ON EARLY ISLAMIC HISTORIOGRAPHY: ABU [ISMA.sup.[subset]]IL AL-AZDI AND HIS FUTUH AL-SHAM.

• Author: MOURAD, SULEIMAN A.

The present paper examines the Futuh al-sham (Conquests of Syria) attributed to Abu [Isma.sup.[subset]]il al-Azdi, in an attempt to establish its authenticity, date, and provenance. Several historical sources confirm the authorship of this work and demonstrate that al-Azdi's reporting reflects little religious or regional favoritism. Identifying the origin of the material that comprises al-Azdi's text highlights the similarity between the reports given by him and those attributed to other narrators of his time. Their common early source is likely to be Abu Mikhnaf al-Azdi (d. 157/774), an early narrator from Kufa with proto-[Shi.sup.[subset]]ite sympathies.

THE FUTUH AL-SHAM BY ABU [ISMA.sup.[subset]]IL AL-AZDI is one of the earliest extant Arabic sources dealing with the Islamic conquest of Syria and is one of the few extant historical documents from the second/eighth century. It is, however, commonly ignored in most modern scholarship as a result of Michael J. de Goeje's negative criticism of it, which dates back to 1864. [1] In recent years, this state of affairs has started to change, though slowly, as a result of a study by Lawrence I. Conrad that reestablished some confidence in the Azdi text. [2] Nevertheless, further research is needed to solve some of the puzzles that still pertain to this particularly valuable document.

The aim of the following study, therefore, is to examine this book in the light of newly found evidence, mainly sources that have not been checked by modem researchers or were not available to them. An investigation of the transmission of the Azdi text, as well as the evidence it provides, establishes its authenticity, date, and provenance. Azdi's Futuh al-sham is, in fact, a late second/eighth century compilation based on a work having the same title by Abu Mikhnaf al-Azdi (d. 157/774) of Kufa, and hence it depended originally on material that was in circulation in Kufa.

AZDI AND HIS FUTUH AL-SHAM

Abu [Isma.sup.[subset]]il Muhammad ibn [[blank].sup.[subset]]Abd Allah al-Azdi al-Basri is an obscure personality. His name is absent from the known biographical dictionaries. There is one ambiguous exception. In Kitab al-thiqat by Ibn Hibban al-Busti (d. 354/965), a Muhammad ibn [[blank].sup.[subset]]Abd Allah al-Azdi is mentioned as being a traditionist from Basra who transmitted hadiths from [[blank].sup.[subset]]Asim ibn Hilal al-Basri (d. ca. 185/797) and from [[blank].sup.[subset]]Abd al-Wahhab ibn [[blank].sup.[subset]][Ata.sup.[contains]] al-Basri (d. 204/819). [3] Probably the same traditionist is the one mentioned in a chain of authorities (isnad) quoted in Hilyat [al-awliya.sup.[contains]] by Abu [Nu.sup.[subset]]aym al-Isfahani (d. 430/1039). There, he is cited as the informant of a certain Yahya ibn Bistam, [4] who was also from Basra and who was alive in 214/829. [5] One can, therefore, place the life of Muhammad al-Azdi the traditionist in the late second/eighth and early third/ninth century.

The information found in the two dictionaries is, however, sparse. The Azdi of Futuh al-sham becomes familiar to compilers of histories and biographical dictionaries after the sixth/twelfth century, but only as the author of a book entitled Futuh al-sham. Therefore, it is possible that the traditionist and the author of Futuh al-sham are different Azdis.

The two surviving manuscripts of Azdi's Futuh al-sham are now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, nos. Arabe 1664 and 1665. They comprise 82 and 149 folios, respectively. The first manuscript was copied in Jerusalem on 22 Dhu al-Hijja 613 (21 April 1217) by a Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghassani. [6] The second, which is clearer than the first, was copied on 1 Dhu al-[Qa.sup.[subset]]da 764 (12 August (1363). [7] Arabe 1664 refers to Azdi's text under the title Kitab mukhtasar futuh al-sham li-l-Waqidi (Synopsis of the Conquests of Syria by Waqidi) by Abu Is-[ma.sup.[subset]]il Muhammad ibn [[blank].sup.[subset]]Abd Allah al-Azdi al-Basri. But this title does not appear in the other manuscript, and it seems that it was added later by one of the owners of that manuscript.

