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Constructing God's Community: Umayyad Religious Monumentation

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Constructing God's Community: Umayyad Religious Monumentation Constructing God’s Community: Umayyad Religious Monumentation in Bilad al-Sham, 640-743 CE Nissim Lebovits Senior Honors Thesis in the Department of History Vanderbilt University 20 April 2020 Contents Maps 2 Note on Conventions 6 Acknowledgements 8 Chronology 9 Glossary 10 Introduction 12 Chapter One 21 Chapter Two 45 Chapter Three 74 Chapter Four 92 ​ Conclusion 116 Figures 121 Works Cited 191 1 Maps Map 1: Bilad al-Sham, ca. 9th Century CE. “Map of Islamic Syria and its Provinces”, last modified 27 December 2013, accessed April 19, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilad_al-Sham#/media/File:Syria_in_the_9th_century.svg. ​ ​ 2 Map 2: Umayyad Bilad al-Sham, early 8th century CE. Khaled Yahya Blankinship, The End of the ​ Jihad State: The Reign of Hisham Ibn ʿAbd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads (Albany: ​ State University of New York Press, 1994), 240. 3 Map 3: The approximate borders of the eastern portion of the Umayyad caliphate, ca. 724 CE. Blankinship, The End of the Jihad State, 238. ​ 4 Map 4: Ghassanid buildings and inscriptions in Bilad al-Sham prior to the Muslim conquest. Heinz Gaube, “The Syrian desert castles: some economic and political perspectives on their genesis,” trans. Goldbloom, in The ​ Articulation of Early Islamic State Structures, ed. Fred Donner (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2012) ​ 352. 5 Note on Conventions Because this thesis addresses itself to a non-specialist audience, certain accommodations have been made. Dates are based on the Julian, rather than Islamic, calendar. All dates referenced are in the Common Era (CE) unless otherwise specified. Transliteration follows the system of the International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES), including the recommended ​ ​ ​ ​ exceptions. Accordingly, diacritical marks and italics are used only with technical terms. In those cases where the IJMES’s recommended exceptions overlap with words germane to this thesis as ​ ​ technical terms (e.g. miḥrāb and masjid), I have opted to retain diacritics and italics. For ​ ​ ​ consistency, Arabic place names are used whenever possible, as opposed to Greek, Latin, or Hebrew alternatives. The main exceptions to this are Damascus (Dimashq), Jerusalem (al-Quds), Tiberias (Tabariyya), and Palmyra (Tadmur), to which the secondary sources cited herein consistently refer by their Grecophone or Anglophone names. Definite articles have been dropped except when sources consistently include them in place names (e.g. al-Massisa, al-ʾAqsa). Likewise, the sun letter/moon letter distinction is not made (thus, al-Sham is not written ash-Sham). As regards sources, much of the material for this thesis comes from archaeological and architectural texts technically considered secondary. As such, while qualitative and quantitative data from these sources is treated throughout the thesis as primary source material, the sources themselves are listed in the bibliography as secondary sources. All primary source texts are translated into English, except when they are cited from a foreign language secondary source and an original copy of the primary source could not be found. Finally, due to the Covid-19 outbreak, 6 the closure of the Interlibrary Loan system significantly hampered my ability to acquire complete, original copies of a handful of primary sources cited herein. They are therefore quoted from other texts, or cited in translated editions. 7 Acknowledgements While working on this thesis, I have benefited tremendously from the support of numerous people. First, I owe an enormous thanks to my advisor Leor Halevi, who has helped me along since I first began thinking about the thesis two years ago. His erudition, patience, and scholastic rigor have had an immeasurably positive impact on this project. Similarly, Tasha Rijke-Epstein and Joel Harrington offered critical eyes and constant encouragement while teaching the Honors seminar during my junior year and senior year, respectively. During my spring semester in Jerusalem, Tawfiq Daʿadli graciously supervised my independent research ​ ​ that formed the basis of much of this project. David Wasserstein provided very helpful comments on my final draft and served as my third reader. For various fruitful conversations, useful source recommendations, and questions answered, I am grateful to Mohammed Allehbi, Gideon Avni, Fred Donner, Issam Eido, Dorothée Sack, and Norman Stillman. My admiration and many thanks go to the Vanderbilt University librarians, who went above and beyond in accommodating my source requests, even after the university closed due to the coronavirus. I further thank my compatriots in the Honors seminar for both their help in crafting this thesis and for the camaraderie over the course of the last year. Finally, I owe a heartfelt thanks to my friends and family, who, in addition to providing helpful feedback and moral support, have graciously endured my lengthy inability to do or talk about anything not directly related to this thesis. Responsibility for any errors and shortcomings found herein belongs, of course, to me alone. 8 Chronology 633/34: The Muslim conquest of Bilad al-Sham begins under the second Rashidun caliph, ʿUmar ​ ibn al-Khattab. 