Volume 97, Issue 1

This article aims to contextualize a short Qurʾānic passage – Q 30:2‒5 – with reference to Jewish and Christian materials that have not hitherto been deployed for this purpose. The article builds on the findings of recent scholarship, which reads this passage eschatologically rather than historically, and argues that there are, in fact, two texts that require contextualization: 1) The Qurʾānic verses themselves (which refer only to the fate of “the Romans”); and 2) The early exegetical traditions on these verses (which often add “the Persians” to the eschatological drama). Furthermore, it is argued that the Biblical book of Daniel, and its interpretation in late antiquity, contributed both to the verses themselves and to their exegesis.

This brief note aims at contributing to the study of the reception of parabiblical narratives in hadith literature and Islamic historiography. Taking the Testament of Abraham as a case study, it sets out to analyse a particular literary motif shared by this text and an early version of the miʿrāǧ (Ascension) of the Prophet Muhammad. The comparative analysis demonstrates that the Testament of Abraham could have provided a number of elements for the redaction of at least one particular section of the miʿrāǧ . This hypothesis finds support in other cases of textual correspondence between several sections of the Testament of Abraham and other Islamic works such as the Tafsīr of Muqātil ibn Sulaymān (d. 150/767), the unedited Kitāb Mubtadaʾ al-dunyā wa-qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ of Abū Ḥuḏayfa al-Buḫārī Isḥāq ibn Bišr (d. 206/821) and Ibn ʿAsākir’s Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq (d. 571/1176). The examined material thus throws additional light on the continuity between late antique apocrypha and nascent Arabic literature.

This paper tries to explore the origin of an Ifrīqiyan historical school active in the middle of the 9th century throughout the unfortunately lost work of the chronicler ʿĪsā b. Muḥammad b. Sulaymān b. Abī l-Muhājir Dīnār. This paper opens with a gathering of all the excerpts of this list work which have been copied by other writers. Apart from the study of the historical importance of those “new” fragments, we’ll try to understand the nature of this work and the strategies of its composition. 

This is a description and assessment of the career of al-Ṣāḥib b. Shukr (548–622/1153–1225), the most important vizier of Ayyūbid Egypt. Born in the Delta, and raised in an influential family, he studied to become a jurist. After serving as a judge ( qāḍī ), he entered the administration of Saladin and subsequently became the vizier of two Ayyūbid sultans, al-ʿĀdil and his son al-Kāmil. His ruthlessness in raising money for them by transforming the Egyptian vizierate into a fund raising institution was a critical factor in their ability to stay in power, and in saving Egypt from the Fifth Crusade. At the same time he patronized the religious class and built the first Mālikī law school ( madrasa ) in Cairo. His vizierate represented a nexus of administrative and religious authority in Egypt.

The nature and place of archives in the premodern Islamicate world is a much debated topic and various explanations are offered for the relative scarcity of preserved material as well as the regional imbalance in the record. One factor that stands out in this discussion is the general prominence of counter-archival practices for the survival of what we are studying today. This contribution is the first to examine one such practice that has led to the preservation of a great number of documents: the reuse of discarded papers for the production of bindings. The case study looks at the binding of Leiden Or. 122, which preserved letters, decrees, and lists from Egypt and Syria at the beginning of the Mamluk reign. They likely belonged to a large household in Cairo, more precisely located in the Ayyubid palace Iṣṭabl al-Quṭbiyya. The article offers an edition of the material with an analysis of the historical circumstances, namely the eventful early years of Mamluk rule in Egypt and Syria.

If all things and events, including human actions, are predetermined by God since pre-eternity, then what space is left for human freedom of will, and hence, for moral responsibility? In the beginning of the 14th century, a non-Muslim scholar, probably of Jewish faith, confronted several Muslim scholars from Damascus and Cairo with precisely this question in versified form. Among them is the well-known Ḥanbalī theologian and jurist Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), who is said to have responded instantly with a 184-verse poem (of which 125 verses are extant). This article provides an analysis of Ibn Taymiyya’s stance on the question of how it can be said that God is just in predetermining and judging human actions and compares it to that of Faḫr ad-Dīn ar-Rāzī. The article ends with the first full translation of the versified question and Ibn Taymiyya’s response into a European language. Both thinkers depart from similar positions, insofar as both deny human free will. However, while Ibn Taymiyya tries to show that the fact that God will hold human beings accountable for their predetermined actions does not go against our inborn sense of justice, ar-Rāzī adduces that fact as part of his strategy to show that God’s actions cannot be subject to rational moral assessment, as they would otherwise have to be declared as senseless and even harmful.

In the era of the “Sunnī Revival” and the couple of centuries following, scholars engaged in a large historiographical project aimed at rehabilitating the reputation of the Umayyad dynasty and Syria’s role in the early Islamic narrative. One of Ibn Kathīr’s historiographical missions in his history Kitāb al-Bidāya wa-l-nihāya was specifically the defense of the Companions of the Prophet. As such, the narrative of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib required some manipulation to answer Shīʿī narratives that cast some of the most important Companions (especially those associated with the Umayyads and Syria) in a rebellious light. This article explores the literary-narrative strategies Ibn Kathīr employs to alter the narrative so as to counteract the implications of the pro-ʿAlīd versions of the story he found in his sources, especially al-Ṭabarī’s Taʾrīkh al-Rusul wa-l-mulūk .