Download or read book The Abbasid Caliphate in Equilibrium written by Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The History of al abar Vol 8 written by and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2015-06-15 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume covers the history of the Muslim community and the biography of Muḥammad in the middle Medinan years. It begins with the unsuccessful last Meccan attack on Medina, known as the battle of the Trench. Events following this battle show the gradual collapse of Meccan resistance to Islam. The next year, when Muḥammad set out on pilgrimage to Mecca, the Meccans at first blocked the road, but eventually a ten-year truce was negotiated at al-Ḥudaybiyah, with Muḥammad agreeing to postpone his pilgrimage until the following year. The Treaty of al-Ḥudaybiyah was followed by a series of Muslim expeditions, climaxing in the important conquest of Khaybar. In the following year Muḥammad made the so-called Pilgrimage of Fulfillment unopposed. Al-Ṭabarī's account emphasizes Islam's expanding geographical horizon during this period. Soon after the Treaty of al-Hudaybiyah, Muḥammad is said to have sent letters to six foreign rulers inviting them to become Muslims. Another example of this expanding horizon was the unsuccessful expedition to Mu'tah in Jordan. Shortly afterward the Treaty of al-Ḥudaybiyah broke down, and Muḥammad marched on Mecca. The Meccans capitulated, and Muḥammad entered the city on his own terms. He treated the city leniently, and most of the Meccan oligarchy swore allegiance to him as Muslims. Two events in the personal life of Muḥammad during this period caused controversy in the community. Muḥammad fell in love with and married Zaynab bint. Jaḥsh, the divorced wife of his adopted son Zayd. Because of Muḥammad's scruples, the marriage took place only after a Qur'anic revelation permitting believers to marry the divorced wives of their adopted sons. In the Affair of the Lie, accusations against Muḥammad's young wife ʿĀʾishah were exploited by various factions in the community and in Muḥammad's household. In the end, a Qur'anic revelation proclaimed ʿĀʾishah's innocence and the culpability of the rumormongers. This volume of al-Ṭabarī's History records the collapse of Meccan resistance to Islam, the triumphant return of Muḥammad to his native city, the conversion to Islam of the Meccan oligarchy, and the community's successful weathering of a number of potentially embarrassing events in Muḥammad's private life.
Download or read book The History of al abar Vol 16 written by and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume of al-Ṭabarī's history deals with the traumatic breakup of the Muslim community following the assassination of the Caliph 'Uthman. It begins with the first seriously contested succession to the caliphate, that of ʿAlī, and proceeds inexorably through the rebellion of 'A'ishah, T'alhah, and al-Zubayr, to the Battle of the Camel, the first time Muslim army faced Muslim army. It thus deals with the very first violent response to the two central problems of Muslim history: who is the rightful leader, and which is the true community? It is a section with the weightiest implications for the Muslim interpretation of history, wide open to special pleading. There are the Shi'a who depict ʿAlī as a spiritual leader fighting against false accusations and the worldly ambitious. Conversely, there are those who would depict him or his followers in a negative light. There are also the 'Abbasid historians, who, though anti-Umayyad, must balance a reverence for the Prophet's household (ahl al-bayt) with a denunciation of 'Alid antiestablishmentarianism. All these points of view, and more, are represented in al-Ṭabarī's compilation, illustrating the difficulty the Muslim community as a whole has faced in coming to terms with these disastrous events.
Download or read book The History of al abar Vol 1 written by and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2015-06-10 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume I of the thirty-eight volume translation of Ṭabarī's great History begins with the creation of the world and ends with the time of Noah and the Flood. It not only brings a vast amount of speculation about the early history of mankind into sharp Muslim focus, but it also synchronizes ancient Iranian ideas about the prehistory of mankind with those inspired by the Qur'an and the Bible. The volume is thus an excellent guide to the cosmological views of many of Ṭabarī's contemporaries. The translator, Franz Rosenthal, one of the world's foremost scholars of Arabic, has also written an extensive introduction to the volume that presents all the facts known about Ṭabarī's personal and professional life. Professor Rosenthal's meticulous and original scholarship has yielded a valuable bibliography and chronology of Ṭabarī's writings, both those preserved in manuscript and those alluded to by other authors. The introduction and first volume of the translation of the History form a ground-breaking contribution to Islamic historiography in English and will prove to be an invaluable source of information for those who are interested in Middle Eastern history but are unable to read the basic works in Arabic.