Azdi's Futuh al-sham also exists today in two editions. The first was published in Calcutta in 1854 by William N. Lees, who edited the work, with the title Kitab futuh al-sham, on the basis of one slightly damaged manuscript found in India. A few pages at the beginning of that manuscript are missing or badly worm-eaten, [8] as are another three pages in the body of the text, and few pages at the end of it. [9] The second edition was published in Cairo in 1970 by [[blank].sup.[subset]]Abd al-[Mun.sup.[subset]]im [[blank].sup.[subset]]Amir. [[blank].sup.[subset]]Amir, not aware of the presence of the two manuscripts at the Bibliotheque Nationale, claimed to have found another manuscript in Damascus in a private library and to have based his new edition, entitled [Ta.sup.[contains]]rikh futuh al-sham, on it. [10] [[blank].sup.[subset]]Amir described the manuscript he found as complete, compared to the incomplete one Lees had published. [11] However, by comparing both editions, it is clear that [[blank].sup.[sub set]]Amir copied Lees' text, concocting a few additions to make it appear different and more complete. [12] Apparently, neither of the two manuscripts at the Bibliotheque Nationale seems to have been the one used by Lees, because they both contain the folios that are missing from his edition. In this study, Lees' edition is used as a base, and the other two manuscripts are referred to only when necessary.

AZDI IN MODERN SCHOLARSHIP

The main problems concerning Azdi's Futuh al-sham are first, the problem of authorship, that is, whether the work is really that of Azdi or of someone else; second, the problem of dating the material in it; and third, the problem of establishing the provenance of this material. One can add on the basis of these three problems a fourth, namely that if the text is originally that of Azdi, how can we know that its material retained its original form and was not subjected to changes and alterations over the years?

Lees emphasized the importance of the Futuh al-sham by saying that it is "one of the most valuable remains of Arabic history that has ever been published;... I am not aware that we have any complete work in original that was written at so early a period as this fotooh." [13] Since 1854, several other early Arabic compilations have been published. Even so, the work of Azdi remains one of the earliest works in the Futuh genre to have been preserved. Lees also faced the problem of not finding any notice for Azdi in the dictionaries available to him and resorted to analyzing the chains of authorities in the Azdi text for a possible dating of the period in which Azdi lived. The conclusion he came to was that Azdi died around 178/794, or slightly before that date. [14]

Shortly after Lees' edition, and belying his expectation that it would throw light on some of the obscurities of early Islamic history, de Goeje published a censorious criticism of the text in which he ruled out any possibility of dating it to the early Islamic period. De Goeje, who had in front of him Lees' edition only, argued that Azdi never existed, that his name was a corruption of the name of the famous traditionist Abti [[blank].sup.[subset]]Abd Allah Muhammad ibn [Isma.sup.[subset]]il al-Bukhari (d. 256/870). [15] and that Futuh al-sham was compiled at the time of the Crusades [16] for the glorification of Islam and the heroes who made it triumphant. [17]

The assertion by de Goeje that the text of Azdi is a mere forgery was based upon several wrong inferences. For instance, he identified Muhammad ibn Yusuf, who is quoted in the Azdi text thirteen times, as "Mohammed ibn Jousof ibn Wakid ibn Othman Abou Abdollah ad-Dhabbi al-Farjabi (120-212), ... et ce Mohammed ibn Jousof est l'un des Schaikhs de Bokhari." [18] But the Muhammad ibn Yusuf identified by de Goeje does not refer to the Muhammad ibn Yusuf of the Azdi text because the latter appears to be the informant of Abu Mikhnaf al-Azdi (d. 157/774), who identified him as Abu Yusuf Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Ansari from the tribe of al-Harith ibn al-Khazraj, [19] from Medina. It is not the purpose of this study, however, to go over all of de Goeje's arguments. Conrad has already shown most of them to be inaccurate and none are confirmed by the present paper.

Because of de Goeje's criticism, Azdi's text has been generally ignored as if it did not exist--until, that is, Conrad published his analytical study. Arguing in favor of dating the text to the late second century or the early third century A.H. at the latest, [20] Conrad concluded chat Azdi was either a Syrian, from Hims in particular, or lived in Hims; that he died between 190 and 205 A.H.; and that his text is a Syrian account of the conquests of Syria. [21] In addition to studying these chains of authorities, Conrad examined the text's use of certain terms that were applied in the early Islamic period but were replaced by other terms later on, such as the names of some cities. He also spotted echoes of early religious trends that were later eclipsed. Consequently, Conrad emphasized the importance of including Azdi's text in any study of the history of early Islamic Syria. [22] Moreover, Conrad pointed to a possible link between accounts from Azdi's text and material transmitted on the authority of the fa mous Damascene traditionist [Sa.sup.[subset]]id ibn [[blank].sup.[subset]]Abd [al-.sup.[subset]]Aziz al-Tanukhi (d. 167/783); on the basis of this he suggested a possibly now lost work by [Sa.sup.[subset]]id al-Tanukhi as a source for Azdi's text. [23]

Thanks to Conrad's reappraisal, the Futuh al-sham is again being used. [24] Walter Kaegi, stressing the fact that the Azdi text needs further study, argued that some of Azdi's statements "have more of a ring of authenticity than scholars have previously assumed," and that "the author or one of his...