640: Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan is appointed governor of Bilad al-Sham. ​ 644: ʿUthman ibn ʿAffan becomes caliph. ​ 661: Muʿawiya becomes caliph following his victory in the first fitna. ​ ​ ​ 680: Muʿawiya dies and the second fitna begins. ​ ​ ​ 685: ʿAbd al-Malik becomes caliph. ​ 692: ʿAbd al-Malik begins construction on the Dome of the Rock. The second fitna ends shortly ​ ​ ​ thereafter. 705: ʿAbd al-Malik dies and is succeeded by his son al-Walid. ​ 705/06: al-Walid begins construction on the Great Mosque of Damascus. ​ 707: al-Walid orders ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz (ʿUmar II) to begin construction on the Great ​ Mosque of Medina. 715: al-Walid dies and is succeeded by his brother Sulayman ibn ʿAbd al-Malik. ​ 717: Sulayman dies and is succeeded by his cousin ʿUmar II. Failure of the last Umayyad assault ​ on Constantinople. 720: ʿUmar II dies and is succeeded by his cousin Yazid ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (Yazid II). ​ 724: Yazid II dies and is succeeded by his brother Hisham ibn ʿAbd al-Malik. ​ 743: Hisham ibn ʿAbd al-Malik dies. ​ 9 750: The Umayyad caliphate falls as a result of the Abbasid revolution. ​ Glossary ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwan: The fifth Umayyad caliph (r. 685-705). Builder of the Dome of the ​ Rock. al-Walid ibn ʿAbd al-Malik: The sixth Umayyad caliph (r. 705-715). Builder of the Great ​ Mosques of Damascus and Medina. Bilad al-Sham: The epicenter of the Umayyad state, approximately consistent with ​ contemporary Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel. Dar al-ʿImara: Primary Muslim governmental building, often doubling as a palace. ​ ​ ​ ​ Ahl al-Dhimma: Non-Muslim monotheists living under Muslim rule. ​ ​ Fitna: Civil war. ​ ​ Hisham ibn ʿAbd al-Malik: The tenth Umayyad caliph (r. 724-743). ​ Jund (pl. Ajnad): Governmental district. ​ ​ ​ ​ Masjid: Mosque. ​ ​ Mawāli: Non-Arab client and convert to Islam. ​ ​ Miḥrāb : Muslim prayer niche directed toward Mecca. ​ Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan: Governor of Bilad al-Sham under the Rashidun (g. 640-661) and the ​ first caliph of the Umayyad empire. (r. 661-680). Spolia: Old building stone or sculpture repurposed for use in new monuments. ​ ​ Sulayman ibn ʿAbd al-Malik: Governor of Jund Filastin during the reign of ʿAbd al-Malik. The ​ seventh Umayyad caliph (r. 715-717). Initiator of the Great Mosque of Ramla. 10 Temenos: Land designated and circumscribed for religious purposes. ​ ​ ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz (ʿUmar II): Governor of Medina during the reign of al-Walid (g. ​ 706-712). The eighth Umayyad caliph (r. 717-720). ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab (ʿUmar I): The second of the Rashidun caliphs (r. 634-644). ​ ʿUthman ibn ʿAffan: The third of the Rashidun caliphs and the first member of the Umayyad ​ family to hold the caliphate (r. 644-656). Yazid ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (Yazid II): The ninth Umayyad caliph (r. 720-724). ​ 11 Introduction In the year 692, mere months shy of conclusive victory in a grueling twelve-year civil war known as the second fitna, the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwan sent architects to ​ ​ Jerusalem to begin construction on the Dome of the Rock. Protruding imperiously from the top of the former Temple Mount, the octagonal monument was built of limestone and marble, and covered with swirling mosaics of blue, green, and gold, which proclaimed the supremacy of Allah and his Prophet. The Dome at once marked the triumph of the Umayyads, the first imperial dynasty in the history of Islam, and signaled the central role that religious monumentation would have in the Islamic world up to the present day. So powerful was the Dome’s impact that it soon became, as it remains today, the defining symbol of the Umayyads and their imperial identity. This emphasis, however, obscures the true complexity of Umayyad religious monumentation over the century-long course of their rule. In spite of the interruption of the second fitna, the Umayyad dynasty had actually begun ​ ​ more than thirty years prior, when Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan prevailed in the very first fitna, a ​ ​ five-year-long ordeal, and was proclaimed caliph in 661. Even before that, Muʿawiya had served as the governor of Bilad al-Sham-- roughly present day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel-- since 640, as the appointee of the Rashidun caliphs, who had led the Muslim community in the wake of Muhammad’s death. Thus, by the time of Muʿawiya’s death in 680, the Umayyad family had already been governing al-Sham for four decades. This was a critical period in the formation of both Muslim and Umayyad identity. As Fred Donner, the eminent historian of early Islam, has explained, it served as a crucial transitionary period between the loose association of 12 the followers of Muhammad, termed the “Believer” movement by Donner, and the emergence of an entity which could properly be called “Islam”.1 For all of the importance of these long and formative years, the religious architecture of Muʿawiya’s reign, both as governor and as caliph, has been treated by Western scholars as effectively non-existent.
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