The Sufyani in Early Islamic Kerygma An

The Sufyānı̄ in Early Islamic Kerygma: An Enquiry
into His Origins and Early Development∗
MEHDY SHADDEL
Abstract
The present study aims to contribute to the quest for the origins of belief in the eschatological figure
of the Sufyānı̄, a matter of hot debate since the late nineteenth century. To this end, three different
bodies of evidence are produced and analysed: reports indicating that the Sufyānı̄ was, indeed, thought
of as a redemptive personality in some Syrian quarters, traditions on him in the Muslim endtimes
literature that contain an ex eventu pronouncement, and reports concerning the propaganda activities of
the first Sufyānı̄ claimant, Abū Muh.ammad Ziyād ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazı̄d “al-Sufyānı̄”, in the
historical record. Making use of hitherto unavailable sources and looking afresh at the previously studied
sources, it is argued that the myth of the Sufyānı̄ emerged during the counterrevolutionary revolt of Abū
Muh.ammad al-Sufyānı̄ in 132 ah, with vague residues of it traceable to his earlier military activities,
against the Umayyad caliph Yazı̄d III, in 126 ah.
In the year 816 ah, a Damascene religious scholar (faqı̄h), known as Ibn Thaqāla, claimed to
be the long-awaited Sufyānı̄. He gathered some following in the region of Damascus and
then took the oath of allegiance to himself and began to act as an independent sovereign:
he granted fiefs (iqt.āʿāt), appointed his own governors, remitted the tax for that year, and
abolished all landtax (kharāj) and excise (maks) – keeping only the modest “tenth” (ʿushr).
Ibn Thaqāla adopted the grandiose titulature of “the great sultan and king, the Sufyānı̄”
(al-sult.ān al-malik al-aʿz.am al-Sufyānı̄), and made his pietistic concerns clear in his official
correspondence. He and his followers then left for Wādı̄ al-Yābis, where, according to the
tradition, the Sufyānı̄ will make his parousia.1 But his “sultanic, kingly, imāmı̄, majestic, godly,
∗ I am most grateful to Sean Anthony (Ohio State University), Mushegh Asatryan (University of Calgary),
Ahab Bdaiwi (Universiteit Leiden), and Christopher Melchert (University of Oxford) for their exacting comments
on various drafts of this paper. It need not be stressed that all the remaining shortcomings and infelicities are solely
to blame on me.
1 On the association between this region and the Sufyānı̄, see David Cook, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic
(Princeton, 2002), p. 124; and Jordi Aguadé, “La figura escatológica del Sufyānı̄ en el Kitab al-Fitan de Ibn
H. ammād”, in R. G. Khoury, J. P. Monferrer-Sala, and M. J. Viguera Molins (eds), Legendaria medievalia: En honor
de Concepción Castillo Castillo (Córdoba, 2011), pp. 351–376, at pp. 367-368. The only objective information we
have about Wādı̄ al-Yābis is that “it is a locality in Syria, so called after a man” (mawd.iʿun bi-l-Shām mansūbun ilā
rajulin); Ibn al-Athı̄r, al-Lubāb fı̄ tahdhı̄b al-ansāb (Beirut, 1414/1994), iii, p. 404, s.v. “al-Yābisı̄”. That Ibn Thaqāla
deliberately attempted to enact the prophecies about the Sufyānı̄ has been noted by David Cook, “Early Islamic and
Classical Sunni and Shi‘ite Apocalyptic Movements”, in C. Wessinger (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism
(Oxford, 2011), pp. 267–283, at p. 276.
JRAS, Series 3, 27, 3 (2017), pp. 403–434

C The Royal Asiatic Society 2017
doi:10.1017/S1356186317000141
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404 Mehdy Shaddel
Muh.ammadan, Sufyānid rule” came to a quick, and rather comic, end when government
forces apprehended him, along with three of his acolytes, in the congregational mosque of
ʿAjlūn and incarcerated them in the citadel of S.arkhad.2
The Sufyānı̄ is one of the principal antagonists of the Islamic drama of the end.
An eschatological end-tyrant who resembles the Antichrist in his demonic monstrosity,
unspeakable bestiality, and brazen contempt of God’s religion, he despatches expeditions
to all corners of the world, razes to the ground any city that falls in thrall to his army,
orders children and the elderly killed and women raped, and, most outrageous of all, sacks
and desecrates Medina, the prophet’s city. But this seemingly unstoppable avalanche will be
brought to an abrupt halt in a wasteland (baydāʾ) between Mecca and Medina through an ex
machina intervention: en route to Mecca, the Sufyānı̄’s barbarian army will be swallowed up
(yukhsafu) by the earth on divine orders, and he will himself be killed shortly thereafter by
the Mahdı̄’s army.3
The question that arises here is that why a faqı̄h concerned with fair treatment of
the peasantry, and beseeching divine sanction for his cause, should claim to be this very
embodiment of all evil? Ibn Thaqāla surely comes across as an eccentric personality, but the
explanation of eccentricity alone does not suffice to answer this question.
Modern scholars have offered variegated answers to this question. The earliest generation
of scholars who wrote on the Sufyānı̄ came to the conclusion that he was originally a
messianic reviver of the lost glory of the old Umayyad metropolis, who was awaited in
some Syrian circles and whose image later transmogrified into an Antichrist-like figure at
the hands of Iraqi and H . ijāzı̄ traditionists. Of these scholars, Henri Lammens, taking his
cue from an earlier proposal of Julius Wellhausen’s, posited that the origins of this legend
should be sought in the anti-ʿAbbāsid revolt of the Umayyad prince Abū Muh.ammad Ziyād
ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazı̄d ibn Muʿāwiya ibn Abı̄ Sufyān al-Sufyānı̄ in 132 ah.4 Richard
Hartmann, following the passing remarks of Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje and Theodor
Nöldeke a generation earlier, was of the opinion that it was conceived in the aftermath of the
Marwānid usurpation of the right of Yazı̄d’s descendants to the caliphate in 65 ah.5 Lammens
and Hartmann pointed to elements in the Sufyānı̄’s career which, in their view, constituted
2 The affair has been recorded by two contemporary historians, Ibn Hajar al-ʿAsqalānı̄, Inbāʾ al-ghumr bi-abnāʾ
.
al-ʿumr, (ed.) H . asan H. abashı̄ (Cairo, 1389/1969), iii, pp. 9–10; and Taqı̄ al-Dı̄n al-Maqrı̄zı̄, al-Sulūk li-maʿrifat
duwal al-mulūk, (ed.) Muh.ammad ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAt.ā (Beirut, 1418/1997), pp. vi, p. 351 (who has S.afad instead of
S.arkhad); as well as by Shams al-Dı̄n al-Sakhāwı̄, al-D . awʾ al-lāmiʿ li-ahl al-qarn al-tāsiʿ (Beirut, 1412/1992), v, pp.
125–126; and Ibn ʿImād al-H . anbalı̄, Shadharāt al-dhahab fı̄ akhbār man dhahab, (ed.) ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Arnāʾūt. and
Mah.mūd al-Arnāʾūt. (Beirut and Damascus, 1408/1988), ix, p. 171. Cook, “Early Islamic Apocalyptic Movements”,
p. 276, mistakenly states that Ibn Thaqāla was put to death by Mamlūk authorities, but this is not the case.
3 For a summary of his feats and fate, see Cook, Studies, pp. 122-136.
4 Lammens, “Le ‘Sofiânı̂’: héros national des Arabes syriens”, Bulletin de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale
21 (1923), pp. 131–144; Wellhausen, Das arabische Reich und sein Sturz (Berlin, 1902), p. 346 (translated by Margaret
G. Weir, The Arab Kingdom and Its Fall [Calcutta, 1927], pp. 555–556). Their position has recently been reaffirmed
by Antoine Borrut, Entre mémoire et pouvoir: l’espace syrien sous les derniers Omeyyades et les premiers Abbassides (v.
72-193/692-809) (Leiden, 2011), pp. 133, 182-183.
5 Hartmann, “Der Sufyānı̄”, in Studia Orientalia Ioanni Pedersen Septuagenario (Copenhagen, 1953), pp. 141–151
(Hartmann fails to cite Nöldeke, though); Hurgronje, “Der Mahdi”, in idem, Verspreide Geschriften (Bonn, 1923),
i, pp. 147–181, at p. 155, fn. 3 (originally published in Revue coloniale internationale 1 [1886], pp. 25-59); Nöldeke,
“Zur Geschichte der Omaijaden”, ZDMG 55 (1901), pp. 683-691, at p. 689 and p. 691, fn. 1. This view is
also shared by Gerlof van Vloten, Recherches sur la domination arabe, le chiitisme et les croyances messianiques sous le
khalifat des Omayades (Amsterdam, 1894), p. 61 (translated by Ibrāhı̄m Bayd.ūn, al-Sayt.ara al-ʿarabiyya wa-l-tashayyuʿ
wa-l-muʿtaqadāt al-mahdiyya fı̄ z.ill khilāfat banı̄ Umayya [Beirut, 1996], p. 107).
The Sufyānı̄ in Early Islamic Kerygma 405
evidence for the legend’s Syrian provenance. Lammens particularly noted the Kalb’s support
for the Sufyānı̄6 and Hartmann singled out his campaign against the H . ijāz. This campaign,
Hartmann argued, was modelled on the campaigns of Yazı̄d’s army there in 63-4 ah, thus
casting the Sufyānı̄ as a “Yazı̄d redivivus”.7 Furthermore, both scholars produced reports
on the expectation of a Sufyānid restorer of the Umayyad caliphate amongst the Syrians.
But, apart from these, they had little evidence in support of their views, with Hartmann’s
more complex scenario hinging upon a single statement by the third-century genealogist
Mus.ʿab al-Zubayrı̄, then only known from a quotation in Abū al-Faraj al-Is.fahānı̄’s
Kitāb al-Aghānı̄.8
However, in 1981 Wilferd Madelung published an influential study that cast serious doubt
on these theses. In this paper, he discussed a well-known and decidedly early tradition put
into circulation by partisans of ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr which, in his view, later helped to
shape the outline of the career of both the Mahdı̄ and the Sufyānı̄. Although the tradition
refers to neither of these two figures by name, its influence on the development of Islamic
eschatology is undeniable. These findings robbed the theses of Lammens and Hartmann of
their most important pieces of evidence: what they had taken to be Syrian elements in the
legend turned out to actually belong to its “Zubayrid core”.9
Madelung’s own answer to our question – that why a faqı̄h should claim to be the
Sufyānı̄ – was formulated a few years later in another paper: it was this Zubayrid tradition
that, despite its lack of any explicit invocation of the name, gave rise to the belief in the
Sufyānı̄ as the eschatological opponent of the Mahdı̄, as later generations of Muslims forgot
about the original context of the tradition and took it to be about the “apocalyptic future”.
