reminds us, to the politics of Berber identity in today’s Maghrib.

Daniel J. Schroeter
University of California, Irvine
[21] L’historiographie Mérinide: Ibn Khaldûn et ses contemporains (Leiden, 1982).