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The Rhetoric of Caliphal Legitimacy. On the Use of alqāb by the Umayyad Rulers in the East

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Published/Copyright: October 12, 2023
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Der Islam
From the journal Der Islam Volume 100 Issue 2

Abstract

The Umayyad caliphs of Damascus have been remembered in Arabic historiography by their respective given name (ism). While epithets (alqāb) are widely documented from the ʿAbbāsid period onward for rulers, emirs, viziers, and courtiers, and have been treated in some detail in research, no comparable studies exist for the Umayyads. This paper discusses the style and validity of epithets ascribed to Umayyad caliphs drawing on a wide array of sources, including historiographical works and panegyric as well as material evidence. It is argued that an interpretation of alqāb in the sense of individual throne names, which only became the norm under the ʿAbbāsids, distorts our perspective of the process of augmenting the ruler’s name with honorific epithets, which can already be observed in the Umayyad period. This expansion of the ruler’s titulature, it is argued, mirrors a broader process of sacralizing caliphal power to legitimize the claim to authority in the face of competing factions within the nascent Islamic empire.

Keywords: alqāb; epithets; Umayyads; sacral kingship
Online erschienen: 2023-10-12
Erschienen im Druck: 2023-10-11

© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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  1. Titelseiten
  2. Jere Bacharach (1938–2023)
  3. Thematic Focus: The Umayyads from West to East: New Perspectives
  4. Introduction: The Umayyads from West to East: New Perspectives
  5. The Battles of the Umayyads. Remembering War from West to East
  6. The Rhetoric of Caliphal Legitimacy. On the Use of alqāb by the Umayyad Rulers in the East
  7. How the Umayyads Lost the Islamic West: Contrasting Depictions of the Uprising of 122/740 by Arab Historians
  8. ‘Syria Rises to Receive the Caliph’: Umayyad Caliphal Titles from Cordoba to Damascus
  9. Between East and West: The Spoils of the Conquest as “Triggers of Memory” in Umayyad al-Andalus
  10. The Tombs of the Umayyad Rulers at the Rawḍa of the Alcázar of Cordoba and Their Symbolic Meaning
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  17. Yvonne Albers, Ines Braune, Christian Junge, Felix Lang, Friederike Pannewick, Arabistik. Eine literatur- und kulturwissenschaftliche Einführung, Berlin:Springer Verlag, 2022 (Lehrbuch J.B. Metzler), IX, 307 S.
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  20. Werner Diem, Studien zu sabab in der arabischen Kunstprosa des 10.–15. Jahrhunderts. Ein Beitrag zur arabischen Lexik, Phraseologie und Stilgeschichte, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2022, (Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 126), 208 S., ISBN 978-3-447-11828-6.
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https://doi.org/10.1515/islam-2023-0020
Keywords for this article
alqāb; epithets; Umayyads; sacral kingship

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelseiten
  2. Jere Bacharach (1938–2023)
  3. Thematic Focus: The Umayyads from West to East: New Perspectives
  4. Introduction: The Umayyads from West to East: New Perspectives
  5. The Battles of the Umayyads. Remembering War from West to East
  6. The Rhetoric of Caliphal Legitimacy. On the Use of alqāb by the Umayyad Rulers in the East
  7. How the Umayyads Lost the Islamic West: Contrasting Depictions of the Uprising of 122/740 by Arab Historians
  8. ‘Syria Rises to Receive the Caliph’: Umayyad Caliphal Titles from Cordoba to Damascus
  9. Between East and West: The Spoils of the Conquest as “Triggers of Memory” in Umayyad al-Andalus
  10. The Tombs of the Umayyad Rulers at the Rawḍa of the Alcázar of Cordoba and Their Symbolic Meaning
  11. Muʿāwiya, ʿAbd al-Malik, and the Falcon of Quraysh
  12. Other Articles
  13. A Glimpse into Egyptian/Syrian Elite Book Culture During the Seventh/Thirteenth Century: Booklist T-S Misc. 24.28 from the Cairo Geniza Corpus
  14. Drawn to Decisions: Hungarian Jewish Citizen Ignác Goldziher
  15. Reviews
  16. Annotated Bibliography “Arabic Papyrology: Administration, Justice, and Daily Life in Empires of the Mediterranean”
  17. Yvonne Albers, Ines Braune, Christian Junge, Felix Lang, Friederike Pannewick, Arabistik. Eine literatur- und kulturwissenschaftliche Einführung, Berlin:Springer Verlag, 2022 (Lehrbuch J.B. Metzler), IX, 307 S.
  18. Abdulrahman Al-Salimi and Eric Staples, eds., Oman: A Maritime History. Studies on Ibadism and Oman, vol. 9, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 2017.
  19. Bachtiyar M. Babadžanov, Ėpigrafičeskie pamjatniki Chorezma. Repertuar tekstov, proklamacii, kul’turnye konteksty, Tom 1, Ėpigrafika v architekturnom landšafte Chivy. Mečeti, pogrebal’nye kompleksy, medrese, dvorcy, vorota. Čast’ 1: Vvedenie, čtenie tekstov, kommentirovannye perevody, 383 pp., Čast’ 2: Illjustracii. 436 pp. / Bakhtiyar M. Babadjanov, Epigraphic Monuments of Khorezm. Repertoire of texts, meaning, cultural contexts, Volume 1, Epigraphy in the Architectural Cityscape of Khiva. Mosques, madrasas, burial complexes, courts and gates, Part 1: Introduction, texts and annotated translations, Part. 2: Plates. Wien (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften) 2020. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse: Denkschriften, 542. Band. Veröffentlichungen zur Iranistik, herausgegeben von Bert G. Fragner und Florian Schwarz, Nr. 85. Studies and Texts on Central Asia, herausgegeben von Florian Schwarz, Band 3. ISBN 978-3-7001-8103-3.
  20. Werner Diem, Studien zu sabab in der arabischen Kunstprosa des 10.–15. Jahrhunderts. Ein Beitrag zur arabischen Lexik, Phraseologie und Stilgeschichte, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2022, (Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 126), 208 S., ISBN 978-3-447-11828-6.
  21. Christian Müller, Recht und Historische Entwicklung der Scharia im Islam, Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East, vol. 46, 544 pp., Boston: de Gruyter, 2022, ISBN: 9783110765779.
  22. Carl F. Petry, The Mamluk Sultanate. A History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022, 358 pp., ISBN 9781108456999.
  23. Marijn van Putten, Quranic Arabic. From Its Hijazi Origins to Its Classical Reading Traditions, Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics, vol. 106, Leiden: Brill 2022, i–xxi+319 pp.+bibl. and index, ISBN 978-90-04-50624-4
  24. Hiroyuki Yanagihashi, Studies in Legal Hadith, Studies in Islamic Law and Society, vol. 47, Leiden: Brill, 2019. xvi + 612 pp., ISBN 9789004389199.
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