In claiming that the Umayyad rebel Abū Muh.ammad Ziyād ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazı̄d
was the expected Sufyānı̄, Abū Muh.ammad himself and his supporters merely intended
to connect him with a figure prophesied in older traditions, as did those Sufyānı̄s who
came later. Only “the fact of the Sufyānı̄ having ‘been mentioned’ . . . counted”, Madelung
asserts.10 Apart from this Zubayrid tradition, Madelung’s conclusions are based on a close
examination of a previously unavailable and hugely important source, the Kitāb al-Fitan of
Nuʿaym ibn H . ammād al-Marwazı̄ (d. 228 ah). But the problem with his analysis is that
his dating of Nuʿaym’s traditions, of which most are impossible to date on either internal
or external grounds, is, more often than not, arbitrary. Madelung thoroughly conducts his
analysis within the framework of the mediaeval “science of men” (ʿilm al-rijāl), thereby falling
prey to archaic preconceptions about individual transmitters in pinpointing the “forgers”
6 Lammens, “Le Sofiânı̂”, pp. 140-141.

7 Hartmann, “Der Sufyānı̄”, pp. 148-149.
8 This passage will be investigated in due course.
9 This tradition has been treated in Madelung, “ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr and the Mahdi”, JNES 40 (1981),
pp. 291-305; its relationship with the legend of the Sufyānı̄ has been explored in idem, “The Sufyānı̄ between
Tradition and History”, Studia Islamica 63 (1986), pp. 5-48, at pp. 9-10; and idem, “Sufyānı̄”, EI2 . It must, however,
be emphasised that whereas Madelung thinks that only the first half of the tradition is historical and the second
part reflects Zubayrid attempts at “whipping up support” for their cause by inventing fantasies about a future clash
with the supporters of one of Yazı̄d’s descendants, the tradition appears to be entirely historical, as I have argued
elsewhere. See my “ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr and the Mahdı̄: Between Propaganda and Historical Memory in the
Second Civil War”, forthcoming in BSOAS 80 (2017).
10 Madelung, “The Sufyānı̄”, p. 47. He has recently found a follower in Paul M Cobb, White Banners: Contention
in ʿAbbāsid Syria, 750-880 (Albany, 2001), pp. 47, 55; and, apparently, also in Barbara Roggema, The Legend of Sergius
Bah.ı̄rā: Eastern Christian Apologetics and Apocalyptic in Response to Islam (Leiden, 2009), pp. 72–75.
406 Mehdy Shaddel
of traditions.11 Moreover, there exists no evidence in support of his presumption that “the
Sufyānı̄ . . . does not seem to have ever had an independent existence” and has been, from the
very outset, associated with the Mahdı̄ in the tradition.12 As we will see presently, evidence to
the contrary abounds. It is instructive to note that the idea of the Mahdı̄ is usually considered
to have developed independently of the aforementioned Zubayrid h.adı̄th, with its protagonist
having been equated with him only in later times.13 Why, then, could the legend of the
Sufyānı̄ not have evolved along similar lines? His further contention that the Sufyānı̄ is a
wholly negative character in the tradition simply wishes away a rather substantial part of the
evidence by arbitrarily branding those reports that portray a positive picture of him as later
developments.14
Yet another proposal has been advanced by Tilman Nagel who, drawing on a handful of
traditions from Nuʿaym’s Fitan, situates the rise of the Sufyānı̄ as an eschatological personage
in the uprising of Abū al-ʿAmayt.ar ʿAlı̄ ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Khālid ibn Yazı̄d al-Sufyānı̄
during the Fourth Civil War, arguing that the first revolt under this name, that of Abū
Muh.ammad al-Sufyānı̄, lacked messianic dimension.15 But while Nagel’s dating method is
reliable, the perfunctory nature of his investigation renders his conclusion tentative. The
Sufyānı̄, it will be seen, indeed had a life as a major actor in the drama of the end before
Abū al-ʿAmayt.ar.
The foregoing must have made it evident that the fundamental issue in determining the
origins of the Sufyānı̄’s myth is, as so often happens in the field of the history of ideas, the
omnipresent problem of dating. Fortunately, a perennial element in apocalyptic traditions
affords us a unique tool for dating them: the so-called vaticinia ex eventu, “prophecies from
(after) the event”. An ex eventu prophecy is a narration of past history in the garb of a
statement made before the actual occurrence of the event(s) in question. Such prophecies
serve various purposes, ranging from literary topoi within the apocalypses in which they
occur, to expressions of wider socio-theological concerns of the communities that produce
them.16 They usually take up at a particular point in history, and continue up to the time
11 Thus he declares al-Walı̄d ibn Muslim responsible for a tradition, as he was, “not an entirely reliable
transmitter”, whilst, “the other two transmitters are . . . both considered reliable”; “The Sufyānı̄”, p. 15, fn.
37. Or, “it is unlikely that” Muʿāwiya ibn Saʿı̄d, who is likewise lauded as “reliable”, “is responsible for the
tradition”; ibid., p. 20. Some of his datings have already been questioned by Amikam Elad, “The Struggle for the
Legitimacy of Authority as Reflected in the h.adı̄th of al-Mahdı̄”, in J. Nawas (ed.), ‘Abbasid Studies II: Occasional
Papers of the School of ‘Abbasid Studies, Leuven, 28 June-1 July 2004 (Leuven, 2010), pp. 39–96, at pp. 47-48.
12 Madelung, “The Sufyānı̄”, p. 9.
13 Idem, “Mahdı̄”, EI2 , lays down the case.
14 Idem, “The Sufyānı̄”, pp. 47-48.
15 Nagel, Rechtleitung und Kalifat: Versuch über eine Grundfrage der islamischen Geschichte (Bonn, 1975), pp. 253-
257, especially p. 257, fn. 1. The more recent studies by Cook (Studies, pp. 122-136) and Aguadé (“La figura
escatológica”) are of a descriptive nature and do not touch upon the issue of the emergence of the myth. The latter
confines himself to simply stating, rather generally and without specifying any timeframe, “la transformación del
personaje en una especie de Anticristo no es el resultado de especulaciones tardı́as sino que es contemporáneo a la
aparición de expectativas mesiánicas en torno a esta figura” (Ibid., p. 375).
16 For their role and function, see John J. Collins, “Pseudonymity, Historical Reviews and the Genre of the
Apocalypse of John”, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 39 (1977), pp. 329–343; Christopher Rowland, The Open Heaven:
A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (London, 1982), pp. 136–155; and Lorenzo DiTommaso,
“Pseudonymity and the Revelation of John”, in J. Ashton (ed.), Revealed Wisdom: Studies in Apocalyptic in Honour of
Christopher Rowland (Leiden, 2014), pp. 305–315.
of writing, after which they become genuine prophecies that, not unexpectedly, go awry.17
The dating of traditions based on this method is, therefore, far more secure than, say, taking
the word of mediaeval h.adı̄th-critics for the “reliability” or otherwise of tradents – which,
in itself, proves nothing about the provenance of the tradition. The number of traditions
that lend themselves to this method will naturally be very limited, but it has the plus side
of ensuring methodological rigour. In what follows, I will first adduce reports concerning
the Syrians’ expectation of a Sufyānid restorer of the Umayyad caliphate to show that
this figure was indeed thought of as a messiah in the metropolitan province of the now-
defunct Umayyad empire. This evidence, nevertheless, is not decisive, inasmuch as the bulk
of it comes from the third century ah onwards – after all, the reverse scenario, that the
Sufyānı̄ might have been a H . ijāzı̄ antichrist-turned-messiah, could not be ruled out without
examination. Accordingly, I will then turn to those eschatological traditions that place the rise
of the Sufyānı̄ in a particular historical context and date them with the help of their ex eventu
pronouncements. Finally, I will adduce evidence from historiographical sources that Abū
Muh.ammad al-Sufyānı̄ and his partisans propagated apocalyptic traditions in support of their
cause, telling, in the future tense, of the coming of a Sufyānid vanquisher of the ʿAbbāsids.
I draw most of my testimonies from two compendia, Nuʿaym’s Fitan and the small but
valuable corpus of traditions on the Sufyānı̄ in al-Sunan al-wārida fı̄ al-fitan of Abū ʿAmr
ʿUthmān ibn Saʿı̄d al-Dānı̄ (d. 444), which has become available since the publications of
Madelung. As will be seen, the traditions in these two early compendia happen to be our
most important sources for the early history of the belief in the Sufyānı̄, though I will also
make use of other sources wherever needed. But before moving on to the evidence, two
caveats are in order. Firstly, when dealing with these traditions, it must be borne in mind that
they may have undergone several stages of embellishment and redaction. In other words, a
tradition is not necessarily a uniform, monolithic whole and so may not date from a particular
point in time, but could be the end-product of several stages of development, a feature also
known from the Judaeo-Christian apocalyptic tradition.18 We thus need to approach them
with an eye on their Redaktions- and Formgeschichte19 and, so far as possible, date their various
17 The methods for treating apocalyptic material have been set out by Paul J. Alexander in his classic article,
“Medieval Apocalypses as Historical Sources”, The American Historical Review 73 (1968), pp. 997–1018; cf. also
Rowland’s even more nuanced methodology as spelt out in his The Open Heaven, pp. 248-267. For the Muslim
endtimes literature, see Michael Cook, “Eschatology and the Dating of Traditions”, Princeton Papers in Near Eastern
Studies 1 (1992), pp. 23–47.
18 Rowland, The Open Heaven, pp. 250-251. A particularly illustrative example of how to best treat this sort of
material is to be found in Matthew Neujahr, “When Darius Defeated Alexander: Composition and Redaction in
the Dynastic Prophecy”, JNES 64 (2005), pp. 101–107.
19 Particularly forthcoming in the present context is the latter. Form criticism, as developed by scholars of the
Bible, involves a) identification of the literary form of the passage under investigation; b) situation of the passage in
its Sitz im Leben; and c) reaching for the passage’s earliest, oral components. However, for reasons that will become
clear in the course of this study, I break with traditional from-critics by not taking it as a priori that the shorter, less
elaborate versions of a narrative are necessarily earlier than the more coherent ones. I owe my understanding of form
criticism to Marvin A. Sweeney, “Form Criticism: The Question of the Endangered Matriarchs in Genesis”, in J.
M. LeMon and K. H. Richards (eds), Method Matters: Essays on the Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Honor of David
L. Petersen (Atlanta, 2009), pp. 17–38. Several scholars have recently attempted to apply the method to the Qurʾān,
amongst them Stephen J. Shoemaker, The Death of a Prophet: The End of Muhammad’s Life and the Beginnings of Islam
(Philadelphia, 2012); Joseph Witztum, “Variant Traditions, Relative Chronology, and the Study of Intra-Quranic
Parallels”, in B. Sadeghi et al (eds), Islamic Cultures, Islamic Contexts: Essays in Honor of Professor Patricia Crone (Leiden,
2015), pp. 1–50, without actually elaborating on the method(s) used and with mixed results; and Devin J. Stewart,
408 Mehdy Shaddel
strata individually. Secondly, in some cases it is possible to approximately date a tradition to

around the time of the ʿAbbāsid revolution, but, due to a lack of sufficient historical details,
it is not possible to pronounce a definite verdict as to whether its Sufyānı̄ should be identified
as a historical personage (namely, Abū Muh.ammad al-Sufyānı̄) or merely an eschatological
figure. In these cases, I have taken the liberty of identifying him with Abū Muh.ammad
al-Sufyānı̄. Admittedly, it is not possible to defend this identification in the case of each
individual tradition, but the overall picture that emerges by the end of this study makes it
almost inevitable. The oldest traditions on the Sufyānı̄, as will be seen, date from the time of
the ʿAbbāsid revolution and there is no trace of him in the Muslim tradition prior to this date.
