An Early Islamic Family from Oman: Al-Awtabi's Account of the Muhallabids.

• Author: Blankinship, Khalid Yahya

This monograph of the late Professor Hinds consists of a translation of a small part of the much larger work by the little-known Umani historian and genealogist Abu al-Mundhir Salama b. Muslim al-Awtabi al-Suhari, who appears to have flourished around 500 A.H., or the beginning of the 12th century C.E. Hinds' work is far more than a translation, however, for he has also included a valuable introduction, index, and, most important, copious notes that amount to a third to a half of the text itself. In doing so, he has made a useful contribution to the study of early Muslim history.

The work of al-Awtabi in question is Kitab al-ansab, a genealogically organized book similar to al-Baladhuri's Ansab al-ashraf in plan but unlike it in concentrating on the Yaman or Qahtan tribal grouping, especially its Azdi branches, prominent in Uman. Although al-Awtabi appears to have used Ibn al-Kalbi's great Kitab nasab Maadd wa al-Yaman al-kabir, the father of most Arabic genealogical works focusing on the early period, he also seems to have relied on sources, possibly local ones, having information not found in Ibn al-Kalbi. This is evident from the lists of the children of Abu Sufra and of al-Muhallab. Like al-Baladhuri's work, al-Awtabi's contains not only genealogical material but extensive historical narratives as well, which greatly enhance the book's value. Very frequently al-Awtabi's accounts have no parallel in other sources, as Hinds has pointed out in many instances in his notes.

Al-Awtabi's entire work was published in the original Arabic in Uman in 1981-84.(1) Hinds points out the deficiencies of the printed text as well as the problems of editing Arabic manuscripts in general. He does this through a second set of notes appearing in a special register on each page, in addition to the historical notes, and dealing only with the criticism of the text. By this means, he has in effect produced a critical edition of this section of al-Awtabi. The Umani printed text, which is uncritical, seems to be based on one or more manuscripts found in Uman. Hinds did not use this MS, but rather the printed text as a representative of...