Arabs

by Tim Mackintosh-Smith

the smallest tribes grouped . . . under a joint flag: Ibn Khallikan II, p. 63.

  in al-Kufah . . . each tribe having its own mosque: Baladhuri, pp. 270–3.

  Adnanis . . . each had their own ’asabiyyah: Husayn, p. 130.

  in all the amsar of Islam . . . ‘Ignorance’: Husayn, p. 120.

  We know no other . . . never-ending eloquence: quoted in Kurdi, p. 53.

  The Arabs have . . . in these two cities: quoted in Suyuti II, p. 353.

  I spent a long time . . . forgeries: quoted in Suyuti II, p. 353.

  Scholarship . . . never came back to you: quoted in Jahiz, part 1, p. 142.

  The souls of the ambitious . . . stay at home: quoted in Rosenthal, p. 51.

  the inhabitants of tombs: quoted in Ibn Khallikan III, p. 193.

  The amounts . . . were heritable: EI2 I, s.v. cAṬā’.

  Umar was warned . . . ‘That is inevitable’: Baladhuri, p. 440.

  His vision . . . included child-support payments: Baladhuri, p. 441.

  his economic innovations . . . camel-hide dirhams: Baladhuri, p. 452.

  by investing . . . the strong eat up the weak: Jahiz, part 1, pp. 188–9. The Qur’anic quotation is Qur’an, 59:7.

  Arabs would only remain great . . . as a vice: Jahiz, part 1, pp. 203–4. Cf. p. 77, above.

  Treasure in conquered lands was ‘de-thesaurized’: cf. Kennedy, p. 173.

  150,000 [gold] dinars . . . was more than that: Mas’udi II, pp. 341–3; translation from Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, p. 163.

  he spent sixteen dinars . . . extravagant: Mas’udi II, p. 343.

  a ninth-century judge . . . sour milk and dates: Ibn Khallikan III, p. 393; cf. Mas’udi III p. 351.

  ‘Hail, great amir!’ . . . to sit upon a throne!: Jahiz, part 3, p. 167. Poet and amir are unidentified, although Zayd can be the Arabic equivalent of ‘Joe Bloggs’. In some accounts, the verses are aimed at an eighth-century governor, Ma’n ibn Za’idah.

  Umar was killed . . . by a slave: e.g. Baladhuri, p. 370.

  the murdered caliph . . . nominate a successor: Lewis, ‘Concept’, p. 7.

  Abu Bakr . . . ‘gathered the Qur’an between boards’: Ibn Khallikan II, p. 33.

  The Qur’an was many . . . abandoned all but one: al-Tabari, quoted in Schoeler, p. 431.

  secondary copies . . . by in-house scribes: Kurdi, p. 446.

  Arabic was beginning . . . Medina: Jahiz, part 1, pp. 10–11; cf. p. 201, above.

  Qur’an and Sunnah . . . preserved the Arabic language: Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, p. 295.

  the legendary . . . Abd Shams and Hashim: cf. pp. 125–6, above.

  ‘Who is my son shouting at?’ . . . humbled others: Mas’udi II, p. 306.

  he had alienated . . . fifth share of booty: EI2 IX, p. 420.

  his loss at this time . . . down a well: EI2, s.v. cUthmān.

  exiled whistleblowers: e.g. Abu ’l-Dharr: EI2 I, p. 382.

  Dismissed as governor . . . milked her: Baladhuri, p. 221.

  The killing . . . was utterly in the wrong: Adonis, Thabit I, pp. 316–17.

  he also reversed land-grants . . . to his cronies: Mas’udi II, p. 362.

  How far . . . A day’s journey for the sun: Jahiz, part 3, p. 106.

  rare and remote . . . city of the philosophers: Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, p. 257.

  Two of those . . . amassed fortunes: p. 212, above.

  in the tradition of pre-Islamic seeresses: cf. Carmichael, p. 91.

  on a camel . . . covered with chain-mail: Mas’udi II, pp. 370–1.

  seventy men’s hands . . . looked like a porcupine: Mas’udi II, pp. 375–6.

  News of the battle . . . carried by a vulture: Ibn Khallikan II, p. 10.