This indicates that his myth emerged around the same time, but to argue that this character
was conceived at this juncture but not in the context of Abū Muh.ammad al-Sufyānı̄’s uprising
begs the question of how Abū Muh.ammad and his partisans learnt of the myth so soon after
its conception and were able to put it to use so effectively. In any case, while this remains an
open possibility, Ockham’s razor requires us to opt for the opposite, to wit, that the belief in
the Sufyānı̄ arose with Abū Muh.ammad’s insurrection. It is with this consideration in mind
that I uniformly identify the Sufyānı̄ of the traditions dating from this period with him.
1. In an anecdote recorded by Ibn Abı̄ T.āhir T.ayfūr (d. 280 ah), al-T.abarı̄ (d. 310 ah), and
Ibn ʿAsākir (d. 571 ah), a Syrian called Ibn Zurʿa al-Judhāmı̄20 reproaches al-Maʾmūn for
privileging the Khurāsānı̄ ʿajams over the Syrian Arabs. In response, al-Maʾmūn presents
him with a list of his grievances against various Syrian tribes and factions, one of them being
that “the grandees of the Qud.āʿa await the Sufyānı̄ and his advent, so that they may join
him” (wa-ammā Qud.āʿa fa-sādatuhā tantaz.iru l-Sufyānı̄ wa-khurūjahu fa-takūna min ashyāʿihi).21
It is, as Paul Cobb points out, highly doubtful that these words go back to al-Maʾmūn
himself, or that such an exchange ever took place, but there is no reason to doubt the
authenticity of the background information it provides about Syria and its people.22 It
likewise hardly needs emphasising that Ibn Abı̄ T.āhir and al-T.abarı̄ are unlikely to have
been responsible for the anecdote themselves; hence, we can push its origin to at least a
generation earlier than the former’s floruit of the mid-third century.23 In simple terms, this
report testifies that the Qud.āʿı̄ chiefs’ expectation of the coming of a Sufyānı̄d saviour who
would revivify the grandeur of their days of old was common knowledge in the first half of
the third century ah.
“Wansbrough, Bultmann, and the Theory of Variant Traditions in the Qurʾān”, in A. Neuwirth and M. A. Sells
(eds), Qurʾānic Studies Today (London, 2016), pp. 17–51, which is in fact a reassessment of John Wansbrough’s
form-critical analysis of several quranic narratives.
20 In the first two accounts he remains anonymous.
21 al-Tabarı̄, Taʾrı̄kh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, (ed.) Muhammad Abū al-Fadl Ibrāhı̄m (Cairo, 1387/1967), viii, p. 652;
. . .
Ibn Abı̄ T.āhir, Kitāb Baghdād, (ed.) Muh.ammad Zāhid ibn al-H. asan al-Kawtharı̄ (Cairo, 1368/1949), pp. 144–145
(in somewhat garbled, but still intelligible, terms); cf. Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh madı̄nat Dimashq, (ed.) Muh.ibb al-Dı̄n
al-ʿAmrawı̄ (Beirut, 1417/1996), lxviii, pp. 34–35.
22 Cobb, White Banners, p. 6.
23 Ibn Abı̄ Tāhir’s Kitāb Baghdād, of which only a fragment is extant, originally ended with the reign of al-
.
Muhtadı̄ (d. 256 ah) and must have been composed around the same time; Franz Rosenthal, “Ibn Abı̄ T.āhir
2
T.ayfūr”, EI .
2. The aforementioned Mus.ʿab ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Zubayrı̄ (d. 236 ah) states in his
genealogical composition that the Umayyad prince Khālid ibn Yazı̄d ibn Muʿāwiya (d.
ca. 85 or 90 ah), “is thought to have invented the story of the Sufyānı̄ and put it into
circulation with the intention of sowing hope in [the hearts of] people for their [return]”
(zaʿamū annahu huwa lladhı̄ wad.aʿa dhikr al-Sufyānı̄ wa-kaththarahu wa-arāda an yakūna li-l-nās
fı̄him .tamaʿun) after Marwān ibn al-H
. akam short-changed him by appointing his own sons
as his successors.24 Already in mediaeval times, this statement was dismissed as “a figment
of Mus.ʿab’s imagination” (wahmun min Mus.ʿab) by the Shı̄ʿı̄ writer Abū al-Faraj al-Is.fahānı̄
(d. 356 ah), on the grounds that the Sufyānı̄ was also mentioned in several ah.ādı̄th on the
authority of the Shı̄ʿı̄ imām Muh.ammad ibn ʿAlı̄ al-Bāqir25 – although the Muʿtazilı̄ writer
Abū ʿAlı̄ Muh.ammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Jubbāʾı̄ (d. ca. 303 ah) had no qualms about
accepting Mus.ʿab’s claim.26
There has been much debate over the veracity of Mus.ʿab’s statement among scholars,
but what has been overlooked in these discussions is what his words actually stand for: they
unequivocally indicate that in Baghdad of the early third century ah the myth of the Sufyānı̄
was associated with the Sufyānid branch of the Umayyads and their hopes for a restoration.
The attribution of the idea to Khālid was most likely no more than a mere conjecture,
but this attribution surely assumes an already-existing association between the Sufyānı̄ and
Umayyad interests. Otherwise, it would be hard to imagine how and why people came to
associate an Antichrist-like figure with an Umayyad prince.
3. In the year 324 ah, the historian and geographer ʿAlı̄ ibn al-H . usayn al-Masʿūdı̄ (d. 345
ah) lit upon a treatise in the possession of a mawlā of the Umayyads in Tiberias, entitled
Kitāb al-Barāhı̄n fı̄ imāmat al-Umawiyyı̄n wa-nashr mā .tawā min fad.āʾilihim. This mawlā was, as
al-Masʿūdı̄ puts it, an “ʿUthmānı̄”, and the book an account of the rule of the Umayyads
and biographies of individual Umayyad caliphs beginning with ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān down to
the last Umayyad caliph, Marwān II, and continuing with the Umayyad amı̄rs of Cordoba,
up to the year 310 ah. According to al-Masʿūdı̄, the book ended with an account of,
the forthcoming malāh.im and events which will happen in the future concerning the triumph
of their [viz., the Umayyads’] cause and the restoration of their rule, the advent of the Sufyānı̄
in Wādı̄ al-Yābis in the territory of Shām, – accompanied by the Ghassān, Qud.āʿa, Lakhm,
and Judhām – his raids and campaigns, and the coming of the Umayyads from Andalus to Shām
(akhbārun min akhbār al-malāh.im wa-l-anbāʾ al-kāʾina mimmā yah.duthu fı̄ al-mustaqbal min al-zamān
wa-l-ātı̄ min al-ayyām min z.uhūr amrihim wa-rujūʿ dawlatihim wa-z.uhūr al-Sufyānı̄ fı̄ al-Wādı̄ [sic]
24 Musʿab al-Zubayrı̄, Nasab Quraysh, (ed.) É. Lévi-Provençal (Cairo, 1953), p. 129.
.
25 Abū al-Faraj, Kitāb al-Aghānı̄, (ed.) Ih.sān ʿAbbās, Ibrāhı̄m al-Saʿāfı̄n, and Bakr ʿAbbās (Beirut, 1423/2002),
xvii, pp. 245–246.
26 innamā wadaʿahu Khālid ibn Yazı̄d ibn Muʿāwiya ibn Sakhr . . . mimmā hakamahu ʿalā ʿAbd al-Malik [read: mimmā
. . .
h.akama ʿalayhi ʿAbd al-Malik] ibn Marwān li-kay lā yanqatiʿa rijāl ahl al-Shām min dhikr āl abı̄ Sufyān. He does not
cite his reference, but is apparently reliant on Mus.ʿab; al-Jubbāʾı̄, Kitāb al-Maqālāt, MS Library of the mosque of
Shahāra (Yemen), fol. 168a (my thanks to Sean Anthony for bringing this text to my attention). For a profile of the
author, along with a description of the manuscript and its contents, see Hassan Ansari, “Abū ʿAlı̄ al-Jubbāʾı̄ et son
livre al-Maqālāt”, in C. Adang, S. Schmidtke, and D. E. Sklare (eds), A Common Rationality: Muʿtazilism in Islam
and Judaism (Würzburg, 2007), pp. 21–37. A critical edition of the tractate is being prepared by Hassan Ansari and
Wilferd Madelung.
410 Mehdy Shaddel
al-Yābis min ard. al-Shām fı̄ Ghassān wa-Qud.āʿa wa-Lakhm wa-Judhām wa-ghārātihi wa-h.urūbihi wa-
ması̄r al-Umawiyyı̄n min bilād al-Andalus ilā al-Shām).27
So, after his advent, the Sufyānı̄ will be accompanied by those Syrian tribes who had
once been the mainstay of Umayyad power and the police force of the empire, and those
Umayyads who had fled Syria for Spain in the wake of the ʿAbbāsid revolution will come
back and make common cause with their Syrian kinsmen and allies to fight the ʿAbbāsid
“usurpers”. This report is perhaps the best testimony that, by the late third century ah, there
existed a sophisticated cult of the Sufyānı̄ in Syria, one exclusively associated with Umayyad
and Syrian interests.28
4. In his treatise against the Bāt.iniyya, Abū H . āmid Muh.ammad al-Ghazālı̄ (d. 505 ah)
teaches his readers as to how to best counter Bāt.inı̄ numerological beliefs. Regarding the
number seven, he suggests that, inter alia, the reader should resort to the statement of “imāmı̄
Umayyads” (al-umawiyya min al-imāmiyya) with respect to the Umayyad caliphs Muʿāwiya,
Yazı̄d, Marwān, ʿAbd al-Malik, al-Walı̄d, ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzı̄z, Hishām, and “the seventh
[sic], the expected one, who is called the Sufyānı̄” (thumma l-sābiʿ al-muntaz.ar wa-huwa lladhı̄
yuqālu lahu l-Sufyānı̄).29 As Hartmann correctly observed, this “expected” Sufyānı̄, awaited in
Umayyad loyalist circles, could not be a historical personage, but one who is yet to appear.30
This report is, therefore, yet another witness to the salvific role the Sufyānı̄ played in the
quarters still loyal to the memory of the Umayyads.
