2nd edition, Moscow: INION RAS, 2014, 584 p.
The book under review is dedicated to the Quraysh, a tribe of the Prophet Muhammad who played a leading role in the history of Islam. It is a revised version of the handbook of the same name, published in 2012 and addressed to both Islamic scholars and a wide range of readers interested in Arab-Muslim civilization.
The reference book consists of two sections. The first section, relatively small in volume (pp. 14-67), provides an outline of the history of the Quraysh from the time of the founder-eponym (IV century) to the end of the era of the "righteous Caliphs" (661). The second section includes 70 tables graphically depicting the genealogies of the main Quraysh clans and their influential families. More than 1,500 biographical references are attached to the tables.
There is no doubt about the relevance of this kind of publication. The volume of material collected by A. Aliyev and the huge work on its design are impressive. At the same time, the book raises a significant number of objections and doubts, primarily regarding the scientific reliability of the information presented in it.
ABOUT SOURCES
Apparently, the reference book is mainly compiled on the basis of secondary literature (primarily Russian-language), in which there are practically no translations of genealogical Arabic-language works devoted to the Quraysh or Arab tribes in general. Among other things, the following phrase of A. Aliyev from the historiographical review testifies to the degree of familiarity of the author with them: "As for medieval Muslim authors, their works devoted to the genealogies of representatives of the Quraysh tribe, as a rule, are detailed, arranged according to various principles (alphabetically, by gender, time of adoption of Islam, etc.) names of prominent figures in early Muslim history... "(p. 8). Among the works characterized in this way, the author names "Jamharat an-nasab" 1 Ibn-al-Kalbi (d. 819), "at-Tabaqat al-kubra" Ibn-Sada (d. 845), " Ansab al- Ashraf al-Balyazuri (d. 892), ' Uthd al-gaba Ibn al-Asir (d. 1233), Wafiyyat al-a'yan Ibn Khallikan (d. 1282), Tahzib al-Tahzib and al-Isaba al-Askalyani (d. 1449). In fact, none of these works are "arranged" according to such "different principles" (in theory, it is even difficult to imagine something like this!). In none of them are genealogical references structured according to the "time of conversion to Islam" criterion.
In addition, "Wafiyyat" and "Tahzib" are practically irrelevant to the topic of the Quraysh ancestry. At the same time, the list does not include the book of Ibn Hazm (d. 1064) "Jamharat Ansab al-'Arab", which is considered the highest achievement of classical Arab - Muslim historiography in the field of genealogy of Arab tribes.
I also note that the works listed by A. Aliyev are not" dedicated " to the genealogies of the Quraysh, as can be understood from the above quote, but relate in general to the Arabs or Sahabis-companions of the Prophet Muhammad. But out of the researcher's field of view were historical and genealogical works specially dedicated to the Quraysh, including "Nasab Quraysh" by Musab al-Zubayri (d. 851), "al-Munammak fi tarikh Quraysh" by Muhammad ibn Habib (d. 859), "Jamharat ansab Quraysh wa-akhbarikha" by az-Zubayr ibn Abd al-Abd al-Abd al-Abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd al-abd Baccarat (d. 870), at-Tabyin fi ansab Quraysh by Ibn Qudama al-Maqdisi (d. 1223). You can also add the works of modern Arabic authors to them: "Tarih Quraysh "by Husain Munis," Tarih Quraysh wa-ansabuh "by Abdallah al-Jada," Kabilat Quraysh wa-asaruh fi al-Hayat al - ' Arabiyya kabl
1 Hereafter, Arabic names, terms, ethnonyms, book titles, etc. are given in the Russian transcription, but when quoting the book of A. Aliyev, their author's spelling is preserved.
al-islyam" by Khudeirah al-Jumaili and others. It is also significant that in the title of Ibn al-Kalbi's book, the word jamharat is somehow rendered as gamharat.
Even more remarkable is the following identification of the classic, one might say canonical, biography-the Sira of the Prophet Muhammad, compiled by the historian Ibn Hisham (d. 828 or 833)and is the most authoritative source on the genealogies of the Quraysh. In the reviewed work, Ibn Hisham's book is called " Muhtasar Sirat an-nabi..."/"The complete life of the Prophet... "(pp. 19-20). The author writes that it uses lengthy excerpts from the unrecorded work of Ibn Ishaq (d. 767)"Haza kitab Sirat rasul Allah"! "This is the book of the life of the Messenger of Allah" (p. 26). In fact, the book of Ibn Hisham is usually referred to as "Sirat Ibn Hisham"/ "The Syrah of Ibn Hisham, and it is nothing more than an abridged version of the work of Ibn Ishaq. The latter, whose exact name is unknown, is a work on universal history (from the creation of the world), including the early history of Islam.