Download or read book The History of al Tabari Vol 27 written by Ṭabarī and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1990-07-30 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By 735 an Arab empire stretched from Arles and Avignon in southern France to the Indus River and Central Asia, and a vital young civilization fostered by a new world religion was taking root. Yet the Muslim conquerors were divided by tribal quarrels, tensions among new converts, and religious revolts. In 745 a vigorous new successor to the Prophet took control in Damascus and began to restore the waning power of the Umayyad dynasty. Marwan II's attempts were thwarted, however, by revolts on every hand, even among his own relatives. The main body of dissidents was a well-trained group of revolutionaries in Khurasan, led by the remarkable Abu Muslim. By 748 they had seized control of the province and drive the governor, Nasr b. Sayyar al-Laythi, to his death and were advancing westward. This volume tells of the end of the Umayyad caliphate, the Abbasid Revolution, and the establishment of the new dynasty.
Download or read book The History of al abar Vol 32 written by and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2015-07-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 20 years' caliphate of al-Maʾmūn began as a stormy period in Middle Eastern history; after the comparatively peaceful reign of his father Hārūn al-Rashīd, the caliphate was plunged into violent civil warfare in both Iraq and Arabia, involving the sons of al-Rashīd, rivals for the supreme authority, and various other sectarian rebels and aspirants for power. Yet once peace was secured and the caliphate lands united once more, al-Maʾmūn's reign settled down into one of the most exciting and innovative of the mediaeval caliphate. The Caliph himself was a highly cultivated man who possessed a keen intellectual curiosity and who interested himself in the practical sciences, astronomy and mathematics. He also encouraged the translating of Greek philosophical, scientific and medical works from Greek and Syriac into Arabic and involved himself in theological controversies in which the dialectical techniques of the Greek thinkers were to figure. Ṭabarī's history of this period constitutes a prime source for political and military history. His racy and vivid style, including many verbatim conversations and documents, brings the Caliphate of al-Maʾmūn very much alive. A discounted price is available when purchasing the entire 39-volume History of al-Ṭabarī set. Contact SUNY Press for more information.
Download or read book Set History of al Tabari written by Ehsan Yarshater and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2007-06-01 with total page 10 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The First Civil War written by Muhammad b. Yarir al-. Tabari and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The History of al abar Vol 7 written by Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1987-01-01 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contents of this volume are extremely significant: The specific events in this earliest period set precedents for what later became established Islamic practice. The book deals with the history of the Islamic community at Medina during the first four years of the Islamic period--a time of critical importance for Islam, both as a religion and as a political community. The main events recounted by Ṭabarī are the battles between Muḥammad's supporters in Medina and their adversaries in Mecca. Ṭabarī also describes the rivalries and infighting among Muḥammad's early supporters, including their early relations with the Jewish community in Medina.
Download or read book The History of al abar Vol 39 written by and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2015-07-07 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present volume is a collection of excerpts from al-Ṭabarī's biographical work entitled The Supplement to the Supplemented (Dhayl al-mudhayyal). In the introduction to his History, al-Ṭabarī declared his intention to append to it a biographical work for the reader's convenience. Only a collection of excerpts has survived, however. It was first published as part of the Leiden edition of the History and is now presented as a volume in the Ṭabarī Translation Project. It brings together biographies of Companions, successors, and scholars of subsequent generations; many chapters are devoted to women related to the Prophet who played a role in the transmission of knowledge. The biographies vary in length and style, ranging from a mere identification of a person to long accounts and anecdotes. This volume represents a long tradition characteristic of Muslim culture. Muslim scholars developed biographical literature into a rich and complex genre. It was intended to be an auxiliary branch of religious study, aimed at determining the reliability of chains of transmission through which traditions were handed down. More often than not, however, works in this genre contain valuable historical information of the kind often ignored by the authors of mainstream history books. Even though not a complete work, this volume is thus not merely a supplement to al-Ṭabarī's History but also a source in its own right, often supplying new and rare insights into events and social conditions.
Download or read book The Eastern Frontier written by Robert Haug and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-06-27 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transoxania, Khurasan, and ?ukharistan – which comprise large parts of today's Central Asia – have long been an important frontier zone. In the late antique and early medieval periods, the region was both an eastern political boundary for Persian and Islamic empires and a cultural border separating communities of sedentary farmers from pastoral-nomads. Given its peripheral location, the history of the 'eastern frontier' in this period has often been shown through the lens of expanding empires. However, in this book, Robert Haug argues for a pre-modern Central Asia with a discrete identity, a region that is not just a transitory space or the far-flung corner of empires, but its own historical entity. From this locally specific perspective, the book takes the reader on a 900-year tour of the area, from Sasanian control, through the Umayyads and Abbasids, to the quasi-independent dynasties of the Tahirids and the Samanids. Drawing on an impressive array of literary, numismatic and archaeological sources, Haug reveals the unique and varied challenges the eastern frontier presented to imperial powers that strove to integrate the area into their greater systems. This is essential reading for all scholars working on early Islamic, Iranian and Central Asian history, as well as those with an interest in the dynamics of frontier regions.
