Project Title: “Sons and Daughters of the Caliphate: Succession Politics in the Marwanid and early Abbasid family (64-216/684-831)”
What was your research about?
This thesis is a history of succession in the first two Islamic caliphates (Umayyad and Abbasid) covering a period from 692-831 making use of sources in Arabic, Armenian and Greek, including classical Arabic poetry. It primarily aims to answer two questions: firstly, how, in a hereditary dynastic system without primogeniture and with polygamy and concubinage, did heirs distinguish themselves? Secondly, what was the role played by the larger family in influencing and giving support for succession? Chapter 1 is an overview of the historiographical limitations of writing the history of early Islam using only Arabic sources and makes a case for the incorporation of Armenian, Greek and Syriac material. Armenian sources are highlighted for their relevance as “internal” sources to the caliphate, being structured around caliphal reigns and personalities. Chapter 2 investigates Marwanid succession policy, focusing on failed attempts at nomination as to stress the importance of maternal kinship ties, that heirs were prepared via military and religious leadership and that there was no mechanism to remove already designated heirs. Chapter 3 answers the following question, who were the mothers of Marwanid caliphs, and how did kinship ties to them legitimize their sons? This is done via prosopography and eulogizing poetry in which mothers and matrilines are regularly praised. Chapter 4 explores the fall of the Marwanids, the rise of concubine-born sons and endogamous marriage, stressing that the Marwanids needed to maintain agnatic parity to appease the various imperial constituents leading to the polity’s collapse. Chapter 5 outlines Abbasid succession until the fourth fitna (813) and discusses the emergence of concubine-born caliphs, the importance of frontier governorships in preparing heirs, the generation of an acceptable deposition system and restriction of succession to one line. Chapter 6 focuses on Abbasid mothers and explores the endogamous turn taken by the Abbasid family and the large-scale adoption of concubinage. The final section of the chapter is an exploration of the career of Zubayda bt. Jaʿfar, the last free-born mother of a caliph who is also the first woman to appear on coins in the Islamicate world. Ultimately, this thesis argues that reincorporating the wider dynastic family into the
history of early Islam, with a particular focus on women, allows for a different and more complete telling of the dynastic and political dynamics of early Islamic history. Investigating succession reveals how legitimacy and support were gradually cultivated across the polity, identifying new and local actors, bringing into sharp relief the centralising agendas of the historiographical corpus.
CONNECT WITH LEONE
Email: Leone Pecorini Goodall