As for the expression "Haza kitab sirat rasul Allah"/"This is the book of the life of the Messenger of Allah, which the author claims to be the title of the book, but in fact these are only the opening words of a lengthy phrase about the family tree of Muhammad, with which Ibn Hisham begins the edited version. Regarding the title "Muhtasar Sirat al-nabi..."/"The complete biography of the prophet..." is double incorrect. First, as for the translation: the Arabic word mukhtasar does not mean "full", but quite the opposite - "abbreviated". Second, " Muhtasar sirat al-nabi... "serves as the title not of the book of Ibn Hisham itself, but of one of the many modern abridged versions of his work, from which its Russian translation was made (2002). Therefore, we are not talking about a "full" biography, but a double-abridged version.
Such an example also eloquently indicates a very remote acquaintance with the basic sources. In the reference to the gens of abd, when mentioning one of its prominent representatives, the worst enemy of Islam, al-Huwayris ibn Nuqayz, it is said that "his exact genealogy could not be identified" (p. 186), despite the fact that in the mentioned "Sira" of Ibn Hisham, the genealogy of Abd is clearly marked: classical Muslim historiography did not allow such distinctions. serious gaps in the genealogy of famous Quraysh.
Among the descendants of al-Harith, al-Mughira ibn Nawfal, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad (husband of his granddaughter Umama), who was the grandson of his uncle al-Harith, is not mentioned in the directory at all. Umama's husband is named by the author as Nawfal ibn al - Mughira, who appears in the book without precise identification; however, it is suggested that he comes from the family of Makhzum (p. 356, 546).
ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE QURAYSH
In the historical section of the directory, the objection is primarily caused by a significant number of inaccuracies in the reproduction of relevant information from Arab-Muslim sources. A number of combinations of different traditions or interpretations seem to be unsuccessful. The author sometimes focuses on a certain marginal version to the detriment of the dominant one both in the Muslim tradition itself and in world academic Oriental studies. Apparently, many of these inaccuracies came from the secondary literature, which A. Aliyev relied on.
Even on the first page of this section, there are statements that cause confusion. According to Aliev, Islam has developed the idea that the Arabs are descended from the biblical-Quranic Prophet Ibrahim/Of Abraham: The northern Arabs go back to his son Ishmael, and the southern Ones - " to Joktan, the uncle of Ibrahim "(p. 16). It is strange, but the author does not notice the incorrectness of such a definition, in which all Arabs are initially declared descendants of Abraham, and when clarified, it turns out that some of them go back not to Abraham himself, but to his uncle. Moreover, Joktan, as we know from the Bible (Gen. 10), is older than Abraham by as many as five generations.
For some reason, the author ignores the dominant idea in Arab-Muslim historiography about older generations of Arabs, including the Adites and Samudites mentioned many times in the Koran, as well as other "disappeared" (Ba'ida) Arab tribes, whose genealogies are traced back to Noah's grandsons Aram and Lud. In my opinion, it is also unjustified that the reference book does not reflect the distinction made by the Arab tradition between "native" ('ariba) Arabs and "naturalized" (musta ' ariba) Arabs:
the latter include, in particular, Ishmael, who grew up among the" original " Arabs from the Jurhum tribe and learned Arabic from them. After all, the handbook itself does not explain in any way how the Jew Ishmael became the Arab ancestor.
Speaking about Fihr / Quraysh, the founder eponym of the Quraysh tribe, A. Aliyev notes that among his descendants, the Muslim tradition includes 25 genera (p. 20). Further, the names of the descendants of the Quraysh in the first five tribes are mentioned, among them the ancestors are distinguished, and when it comes to the prominent representative of the sixth generation of Qusayyah, whose name is associated with the establishment of the Quraysh in Mecca, it is reported that "by the time of the migration of Qusayyah to Mecca, only 16 Quraysh families remained in addition to his large family" (p. 22; italics moi. - Kh. Y.). And the reader wonders: where did the whole eight or nine genera go, and most importantly-where did they come from?! In fact, the "missing" genera are families that will later be separated into separate genera.
