The abnā' al-dawla: The definition and legitimation of identity in response to the fourth fitna

Journal of the American Oriental Society

Volumn 124, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 1-22

  Turner, John P ^a  

^a KENNESAW STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 70450088846     PISSN: 00030279     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/4132150     Document Type: Article

References (68)

1. See M. Rowlands, "The Politics of Identity in Archaeology," in Social Construction of the Past, ed. G. C. Bond and A. Gilliam (London: Routledge, 1994), 130
2. Crone notes in reference to several individuals, "They are often described as Abnā' in the secondary literature, but this merely goes to show that modern scholars routinely extend the Banawī label to all offspring of the participants in the revolution." P. Crone, "The 'Abbāsid Abnā' and Sasanid Cavalrymen," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 8 (1998): 5
3. M. Sharon, Revolt: The Social and Military Aspects of the 'Abbāsid Revolution (Jerusalem: Hebrew Univ., 1990), 263-301
4. McCrone, Sociology of Nationalism, 23. "Such identifiers of ethnicity, however, do not automatically generate an 'identity,' because the key will be how an individual chooses to identify with these characteristics. 'Identity' is perception. If a particular identity does not mean anything to the population in question, this population does not have this particular identity.' " And p. 28: "The key point here is that there is no one-to-one relationship between ethnicity and cultural identifiers. What matters is which ones key actors regard as significant, for which purposes and under which conditions." And quoting Eriksen on the same page "It is only when they make a difference that cultural differences are important in the creation of ethnic boundaries."
5. See M. Bonner, "Definitions of Poverty and the Rise of the Muslim Urban Poor," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 6 (1996): 336
6. Ayalon, "The Military Reforms of Caliph al-Mu'tascombining dot belowim," in Islam and the Abode of War (Norfolk: Variorum, 1994)
7. Ayalon, "Military Reforms," 6
8. Sharon, Revolt, 263-301; although not all of the units were so registered
9. Ayalon, "Military Reforms," 38
10. Elad, "Aspects of the Transition from the Umayyad to the 'Abbāsid Caliphate," Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 19 (1995): 89-132
11. Crone, "'Abbāsid Abnā'," 3
12. G. Le Strange, Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate (London: Curzon Press, 1972), 128. Le Strange, much earlier, describes the abnā' as "Persian nobles" "who were already settled in Mesopotamia at the time of the Moslim conquest."
13. Ayalon, "Military Reforms," 8. His conjecture has become canonical
14. Daniel, The Political and Social History of Khurasan Under Abbasid Rule 747-820 (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1979), 58
15. Crone, Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1980), 66
16. Crone, "'Abbāsid Abnā'," 7
17. Lassner, The Shaping of 'Abbāsid Rule (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1980), 131, 133
18. Crone, Slaves on Horses, 73
19. Ayalon, "Military Reforms," 7
20. B. Anderson, Imagined Communities (New York: Verso, 1991), 118
21. Ayalon, "Military Reforms," 33
22. Crone, '"Abbāsid Abnā'," 9 n. 82: "The Muslim b. Nasr al-A'war al-Anbārī who appears sat Barqa in the time of al-Ma'mūn was presumably also an Abnāwī."
23. J. Lassner, The Topography of Baghdad (Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1970), 123
24. Cited by H. Kennedy, The Armies of the Caliphs (New York: Routledge, 2001), 84
25. Khalīfa Ibn Khayyātcombining dot below al-'Usfuri, Ta'rīkh Khalīfa b. Khayyāt, ed. S. Zakkar (Damascus: Wizārat al-Thaqāfa wa'l-Irshād al-Qawmī, 1967), 2: 748; only the name 'Abdawayh appears
26. However, in the Abū al-Faraj Iscombining dot belowfahā nī, al-Aghānī, 24 vols. (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Miscombining dot belowri, 1927-1974), 20: 14, he is described as "min abnā' al-shī'a al-khurāsāniyya min ahl Baghdad." Keep in mind, I am not arguing that the abnā' did not exist or that they were not what they claimed to be
27. M. J. De Goeje, Fragmenta historicum arabicorum, 2 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1869), 325.9. Throughout this text Anbār/Anbārī appear where under the old paradigm one expects to find abnā'. In one instance (p. 321.11) abnā' appears, but as abnā' al-muluk
28. E.g., see al-Tcombining dot belowabarī, The 'Abbāsid Caliphate in Equilibrium, trans. C. E. Bosworth, vol. 30 (Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 1989), 46 (170 A.H.), when those who are conspiring against Hārūn al-Rashīd are described as al-Shī'a, "the partisans." Bosworth misses the context and reads it as indicating the abnā' al-dawla, which, given that context, it clearly is not
29. Yazīd b. Muhcombining dot belowammad al-Azdī, Ta'rīkh al-Mawscombining dot belowil, ed. A. Habibah (Cairo: al-Majlis al-A'lā li'l-Shu'ūn, al-Islāmiyya, 1967), 200.15-16
30. see Elad, "Aspects of the Transition," 10 n. 54
31. Following al-Rashīd's succession struggle, the opposition "infiltrates" Hārūn's "shī'a." See M. Bonner, "Al-Khalīfa al-Mardcombining dot belowī: The Accession of Hārūn al-Rashīd," JAOS 108 (1988): 87, 89
32. Anonymous, Akhbar al-dawlah al-'Abbasiyah, ed. 'A. 'A. Duri (Beirut: al-Talia Publishing Co., 1971), 203, 208, 213, 223 is also cited. However, while the term Shī'a is used, it is used as indicating partisans of an individual
33. al-Tcombining dot belowabari, The 'Abbāsid Revolution, trans. J. A. Williams, vol. 27 (Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 1985), 81
