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Governance and Economics in Early Islamic Historiography

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Governance and Economics in Early Islamic Historiography Governance and Economics in Early Islamic Historiography A comparative study of historical narratives of ‘Umar’s caliphate in the works of al-Baladhuri and at-Tabari Tobias Andersson 2013 MA Dissertation, Level E, 30 ECTS Religious Studies (121-150) Supervisor: Olof Sundquist Ass. Supervisor: Ulrika Mårtensson Examiner: Jari Ristiniemi 1 Abstract The thesis examines the level of historical analysis in the works of two third/ninth century Muslim historians, al-Baladhuri and at-Tabari, including their underlying legal, political and socio-economic concerns as manifested in their narratives. By comparing and contextualising their histories regarding the caliphate of ‘Umar, in relation to their social institutions and scholarly disciplines, the purpose is to highlight the subjective agency of the historians as well as the structure of the historiographical discourse in which they formulated their narratives. Based on the notion of discourses as well- defined areas of social fact that defines the forms of (historical) knowledge in societies, the thesis applies de Certeau’s theory of discourses in order to analyse the formation of historical discourses in relation to social institutions and scholarly traditions. By linking the narrative differences to the historians’ scholarly contexts and political concerns, the thesis also show their subjective agency to form certain narratives of history depending on political and scholarly interests, although expressed in the form of the khabar- tradition of ‘Abbasid period. It is argued that the narratives represent attempts to explain social and economic factors involved in civilisational history by means of the accumulated body of what in modern scholarship is labeled “religious knowledge”. Thereby, it also problematises current debates on the level of analytical thinking in early Muslim historiography and suggest new approaches to the subject by discourse analysis. Keywords: Islamic Historiography, Baladhuri, Tabari, ‘Umar b. al-Khattab, Rightly- Guided Caliphs, ‘Abbasids, Islamic Scholarship, Discourse Analysis. 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 4 1.1. Background ...................................................................................................................... 4 1.2. Purpose and scope of the study ....................................................................................... 6 1.3. Previous studies ................................................................................................................ 7 1.4. Material ............................................................................................................................. 9 1.5. Method ............................................................................................................................ 10 1.6. Disposition ...................................................................................................................... 12 2. Theory and terminology ........................................................................................... 13 2.1 Agency and contextualisation ........................................................................................ 13 2.2. Discourse and discourse theory .................................................................................... 15 2.3. Khabar and khabar-history .......................................................................................... 16 3. Times and works of the historians .......................................................................... 19 3.1. Political, economic and scholarly context .................................................................... 19 3.2. Historiographical context .............................................................................................. 23 3.3. Al-Baladhuri ................................................................................................................... 28 3.3.1. Biography ................................................................................................................. 28 3.2.2. Works ........................................................................................................................ 29 3.3.3. Historiographical methodology ................................................................................ 30 3.4. At-Tabari ........................................................................................................................ 31 3.4.1. Biography ................................................................................................................. 31 3.4.2. Works ........................................................................................................................ 32 3.4.3. Historiographical methodology ................................................................................ 34 4. Narratives of the caliphate of ‘Umar ...................................................................... 36 4.1. Governance, law and contracts ..................................................................................... 36 4.1.1. Al-Baladhuri ............................................................................................................. 36 4.1.2. At-Tabari .................................................................................................................. 42 4.1.3. Comparison ............................................................................................................... 52 4.2. Economy and taxation ................................................................................................... 55 4.2.1. Al-Baladhuri ............................................................................................................. 55 4.2.2. At-Tabari .................................................................................................................. 58 4.2.3. Comparison ............................................................................................................... 62 4.3. Registers and stipends ................................................................................................... 64 4.3.1. Al-Baladhuri ............................................................................................................. 64 4.3.2. At-Tabari .................................................................................................................. 67 4.3.3. Comparison ............................................................................................................... 71 5. Concluding discussion .............................................................................................. 73 5.1. Agency and historical analysis ...................................................................................... 73 5.2. Historical discourses ...................................................................................................... 75 References ...................................................................................................................... 81 Primary literature ................................................................................................................. 81 Secondary literature ............................................................................................................. 82 3 1. Introduction 1.1. Background Within the scholarly tradition of Islam, the second caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab has, throughout history, been regarded as the prototype for sound political governance and economic administration. Besides his rank as one of the closest companions, he is known as the leader who realised the expansion of Islam that had begun at the time of the Prophet Muhammad and his first successor, Abu Bakr as-Siddiq. It was during his almost eleven-year-long reign that the Islamic dawla replaced the Byzantine and Persian empires as the leading political entity of the time. It meant that Islam spread to many new peoples and had to be adapted according to the different social contexts. Thereby, ‘Umar’s reign represented the establishment of the Shari’a and he became an important model for subsequent independent judgements (ijtihad) after the Prophet, carried out in order to apply the legal understanding (fiqh) of Islam in the present-day context.1 When the subject of history developed into a separate scholarly discipline in the third/ninth century, distinguished from hadith and other sciences, over two centuries had passed from the time of ‘Umar, and the political authority of the ‘Abbasid dynasty had already begun to decline. The two historians of the present study, Ahmad ibn Yahya al- Baladhuri (d. 297/892) and Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabari (d. 310/923), both experienced the decline of the ‘Abbasid caliphate along with the political and socio- economic problems that the dynasty encountered. They were active participants in the scientific development of the third/ninth century when the debates on fiqh and kalam (theology) from the preceding century turned into schools, consolidating the scholarly tradition of Islam. They were well versed in the religious sciences and, during his lifetime, at-Tabari in particular, was far better known for his expertise in tafsir, fiqh and hadith as opposed to history. It is well known among contemporary scholars that their historical works reflect the same reference system of isnad (chain of transmission) as the discipline of hadith and a similar arrangement of narration upon
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