JERE L. BACHARACH
MARWANID UMAY\J\D BUILDING ACTIVITIES: SPECULATIONS ON PATRONAGE
Umayyad buildings have been the subject of more arti Recent scholarship has also tended to list these build cles, book chapters, and monographs than structures ings in the order in which their patron served as caliph. from any comparable chronological period in Islamic While there are advantages to such an organization, it history. I Here we will concentrate on archaeological and has also had two negative effects. One is to create the architectural sites associated with the Marwanid branch impression of a linear progression of building activities, of the Umayyad dynasty (661-750), that is, on the de as if these edifices were built one after another. While no scendants of the Umayyad Caliph Marwan (684-85) (see scholar ever claimed that Sulayman (715-17) and fig. 1), and specifically the fifty years following the tri Hisham (724-43) did not begin their building programs umphs of Caliph cAbd al-Malik (r. 685-705) in Iraq in until they were caliph, listing their patronage in order of 692 during the Second Civil War. In geographic terms, their caliphates leaves the impression that this was so. (In this investigation of Marwanid architecture will be lim order to break that mold, here we will follow comments ited to modern Syria, Lebanon, historic Palestine on the reign of cAbd al-Malik with a study of Hisham's (including Israel, Palestine National Authority lands, patronage and then move in an almost counterclockwise and Occupied Territories), and Jordan, all of which are direction around the Bilad aI-Sham.) Listing building ac covered by the term Bilad aI-Sham. tivities under caliphs also creates the impression that Earlier scholarship tended to identity two basic catego their activities were empire-wide or, in the context of this ries of buildings - religious edifices and the secular study, spread throughout the Bilad aI-Sham. One conclu structures known as "desert palaces" or qa$r (pI. qurur) , a sion of this investigatIon is precisely the opposite - that term that can signity a residential compound, an agricul Marwanid patronage was confined to very specific loca tural outbuilding, a permanent building, a palace, for tions. tress, or castle, reflecting the many roles such structures The word "patron" will here be applied to the individ played in the society.2 It is now clear that the term is a ual who had primary responsibility for initiating a build misnomer - many of these desert palaces were not in ing project on a particular site. For example, Caliph the desert and were larger than a palace complex - but Sulayman began to work on a major mosque in al-Ramla, it is still commonly found in modern studies, though also Palestine, during the caliphate of his brother al-Walid I subject to much scholarly debate. (705-15). Therefore, although his successor, Caliph Members of the Marwanid family, including caliphs, cUmar II (717-20) completed work on the mosque, undertook building programs for a variety of reasons3 - Sulayman will here be identified as its patron. Since the there is no single explanation for all the Umayyad qU$iir goal of the investigation is to specity which member of and religious buildings that they constructed. The the Marwanid family built what and where, the pre debate at the beginning of this century between Musil Islamic history of a given site and the use made of the and Lammens over the use the Umayyads made of their desert palaces after the Marwanid period will generally desert palaces foreshadows some of the differences of be ignored, even though some of the most important opinion that would arise in the post-World War II era, recent scholarship has involved the study of ceramics to although most of these later scholarly exchanges were determine the post-Umayyad use of these sites. neither as intense nor as personaI.1 The most important Almost every Umayyad site lacks the type of data new scholarly addition to the explanation for the loca archaeological and textual - needed to assign patron tion of Marwanid sites was the growing emphasis on age to a specific member of the family. There are only a trade and pilgrimage routes in that period, and this, few in-situ inscriptions, and the textual references gener along with commen ts on topography and climate, will be ally date to a post-Umayyad period. By necessity, then, we critical to the arguments made below." will rely on the consensus scholars have reached in attri- 28 JERE L. BACHARACH
Marwan I [684-85]
,------~~ -. --_._... -
Muhammad CAbd al-Malik CAbd al-Aziz [685-705]
T- -~~. ,
al-WalidI Abdallah Maslama Sulayman Yazid 11 Hisham [705-15] [715-17] [720-24] [724-43]
CUmar 11 1- I -- ,- [717-20] al5 Abbas CUmar Yazid III Ibrahim
al-Walid 11 [743-44]
Marwan 11
Fig. 1. Genealogy of the Marwanids buting particular sites to specific patrons (Qusayr cAmra seem to have been initiated by him. But with the return to al-Walid I, for example, and Khirbat al-Mafjar to al to the main family line, Yazid 11 (720-24) was very active Walid 11) and then go on from there. That means, of as a patron in Jordan, while his brother Hisham (724- course, that if these consensus attributions prove to be 43) concentrated almost all of his efforts in parts of Syria. wrong, it is very likely that some of the conclusions Finally, al-Walid 11 (r. 743-44), Yazid lI's son, was an reached here will also prove false. active builder in an area that ran from Jericho through My first hypothesis is that Caliph cAbd al-Malik Amman southward. assigned to family members, particularly sons, the specif Marwanid patronage was tied to geography (fig. 2), ic lands in Bilad ai-Sham that eventually became the cen for each of these caliphs and other members of the Mar ter of their architectural patronage.6 Building activities wanid family built in clearly definable zones. These under cAbd al-Malik's own direct patronage were limited zones do not coincide with the administrative unit primarily to Jerusalem. Al-Walid I (705-15), his son and known as the jund (pI. ajniid), however. Almost all Mar successor, may have encouraged building activities in wanid building activities also fall into one of two catego many parts of Bilad ai-Sham, but his patronage while ca ries - either they were mosque/ diir al-cimiira combina liph was also concentrated in Jerusalem, plus Damascus tions or they were qu~·urin which at least a palace, a bath, and sites along one of the pilgrimage/trade routes. and a mosque can be found. With the possible exception Other members of the Marwanid family patronized of al-Walid I's expansion and decorative program in the building activities in Aleppo, Amman, cAnjar, Khirbat al congregational mosque of Damascus and al-Walid lI's Minya, and al-Ramla, among other sites. unfinished buildings south of Amman, no project in cUmar 11 (717-20), who succeeded Sulayman (715- Bilad ai-Sham was composed of only a single building. 17), represented a break not only in the line of direct de Finally, the tendency of Marwanid caliphs to spend their scendants ofcAbd al-Malik, but also in the attitude of the time in locations other than Damascus requires rethink Marwanid family toward patronage, since no buildings ing the idea that there was an Umayyad capital.