Studies in Early Islamic History.

• Author: Bates, Michael
• Position: Review

By MARTIN HINDS. Edited by JERE BACHARACH, LAWRENCE I. CONRAD, and PATRICIA CRONE. Introduction by G. R. HAWTING. Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, 4. Princeton: DARWIN PRESS, 1996. Pp. xix + 262. $39.95.

Martin Hinds was one of the finest scholars of this generation. His death in 1988, at age 47, ended his career prematurely. He published only eight journal articles, which are collected in this volume along with one article from The Encyclopaedia of Islam, second edition. Seven of the nine articles have to do with the very earliest period of Islamic history, the first half century, while two others deal with the first century of the cAbbasid caliphate. Hinds was very much a historian who tried to understand human events and their causes, but he was also a superb Arabist, completely fluent in the literary and spoken versions of the language. He was one of the best-liked men in the field and is greatly missed.

This book, unlike a Variorum volume, resets the articles without editorial changes except to make citations uniform. The original pagination of each article is provided in the margin. The physical production of the book is satisfying to the eye and hand: Darwin Press is to be congratulated and thanked, as are the editors. An introduction by G. R. Hawting summarizes Hinds' career and publications, including a couple of paragraphs on each article in this book.

In this review one can only list the articles and briefly indicate their content. The first four are based on Hinds' 1969 thesis, "The Early History of Islamic Schism in Iraq" in place of whose publication this book serves conveniently as a substitute. These articles are essential reading for any aspect of Islamic history from the accession of cUmar until Mucawiya's takeover in Iraq.

"Kufan Political Alignments and Their Background in the Mid-Seventh Century A.D.," from the International Journal of Middle East Studies 2 (1971), is an analysis of the Khariji, Shici, and tribal ashraf political factions of the city. Hinds' main conclusion is that the Kharijis, although reactionaries, and the Shicis, although revolutionaries, were nevertheless alike in their antagonism to government through the ashraf, the leaders of the tribal military units of Kufa and Basra.

"The Murder of the Caliph cUthman" (also from IJMES [1973]) refers to the critical point in the history of those years, and perhaps the central event of Islamic history after the Prophet's lifetime. Hinds argues that...