There are a number of other significant inaccuracies in the information about Qusayyah (pp. 20-22): about the alleged belonging of his mother to the Uzre tribe; about the "transfer" of six basic "honorary rights" to him; about the establishment of idolatry by him, including the transportation from Syria of the statue of the main deity Hubal and his elevation in the Kaaba temple, and etc. Regarding these honorary institutions, I note that in reality most of them were introduced by Qusayyah himself, and the ijaza (guidance of the pilgrimage from Arafat to Muzdalifa) was never in the hands of either Qusayyah or any of the Quraysh, but was a privilege of the Gawsi/Sufis. The introduction of the Khubal cult among the Meccans is usually associated by Muslim tradition with the names of other persons, most notably Amr ibn Luhaiyyah, a Khuzaah chief who was once a caretaker of the Kaaba. The reference book only mentions Khuzait placing his "tribal god" in the Kaaba (p. 19); the name of this idol is not specified.
This substitution of a version of the prevailing tradition that is unknown or completely unrepresentative is not uncommon in a peer-reviewed publication. In particular, something similar takes place in the story of the "Elephant Campaign" of Abrahi, the Ethiopian governor in Yemen. According to Muslim tradition, Abraha set out to redirect the Arabs from the Meccan temple of the Kaaba to the church he had erected in his capital, Sana'a; upon hearing this, some worshippers of the temple from the Arab Kinani tribe went to desecrate the church, which led Abraha to march on Mecca to destroy the Kaaba. Aliev's book gives a version of unknown origin that Abraha moved north at the request of the Byzantine emperor in order to strike the Iranians in the rear, and his army "could not pass" Mecca in its advance; the "immediate reason" for the action was the desecration of the church by the Kinanites (p.15).
In the historical section, as well as in the section on genealogies, the author's vague understanding of some basic realities of the Muslim religion makes itself felt. For example, the Quraysh who converted to Islam after the conquest of Mecca (630) are said to have "been included in the privileged category of believers: not just as Muslims, but as those who believed deeply and reliably (mu'min)" (p. 48). Noting the merits of a particular Quraysh, the author names (although not always consistently) the number of hadiths transmitted from his words, while such figures are meaningless without reference to a specific set of hadiths, since the total number of hadiths is not determined in any way. The descendants of al-Hasan and al-Husayn are said to have been distinguished by their honorifics-sharifs and sayyids, respectively (pp. 364, 381).
This kind of inaccuracy is also related to the reference information, according to which the Shiites, descendants of al-Husayn, first split into Zaydites and Isnasniarites/two-seaters, then the Ismailis separated from the latter, and after the death of their eleventh Imam al-Hasan al-Askari, the Isnaasharites split into 14 religious and political trends (pp. 381, 398). In fact, the Isnaasharites as such were formed only after the death of this al-Hasan.
It is not uncommon for the handbook to contain fundamentally significant and broad-based statements that actually have no basis in fact. Such, for example, is the passage that in the last two or three years of the life of the Prophet Muhammad, "all the Qurayshites acted as a cohesive whole, as a core around which representatives of the ever-growing Muslim community united, and the words 'Quraysh' and 'Muslim' began to be perceived as synonymous " (p. 49).
Stylistic errors include such formulations as: Abd, the eponym-founder of the corresponding Quraysh family, "in some sources it is considered to have died in childhood" (p. 73); "sons of the ancestor Amir... initially, we made up three independent reports
genealogical branches" (p. 82). There is great doubt about the information about the pagan Quraysh al-Huwayris, who committed violence against his own daughter because she converted to Islam (p. 49).
ABOUT GENEALOGICAL SCHEMES AND BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
Claims to these schemes and references relate to both the form and content. From a formal / methodological point of view, the method of transmitting ethnonyms raises objections. The names of the tribes are presented by the author in a form that claims to reproduce the Arabic original - Banu X ("sons of X"). But in the Arabic tradition itself, the word banu, which is usually part of a name of one kind or another within a given tribe, is not necessarily present in the names of tribes, because this form serves only as one of many ways to designate such communities. This applies not only to the Quraysh, but also to many other tribes often mentioned by the author-the Kinan, Khuzai, sakif, Ghassan, etc. I also believe that ethnonyms should be written not with an uppercase letter, but with a lowercase one, as is customary in Russian word usage.
