Jalal Ad-Din As-Suyuti - History of the Umayyad Caliphs

Table of Contents

History of the

Umayyad

Caliphs

From Trkh al-Khulaf

by Jall ad-Dn as-Suy

Translated by T. S. Andersson

Taha Publishers Ltd.
Downloaded via sunniconnect.com

First published in Rabi ath-Thani 1436AH/February 2015 CE

by

Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd.

By: Jalal ad-Din as-Suyuti

General Editor: Dr. Abia Afsar-Siddiqui

Translated by: T. S. Andersson

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

1. as-Suyuti, Jalal ad-Din

ISBN: 978-1-84200-156-1 (Paperback)

Printed and Bound by:

Contents

Timeline

Preface

That was a community which has long since passed away. It has what it earned. You have what you have earned. You will not be questioned about what they did. (Srat al-Baqara 2:134)

T

he Messenger of Allah said, The leaders (imams) are from Quraysh.

Thus al-Khulaf ar-Rshidn , the Umayyads and the Abbsids were a single seamless Qurayshi dynasty until the Mongols extirpated that line, although a small rump caliphate was to endure in Cairo under the Mamluks until the time of our author, Jall ad-Dn as-Suy, may Allah be merciful to him.

That Quraysh were to succumb for a period to internal rivalries, with the Abbasid revolt against the Umayyads, was inevitable from the perspective of Ibn Khaldn. That their history has subsequently been interpreted, not least by Abbasid scholars, as two entirely contrary dynasties has not served us well. That it was necessary for them, in order for the Abbasid revolution ( dawla ) to succeed and to endure, to vilify the Umayyads has not made the work of the historian any easier.

In these pages if the reader is of the good men/bad men view of the world, he will discover not embodiments of evil, but good men who sometimes did bad things, as well as bad men who sometimes did good things. As to the latter, the Umayyad general al-ajjj ibn Ysuf is one of the most notorious governors in the history of the Muslims, but he was responsible under the direction of his caliph, Abd al-Malik ibn Marwn, for the first minting and wide circulation of gold and silver coins in our history and for the vowelling and application of diacritical marks to the written copies of the Qurn among other things.

We do find among them men who were sometimes not equal to the challenges they faced, and a few exceptional men who acquitted themselves honourably and well. Only ahistorical people, covert Zoroastrians and people with a defect in their unitary understanding of the Divine decree of good and evil will be satisfied with a childish separation of good and evil into two mutually contending absolute forces.

Why does this history matter? Firstly, it matters because rulership is one of the dynamic transmissions from the last of the Messengers , who himself demonstrated how to rule and govern. Al-Khulaf ar-Rshidn took that from him directly and inherited it from each other in succession, until the fifth of them al-asan ibn Al passed it legitimately to Muwiya ibn Ab Sufyn counted by some of the scholars as one of al-Khulaf ar-Rshidn . Ibn Khaldn wrote:

The state [ dawla ] and history [ akhbr ] of Muwiya ought to be appended to the states and history of the ( Rshidn ) caliphs, for he follows them in virtue, integrity and companionship [ uba ]. And no consideration should be taken of the adth that the caliphate after me will last thirty years, for it is not a . In truth, Muwiya is counted among those caliphs Allah forbid that Muwiya be likened to anyone of those after him. He was one of al-Khulaf ar-Rshidn. Those Marwanid caliphs who come after him in dn and virtue also come after him in rank and likewise the later caliphs of Ban al-Abbs.

By slandering the Umayyads in their entirety, we introduce a gap in that transmission in the very early years during the time of the Companions themselves and the generation of the tbin , the Followers of the Companions. It calls the whole issue of Islamic governance into question. If two of the best generations that ever lived on Earth were ruled by entirely evil men, what hope is there for the rest of us? Clearly that thesis is untenable.

Secondly, it is clear from the current world situation that humanity in general are succumbing to presentism and are simply losing their history. When that happens we must beware George Orwells assertion in his dark, visionary novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four , that who controls the past, controls the future; who controls the present, controls the past. In other words, we are losing our past to those who control our present, the global financial oligarchy, and, because we have lost the past, we are unable to make our future.

In that sense, it is well to read this text carefully and not with the simple judgemental attitude of those who do not understand power and its predicaments. For that purpose, Ibn Khaldn is always invaluable since he is that rarity among scholars and philosophers, the man of knowledge who is acquainted with power and its realities.

Even if we concede the existence of this Umayyad sub-dynasty as something separate from the other Quraysh sub-dynasty, the Abbsids, its first ruler would then have been Uthmn ibn Affn one of al-Khulaf ar-Rshidn , rather than Muwiya ibn Ab Sufyn, who was nevertheless himself a Companion. Umar ibn Abd al-Azz is also counted without controversy as one of al-Khulaf ar-Rshidn . Marwn and his son Abd al-Malik ibn Marwn were caliphs, although people differ about the validity of the formers caliphate since it existed in parallel with the prior caliphate of Abd Allh ibn az-Zubayr . Many of Marwns and Abd al-Malik ibn Marwns legal judgements are transmitted by the scholars, and Mlik and al-Bukhr, among others, transmit the hadiths of Marwn. Al-Wald, Sulaymn and Hishm, three of the sons of Abd al-Malik, were great monarchs who extended the realms of Islam, built up the polity in many ways and did much for the dn . As-Suy writes about al-Wald, who he says was a tyrant and an oppressor:

But al-Wald undertook jihd during his reign and many great conquests took place during his caliphate. He also used to treat orphans well and appoint teachers for them. He appointed people to attend the disabled and to lead the blind. He renovated and enlarged the Prophets mosque. He provided for the fuqah , the weak and the poor, and prevented them from begging by allotting them what would be sufficient. He managed affairs with the most thorough administration.