  7,000 dead – a ‘conservative’ estimate: Mas’udi II, p. 360.

  By Allah . . . A’ishah laughed and rode away: Ibn Khallikan II, p. 9.

  duped by the woman . . . Commander of the Faithful: Mas’udi II, p. 379.

  The battle of Siffin . . . across from al-Raqqah: Mas’udi II, p. 384.

  Where’s that Mu’awiyah? . . . to Hell!: Mas’udi II, p. 396.

  There was such fighting . . . on top of Ubayd Allah: Mas’udi II, p. 397.

  Ali . . . in a day and a night: Mas’udi II, p. 399.

  Dawn broke . . . no longer knew the times of prayer: Mas’udi II, p. 399.

  Places . . . inclined to happiness, others to grief: Maqrizi I, p. 348, translation from Mackintosh-Smith, Tangerine, p. 226.

  Every man on Mu’awiyah’s side . . . raised it high: Mas’udi II, p. 400.

  They are not people of religion and the Qur’an: Mas’udi II, p. 401.

  But his men were set . . . and Ali deferred to them: Mas’udi II, pp. 400–1.

  70,000 . . . 25,000 on Ali’s: Mas’udi II, p. 361.

  Some authorities . . . over half as much again: Mas’udi II, p. 404.

  it was the climax . . . the opponents: Mas’udi II, p. 361.

  Ali, under pressure . . . should be caliph: Mas’udi II, pp. 402–3.

  The arbiters . . . agreed on nothing: EI2 VII, p. 265.

  Muhammad . . . seventy-three sects: cf. p. 3, above.

  a lost ninth-century ode . . . of sects and sectarians: Mas’udi IV, p. 40.

  Quraysh liked me . . . more than Ali: Jahiz, part 1, p. 215.

  heritage . . . is a sociopolitical problem: Adonis, Thabit IV, p. 207.

  CHAPTER 8 THE KINGDOM OF DAMASCUS

  Abd al-Malik noticed . . . the hall be destroyed: Mas’udi III, p. 117.

  That year, 661 . . . the Year of Unity: EI2 VII, p. 265.

  you would promote . . . ibn Abi Balta’ah: Jahiz, part 3, p. 185.

  It was the same argument . . . between cousins: cf. pp. 125–6, above.

  V.S. Naipaul’s Durkheimian notion . . . come and go: Naipaul, p. 63. In Durkheim’s terms, changing (Islamic) civilization ‘articulates’ essential (Arab) culture. Cf. Zubaida, p. 124.

  After me . . . a king or kings: Ibn Khallikan I, p. 225; Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, p. 281.

  a legend about Mu’awiyah’s mother . . . birth to a king: Ibshihi, p. 468.

  he fathered a line . . . the emperor Nicephorus I: Hitti, p. 300.

  Caliph al-Walid . . . including his penis: Mas’udi III, pp. 227–8.

  he allegedly shot darts . . . a charlatan: Mas’udi III, pp. 228–9.

  Abd al-Malik – seen above . . . prematurely grey: Jahiz, part 1, p. 60.

  He slept little . . . hilm: Mas’udi III, pp. 39–41.

  to a Christian monk . . . from our grandfathers: EI2 VII, p. 267.

  impious deviation from an established tradition: Crone, p. 387.

  Mu’awiyah . . . was also anf al-’arab: Jahiz, part 1, 221.

  Al-Jabiyah . . . an Umayyad power-base too: EI2 II, p. 360.

  the same . . . fought for the Ghassanids: EI2 VII, p. 267.

  In these, too . . . anticipated by the Ghassanids: EI2 II, p. 1021.

  its mural paintings . . . the Visigoths in Spain: Hitti, p. 271.

  Muhammad . . . in its fleshpots: Mackintosh-Smith, Tangerine, p. 166.

  By the figs and the olives . . . without end: Qur’an, 95:1 and 4–6.

  We’ll fight for . . . the fruits and rivers of Paradise: Mas’udi II, p. 395.