34. al-Dīnawarī, Kitāb al-Akhbār, 390. This page is a discussion of al-Rashīd's succession arrangement for al-Amīn and al-Ma'mūn
35. Lassner, Shaping, 133
36. Crone, "The 'Abbāsid Abnā'," 3. Crone notes that the person who was chosen was Yahcombining dot belowyā b. Khālid b. Barmak, a descendant of one of the revolutionaries. I do not deny that those who claimed to be abnā' during the fourth fitna most probably were descended from the "revolutionaries." However, I am arguing that the point at which these individuals began to subscribe to that identity was much later than is assumed
37. "Military Reforms," 33
38. Kindī, Governors and Judges of Egypt, 147
39. al-Ya'qūbī, Ta'rīkh, 2: 533
40. Ibn Sa'd, Biographien Muhammeds, v. 7, part 2, 87
41. citing Ayalon, "Military Reforms," 7ff., 11
42. M. S. Gordon posits an interesting interpretation of the term muwalladūn, "this is probably used by al-Ya'qūbī to refer to the Iraqi civilian population" ("The Breaking of a Thousand Swords: A History of the Turkish Community of Samarra [218-264 A.H./833-877 CE.]" [Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1993], 320)
43. Lassner, Shaping, 134-35, notes that "Baghdadis no doubt suspected that a victory for the pretender would enhance me position of the new Khurāsānī forces . . ."
44. Kennedy, Armies of the Caliphs, 79-80
45. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 26
46. Edward William Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1984), 2: 1967. It indicates "[Foreigners, as meaning] others than Arabs; . . . [often used as implying disparagement, like barbarians; and often especially meaning Persians;] . . . a man not of the Arabs." It does not necessarily mean "Persian," much less "Iranian."
47. The root meaning has to do with speaking unclearly or poorly, signifying an outlander usually from the east; see Gordon, "The Breaking of a Thousand Swords," 49 n. 139, for other references
48. Also see C. Robinson, "The Study of Islamic Historiography: A Progress Report," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 7 (1997): 220
49. J. Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, trans. T. McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975), 3-4. In periods of crisis members of society restructure their interpretive system, which had allowed them to identify "one another as belonging to the same group, and through this group identity assert their own self-identity." In this process of restructuring, the individuals seek out new ways of asserting belonging
50. A. Merlucci, "The Process of Collective Identity," in Social Movements and Culture, ed. H. Johnston and B. Klandermans (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota, 1995), 48
51. See Bonner, "Definitions of Poverty," 343-44
52. Tilly, "Revolutions and Collective Violence," 507: "proactive collective action: some group carries out an action which, under the prevailing rules, lays claim to a resource not previously accorded to that group; at least one group intervenes in the action and resists the claim."
53. L. Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1992), 178. Greenfeld makes the observation that "the adoption of a new, national identity is precipitated by a regrouping within or change in the position of influential social groups - a crisis of identity, structurally expressed as 'anomie' - which creates among them an incentive to search for and, given the availability, adopt a new identity. The crisis of identity as such does not explain why the identity which is adopted is national, but only why there is a predisposition to opt for some new identity." I would add that it is not essential that they choose a national identity, any identity that provided salient meaning and support would do
54. See H. Johnston and B. Klandermans, "The Cultural Analysis of Social Movements," in Social Movements and Culture, 10
55. R. B. Hall, National Collective Identity (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1999), 38
56. See R. Tapper, "Ethnic Identities and Social Categories in Iran and Afghanistan," in History and Ethnicity, ed. E. Tonkin (London: Routledge, 1989), 239: "Cultural identities, whether ethnic or otherwise, make sense only in social contexts, and they are essentially negotiable and subject to strategic manipulations. Individuals claim status, present themselves, in different ways in different contexts. How they do so depends particularly on power relations, government policies, and local hierarchies."
57. E. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983)
58. idem, Nationalism (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997)
59. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992)
60. For a little acknowledged subtlety in Gellner's writings, see his Thought and Change (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964), 169. In the same breath as his statement that nationalism "invents nations where they do not exist" he notes that cultural raw materials must be available for this invention
61. McCrone, The Sociology of Nationalism, 25-36
62. See Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, 3-5, for the seeds of the following line of thought
63. The difficulties surrounding the succession agreement will be ignored here. For further information, see T. El-Hibri, "Hārūn al-Rashīd and the Mecca Protocol of 802," International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (1992)
64. Kennedy, The Annies of the Caliphs, xiii, 50
65. H. Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates (New York: Longman, 1986), 150
66. Ali b. al-Husayn Mas'ūdī, Les praires d'or, ed. C. B. de Meynard (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1928), v. 6, 420-24
67. Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, v. 6, 166-67
68. De Goeje, Fragmenta, 325