5. Ibn ʿAsākir al-Dimashqı̄ relates from a certain Kuthayyir ibn Abı̄ S.ābir al-Qinnasrı̄nı̄ that
once Ish.āq ibn Qud.āʿa al-Tanūkhı̄ showed him some swords in his possession, reminiscing,
“these are the swords with which our forefathers fought at S.iffı̄n, and they will remain with
us until the qāʾim of the family of Abū Sufyān rises, so that we may fight with them alongside
him” (hādhihi suyūf ābāʾinā allatı̄ qātalū bihā yawma S.iffı̄n wa-hiya ʿindanā muddakharatun h.attā
yaqūma l-qāʾim min āl abı̄ Sufyān fa-nuqātilua bihā maʿahu). According to Kuthayyir, when
Abū al-ʿAmayt.ar ʿAlı̄ ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Khālid ibn Yazı̄d al-Sufyānı̄ rose in revolt in 195
ah, Ish.āq and a group of his associates joined him.31
The importance of this report cannot be overstated. It refers to the Sufyānı̄ as “the qāʾim
of the house of Abū Sufyān”. Qāʾim, or qāʾim āl Muh.ammad, is a messianic appellation, with
wholly positive connotations, usually reserved for the Mahdı̄. Literally meaning “riser”, it
signifies the Mahdı̄’s act of rising to fight the corrupters of right religion and the usurpers of
27 al-Masʿūdı̄, al-Tanbı̄h wa-l-ishrāf, (ed.) ʿAbd Allāh Ismāʿı̄l al-Sāwı̄ (Cairo, 1357/1938), pp. 291–292; cited by
.
Lammens, “Le Sofiânı̂”, p. 143.
28 In the words of Paul Cobb, the existence of such a book, “implies a preexisting corpus of pro-Umayyad
literary material”; Cobb, White Banners, p. 170, fn. 49. But note that his identification of the book as an “Andalusı̄”
composition is a misunderstanding, presumably stemming from the reference to Andalus in al-Masʿūdı̄’s quotations
therefrom; cf. Antoine Borrut, “Vanishing Syria: Periodization and Power in Early Islam”, Der Islam 91 (2014),
pp. 37–68, at p. 51.
29 al-Ghazālı̄, Fadāʾih al-bātiniyya [wa-fadāʾil al-mustazhariyya], (ed.) Muhammad ʿAlı̄ al-Qutb (Beirut,
. . . . . . .
1422/2001), p. 71; cited by Lammens, “Le Sofiânı̂”, p. 139. Actually, eight people are enumerated here.
30 Hartmann, “Der Sufyānı̄”, p. 149, fn. 27.
31 Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh, xliii, p. 31 (quoted in Wilferd Madelung, “Abū ’l-ʿAmaytar the Sufyānı̄”, JSAI 24 [2000],
.
pp. 327–342, at p. 332); also recounted by Ibn al-ʿAdı̄m, Bughyat al-t.alab fı̄ taʾrı̄kh al-H . alab, (ed.) Suhayl Zakkār
(Beirut, 1988/1408), iii, p. 1495.
the rights of the prophet’s family (ahl al-bayt).32 It is also noteworthy that Abū al-ʿAmayt.ar’s
supporters could claim both the titles of Mahdı̄ and Sufyānı̄ for him: they supposedly went
about the marketplace of Damascus, calling on people to, “rise and pledge allegiance to the
Mahdı̄ of God” (qūmū bāyiʿū mahdı̄ Allāh).33 The epithet of qāʾim is applied here to the Sufyānı̄
apparently to denote his act of rising against the enemies of the Syrians, as suggested by the
use of the motif of “swords of S.iffı̄n”. This motif evidently symbolises the Syrians’ resentment
at the supremacy of Iraq in the political arena and their yearning for a return to the pre-
revolutionary order. So deep-seated had this regional animosity grown by the early third cen-
tury that, when asked how he was, Abū Mushir al-Ghassānı̄, a half-hearted associate of Abū
al-ʿAmayt.ar’s who later suffered persecution at the hands of al-Maʾmūn’s inquisitors, replied:
“pleased with God, but displeased with Dhū al-Qarnayn for not erecting a barrier34 between
us and the people of Iraq as he did between the people of Khurāsān and Gog and Magog!”35
6. In another narrative, Ibn ʿAsākir claims that once it was reported to ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlı̄,
the conqueror and first ʿAbbāsid governor of Syria, that there was a descendant of Abū
Sufyān who was “a leper and ill of body” (bihi wad.ah.un wa-marad.un). This good-natured
man had declared himself to be, “the Sufyānı̄ who will put an end to the dominion of
the ʿAbbāsids” (al-Sufyānı̄ alladhı̄ yudhhabu mulk banı̄ al-ʿAbbās ʿalā yadihi), but apparently
only as a means to catch the attention of the governor in order to present him with his
grievances. The “unchivalrous” ʿAbd Allāh, we are given to know, took several Umayyad
women hostage to force his surrender, but the would-be Sufyānı̄ willingly gave himself up
and was put to death for his audacity before the ʿAbbāsid strongman.36
It is perhaps worth noting that the Jewish messiah is likewise described as a leper who
dwells amidst those who “suffer illness” before the gate of Rome in some sources.37 But the
narrative related above is, in all likelihood, just another anecdotal expression of contempt
at the alleged improprieties committed by the “iniquitous” ʿAbbāsids in Syria and appears
to have a relatively late origin. In any event, it seems beyond doubt that this figure had
considerable appeal for the Syrians in mediaeval times: no less than eight people are reported
to have claimed to be the expected Sufyānı̄ in Syria, the last of them in the mid-ninth
century ah.38 It goes without saying that these people could hardly have meant to claim
32 Wilferd Madelung, “K.āʾim āl Muh.ammad”, EI2 .

33 Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh, xliii, p. 31.
34 Reading saddan instead of al-sadd.
35 Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh, xxxiii, p. 437.
36 Ibid., lxviii, pp. 219-220.
37 Martha Himmelfarb, “‘Az mi-lifnei vereishit’: The Suffering Messiah in the Seventh Century”, in A. E.
Franklin et al (eds), Jews, Christians and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern Times: A Festschrift in Honor of Mark R.
Cohen (Leiden, 2014), pp. 369–384, at pp. 377-378 (I am grateful to Sean Anthony for reminding me of this fact).
38 Abū Muhammad al-Sufyānı̄ in 132 ah (see infra). Abū Muhammad’s nephew, al-ʿAbbās ibn Muhammad
. . .
al-Sufyānı̄, in 133 ah; Ibn al-ʿAdı̄m, Zubdat al-h.alab min taʾrı̄kh H . alab, (ed.) Khalı̄l al-Mans.ūr (Beirut, 1417/1996),
pp. 32–33; Cobb, White Banners, pp. 48-49. Al-Balādhurı̄, Ansāb al-ashrāf, (ed.) Suhayl Zakkār and Riyād. Ziriklı̄
(Beirut, 1417/1996), iv, p. 223, seems to be aware of the nephew’s rebellion when he reports on the confusion
between him and the uncle. Abū al-ʿAmayt.ar al-Sufyānı̄ in 195 ah (see further infra). Abū H . arb al-Mubarqaʿ in
227 ah, who apparently claimed to be both the Yamānı̄ (a minor apocalyptic figure) and the Sufyānı̄ and called
to al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-l-nahy ʿan al-munkar; al-T.abarı̄, Taʾrı̄kh, ix, pp. 116-118; see also Cobb, White Banners, pp.
116-118; and Herbert Eisenstein, “Die Erhebung des Mubarqaʿ in Palästina”, Orientalia 55 (1986), pp. 454–458. An
unnamed person in 294 ah, said to suffer from mental illness; al-T.abarı̄, Taʾrı̄kh, x, p. 135. Another one, equally
unnamed, in 385 ah; al Maqrı̄zı̄, Ittiʿāz. al-h.unafāʾ bi-akhbār al-aʾimma al-Fāt.imiyyı̄n al-khulafāʾ, (ed.) Jamāl al-Dı̄n
412 Mehdy Shaddel
to be the end tyrant who ushers in the era of tribulations leading to the eschaton; it is far
more likely that their actual intention was to assume the role of messianic saviours of their
people – familiar characters of subaltern uprisings from Bar Kokhba and Abū ʿĪsā al-Is.fahānı̄
to the Sudanese Mahdı̄.39 This is evident from the motif of call to justice and al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf
wa-l-nahy ʿan al-munkar reported for some of them in the sources. Ibn Thaqāla abolished all
burdensome tax and the anonymous Sufyānı̄ of 848 ah is said to have won the minds of the
peasantry (ih.tawā ʿalā ʿuqūl al-fallāh.ı̄n), presumably a reference to “populist” slogans.40
But these are all late developments. We can safely assume that the earliest such revolts
in the first decades of ʿAbbāsid rule were primarily concerned with restoring political
supremacy to Syria and served as outlets for the Syrian elites’ hopes and aspirations for
renewed ascendancy, which would have gone hand in hand with expectations of the coming
of a Sufyānid redeemer in millenarian and messianist circles. It is only with the uprising of
Abū H . arb al-Yamānı̄ al-Sufyānı̄ in the third century that one witnesses a concern for social
issues in the revolts of these self-styled “Sufyānı̄s”. Be that as it may, this body of evidence
does not settle the issue in favour of one of the above-discussed theses regarding the origins
of the myth of the Sufyānı̄. It indeed demonstrates that he was regarded as a messianic restorer
in Syria, but it does not offer any clues as to the matrix from which the myth emerged.
Furthermore, it is possible, even if implausible, that this character was originally conceived
as a diabolic figure and was later appropriated and redeemed in Syria as an anti-ʿAbbāsid
saviour, a scenario implicitly advocated by Madelung. Hence, the origins of the myth still
remain to be established, and for so doing I shall presently turn to those traditions in the fitan
literature which make mention of the Sufyānı̄ and, at the same time, contain a post factum
historical allusion.
II
1. A tradition in Nuʿaym’s Kitāb al-Fitan has it that once Muʿāwiya ibn Abı̄ Sufyān asked
ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās, the ancestor of the ʿAbbāsids, most revered for his knowledge of
religious matters, whether the rule will ever pass to his family. At first Ibn ʿAbbās was
reticent, but upon Muʿāwiya’s insistence he said, “yes, that will be at the end of time” (fı̄
ākhir al-zamān). Then Muʿāwiya enquired as to who will help them to power. Ibn ʿAbbās
al-Shayyāl (Cairo, 1416/1996), i, p. 287. Ibn Thaqāla (discussed above) in 816 ah. Yet another anonymous one in
848 ah; al-Sakhāwı̄, al-D. awʾ al-lāmiʿ, vii, p. 70.
39 The definitive study on the Bar Kokhba rebellion is now Menahem Mor, The Second Jewish Revolt: The Bar
Kokhba War, 132-136 ce (Leiden, 2016); a possible cause has been succinctly put forward in Martin Goodman, “Trajan
and the Origins of the Bar Kokhba War”, in P. Schäfer (ed.) The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered: New Perspectives on
the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome (Tübingen, 2003), pp. 23–29. On Abū ʿĪsā, see Sean W. Anthony’s lapidary
investigation, “Who Was the Shepherd of Damascus? The Enigma of Jewish and Messianist Responses to the
Islamic Conquests in Marwānid Syria and Mesopotamia”, in P. M. Cobb (ed.), The Lineaments of Islam: Studies
in Honor of Fred McGraw Donner (Leiden, 2012), pp. 21–59. On the Mahdist movement, see Kim Searcy, The
Formation of the Mahdist State: Ceremony and Symbols of Authority: 1882-1898 (Leiden, 2011). The issue of messianic
rebellions among conquered peoples, with reference to the post-conquest Iranian experience, has recently received
a masterful treatment in Patricia Crone’s magisterial tome, The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran: Rural Revolt and
Local Zoroastrianism (Cambridge, 2012).