  I will never give up . . . ‘Bait your hook with Egypt’: Mas’udi II, p. 363. The word tu’mah, at least to later readers, has a nice extra meaning – as well as ‘bait’, it can also mean ‘a percentage of taxes’. Lecker, p. 338.

  I have subdued . . . hidden treasure: Ibn Khallikan III, p. 379.

  I found him . . . in her right hand a pitcher: Ibn Khallikan I, p. 294.

  the hard-drinking . . . court poet to Abd al-Malik: EI2 s.v. al-Akhtal.

  He could compose . . . ‘dizzy and effeminate’: Ibn Khallikan I, p. 472; cf. Suyuti I, p. 459.

  Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz . . . and North Africa: p. 200, above.

  Their leader . . . I have seen otherwise: Yaqut quoted in Mackintosh-Smith, Tangerine, p. 144.
<
br />   the iconoclast emperor . . . direct from Damascus: Mathews, p. 58.

  an Islamic layer . . . a Byzantine imperial gloss: Adonis, Thabit I, p. 317.

  news reached the emperor . . . among evil men: Mas’udi III, p. 195.

  Observing him deliver . . . twelve dirhams: Ibn Khallikan I, p. 336.

  the Abbasid Caliph . . . their kidneys: Ibn Khallikan II, p. 83; Mas’udi III, pp. 184–6.

  Listening to a richly embroidered account . . . it is ours: Abid, p. 484.

  the earliest sense . . . ‘a mixed people’: pp. 38–9, above.

  They discovered him . . . in a foreign land: cf. Husayn, p. 91.

  Augustus claimed descent from Aeneas: Hornblower and Spawforth, s.v. Aeneas.

  Hagar herself . . . ‘the Mother of the Arabs’: Ibn Khallikan I, p. 39; Yaqut, s.v. Umm al-cArab.

  We have already seen . . . community of southerners: p. 118, above.

  their major prophet . . . his more distant ancestry: p. 125, above.

  at some time around . . . Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz: Retsö p. 33; Serjeant, review of René Dagorn, p. 52.

  That there are at least three . . . inspires confidence: Mas’udi II, p. 273.

  His original tongue . . . blew from Babel: Suyuti I, pp. 29–30.

  the southerners, too, got . . . prophetic honour: cf. EI2 IV, p. 448.

  a unifying ‘ethnic’ identity . . . had not existed before: Macdonald, Development, p. 22.

  O mankind . . . you may know one another: Qur’an, 49:13.

  the first Caliph Umar . . . aware of the shortfall: pp. 193–4, above.

  Were it not for the swords . . . Allahu akbar!: quoted in Akwa’, p. 103.

  In the year 700: Baladhuri, p. 192.

  The reason was . . . change the records [to Arabic]: Baladhuri, pp. 192–3.

  there is no event . . . causes and effects: Borges, pp. 196–7. English version by Alberto Manguel, A Reader on Reading, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2011, p. 56.

  People turned . . . sophistication of literacy: Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, p. 199.

  both reined in . . . civilization and science: Jabiri, p. 68.

  it troubled him . . . deprived you of this profession: Baladhuri, p. 193. Sergius was the father of the future saint, John of Damascus; Sergius’s own father had been in charge of taxes under the Byzantines.

  Hassan al-Tanukhi . . . scribe and translator: Ibn Khallikan I, p. 287.

  The older, more angular . . . Nabataean parent: Kurdi, p. 111.

  the sudden need . . . of cursive script: Versteegh, Arabic Language, p. 57.

  It can be written . . . in other scripts: Kurdi, p. 160.

  diacritical marks . . . papyrus of AH 22/AD 643: Jones, ‘Word Made Visible’, p. 15; Macdonald, Development, p. 1.

  Grammar, syntax and philology . . . Arab sciences: cf. Jabiri, p. 76.

  the beginnings . . . from Anaximander on: cf. Hornblower and Spawforth, s.v. Anaximander.

  because eloquent words . . . congenial to the Arabs: Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, p. 217.

  Say, ‘He is Allah, One . . . ’: Qur’an, 112.

  In retaliation . . . to mint his own: Baladhuri, pp. 237–8.

  Islam . . . never had a Pentecost: for this phrase I thank in turn Professor Kamal Abdel Malek.

