THE ROLE OF THE AZDITE MUHALLABID FAMILY IN MARW'S ANTI-UMAYYAD POWER STRUGGLE An historical reevaluation *

BY HERBERT MASON

FOREWORD

their studies of the Arab conquest of Persia and, specifically, in T N their analyses of the Arab himself in this phase of Islamic history, Western historians, such as Wellhausen, Van Vloten and Gibb, have generalized the story of the tribes. The rivalries and internecine outbreaks which had their origins, in some cases, in Arabia before the time of Muhammad and which spread, during the successive waves of Arab expansion, to Iraq and then to that area « to the East » known as Hurasan, are contrasted in these studies with the Umayyad dynasty's efforts at establishment of a central authority and a dependable system of control over the outlying areas under Arab influence. In opposition to what is called

* BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources: IBN A�TAM,Ab � M. A�mad b. A�tam al-K�f�al-Kind �, al-Fut��,Istanbul ms. Library of Ahmet III, n° 2956. 2 vols. Gibb microfilm, Widener Library, Harvard. AL-BAL�DURA��, mad b. Ya�y�Ans, �bal-AŠr �f,Cairo edition, 1958. - , Futu� al-Buld�n, ed. de Goeje, London 1866. IBN HALLIK�N,Kit �b Wafay�t al-A�y�n;refs. taken from DE SLANE'S translation, Biographical Dictionary, 4 vols., Paris 1843-71. IBN MISKAWAYH,al-Hikma al-H�lida, Cairo edition, 1952. IBN AL-NAD�M,al-Fihrist, Cairo edition, 1929. AL-TABAR�Mu, �. b. �ar�r,Ta¸r �h,ed. M. J. DE GOEJE et al., Leiden 1879- 1901, vols. II and III. - , Chronique de Tabari, tr. M. H. ZOTENBERGfrom Persian tr. of Abou �AliBel �am�Paris, 1958. AL-TA��LIBAb��, Man ��r,La ��¸ifal-Ma ��rif,ed. DE JONG, Cairo, n.d. Secondary Sources: BARTHOLD,V. V., Four Studies on Central Asia, tr. MINORSKY,Leiden, 1956 edition. BROWNE,E. G., A Literary History of Persia, vol. I, New York 1902. GIBB, H. A. R., The Arab Conquests in Central Asia, London 1923. GOLDZIHER,I., Muhanamadanische Studien, Band I, Halle 1888. 192

Umayyad policy (whose chief architects-the Caliph Mu'dwiya, the governors of Iraq, al-Haggag, and of Hurasan, Qutayba-were characterized by authoritarianism and force) stands the rival formations of Mudar and Yaman (whose most prominent sub- divisions-Tamim and Azd-were characterized by self-interest, jealousy and instability). Wellhausen and Gibb particularly measured the social and political developments of this first, and most expansive, Islamic century in terms of Umayyad durability against « the tribes » as the one stabilizing factor-apart, of course, from Islam itself. They tended therefore to read the sources- primarily al-Tabari and al-Baladuri-from an Umayyad point of view and to regard the persistence of tribal distinctions in general as potentially « disruptive » 1 or as anachronistic in an era of power politics and power demands. The policy they admired, stated briefly above as conquest and stable control, was enforced by the sustaining of a crest of Arabism and by joining that crest to an established Persian authority represented on the local level by the person of the dihqdn (the local landed gentry or village lord), who served as intermediary between the Arabs and the conquered population, as collector of the gizya (the poll-tax on non-Muslims), as overseer for the housing provisions for Arabs, and even in some instances as conscripter of local military troops. The policy at its best adopted rather than destroyed and

EL-HOUSSEINI, A. M., The Umayyad Policy in Khorasan and Its Effect on the Formation of Muslim Thought, in Journal of the University of Peshawar, December 1955, pp. I-21. LE STRANGE,G., The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, Cambridge 1905. LEWIS, B., The �Abb�sids,in Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Vol. I, Pt. I (Leiden 1960), pp. 15-23. Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. GIBB and KRAMERs (Leiden 1953), pp. 473-5. SPRENGLING,M., From Persian to Arabic, in The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, vol. LVI, 1939. SPULER, B., The Expansion of the Arabs: Iran in Early Times under article heading al-�Arab,in E.I., New Edition, ibid., pp. 529-30. STRENZIOK,G., Azd, in E.I., New Edition, Vol. I., Fasc. II, pp. 811-3. VAN VLOTEN, G., Recherches sur la Domination Arabe, Amsterdam 1894. WELLHAUSEN,J., The Arab Kingdom and Its Fall, tr. WEIR, Calcutta 1927. WENSINCK, A. J., Mawl�, in E.I., Old Edition, Vol. III (Leiden 1936), pp. 417-8- ZETTERSTÉEN,K. V., Na�r b. Sayy�r, in E.I., Old Edition, ibid., pp. 873-4. I. See Studies on the Civilization of Islam by H. A. R. GIBB, (Boston 1962), pp. 8 ff. Such a view was held also by Ibn Hald�n with respect to his nomad- settled dichotomy. It is not a false view, but it can become a shibboleth.