40 The relationship between messianism and egalitarianism has been explored in Norman Cohn, The Pursuit
of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1970); and Michael
Adas, Prophets of Rebellion: Millenarian Protest Movements against the European Colonial Order (Chapel Hill, 1979); see
also Crone, Nativist Prophets, pp. 162-177.
replied, “the people of Khurāsān” (ahl Khurāsān). He then continued his mantic declaration:
“the Banū Umayya will receive blows (nat.ah.āt) from the Banū Hāshim and the Banū
Hāshim will receive blows from the Banū Umayya; afterwards the Sufyānı̄ will rise” (thumma
yakhruju l-Sufyānı̄).41
This tradition expects a quick end to the world in the wake of the ʿAbbāsid revolution
and must have been put into circulation shortly afterwards. If at all historical, its Sufyānı̄
must then be identified with Abū Muh.ammad Ziyād ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazı̄d al-Sufyānı̄,
who led a counterrevolutionary uprising against the newcomers immediately after their
triumph in 132 ah. Nuʿaym gives the following isnād for it: al-Walı̄d (ibn Muslim) < Abū
ʿAbd Allāh (Nās.ih.)42 < al-Walı̄d ibn Hishām al-Muʿayt.ı̄ < Abān ibn al-Walı̄d ibn Uqba
ibn Abı̄ Muʿayt..43 One of the tradents, al-Walı̄d ibn Hishām ibn Muʿāwiya ibn Hishām ibn
ʿUqba ibn Abı̄ Muʿayt. al-Muʿayt.ı̄, had once served as governor of Qinnasrı̄n, the centre of
Abū Muh.ammad’s rebellion, under ʿUmar II (r. 99-101 ah). Interestingly, in al-Balādhurı̄’s
account of the revolt, we encounter the name of one al-Walı̄d who rallies support for Abū
Muh.ammad and writes to a certain Hishām ibn al-Walı̄d ibn ʿUqba ibn Abı̄ Muʿayt., inviting
him to join forces with Abū Muh.ammad as well, but the latter refuses.44
Could this Walı̄d be the same person as our tradent, al-Walı̄d ibn Hishām? Judging by
the manner of al-Balādhurı̄’s presentation of the relationship between his Walı̄d and Hishām
al-Muʿayt.ı̄, it is conceivable that the former, too, was a member of the ʿUqba ibn Abı̄
Muʿayt. family, and thus very possibly the same person as al-Walı̄d ibn Hishām al-Muʿaytı̄,
who would have had a considerable base of support in Qinnasrı̄n. Unfortunately, the sources
do not provide us with enough information on al-Walı̄d ibn Hishām’s life to substantiate or
refute this identification – we only know that he governed Qinnasrı̄n for ʿUmar II, led the
summer campaign (s.āʾifa) against Byzantium on several occasions during the late 90s and
early 100s ah, and was last reported alive during the caliphate of Marwān II (126-32 ah).45
However, we are told that one of his sons, Yaʿı̄sh ibn al-Walı̄d, was killed by the ʿAbbāsid
general ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlı̄’s black-clad army (al-musawwida).46 This could be taken as an
indication of the family’s support for anti-ʿAbbāsid agitations, – perhaps including that of
Abū Muh.ammad – thereby making the identification of al-Walı̄d ibn Hishām with the Walı̄d
of al-Balādhurı̄’s account all the more likely. On the other hand, chronological constraints
leave us with only two options for the tradition’s fabrication: Abū ʿAbd Allāh Nās.ih., who
41 Nuʿaym, Kitāb al-Fitan, (ed.) Samı̄r ibn Amı̄n al-Zuhayrı̄ (Cairo, 1412/1991), p. 202 (unless otherwise
specified, all references to Nuʿaym will be to this edition).
42 Ibn ʿAsākir, who quotes a mutilated version of this tradition, further identifies this Abū ʿAbd Allāh as Nāfiʿ,
a mawlā of the Umayyads, but this is incorrect. His actual name is Nās.ih., known for having transmitted h.adı̄th from
al-Walı̄d ibn Hishām and also as one of al-Walı̄d ibn Muslim’s authorities; Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh, lxi, pp. 385-386.
43 The reading of the isnād in the Zakkār edition (Beirut, 1414/1993), pp. 115-116, which is based on the same
manuscript, is problematic, evidently because of a haplographic error on the part of the editor. Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh,
vi, p. 161, gives the correct isnād too.
44 al Balādhurı̄, Ansāb, iv, p. 223.
45 Khalı̄fa ibn Khayyāt, Taʾrı̄kh, (ed.) Akram Diyāʾ al-ʿUmarı̄ (Riyadh, 1405/1985), pp. 319, 323, 324; Ibn
. .
ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh, lxiii, pp. 309-317. Madelung’s extrapolation (“The Sufyānı̄”, p. 16, fn. 38), based on a quotation of
Ibn ʿAsākir’s text in Ibn H . ajar’s Tahdhı̄b al-tahdhı̄b, (ed.) Ibrāhı̄m al-Zaybaq and ʿĀdil Murshid (Beirut, 1416/1995),
iv, p. 327, that he died during Marwān II’s caliphate is, of course, reading too much into Ibn ʿAsākir’s statement.
46 Ibid., lxxiv, p. 202; al-Mizzı̄, Tahdhı̄b al-kamāl fı̄ asmāʾ al-rijāl, (ed.) Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf (Beirut,
1400/1980), xxxii, p. 405.
414 Mehdy Shaddel
certainly flourished in early ʿAbbāsid times, and al-Walı̄d ibn Hishām.47 In the light of the
latter’s possible role in Abū Muh.ammad’s movement, he is by far the stronger candidate, and
this plausibly shows that Abū Muh.ammad’s propagandists attempted to foment support for
him by arousing apocalyptic expectations among the Syrians.
2. In another tradition, after stating that the Mahdı̄ will be from the progeny of his son al-
. asan, ʿAlı̄ ibn Abı̄ T.ālib is asked about the Sufyānı̄. He replies that he will be a descendant
48
H
of Khālid ibn Yazı̄d (ibn Muʿāwiya) ibn Abı̄ Sufyān, and, after giving a description of his
looks and the manner of his advent (khurūj), he goes on detailing his exploits in Syria, the
razing of Kūfa by his army, the massacre of the people of Medina, and how his army ends
up being “swallowed up” in the Baydāʾ, en route to Mecca. The details of his exploits in
Syria merit a closer inspection:
those of the people of the east (ahl al-mashriq) who are in Shām – at that time there will be a
huge army of them there (wa-bihā yawmaʾidhin minhum jundun az.ı̄mun) – will fight him [scil., the
Sufyānı̄] somewhere between Damascus and [ . . . ]49 in a place called al-Bathaniyya (yuqātiluhum
fı̄mā bayna Dimashq wa-fı̄ mawd.iʿin yuqālu lahu l-Bathaniyya).50 At the time the people of H . ims.
will be at war with the people of the east and their supporters (wa-ahl H . ims. fı̄ h.arb ahl al-mashriq
wa-ans.ārihim),51 and the Sufyānı̄ will defeat them all.52 Thereafter, those who are in Damascus
and H . ims. will go with the Sufyānı̄ and join battle with the people of the east in a place known
as al-Badiyya [?],53 in the territory (to the east of)54 of H . ims., adjacent to Salamya. Over sixty
thousand55 people will be killed there, three quarters of them from the people of the east. They
[viz., the people of the east] will then be defeated (thumma takūnu l-dabra ʿalayhim).56
This stratum of the tradition, which stands in stark contrast to the rest of it, is in virtually
complete concord with the historical record and clearly hails from the time of ʿAbd Allāh
ibn ʿAlı̄’s campaigns in Syria and the abortive revolt of Abū Muh.ammad al-Sufyānı̄. Firstly,
its report on insurrectionary activities in Damascus, al-Bathaniyya, and H . ims. is in keeping
with the course of events culminating in Abū Muh.ammad’s rebellion, which took place
when ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlı̄ was suppressing the rebellious activities of the Umayyad general
H. abı̄b ibn Murra al-Murrı̄ in southern Syria, in the vicinity of al-Balqāʾ, H . awrān, and
47 Provided, of course, that the tradition’s isnād has not been tampered with after its fabrication – which seems
plausible in this case, as otherwise there would be just too many coincidences. Al-Walı̄d ibn Muslim (119-194 ah),
a mawlā of the Umayyads and one of Nuʿaym’s principal authorities, was a mere adolescent at the time of the
ʿAbbāsid revolution, and thus cannot be a candidate. On him, see Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh, lxiii, pp. 274-295.
48 The text has Husayn here, but Hasan elsewhere; I have followed Madelung, “The Sufyānı̄”, p. 17, fn. 46, in
. .
opting for the latter variant; cf. Elad, “The Struggle for Legitimacy”, pp. 44-45.
49 A word seems to be missing here.
50 Thus in the Zakkār edition, p. 426; Baniyya in the Zuhayrı̄ edition. Bathaniyya is a locality near Damascus;
Yāqūt al-H. amawı̄, Muʿjam al-buldān (Beirut, 1397/1977), i, p. 338.
51 For no clear reason, Madelung, “The Sufyānı̄”, p. 18, takes this to mean that the people of Hims will be on
. .
the side of the easterners. The text, of course, does not warrant this reading.
52 Presumably all of the people of the east.
53 The text has ʾLBDYN. Al-Badiyya is a stream between Salamya and Aleppo and two days journey from the
latter, according to Yāqūt, Muʿjam, i, p. 360. Abū ʿUbayd al-Bakrı̄ al-Andalusı̄ knows of it as somewhere on the
route connecting Aleppo to al-Raqqa and outside Salamya; Muʿjam mā istaʿjam min asmāʾ al-bilād wa-l-mawād.iʿ,
(ed.) Mus.t.afā al-Saqqā (Beirut, 1403/1983), i, p. 234; ii, p. 629.