  Hammad . . . for each letter of the alphabet: Ibn Khallikan I, p. 293.

  non-Arabs further developed . . . a cultural whole: cf. Drory, p. 42.

  Abu Ata . . . patronized by the later Umayyad caliphs: Huart, p. 57.

  Some are raised . . . my poems are my lineage: Lewis, ‘Crows’, p. 95 (translation slightly modified).

  topography and climate . . . and shu’ub, peoples: cf. pp. 25–6, above.

  What are you Yemenis? . . . a hoopoe told them about it: Jahiz, part 1, p. 143; Mas’udi II, p. 183; cf. Mackintosh-Smith, Yemen, p. 5 and footnote.

  We can’t abide . . . while we walk the walk: Jahiz, part 1, p. 165. The last phrase goes, more literally, ‘They must do the speaking while we must do the doing.’

  he had shown the Qurashis’ Allah . . . to be one God: cf. pp. 143–4, above.

  the Ansar had been excluded . . . exclusion rankled: cf. EI2 I, p. 545.

  al-Farazdaq . . . clients of Quraysh: Ibn Khallikan III, pp. 395–6.

  late pre-Islamic qwls . . . in Umayyad Syria: Piotrovsky, pp. 304–5. On qwls, see p. 94, above.

  later in ninth-century India: Baladhuri, p. 428.

  in eighteenth-century Lebanon: Hitti, p. 281.

  in twentieth-century Oman: e.g. EI2, s.v. Hinā.

  Al-Husayn’s friends . . . a small force of followers: Mas’udi III, pp. 64–6.

  Hearts are with you . . . Victory is in heaven: Jahiz, part 1, p. 243.

  We cleave the heads . . . against that mouth to kiss it: Mas’udi III, pp. 70–1.

  They saw that they . . . had not gone to help him: Mas’udi III, p. 100.

  Iranian pilgrims in the Umayyad Mosque: Mackintosh-Smith, Tangerine, p. 144.

  Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr . . . won their backing: Hitti, pp. 280–1.

  Tell Yazid from me . . . chop him up limb from limb: Jahiz, part 1, p. 221.

  the dabb, is a lizard . . . a painful weapon: Freya Stark had a live Uromastyx, ‘a charming pet and very tame, and answers to the name of Himyar’. Freya Stark, Seen in the Hadhramaut, John Murray, 1938, p. 116.

  Mu’awiyah had already sent . . . Ka’bah precinct: Mas’udi III, p. 85.

  Yazid . . . died in rapid succession: Mas’udi III, pp. 81–2.

  the anti-caliph rebuilt the focal shrine of Islam: Mas’udi III, p. 92.

  it was rumoured that he died . . . from the succession: Mas’udi III, pp. 97–8.

  navel of the earth: cf. p. 123, above.

  in one year . . . a Khariji group that reviled it: EI2 I, p. 55.

  Abd al-Malik . . . built the Dome of the Rock: Ibn Khallikan II, p. 35.

  the head of Abd Allah . . . made its way to Damascus: Hitti, p. 193.

  The year of the anti-caliph’s defeat . . . ‘Year of Unity’: EI2 X, p. 842.

  at the end of 694, Abd al-Malik sent him to . . . Iraq: Hitti, p. 207.

  I am the son . . . turbans and beards: Jahiz, part 1, pp. 289–90.

  Often he would begin . . . corners of the mosque: Ibn Khallikan I, p. 213.

  He could be . . . quite justified: Jahiz, part 1, p. 163.

  That enemy of Allah . . . worse than the Antichrist: Jahiz, part 1, p. 164.

  putting to death . . . killed in fighting: Mas’udi III, pp. 175–6.

  I am iron-hearted . . . cruel and jealous: Jahiz, part 3, p. 99.

  the thirteen-page entry . . . one of the longest: Ibn Khallikan I, pp. 206–19.

  How can you sit . . . he pawed at the ground with his feet: Mas’udi III, pp. 167–9; Ibn Khallikan I, p. 214.