Download or read book The History of al abar Vol 28 written by Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The initial years (126-145) of al-Manṣūr's reign presented several significant challenges to nascent ʿAbbāsid hegemony, and the resulting confrontations constitute the central focus of this section of Ṭabarī's Tarikh. After Abu Jafar succeeded his brother Abū Al-ʿabbās as caliph, the second of the ʿAbbāsid dynasty, he moved against his recalcitrant uncle, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī, and against the potential threat that he perceived in the person of the commander in Khurasan, Abu Muslim. Eliminating the latter and containing the former freed the caliph to address a series of other onslaughts and insurrections. Starting with the year 144, however, Ṭabarī turned to this volume's principal preoccupation, to which half of the book is devoted. Judging by the attention given to it, he clearly perceived the Hasanid rebellions of Muhammad b. Abdallah (the Pure Soul) and of his brother Ibrahim to be the most substantial attack on Abbasid authority to arise in the first years of that dynasty. Ṭabarī's description of the prolonged search for Muhammad and Ibrahim and of the caliphal vengeance visited upon their father and family provides an extended prelude to the vivid battle and death scenes in Medina and Bakhamra. Yet, elaboration of these events does not eclipse mention of all other Abbasid activity. To bridge the account of Muhammad's defeat and that of Ibrahim's uprising, Ṭabarī inserted a narrative interlude depicting the site selection and preliminary construction of al-Manṣūr's most celebrated achievement, the City of Peace, Baghdad.
Download or read book Selections from the Comprehensive Exposition of the Interpretation of the Verses of the Qur an written by Ṭabarī and published by . This book was released on 2017-08-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consists of English translation of thirty-two passages, which are equivalent to approximately 8 per cent of the original, of Tabari's Qur'anic commentary. The selection was made by The Royal Aal Al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, in Amman, Jordan.
Download or read book The History of al abar Vol 2 written by Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1987-01-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume records the lives and efforts of some of the prophets preceeding the birth of Mohammad. It devotes most of its message to two towering figures--Abraham, the Friend of God, and his great-grandson, Joseph. The story is not, however simply a repetition of Biblical tales in a slightly altered form, for Ṭabarī sees the ancient pre-Islamic Near East as an area in which the histories of three different peoples are acted out, occasionally meeting and intertwining. Thus ancient Iran, Israel, and Arabia serve as the stages on which actors such as Biwarasb, the semi-legendary Iranian king, Noah and his progeny, and the otherwise unknown Arabian prophets Hud and Salih appear and act. In the pages of this volume we read of the miraculous birth and early life of Abraham, and of his struggle against his father's idolatry. God grants him sons--Ishmael from Hagar and Isaac from Sarah--and the conflicts between the two mothers, the subsequent expulsion of Hagar, and her settling in the vicinity of Mecca, all lead to the story of Abraham's being commanded to build God's sanctuary there. Abraham is tested by God, both by being commanded to sacrifice his son (and here Ṭabarī shows his fairness be presenting the arguments of Muslim scholars as to whether that son was Ishmael or Isaac) and by being given commandments to follow both in personal behavior and in ritual practice. The account of Abraham is interlaced with tales of the cruel tyrant Nimrod, who tried in vain both to burn Abraham in fire and to reach the heavens to fight with God. The story of Abraham's nephew Lot and the wicked people of Sodom also appears here, with the scholars once again arguing--this time over what the exact crimes were for which the Sodomites were destroyed. Before proceeding to the story of Joseph, which is recounted in great detail, we linger over the accounts of two figures associated with ancient Arabia in Muslim tradition: the Biblical Job, who despite his trials and sufferings does not rail against God, and Shu'ayb, usually associated with the Biblical Jethro, the priest of Midian and father-in-law of Moses. Finally we meet Joseph, whose handsome appearance, paternal preference, and subsequent boasting to his brothers lead to his being cast into a pit and ending up as a slave in Egypt. His career is traced in some detail: the attempted seduction by Potiphar's wife, his imprisonment and eventual release after becoming able to interpret dreams, and his rise to power as ruler of Egypt. The volume ends with the moving story of Joseph's reunion with his brothers, the tragi-comic story of how he reveals himself to them, and the final reunion with his aged father who is brought to Egypt to see his son's power and glory. This is proto-history told in fascinating detail, of us in different contexts, as well as of others completely unknown to Western readers.