54 This is only recorded in the shorter version.
55 Seventy thousand in the shorter version.
56 Nuʿaym, Fitan, pp. 699-701; with a shorter version in ibid., p. 301.
al-Bathaniyya.57 On hearing of Abū Muh.ammad’s revolt, the people of Palmyra and H . ims.,
too, hoisted white banners, rose in revolt, and joined forces with Abū Muh.ammad. In
Damascus, the malcontents evicted the ʿAbbāsid governor and killed a large number of
his men.58 Abū Muh.ammad’s army, under the command of Abū al-Ward Majzaʾa ibn al-
Kawthar ibn Zufar al-Kilābı̄, the driving force behind the uprising, initially defeated the
ʿAbbāsids under ʿAbd al-S.amad ibn ʿAlı̄ in Marj al-Akhram and killed several thousands of
the revolutionary army. Up until this point, the tradition is extremely accurate in its details;
even the seemingly unimportant reference to the “supporters” (ans.ār) of the people of the
east in it finds corroboration in the fact that the Khurāsānı̄ revolutionaries were, throughout
their Syrian campaign, augmented by the Syro-Iraqi yamaniyya.59 It is only at this point
that the tradition parts company with history: the revolt was ultimately put down by ʿAbd
Allāh ibn ʿAlı̄ and his musawwida. Abū al-Ward received a fatal blow in the final battle, but
Abū Muh.ammad escaped and made for the H . ijāz, where he met his end some while later.
Upon their defeat, the white-clothed opposition (al-mubayyid.a) throughout Syria despaired
of resistance and resigned themselves to ʿAbbāsid rule.60
Lastly, the tradition locates the Sufyānı̄’s victorious engagement with the Khurāsānı̄ army
61
in a place whose name is garbled, but is located in the east of H . ims., near Salamya. Al-
T.abarı̄ and, following him, Ibn ʿAsākir record the place of both encounters between the
two camps as Marj al-Akhram, which is otherwise unknown. Dionysius of Tel-Mah.rē, who
may have relied on the contemporary account of Theophilus of Edessa, seems to know of
only one battle between ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlı̄ and Abū al-Ward (Abū Muh.ammad is absent
from the account) and records its location as H . amā, not far from Salamya, in a field called
Margā H . urmā, to be identified with Marj al-Akhram – h.urmā being the Syriacised feminine
form of the Arabic masculine superlative akhram.62 Agapius of Manbij, who explicitly cites
Theophilus as his source for the history of this period, likewise mentions only one battle
63
(and without any reference to Abū Muh.ammad), in a field to the east of H . ims.. Ibn
57 Or variously said to have still been on the banks of the Abū Futrus. According to this version, it was the news
.
of Abū Muh.ammad al-Sufyānı̄’s rebellion that prompted him to massacre all the captured members of the Umayyad
family. This divergent report has the uprising of H . abı̄b ibn Murra follow that of Abū Muh.ammad – presumably in
spontaneous unison with it.
58 According to Dionysius of Tel-Mahrē, it was Habı̄b ibn Murra himself who captured Damascus and expelled
. .
the ʿAbbāsids. Dionysius’ account is preserved in the anonymous Chronicon Anonymum ad Annum Christi 1234, (ed.)
I. B. Chabot (Paris, 1920), vol. i, p. 333 (translation in Robert G. Hoyland, Theophilus of Edessa’ Chronicle and the
Circulation of Historical Knowledge in Late Antiquity and Early Islam [Liverpool, 2011], p. 287).
59 The presence of the yamaniyya in this particular incident is recorded by Ibn al-ʿAdı̄m, Bughyat al-talab, ix,
.
p. 3930 (quoting al-Haytham ibn ʿAdı̄). The role of the Yemeni faction in the revolution has been explored
in Moshe Sharon, Black Banners from the East, ii: Revolt: The Social and Military Aspects of the ʿAbbāsid Revolution
(Jerusalem, 1990), who perhaps overstates the case; see also Cobb, White Banners, pp. 74-75.
60 al-Tabarı̄, Taʾrı̄kh, vii, pp. 443-446; al-Balādhurı̄, Ansāb, iv, pp. 223-224; Abū Mansūr al-Husayn ibn
. . .
Muh.ammad al-Marʿashı̄ al-Thaʿālibı̄, Ghurar al-siyar, (ed.) Suhayl Zakkār (Beirut, 1417/1996), pp. 302–303; Ibn
ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh, xii, pp. 61-62; lvii, pp. 46-48; Ibn al-ʿAdı̄m, Bughyat al-t.alab, ix, pp. 3927-3932; Cobb, White
Banners, pp. 46-51, pp. 75-78.
61 Salamya was indeed one of its districts and one day’s march to its east; Abū al-Fidāʾ, Taqwı̄m al-buldān, (ed.)
M. Reinaud and M. Mac Guckin de Slane (Paris, 1840), p. 236, p. 264.
62 Apud the anonymous Chronicon ad Annum 1234, vol. i, p. 333 (translation in Hoyland, Theophilus, p. 287).
Chabot and Hoyland render it as h.armā (“forbidden” or “accursed” in Syriac), and the former accordingly translates
it as Pratum execrandum (Chronicon ad Annum 1234, vol. iii [Paris, 1937], p. 260); but in the light of the explanation
propounded above this seems unlikely.
63 shakhasa . . . ilā Hims wa-nazala fı̄ marjin sharqı̄hā; Agapius, Kitāb al-ʿUnwān, (ed.) Alexandre Vasiliev, in
. . .
Patrologia Orientalis 5 (1909), p. 270.
416 Mehdy Shaddel
al-ʿAdı̄m produces a report identifying the place of the first battle as “Marj al-Akhram, in
the hinterland of (min nāh.iya) Qinnasrı̄n”,64 and then states that the second battle occurred
65
somewhere between H . ims. and Qinnasrı̄n. Given the two armies’ base of operations (H. ims.
and Qinnasrı̄n), Marj al-Akhram was most likely located somewhere on the route connecting
the two towns. This is confirmed by al-T.abarı̄’s report that ʿAbd al-S.amad ibn ʿAlı̄ initially
advanced towards Qinnasrı̄n, but after the defeat at Marj al-Akhram he had to fall back
. ims., as well as by al-Balādhurı̄’s account, in which the ʿAbbāsid army retreats to
66
on H
H. ims. after its initial defeat, then Abū al-Ward and Abū Muh.ammad march from Qinnasrı̄n
67
towards H . ims. until the two parties again encounter each other, at Marj al-Akhram. All of
this comports with our tradition’s location of the battle.68 This stratum of the tradition –
historical up to the point where it speaks, in exaggerated terms, of the rout of the Khurāsānı̄
army, whence it becomes a chimaera pure and simple – is, then, an ex eventu prognostication
put into circulation when Abū Muh.ammad’s revolt was at its pinnacle.
There is no doubt that this tradition is composite: on the one hand, the motif of the
“swallowing up” (khasf) of an army marching on the holy city of Mecca in the Baydāʾ,
between Mecca and Medina, stems from propagandistic h.adı̄ths originally propagated by
ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr’s supporters during and in the immediate wake of the Second
Civil War.69 On the other hand, the identification of the Sufyānı̄ as a descendant of Khālid
ibn Yazı̄d must be situated in the context of the rebellion of Abū al-ʿAmayt.ar ʿAlı̄ ibn ʿAbd
Allāh ibn Khālid ibn Yazı̄d during the Fourth Civil War, as pointed out by Tilman Nagel;70
and, as we have just seen, yet another stratum of the tradition dates back to the time of the
ʿAbbāsid revolution. The tradition’s isnād is of considerable help in further pinning down
this process of redaction. Nuʿaym has received it from Abū al-Mughı̄ra ʿAbd al-Quddūs ibn
. ajjāj (ca. 130-212 ah), who had in turn received it from Ismāʿı̄l ibn ʿAyyāsh al-H
71
al-H . ims.ı̄
(b. ca. 105-110 ah, d. 181 ah).72
Elsewhere in his Fitan, Nuʿaym produces traditions on the authority of this Abū al-
Mughı̄ra from Abū Bakr ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abı̄ Maryam al-Ghassānı̄ al-Shāmı̄ (d. 156 ah)73
concerning the Sufyānı̄’s advent which share almost all of the elements of the part on the
mystifying manner of his appearance in the above tradition.74 As Madelung observes, the
two traditions must be related in some way, but he, neglectful of their historical context,
64 Ibn al-ʿAdı̄m, Bughyat al-t.alab, ix, p. 3927.

65 Ibid.,p. 3930.
66 al-Tabarı̄, Taʾrı̄kh, vii, p. 445.
.
67 al-Balādhurı̄, Ansāb, iv, p. 224.
68 Two modern Arab writers, Muhammad Kurd ʿAlı̄, Khitat al-Shām (Damascus, 1403/1983), i, p. 148;
. ..
and Munı̄r al-Khūrı̄ ʿĪsā Asʿad, Taʾrı̄kh H . ims., vol. ii: min z.uhūr al-Islām h.attā yawminā, 622-1977 (H
. ims., 1984),
pp. 129–130, also locate Marj al-Akhram near Salamya, but without citing any source.
69 Madelung, “ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr”, pp. 294-297; Shaddel, “ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr”, especially Appendix
II.
70 Nagel, Rechtleitung und Kalifat, pp. 254-255.
71 See on him al-Dhahabı̄, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, (ed.) Shuʿayb Arnāʾūt and Muhammad Nuʿaym al-ʿIrqsūsı̄
. .
(Beirut, 1417/1996), x, pp. 223-225. Note that the complete version begins only with the phrase wa-qāla bn ʿAyyāsh,
which here presumably should be understood as “Ibn ʿAyyāsh continued”, since its previous tradition is related
with two different asānı̄d, the second being Abū al-Mughı̄ra < Ibn ʿAyyāsh.
72 See Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh, ix, pp. 35-50.
73 al-Dhahabı̄, Siyar, vii, pp. 64-65.
74 Nuʿaym, Fitan, p. 282.
concludes that it must have been Ibn Abı̄ Maryam who was using earlier material in his
tradition.75 This judgment seems highly doubtful. There exists a shorter, less fanciful variant
for Ibn Abı̄ Maryam’s tradition which Nuʿaym has received from another authority, Baqiyya
76
ibn al-Walı̄d al-H . ims.ı̄ (d. ca. 197 ah). This latter version is lacking in some details of the
Sufyānı̄’s advent. The existence of this latter, independent line of transmission (Nuʿaym <
Baqiyya < Ibn Abı̄ Maryam) proves that the embellishments pertaining to the manner of the
Sufyānı̄’s advent in the longer version of the Ibn Abı̄ Maryam tradition (Nuʿaym < Abū al-
Mughı̄ra < Ibn Abı̄ Maryam) must be the work of Abū al-Mughı̄ra, the same embellishments
that we find in the Ibn ʿAyyāsh tradition, also transmitted by Abū al-Mughı̄ra. It thus stands
to reason that, in a simplified scenario, Abū al-Mughı̄ra would have received the historical
core of our tradition from Ibn ʿAyyāsh and the speculative elements from Ibn Abı̄ Maryam
and combined them, along with further additions of his own, into the more elaborate form
in which we now have it. The chart in the following page summarises the history of the
fusion of this material into the final form of the tradition.
This reconstruction finds further vindication in the fact that some of the elements in Ibn
ʿAyyāsh’s h.adı̄th (namely, the Sufyānı̄’s descent from Khālid ibn Yazı̄d) originate in a period
(that is, the Fourth Civil War) when of all of its tradents only Abū al-Mughı̄ra was alive.