There are a lot of repetitions that catch your eye. Thus, information about a representative of a given genus / family is given (and often in the same terms) both in the section on the genus / family of her parents and in the section on the genus/family of her husband, if she belongs to a different genus/family, and is duplicated in the case when the father and mother belong to different genera/families. A typical case is that of the Prophet's great - granddaughter, Suqayna (daughter of al-Husayn), whose biography is reproduced five times (p. 208, 214, 253, 367, 384). It would be possible to save significantly in the listage, using references.
The reader will immediately notice the obvious inconsistency in the transmission of names of both genera/families and their representatives. For example, the family founded by al-Harith (son of Fihr/Quraysh) is referred to as "al-Harith ibn 2 Fihr", and the family founded by his brother Muharib is simply referred to as "Muharib". At the same time, the names of the Harithi are carried only to al-Harith, while some of the names of the Muharibites extend to Muharib ibn Fakhr , and others only to Muharib.
When referring to getting a nickname or a new name, it is often given without explanation or translation (Abu Zat al-Karish-p. 239, Zainab-p. 319, al-Qurqi-p.386, Najiya - p. 395, Tabataba - p. 373, Bashshat - 416, etc.). In some cases, nicknames are translated incorrectly. Thus, the reference book describes the nickname of the eleventh Shiite Imam al-'Askara (from the town of 'Askar in Iraq) as "militant" (p. 397); al-Jazari, the nickname of one of Imam al-Husayn's great-grandchildren, as "Algerian", and even with the comment: "he was born, apparently, in Algeria"(p. 385; Algeria-Arabic al-Jaza'ir, relative name-al-Jaza'iri); and the nickname al-Musanna ("second", literally," doubled"), applied to al-Hasan (son of Imam al-Ha-san), in order to distinguish him from his father- namesakes, - as "sung"/ "exalted" (p. 372).
And another unfortunate error of this kind: the designation 'Amat al -' Aziz ("servant of the All-glorious (God)"), which serves as the real name of Zubaydah (wife of the Abbasid Caliph Harun ar-Rashid), is taken for her nickname in the reference book, reproduced in the form of al - ' Amm al-Aziz and translated as "Dear aunt" (p. 423).
The last example shows how confusing the Arabic letters "ain" (') and "hamza" ( ' ) can be. Although many of these errors that occurred in the first edition have been corrected in the present one, there are still a considerable number of them. This applies in particular to the notation 'Unais (p. 81), Yarbu' (p. 142), ' Ammat ('Amma) bt. Khalid (p. 212), al-Hadi' ila-l-haqq (p. 370), Ya ' qub (p. 493), etc. In some cases, the extra letter "hamza" appears.'\ as in the name of Syria-ash-Sha'am (p. 15) or the Iraqi city of Hira-al-Hira' (p. 17); the extra article " al-" - for example, 'Abdallah b. al-Khatal (p. 49), yaum al - 'ashura' (p. 265), 'Abdallah b. al-Khuzafa (p. 509).
A fundamental flaw in this section, as well as the section on the history of the Quraysh, is the lack of information about the genealogy of the main Arab tribes and their territorial distribution. This makes the vast majority of information about the marriage and other relations of the Quraysh with representatives of other Arabian tribes or their offshoots uninformative. Even the author himself sometimes gets confused about the relationship between the tribes, when, for example, he juxtaposes the Kraishites and the Kinanites (p. 23) or writes about the union of the Uzrites with the Kudaites (p.21), while the Quraysh is a branch of the Kinana, and the Uzra is a branch of the Kudaa.
2 In the reviewed book, the abbreviated form "b."is used.
Biographical references on a number of grounds only partially meet the requirements for this type of literature. For example, many biographies of the prophet's contemporaries are limited to information related to participation in a particular event in his life. Biographies often lack information about birth and death dates, offspring, and so on.
Both biographical references and genealogical schemes poorly represent female - related relationships, although in the preface to the handbook, the author focuses on the importance of these relationships. In this regard, I will limit myself to the following characteristic example. Abdallah ibn Amr, grandson of Caliph Uthman/Uthman, who went down in the history of Islam as the only father whose sons-in-law were four caliphs (Umayyads al-Walid, Sulayman, Yazid II and Hisham), and only his sons are mentioned in the directory.
From the number of factual errors, I will give the following examples.