Download or read book The History of al abar Vol 21 written by and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2015-06-18 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume XXI of the History of al-Ṭabarī (from the second part of 66/685 to 73/693) covers the resolution of "the Second Civil War." This conflict, which has broken out in 64/683 after the death of the Umayyad caliph Yazīd I, involved the rival claims of the Umayyads (centered in Syria) and the Zubayrids (centered in the Hijaz), each of whom claimed the caliphal title, Commander of the Faithful. Both parties contented for control of Iraq, which was also the setting for al-Mukhtār's Shīʿite uprising in al-Kūfah during 66/685 and 67/686. Khārijite groups were active in south-western Iran and central Arabia, even threatening the heavily settled lands of Iraq. By the end of 73/692, the Umayyad regime in Damascus, led by Abd-al-Malik, had extinguished the rival caliphate of Ibn al-Zubayr and had reestablished a single, more or less universally acknowledged political authority for the Islamic community. Al-Ṭabarī's account of these years is drawn from such earlier historians as Abu Mikhnaf, al-Madāʾinī , and al-Waqidi and includes eyewitness accounts, quotations from poems, and texts of sermons. Notable episodes include al-Mukhtār's slaying of those who had been involved in the death of al-Husayn at Karbala, the death of al-Mukhtār at the hands of Muṣʿab ibn al-Zubayr, the revolt of Amr ibn Saʿīd in Damascus, the death of Muṣʿab at the Battle of Dayr al-Jathaliq, and al-Hajjaj's siege and conquest of Mecca on behalf of Abd-al-Malik. There are excursuses on the chair that al-Mukhtār venerated as a relic of Ali, the biography of the colorful brigand ʿUbayd Allāh b. al-Ḥurr, and the development of the secretarial office in Islam. The translation has been fully annotated. Parallels in the works of Ibn Sa'd, al-Baladhuri, and the Kitabal-Aghani have been indicated in the notes where these accounts supplement or diverge from that of al-Ṭabarī.
Download or read book The Caliph s Splendor written by Benson Bobrick and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-08-14 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the story of the celebrated late-eighth and early ninth-century caliph from "The Thousand and One Nights" against a backdrop of Baghdad's cosmopolitan culture and its complex influence on the Byzantine Empire and Frankish kingdom of Charlemagne.
Download or read book The History of al abar Vol 30 written by and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2015-06-29 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume of al-Ṭabarī's History covers nearly a quarter of a century, and after covering the very brief caliphate of al-Hādī, concentrates on that of Hārūn al-Rashīd. During these years, the caliphate was in a state of balance with its external foes; the great enemy, Christian Byzantium, was regarded with respect by the Muslims, and the two great powers of the Near East treated each other essentially as equals, while the Caucasian and Central Asian frontiers were held against pressure from the Turkish peoples of Inner Eurasia. The main stresses were internal, including Shī'ite risings on behalf of the excluded house of 'Alī, and revolts by the radical equalitarian Khārijites; but none of these was serious enough to affect the basic stability of the caliphate. Hārūn ar-Rashīd's caliphate has acquired in the West, under the influence of a misleading picture from the Arabian Nights, a glowing image as a golden age of Islamic culture and letters stemming from the Caliph's patronage of the exponents of these arts and sciences. In light of the picture of the Caliph which emerges from al-Ṭabarī's pages, however, this image seems to be distinctly exaggerated. Al-Rashīd himself does not exhibit any notable signs of administrative competence, military leadership or intellectual interests beyond those which convention demanded of a ruler. For much of his reign, he left the business of government to the capable viziers of the Barmakīd family--the account of whose spectacular fall from power forms one of the most dramatic features of al-Ṭabarī's narratives here--and his decision to divide the Islamic empire after his death between his sons was to lead subsequently to a disastrous civil war. Nevertheless, al-Ṭabarī's story is full of interesting sidelights on the lives of those involved in the court circle of the time and on the motivations which impelled medieval Muslims to seek precarious careers there. A discounted price is available when purchasing the entire 39-volume History of al-Ṭabarī set. Contact SUNY Press for more information.
