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Degree

Master of Arts, Miami University, History, 2011.

Abstract

This thesis examines the ninth-century Baghdadi scholar al-Tabari and his narrative representation of the three civil war caliphs of the Umayyad era (661-750 CE). It explores this important early Muslim historian’s methodological approach to writing narrative history as a way of understanding his own religio-political world rather than a factual recounting. It argues that al-Tabari’s narrative discussion of the first and last Umayyad civil war caliphs differ from that of the second. This study reveals that al-Tabari was less concerned with generating caliphal histories as he was with pointing out the lack of stability within the Islamic Empire and associating that instability with the reigning caliph of the time. This study contributes to a more systemized model of source analysis by which modern scholars fruitfully use the historiography of early Arabic/Islamic sources.

Subject Headings

History

Keywords

Umayyad; al-Tabari; early muslim historiography; Abbasid historiography; civil war caliphs; first Islamic civil war; second Islamic civil war; third Islamic civil war; Muawiya b. Abi Sufyan; Abd al-Malik; Marwan b. Muhammad; Marwan II; Khalid Keshk

Committee / Advisors

Matthew Gordon, PhD (Committee Chair)
Charlotte Goldy, PhD (Committee Member)
Kevin Osterloh, PhD (Committee Member)

Pages

89p.

Document number: miami1323655921
Permalink: http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1323655921

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