  ‘I do,’ said the astrologer . . . used to call me: Ibn Khallikan I, p. 217.

  but thereafter . . . the beginning of his life: Mas’udi III, p. 132.

  the amsar . . . forbidden to non-arabophones: Ibn Khallikan III, p. 355.

  Al-Hajjaj is a fool . . . not to enter it!: Jahiz, part 3, p. 153.

  in the vast eastern province . . . Arabs spoke Persian: EI2 I, p. 530.

  the Persian mother . . . said Ziyad: Jahiz, part 1, pp. 34 and 254. As well as the ‘Membrum virile’, as Hava’s dictionary terms it, ayr (without the twang) can also mean ‘the north wind’ and ‘the east wind’. Sailors must have terrible problems.

  The first I hear . . . masculines that feminize: Jahiz, part 1, p. 34.

  Al-Walid . . . bedouin ‘finishing school’: p. 126, above.

  His lapses . . . undermined his dignity: Jahiz, part 1, p. 251.

  his most famous faux-pas . . . ‘Who circumcised you?’: Suleiman, p. 54.

  becoming a Muslim . . . as a mawla: p. 201, above.

  By Allah, if this lad . . . character and eloquence: Ibn Khallikan III, p. 378.

  sayyid al-kalam . . . was making masters of its pe
ople: Abid, p. 43.

  Muhammad’s famous declaration . . . except in piety: Jahiz, part 1, p. 183, cf. p. 169, above.

  Berbers and Slavs . . . and the dregs of humanity: Jahiz, part 1, p. 125. Jarmaqis come from an oasis in the great desert of central Iran; Jarjumis are the Mardaite Christians of northern Syria.

  Khalid ibn al-Walid . . . an Arab Christian called Nusayr: Baladhuri, p. 244.

  The latter became . . . mawla of the Umayyad clan: Baladhuri, p. 228.

  Men, where can you fly . . . penetration will delight: Ibn Khallikan III, p. 161.

  Arabs in Khurasan . . . piled up from its conquest: Jahiz, part 1, p. 285.

  al-Muhallab . . . sub-tribe, the Mahalibah: Ibn Khallikan III, pp. 177 and 178.

  ‘A’rab,’ Qutaybah called them . . . pile up its booty!: Jahiz, part 1, p. 221. Abarkawan, today called Qishm, is an island just inside the Strait of Hormuz.

  he wrote . . . to send an army against him: Ibn Khallikan III, p. 348.

  But none of his men . . . killed in 715: Kennedy, pp. 274 and 275.

  Defeated in 720 . . . bid for the caliphate itself: Ibn Khallikan III, pp. 351–4.

  It is unclear . . . perhaps Kurdish origin: Ibn Khallikan II, p. 74.

  he was bilingual in Arabic and Persian: Ibn Khallikan II, p. 71.

  I have achieved . . . the lion does the shepherding: Ibn Khallikan II, p. 73. ‘Marwan’s line’ are the later Umayyads, descended from Marwan ibn al-Hakam.

  Among the ashes . . . come to wake and rise!: Ibn Khallikan II, pp. 71–2.

  in their vanguard . . . when time has run its course?: Mas’udi III, p. 265.

  One of the few survivors . . . what was happening: Mas’udi III, p. 241.

  Egypt, where he tried . . . and so was he: Mas’udi III, p. 265.

  They were the mother-lode . . . as proper Arabs: Jahiz, part 3, p. 138.

  The Abbasid dynasty . . . Arab and bedouin-Arab: Jahiz, part 3, p. 139.

  A more poignant image . . . by the wildest poet: Johnson and Shehadeh, p. 36.

  In Lebanon and Palestine . . . part of the eighteenth century: Hitti, p. 281.

  CHAPTER 9 THE EMPIRE OF BAGHDAD

  How are all the kings . . . this king of ours: al-Sirafi and Ibn Fadlan, pp. 79–81.

  the wise infidel . . . literary character: al-Sirafi and Ibn Fadlan, p. 11.

  the Christian king . . . their irreligiosity: Ma’sudi III, pp. 296–7.

  the old Classical age had finally ended: cf. Henri Pirenne’s view in Dunlop, pp. 18–19.