Indeed, Nuʿaym himself outs Abū al-Mughı̄ra for tampering with traditions, if not forging
them outright, at another point.77 Ibn ʿAyyāsh, a native of H . ims. who was in his twenties at
the time of the ʿAbbāsid revolution, must have been an eyewitness to the historical events
retailed in the h.adı̄th. To recapitulate, our tradition comprises three parts: fanciful material
about the Sufyānı̄’s activities, going back to Abū al-Mughı̄ra, an ʿAbbāsid-era traditionist;
nuggets of extremely accurate historical trivia about the rebellion of Abū Muh.ammad, going
back to Ibn ʿAyyāsh; and very late historical information about the events of the Fourth Civil
War, also going back to Abū al-Mughı̄ra. This stratification of the tradition not only dates
it to no earlier than the time of the ʿAbbāsid revolution, but also shows that the accretion
of diabolic characteristics around the figure of the Sufyānı̄ was a relatively late development
that gradually took place in the early ʿAbbāsid era.
3. A tradition from the time of the ʿAbbāsid revolution in al-Dānı̄’s Fitan thus reads:
there will be ten [signs] before the day of resurrection: the discord (ikhtilāf) among the Umayyads,
the killing of the two lambs (qatl al-h.amalayn), the black banners in the east (rāyāt [sic] al-sūd
bi-l-mashriq), the sack (istibāh.a) of Kūfa, the rising of the Sufyānı̄, the deposition of a caliph
(khalı̄fatun yukhlaʿu), the pledging of allegiance to a man between [the well of] Zamzam and the
Maqām, an army that will be swallowed up (yukhsafu bihim) in the Baydāʾ, the battle with the
Kalb (yawm Kalb), and [the battles of] the aʿmāq.78
The order of the events adumbrated in the h.adı̄th does not fully tally with their actual
chronology, but this could simply be due to unintentional transpositions in the course of
75 Madelung, “The Sufyānı̄”, p. 19. Probably because he considers Ibn Abı̄ Maryam a “weak” traditionist, whilst
Abū al-Mughı̄ra is regarded as “highly reliable”; Ibid., p. 16.
76 Fitan, p. 280. On Baqiyya, see Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh, x, pp. 328-354.
77 See infra, Section III.
78 al-Dānı̄, al-Sunan al-wārida fı̄ al-fitan wa-ghawāʾilihā wa-l-sāʿa wa-ashrātihā, (ed.) Ridāʾ Allāh al-Mubārakfūrı̄
. .
(Riyadh, 1416/1995), pp. 978–979.
418 Mehdy Shaddel
Chart. The transmission history of the historical and speculative elements of tradition 2. Note that the
independent transmission line on the right (pale) transmits only speculative material that could also be
found as a distinct tradition in Nuʿaym.
transmission and should not pose intractable problems for their identification. “The discord
among the Umayyads” evidently refers to the Third Civil War, the only occasion when an
Umayyad took up arms against another.79 “The killing of the two lambs” is a reference to the
murder, in 126 ah, of al-H . akam and ʿUthmān, the two young sons of the Umayyad caliph
al-Walı̄d II ibn Yazı̄d II ibn ʿAbd al-Malik – whose own regicide less than a year earlier had
helped to precipitate the civil war. The two had been designated as heirs apparent by their
father and when he was murdered the putschists threw them into prison along with other
opponents and potential rivals, among them Abū Muh.ammad al-Sufyānı̄. The coup d’état
installed Yazı̄d III ibn al-Walı̄d I as caliph, but he died shortly afterwards and was replaced
by his brother, Ibrāhı̄m. The future caliph Marwān II then rose in revolt in the name of the
two brothers, and when his army approached Damascus the panic-stricken leaders of the
coup entered the dungeon of the royal palace and, in a last-ditch effort, killed the young
brothers – Abū Muh.ammad barely escaped their fate.80 Maybe not coincidentally, it was Abū
79 Discounting the abortive coup d’état of ʿAmr ibn Saʿı̄d al-Ashdaq against ʿAbd al-Malik in 69 AH, on
which see ‘Abd al-Ameer ‘Abd Dixon, The Umayyad Caliphate 65-86/684-705: A Political Study (London, 1971),
pp. 124–128.
80 Notable studies on the Third Civil War include Wellhausen, Das arabische Reich, pp. 218-247 (The Arab
Kingdom, 350-396); M. A. Shaban, Islamic History, A.D. 600-750 (ah 132): A New Interpretation (Cambridge, 1971),
pp. 153–164; Steven C. Judd, The Third Fitna: Orthodoxy, Heresy and Coercion in Late Umayyad History (unpublished
Muh.ammad himself who, upon his release from prison, described them as “the two lambs”
to Marwān, citing an apparently ex eventu prophecy. The version of the account in the only
extant manuscript of Khalı̄fa ibn Khayyāt.’s (d. 240 ah) Taʾrı̄kh, on which the critical edition
is based, is somewhat cryptic, but it can be deciphered with the help of the variant reported
for the same account by Ibn ʿAsākir, who quotes it from Khalı̄fa himself. In this latter version,
Abū Muh.ammad sternly warns, “we are doomed if the two were the two lambs who had been
foretold of and described” (innā li-llāh in kānā al-h.amalayn al-ladhayn yudhkarān wa-yūs.afān).81
In the light of this, Khalı̄fa’s version should be thus understood: “we are doomed if they were
the two lambs who [it has been foretold that] will be deposed and devoured” (innā li-llāh in
kānā al-h.amalayn al-ladhayn yuʾkalān wa-yūd.aʿān).82 A tradition in Nuʿaym also refers to the
two sons of al-Walı̄d II as the “two lambs”: “their kingdom shall indeed fall when one of their
caliphs is deposed and killed along with his two lambs” (wa-lā yasqut.u mulkuhum h.attā yukhlaʿa
khalı̄fatun minhum fa-yuqtalu wa-yuqtalu h.amalāhu).83 Ibn Qutayba (d. 276 ah), too, informs
us, without further comment, that the two sons of al-Walı̄d, “are called the two lambs”.84
“The sack of Kūfa” is most likely a reference to the capture of the town by al-D . ah.h.āk
ibn Qays al-Shaybānı̄’s Khawārij in 127 ah. They are not reported to have pillaged Kūfa, but
apparently a large number of the city’s defenders were killed in the event.85 This episode,
however, could also be eschatological fantasy, but it must be noted that the tradition, in
its present form, does not connect it with the advent of the Sufyānı̄. “The black banners
in the east” obviously refers to the Khurāsānı̄ musawwida.86 Finally, the “deposed” caliph
could be al-Walı̄d II, called al-khalı̄ʿ in some sources,87 and further identified as the father
of the “two lambs”, who will all be murdered before the onset of the tumult leading to the
downfall of the Umayyad caliphate, in another tradition cited above. But it is more likely an
allusion to Ibrāhı̄m ibn al-Walı̄d, whose militarily constrained abdication of his pretension
PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 1997); idem, “Narratives and Character Development: al-T.abarı̄ and
al-Balādhurı̄ on Late Umayyad History”, in S. Günther (ed.), Ideas, Images, and Methods of Portrayal: Insights into
Classical Arabic Literature and Islam (Leiden, 2005), pp. 209-226; idem, “Reinterpreting al-Walı̄d ibn Yazı̄d”, JAOS 128
(2008), pp. 439-458; Gerald R. Hawting, The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate, AD 661-750 (London,
2000), pp. 90–103; a succinct review could be found in Cobb, White Banners, pp. 71-75; and Hugh Kennedy, The
Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century (Harlow, 2004),
pp. 112–115; the role of the religious factor in the civil war has been explored in Josef van Ess, “Les Qadarites et la
Ġailānı̄ya de Yazı̄d III”, Studia Islamica 31 (1970), pp. 269–286.
81 Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh lvii, p. 330. I owe this intriguing reading to Sean Anthony. A less appealing reading,
apparently also adopted by the text’s editor, is innā li-llāh; inna[humā] kānā h.amalayn al-ladhayn . . . . In any case, this
is of no consequence for our purpose.
82 Khalı̄fa, Taʾrı̄kh, p. 374. This comes after an initial statement that the boys were “the two lambs”; Ibid.,
p. 373; Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh, p. 329.
83 Nuʿaym, Fitan, p. 194, p. 695; note also another reference to the killing of “the two lambs of the Quraysh”
in Ibid., p. 195.
84 Ibn Qutayba, al-Maʿārif, (ed.) Tharwat ʿUkāsha (Cairo, 1388/1969), p. 366. An apocalypse attributed to the
Old-Testament prophet Nathan (Nāthā) in Nuʿaym, Fitan, p. 707, calls al-Walı̄d II “the father [lit., ‘owner’] of two
cubs” (dhū al-jarwayn).
85 al-Tabarı̄, Taʾrı̄kh, vii, pp. 316-321; Laura Veccia Vaglieri, “al-Dahhāk b. Kays al-Shaybānı̄” EI2 .
. . .. .
86 The association is too well-known and has even become the title of a famous book on the ʿAbbāsid revolution,
Moshe Sharon’s Black Banners from the East: The Establishment of the ʿAbbāsid State: Incubation of a Revolt (Jerusalem,
1983).
87 al-Maqdisı̄, al-Badʾ wa-l-taʾrı̄kh, (Port Said, n.d.), vi, p. 51; al-Dı̄nawarı̄, al-Akhbār al-tiwāl, (ed.) Muhammad
. .
Saʿı̄d al-Rāfiʿı̄ (Cairo, 1330/1912), p. 332.
420 Mehdy Shaddel
to the Umayyad throne (ca. 127 ah) earned him the sobriquet al-makhlūʿ, “the deposed”;88
who is referred to as al-khalı̄ʿ in a singular tradition,89 where he is defeated by the “ass
of Mesopotamia”, Marwān II; and whose “deposition” is referenced in another tradition,
where he is clearly distinct from al-Walı̄d II, the caliph who gets murdered.90 As is clear,
this tradition hails from the late 120s and early 130s ah and, therefore, its Sufyānı̄ ought to
be identified with Abū Muh.ammad al-Sufyānı̄.
