Al-ʿAwtabī’s Kitāb al-Ansāb: Challenges in Attribution and Composition
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Hassan M. A. Al-Naboodah
Abstract
The Kitāb al-Ansāb (The Book of Genealogies) provides detailed accounts of the lineages and familial connections of Omani tribes in southeast Arabia, which is essential for understanding the social and political structure of the region during the premodern period. This book became an indispensable resource for historians seeking to write a comprehensive history of premodern Oman, as it was frequently quoted by later Omani historians and formed the foundation of premodern Omani cultural and religious practices. Compiled during the 4th/11th century, the identity of its writer has attracted much speculation. While widely attributed to an individual from the ʿAwtabī family, this attribution does not withstand scrutiny.
This paper critically examines the author of the Kitāb al-Ansāb, his style and method, sectarian and factional affiliations, and attempts to place the text in its historical context. It argues that the author was most likely a nonsectarian moderate from the cosmopolitan city of Ṣuḥār, a coastal city in northern Oman, and completed the text in the year 345/956 or earlier. The confused and fragmentary condition of the text today is likely the result of subsequent copyists, with the oldest known manuscript dated 1086/1672. The paper concludes with a discussion of the extant manuscripts and a call for a critical edition.
© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelseiten
- Werner Ende
- Articles
- Who are the Sābiqūn? From the Companions of the Tree to the Muhājirūn: The Story of a Controversy and its Implications for the Umma (1st–2nd/7th–8th Century)
- Al-ʿAwtabī’s Kitāb al-Ansāb: Challenges in Attribution and Composition
- Eleven Islamic Tombstones from Egypt: A Window into the Histories of Early Islamization and of Modern Dislocation
- Water Communities in the Plain of Palermo. A Neglected Islamic Document from Norman Sicily
- Thinking Through Smell: Theories of Olfaction in Early Modern Ottoman and Islamic Culture
- Odes to a Rūmī Qāḍī in Greater Syria and Egypt: Literary Networks Surrounding Zekeriyāzāde Yaḥyā Efendī (1561–1644)
- The Reception of Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) in Ibrāhīm al-Kūrānī’s (d. 1101/1690) Works
- The Turkic Inscription at the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf
- Reviews
- Ileana Baird and Hülya Yağcıoğlu, All Things Arabia: Arabian Identity and Material Culture, Leiden: Brill, 2021, hardback, 230 pp. + bibliography and index, ISBN 9789004435919.
- Norman Cigar, The Historical Chronicle of Abū ʿAdballāh Maḥammad Ibn Ibrāhim al-Dukkālī: Fes in the Mid-18th Century (1149/1736–1179/1766), Brill, 2023, 348 pages, ISBN 978-90-04-52514-6.
- Étienne de la Vaissière, Asie Centrale 300–850. Des routes et des royaumes, Paris (Les Belles Lettres) 2024, 638 pp., Zahlreiche Karten und Illustrationen, ISBN 978-2-251-45521-1.
- Ahmed El Shamsy, Rediscovering the Islamic Classics. How Editors and Print Culture Transformed an Intellectual Tradition, Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2020, 242 pp. + bibliography and index, ISBN: 9780691174563.
- Mohammad Gharaibeh (ed.), Beyond Authenticity: Alternative Approaches to Hadith Narratives and Collections, Islamic History and Civilization, Studies and Texts, vol. 203, Leiden: Brill, 2023, ix, 457 pp., index, illustrations, ISBN 978-90-04-52907 (hardback), 978-90-04-52908-3 (e-book).
- George Dimitri Sawa, Ḥāwī l-Funūn wa-Salwat al-Maḥzūn, Encompasser of the Arts and Consoler of the Grief-Stricken by Ibn al-Ṭaḥḥān. Annotated Translation and Commentary, Leiden: Brill 2021, 353 pp., 1 Abb., Notenbeispiele, Appendix, Indices, ISBN 978-90-04-46547-6.
- Walter Edward Young, The Dialectical Forge: Juridical Disputation and the Evolution of Islamic Law, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 9, ed. Shahid Rahman, Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2017, xiv + 643 pages, appendices, glossary, index, ISBN 978-3-319-25522-4 (hardback).
