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Signature: _____________________________ ______________ Abbas Barzegar November 19, 2010 Remembering Community: Historical Narrative in the Formation of Sunni Islam By Abbas Barzegar Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Division of Religion West and South Asian Religions __________________________ Dr. Devin Stewart Advisor __________________________ Dr. Richard Martin Committee Member __________________________ Dr. Gordon Newby Committee Member Accepted: _________________________________________ Lisa A. Tedesco, Ph.D. Dean of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies ___________ Date Remembering Community: Historical Narrative in the Formation of Sunni Islam By Abbas Barzegar B.A., University of Colorado at Boulder M.A., University of Colorado at Boulder Advisor: Devin Stewart, Ph.D. An abstract of A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Division of Religion West and South Asian Religions 2010 Abstract Remembering Community: Historical Narrative in the Formation of Sunni Islam By Abbas Barzegar As a study in the formation of Islamic sectarianism, this project focuses on the relationship between historical discourse and collective identity in the development of Sunni Islam as an imagined community. By analyzing the construction of conventional Sunni narratives surrounding the early history of the Muslim community, particularly its discord in the first civil (656-661) war and its reconstitution under the Umayyad dynasty (661-750), this project argues that these seemingly inconsequential narratives—often taken as neutral versions of factual events from which other versions deviate—in fact provide a considerable amount of ideological support to the construction and maintenance of authority, authenticity, and orthodoxy in Sunni Islam. In order to make this argument, this study approaches Islamic historical discourse whether represented in the recorded sayings of Muḥammad (ḥadīth), historical chronicles (akhbār), or apologetic literature, through narrative analysis. In doing so, the development of putative Sunni historical categories such as the Community (al-Jamāʿa), the Prophet’s Companions (al- Ṣaḥāba), and the Rightly Guided Caliphs (al-Khulafāʾ al-Rāshidūn) is shown to have taken place along the political backdrop of the early Abbasid Dynasty’s (750-945) attempts to mitigate competing religious ideological forces in its realm, namely the ongoing strife between Shiite and Umayyad parties. In this context, the political implications embedded in the hagiographic representations of ʿAlī b. Abū Ṭālib, Sunni Islam’s fourth Caliph and Shiite Islam’s first Imām, and Muʿāwiya b. Abū Sufyan, the founding father of the Umayyad Dynasty, are also revealed. In conclusion, this study calls for a reexamination of the dynamics of authority in the study of Islam that prioritizes the discourses of collective identity and historical memory over those of law (sharīʿa) and theology (kalam). Remembering Community: Historical Narrative in the Formation of Sunni Islam By Abbas Barzegar B.A., University of Colorado at Boulder M.A., University of Colorado at Boulder Advisor: Devin Stewart, Ph.D. A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Division of Religion West and South Asian Religions 2010 For my father, Mohammad Hassan Barzegar Bafroe’i And his, Hajj Abbas Barzegar Bafroe’i Acknowledgements I would like to thank my advisor Devin J. Stewart for his guidance and support throughout this project. From inspiring the preliminary stages of this study to overseeing the final moments of its completion, his dedication and selflessness to his students sets a rare standard for higher education. I also would like to express my deep gratitude to Richard Martin for mentoring me through my professional and scholarly development over the last six years, as well as placing a generous amount of trust in me at such an early stage in my career. In that regard, the nurturing and constructive environment of the Graduate Division of Religion and the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies also deserve general recognition. In particular Gordon Newby and Joyce Flueckiger have been especially helpful for their willingness to keep their doors and schedules open for a number of conversations, both professional and personal. Material support for the inception of this project was provided by a fellowship from the Institute of Critical and International Studies (ICIS) at Emory University in 2007. The intellectual community created through ICIS’s seminars and conferences under the direction of Bruce Knauft, Gyan Pandey, and Vincent Cornell helped shape this project in distinct, if not entirely transparent, ways. In addition, the Andrew C. Mellon Foundation and American Council of Learned Societies Dissertation Completion Fellowship provided the support necessary for its completion. Of course, the most deserved of recognition for her support and encouragement of my indulgence in this endeavor is Ruba Alhenawi who, alone, knows what this effort has entailed. Table of Contents Acknowledgments…………………………………………........................... xii I. Introduction…………………………………………...………………… 1 II: History, Myth, and Community: Approaching Islamic Historical Writing through Narrative……………………………......… 19 III: Rethinking Islamic Orthodoxy through the Jamāʿa…………………... 44 IV: The Persistence of Heresy: Paul of Tarsus, Ibn Sabaʾ, and the problem of Shiism…….………………………………………… 89 V: The Problem of ʿAlī b. Abū Ṭālib: Reflections on the Idea of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs………………………………………… 127 VI: The Faḍāʾil of Muʿāwiya in the Formation of the Ḥanbalī madhhab………………………..….................. 177 VII: Conclusion……………………………………………………………. 232 Bibliography……………………………………………………….………. 242 1 I Introduction On January 12th, 2008 the Wall Street Journal featured a front-page article and accompanying image of an open Qur’ān entitled, “The Lost Archive: Missing for a half century, a cache of photos spurs sensitive research on Islam’s holy text.”1 The story chronicled the troubled fate of a lost and then found collection of photos of early Qurʾān manuscripts compiled by the German scholars Gotthelf Bergsträsser (1886-1933) and Otto Pretzl (1893-1941). The photos are believed to provide evidence documenting the historical development of the Qurʾanic text itself. Such research stems naturally from the German tradition of Biblical Higher criticism which sought to find the textual prototypes of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. The Wall Street Journal’s story described the sensitivity of the research agenda in the current political moment. It also marked one of the few occasions when the intense, but often hidden debates, amongst Islamicists regarding the origins of Islam was brought to public attention. Those debates, which have captivated scholars and students for generations, have constituted virtual fault lines in academic circles since the inception of historical studies 1 Andre Higgins, “The Lost Archive,” The Wall Street Journal, Janurary 12, 2008. 2 on the Islamic tradition. This has been the case whether the topic of concern is the textual origins of the Qurʾān, the reliability of Mu ḥammad’s words and deeds as recorded in the ḥadīth literature, or the development of Islamic doctrine, law, or sectarianism. The core divide in the professional practice of Islamic studies is determined not by theological or metaphysical concerns or even political correctness, though these may be peripherally related to the conversation. Instead, the problem is one with which every historian must tackle—the problem of sources. How does one trust a source to tell a story about itself? Can an accurate historical portrayal of the development of Islam be constructed if one only refers to the religious tradition’s self-representation as recorded in literary materials? For those who answer in the negative, alternative explanations have been sought by questioning the credibility of literary sources altogether, relying exclusively upon documentary evidence or seeking insight from contemporaneous literature outside of the tradition. This skeptical approach is perhaps most exemplified in the infamous work Hagarism: the Making of the Islamic World written by Patricia Crone and Michael Cook.2 On the opposite side of the spectrum, some scholars have rebuked the premise of the question altogether. They argue that in the study of a religion, modern scholars should concern themselves not with what actually happened in history but with what practitioners believed to have taken place. Hence, for example, many of the