Heirs to the Caliphate: Continuity, territoriality and gender in the accession of the late Umayyads and early Abbasids.

哈里发国作为一个伊斯兰机构，经常被认为是从一个王朝到另一个王朝的形式演变，并由哈里发和哈里发首都的精英等人定义。这项研究项目将揭示对伊斯兰历史上最早的朝代的研究如何证明多中心动态在哈里发的选择中是至关重要的。法定继承人将被审查，他们对哈里发继承权的主张，他们母亲和妻子的作用，以及他们在登基之前在帝国边缘甚至在边境获得的领土权力基础。从乌玛亚王朝(661-750)到阿巴斯王朝(750-1258)的过渡在阿巴斯王朝早期的史学中被描述为伊斯兰政体历史上的一个分水岭时刻，有一个固定和明确的日期：750，见证了所谓的‘革命’的成功。然而，对更广泛的来源材料的研究表明，当观察继承的动态时，乌玛雅晚期和阿巴斯王朝早期的哈里发彼此之间并没有显著的不同。在指定两个或更多继承人之后，新哈里发经常取代兄弟、同父异母的兄弟和堂兄弟。这一制度由阿玛亚王朝哈里发·马尔万(公元685年)开创，不仅为王子们提供了一个头衔(瓦利阿尔和阿德，公认的继承人)，而且允许不同的继承人利用一个独立于帝国首都的不同的权力基础。这种领土重新划分是第四次内战(811-813)的关键触发因素，当时首都在阿巴斯王朝的统治下转移到巴格达。在这场战争中，两个继承人相互对抗，巴格达的阿明(d.813)和胡拉桑(今阿富汗)的阿尔马‘mun(d.833)。这是一个转折点，在此之后，省级职位潜在继承人的任命结束，标志着合法化战略的明显转变。因此，这种多中心的动态到哈里发的继承是漫长的8世纪的一个独特特征，然而，为了坚持阿拉伯资料中提出的中间派叙事，它被忽视了。这将是这篇博士论文探讨的基本问题。拟议的博士研究将集中在哈里发继承人在乌玛雅末期和阿巴斯王朝早期接管领土权力的方式，以产生与早期伊斯兰君主制继承的传统观念相反的叙事。这位明显的继承人在各省建立了一个支持基地，表明继承的道路不在帝国的中心，而在边缘。在他们的前任统治期间，继承人在产生宗教和政治合法性方面的作用也从他们领导军事运动和朝圣(朝圣)中可见一斑，这两者也都发生在远离首都的地方。这个话题的原创性将是着眼于新的参与者。这项研究不仅限于继承人如何掌权并成为哈里发，这项研究还将把之前研究不足的没有成为哈里发的继承人联系在一起。第二个焦点将是法定继承人的母亲和妻子。所有的继承人都有相同的父亲哈里发，但他们往往都有不同的母亲。由于她们中的大多数是精英阿拉伯妇女，她们为继承人提供了家谱上的威望，并允许建立有利可图的部落联盟，以确保军事支持或区域联系。对于原始材料，将采用比较的方法，利用阿拉伯语、希腊语和亚美尼亚语的地方历史以及与传统的阿巴斯文学语料库进行比较的文献资料。从这个意义上说，这项工作将借鉴伊斯兰历史早期被证明非常成功的方法，当时历史学家不得不利用当地的非穆斯林和多语言来源。

The caliphate as an Islamic institution is often perceived as evolving in its form from one dynasty to another and defined by men such as the caliph and the elite of the caliphal capital. This research project will reveal how the study of the earliest dynasties of Islamic history demonstrates that polycentric dynamics were crucial in the choice of the caliph. Heirs apparent will be examined, their claims to caliphal succession, the role of their mothers and wives and the territorial power base they acquired prior to their accession at the periphery of the empire or even at the frontier. The transition from the Umayyads (661-750) to the Abbasids (750-1258) is presented in early Abbasid historiography as a watershed moment in the history of Islamic polities, with a fixed and clear-cut date: 750, which witnessed the success of the so-called 'revolution'. However, perusal of a wider variety of source material demonstrates that the late Umayyad and early Abbasid caliphs were not significantly different from one another when looking at dynamics of succession. New caliphs often supplanted brothers, half-brothers and cousins following the appointment of two or more heirs. This system initiated by the Umayyad caliph Marwan (d. 685) didn't only provide a title (wali al ahd, heir apparent) to the princes but allowed the different heirs to capitalize on a distinct power base separate from the capital of the empire. This territorial repartition was a key trigger to the fourth civil war (811-813), once the capital had shifted to Baghdad under the Abbasids. During this war, two heirs opposed each other, al Amin (d.813) in Baghdad and alMa'mun (d. 833) in Khurasan (nowadays Afghanistan). This was a turning point after which the appointment of potential heirs to provincial positions came to an end, marking a clear shift in legitimation strategy. This poly-centric dynamic to caliphal succession was therefore a unique feature of the long 8th century, however it has been overlooked so to adhere to the centrist narrative presented in the Arabic sources. This will be the fundamental issue explored in this PhD dissertation.The proposed PhD research will focus on the means through which caliphal heirs assumed territorial power in the late Umayyad and early Abbasid period to generate a counter-narrative to the traditional perception of early Islamic monarchic succession. The generation of a support base in the provinces by the heir apparent demonstrates that the path to succession lay not in the centre of the empire but at the periphery. The role of the heirs during their predecessors' reign in generating religious and political legitimacy is also visible through their leadership of military campaigns and of the pilgrimage (hajj), both also occurring far from the capital.The originality of this topic will be to look at new actors. Not restricted merely to how heirs rose to power and became caliphs, this research will tie in the previously under-studied heirs who didn't become caliphs. A second focus will be the mothers and wives of heirs apparent. All heirs had the same father, the caliphs, but they often all had different mothers. As most of them were elite Arab women, they provided the heirs with genealogical prestige and allowed for profitable tribal alliances either ensuring military support or a regional connection. For the source material, a comparative approach will be adopted, making use of local histories in Arabic, Greek and Armenian as well as documentary sources in comparison to the traditional corpus of Abbasid literature. In that sense, this work will draw on the methodology that has proved so successful for the earlier period of Islamic history where historians had to make use of local non-Muslim and multilingual sources.