1. Due to incorrect identification of the marriage of Arwa (daughter of Abdalmuttalib, aunt of the Prophet Muhammad), the genealogies of four families - Hashim, Jumah, Abd and Abdaddar-were significantly affected. According to Muslim sources, Arwa was married to Abdit Umayr ibn Wahb, to whom she gave birth to a son-the future prominent Sahabit Tulayb, and widowed, became the wife of Abddarit Kalyada./Artai and had a daughter Fatyma by him. Arwa is described in the handbook as the wife of Mahzumit Umayr ibn Wahb and the mother of his three children, Wahb, Tulayb and Arwa; and there is no mention of her second marriage. In fact, Mahzumit Umayr ibn Wahb was not married to a Hashemite Arwa, but to a Jumahite woman, by whom he had three sons-Wahb, Umayyah, and Ubayy. Because of this mistake, this Wahb, who is also a prominent Sahabee in the future, appears as a cousin of the Prophet. As for his other new - found "brothers" from among Umayr's children, the author confines himself to reproducing their pedigrees.
2. The genealogy of the abd family has been deformed beyond recognition (pp. 186-87). None of the three sons of the original eponym-Wahb, Munhib and Bujair - is named in the directory. Instead, Abd's children include a son named Uthman and a daughter named Tahmur. In fact, Tahmur (Tahamur) is not Abd's daughter, but his sister.
As for Uthman, the directory lists his two sons Abdaluzza and Umayr as his descendants./Umar, as well as the son of the latter, a prominent Sahabee Tulayb. But the biographical information given here about Tulayb does not mention the mother of the Sahabee, who was actually Hashemite Arwa, the aunt of the Prophet Muhammad, who, as noted above, is incorrectly declared in the book to be the wife of another Umayr, Mahzumit. Muslim historians most often refer to Wahba as the father of Abdit Umayr. Uthman, along with his son Abdaluzza, is a misplaced segment from the genealogy of another genealogy, Abdadar (see p.189).
It is interesting that the eponym Abditov appears in the reference book under two names - " Abd (Qusayy)", accompanied by the following comment:: "At birth, he received the name Qusayy, which was not assigned to him in Muslim literature, so as not to create confusion with his father, who entered the history of Islam under this name" (p.187). According to Muslim historiographers, Qusayy gave his son the name 'Abd Qusay ("servant of Qusayyah"), which was later often shortened to 'Abd. But often in classical sources there is also a full form of this name, which, presumably, gave rise to the illusion of two names, and with it the "explanation"given in the reference book.
3. In the genealogy of the Sahma family, serious mistakes are made in relation to both families founded by the sons of the ancestor-eponym Sade and Suaid. These errors are partly due to the fact that the author confuses Suaid with his namesake nephew, Sade's son. And in the family tree of the Garden, two of its descendants named "Khuzafa"are incorrectly identified: son and great-grandson (son of Qais, son of Adi, son of Sad).
4.The following curious example concerning the genealogy of the greatest companion of the Prophet Muhammad, Caliph Abu Bakr (p. 115-121), is no exception: a son named Wahb is attributed to him, whose son Rifaa is presented as the husband of a certain Aisha, allegedly the daughter of another son of the Caliph, Abdarrahman. In this case, I believe, such a circumstance failed. Abu Bakr's nickname was ' Atik ("liberated"; " k " is the 21st letter of the Arabic alphabet), the transcription of which is similar to the name 'Atik ("k" is the 22nd letter). And this name appears in the pedigree of a Muslim woman from Medina, a native of the Jewish tribe of Nadir - Aisha bin Abdarrahman ibn Atiq, who was married to her cousin Rifaa ibn Wahb ibn Atiq.
The same mistake was made in the case of another son of Abu Bakr Abdallah. The latter is known to have had no offspring. But in the reference book, the son of Is is raised to it-
haq, which is referred to here as a well-known narrator of hadith (muhaddith). The confusion seems to have been caused by the following fact: the aforementioned biographer of the Prophet Ibn Ishaq (Muhammad ibn Ishaq) narrated hadiths from his teacher Abdallah ibn Abu Bakr. However, the latter is a different person from the Caliph's son: the Ansarite Abdallah ibn Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Amr ibn Hazm.
In the light of the comments made and the listed errors, it is necessary to conclude that the reviewed reference book can largely disorient the reader and needs significant revision, and the author should wish a more critical attitude to the sources.
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