The last four episodes of this tradition are all ahistorical. Interestingly, bar one, they all
derive from the aforementioned Zubayrid propagandistic tradition. With the passage of time,
the historical context of this propagandistic tradition sank into oblivion and it entered the
corpus of the Muslim endtimes literature and was subsequently associated with the war
between the Mahdı̄ and the Sufyānı̄ before the eschaton. Two motifs from this tradition
were later conflated with each other and became staple items in the repertoire of Muslim
speculations on the end: the “swallowing up” (khasf) of an army sent against Mecca in
the Baydāʾ, historically the expedition of ʿAmr ibn al-Zubayr against his half-brother ʿAbd
Allāh; and the defeat of a second expedition comprised of Kalbı̄ tribesmen, historically
91
the expedition of al-H . usayn ibn Numayr al-Sakūnı̄ against Mecca. The Muslim tradition
conflated these two historical episodes already by the middle of the second century ah and
identified the resulting amalgam as the apocalyptic khasf of the Sufyānı̄’s Kalbı̄ army in the
Baydāʾ.92 However, as may be seen clearly, in this tradition the khasf in the Baydāʾ and the
battle with the Kalb have neither been conflated nor associated with the Sufyānı̄, at least not
in a self-evident manner. We thus have reason to think that these “signs” have just entered
our tradition as mere eschatological tropes and have nothing to do with its Sufyānı̄.93
“The pledging of allegiance to a man between the Zamzam and the Maqām” most likely
derives from the historical traditions on Ibn al-Zubayr as well, though there the unnamed
Ibn al-Zubayr is offered the bayʿa between the Rukn and the Maqām. “The battles of the
aʿmāq” emanate from another strand of early traditions concerning eschatological battles
between the Muslims and the Byzantines in the plains (aʿmāq) of northern Syria.94
88 On him, see Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh, vii, pp. 246-252; for his nickname, see al-Balādhurı̄, Ansāb, ix, p. 199;
Khalı̄fa, Taʾrı̄kh, p. 374; al-Azdı̄, Taʾrı̄kh al-Maws.il, (ed.) ʿAlı̄ H . abı̄ba (Cairo, 1387/1967), p. 131; Taʾrı̄kh-i Sı̄stān,
(ed.) Muh.ammad-Taqı̄ Bahār (Tehran, 1381/2002), p. 154.
89 Ibn al-Munādı̄ (d. 336 AH), Kitāb al-Malāhim, (ed.) ʿAbd al-Karı̄m al-ʿUqaylı̄ (Qumm, 1418/1997), 309.
.
90 al-Nuʿmānı̄, Kitāb al-Ghayba, (ed.) ʿAlı̄-Akbar al-Ghaffārı̄ (Tehran, 1397/1977), pp. 268–269. Here we have
a caliph who, “will be killed and will have no one to intercede for him in the heavens, nor anyone to help him on
earth” (mā lahu fı̄ al-samāʾ ʿādhirun wa-mā fı̄ al-ard. nās.irun), a reference to al-Walı̄d II’s reputedly sinful lifestyle and
his isolation; another caliph, “who will be deposed while he walks on earth without exercising authority over any
part of it” (the text reads: yukhlaʿu khalı̄fatun h.attā yamshiya ʿalā wajh al-ard. laysa lahu min al-ard. shayʿun, but it has to
be emended to yukhlaʿu khalı̄fatun yamshı̄ . . . ), an allusion to Ibrāhı̄m’s virtually non-existent hold over the realm;
succeeded by a caliph who is, “the son of a slave concubine” (ibn al-sabiyya) – Marwān II. This episode culminates
in, “the return of the rule to those entrusted with prophethood” (ahl al-nubuwwa; that is to say, the prophet’s family)
– a confirmatory reference to the ʿAbbāsid revolution.
91 For these identifications, see my “ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr and the Mahdı̄”.
92 First attested in Muqātil ibn Sulaymān (d. 150 or 158 ah), Tafsı̄r, (ed.) ʿAbd Allāh Mahmūd Shihāta (Beirut,
. .
1423/2002), iii, p. 539. It then entered the received version of the account of the Sufyānı̄’s expedition against the
H. ijāz; Cook, Studies, pp. 129-132. On Muqātil, see Patricia Crone, “A Note on Muqātil b. H . ayyān and Muqātil b.
Sulaymān”, Der Islam 74 (1997), pp. 238–249.
93 Sadly enough, the tradition’s tradents are all obscure people.
94 For these battles, see Cook, Studies, pp. 49-54.
4. Yet another composite tradition situates the rise of the Sufyānı̄ in the context of the chaos
leading to the fall of the Umayyad dynasty. The full version of this tradition has been recorded
by Muh.ammad ibn al-H . asan al-T.usı̄ (d. 460 ah); a shorter version could be found in the
Fitan of his contemporary al-Dānı̄; and two even shorter ones are recorded by Nuʿaym, all
with the same isnād. Here I will attempt to reproduce it based on these variant versions, but
its final part (and latest stratum) will be investigated sub num. 5. It runs as follows:
(the rule of the family of your prophet will be at the end of time [fı̄ ākhir al-zamān]. There will be
several emirates for them [lahā imārātun]. When you see [those emirates?] do not move and bide
your time until their emirates are established).95 When the Turks pounce on you and armies are
mobilised against you (idhā insābat ʿalaykum al-Turk wa-juhhizat al-juyūsh ilaykum) and that caliph
of yours who amasses wealth dies, a weak man (rajulun d.aʿı̄fun) will succeed him and will be
deposed (yukhlaʿu) after two years. The Turks and the Byzantines will thereafter ally [against you]
and warfare will plague the earth (wa-yuh.ālifu l-Rūm wa-l-Turk wa-taz.haru l-h.urūb fı̄ al-ard.) and a
caller will call out on the walls of Damascus: “woe to the Arabs from the approaching evil!” The
western side of its [grand] mosque will then be swallowed up so that its walls will be brought
down (wa-yukhsafu bi-gharbı̄ masjidihā h.attā yakhirru h.āʾit.uhā). Three people will afterwards rise
in Syria, all vying for the kingdom: the speckled one (al-abqaʿ), the flame-hued one (al-as.hab),
and a man from the house of Abū Sufyān, who will rise accompanied with the Kalb and will lay
siege to the people in Damascus (rajulun min ahl bayt abı̄ Sufyān yakhruju bi-Kalb wa-yah..siru l-nās
bi-Dimashq). (Their kingdom shall end where it began [yaʾtı̄ halāk mulkihim min h.aythu badaʾa]).96
The people of the west will then descend upon Egypt, and their entrance [into Egypt] will mark
[the beginning of] the rule of the Sufyānı̄ (yakhruju ahl al-maghrib yanh.adirūna ilā Mis.r fa-idhā
dakhalū fa-tilka imārat al-Sufyānı̄). But before that someone will rise who will summon [people]
to the family of Muh.ammad (wa-yakhruju qabla dhālika man yadʿū li-āl Muh.ammad) and the Turks
will thereafter pour into Mesopotamia (wa-tanzilu l-Turk al-Jazı̄ra)97 and the Byzantines will fall
upon Palestine. Afterwards the ruler of the west (s.āh.ib al-maghrib) will come forth and will kill
men and enslave women and will then return until Mesopotamia bows to the Sufyānı̄ (thumma
yarjiʿu h.attā yanzilu l-Jazı̄ra ilā al-Sufyānı̄).98
The pouncing of the Turks could refer to any of the more-than-a-handful of Turkic
incursions into the northern confines of the empire or Central Asia during Hishām ibn
ʿAbd al-Malik’s long reign. Armies mobilised against the Muslims also refers to incessant
warfare on all fronts in the same period.99 The caliph “who amasses wealth” is Hishām
95 This part has only been recorded by al-Tūsı̄, al-Majlisı̄ (who appears to rely on al-Tūsı̄’s text), and, in a
. .
heavily abridged version, by Nuʿaym, Fitan, p. 222. It is evidently a later insertion.
96 Only recorded in Nuʿaym, Fitan, p. 222.
97 Thus in al-Sulamı̄’s version, tatruku in al-Dānı̄’s text; badw al-Turk bi-l-Jazı̄ra in the shorter variant reported by
Nuʿaym, Fitan, p. 222.
98 al-Dānı̄, Fitan, pp. 936-937; al-Sulamı̄, ʿIqd al-durar fı̄ akhbār al-muntazar, (ed.) Muhayb al-Būrı̄nı̄ (al-Zarqāʾ,
.
1410/1989), p. 116 (quoting al-Dānı̄); al-T.ūsı̄, Kitāb al-Ghayba, (ed.) ʿIbād Allāh al-T.ihrānı̄ and ʿAlı̄ Ah.mad Nās.ih.
(Qumm, 1417/1996), p. 463; Muh.ammad-Bāqir al-Majlisı̄, Bih.ār al-anwār, (ed.) Muh.ammad Bāqir Mah.mūdı̄ et al.
(Beirut, 1403/1983), lii, p. 208.
99 The military history of this period has been treated extensively in Khalid Yahya Blankinship, The End of the
Jihād State: The Reign of Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads (Albany, 1994); a vivid, briefer
description is to be found in Robert G. Hoyland, In God’s Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic
Empire (Oxford, 2015), pp. 178–195.
422 Mehdy Shaddel
himself, notorious for his avarice and miserliness.100 The “weak man” who succeeds him
and gets deposed within two years is, again, al-Walı̄d ibn Yazı̄d – who ruled for a mere
one year and a half. The Turco-Byzantine coalition spoken of perhaps refers to the alliance
between Leo the Isaurian and the Khazar khāqān, sealed through the marriage of the former’s
son, Constantine V, to the latter’s daughter in 732 ce (ca. 113 ah),101 which during the Third
Civil War gave Constantine, now emperor, a free hand in dealing with the Muslims – insofar
as his own internal problems allowed him.102
The khasf of the west of the grand mosque of Damascus has been recorded as “the
dislodgement of a group from the west of its mosque” (saqat.at .tāʾifatun min gharbı̄ masjidihā)103
in other versions, and is very likely a reference to the manner in which Yazı̄d III and his men
entered the royal palace and took control of it. It must be noted here that Yazı̄d, it seems,
deliberately attempted to imbue his actions with messianic colouring: he entered Damascus
riding on an ass,104 reportedly accompanied by seven of his followers105 also riding on asses,
set out for the grand mosque of Damascus with twelve of his supporters,106 and, according
to most versions of the account, upon declaring him as caliph in the grand mosque his
supporters asked him to stand up like a rāshid and mahdı̄ (qum yā amı̄r al-muʾminı̄n rāshidan
mahdiyyan).107 After rounding up the grand mosque’s guards, they entered the royal palace,
by pretending to be al-Walı̄d’s couriers, from the adjoining grand mosque – the gate opening
to the royal palace was approximately on its western corner108 – and captured all the palace
officials as well.109
100 Francesco Gabrieli, “Hishām”, EI2 ; see also al-Jāhiz, Kitāb al-Bukhalāʾ (Book of the Misers), (ed.) ʿAbbās ʿAbd
. .
al-Sātir (Beirut, 1419/1998), p. 34 (for his avarice) and p. 198 (for his meanness).
101 Recorded, inter alios, by Theophilus’ dependants; see Hoyland, Theophilus, p. 230.
102 These internal problems have been reviewed in Leslie Brubaker’s and John Haldon’s definitive tome, Byzantium
in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680-850: A History (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 156–167.
103 Nuʿaym, Fitan, pp. 220, 285. In Ibid., p. 288, this becomes yasqutu jānib masjidihā al-gharbı̄. These versions are
.
shorter and with a different isnād, but are unmistakably the same tradition.
104 Also noted by Hawting, The First Dynasty, p. 93. A discussion of the messianic significance of riding on ass
can be found in Suliman Bashear, “Riding Beasts on Divine Missions: An Examination of the Ass and Camel
Traditions”, JSS 37 (1991), pp. 37–75; John C. Reeves, Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic: A Post-rabbinic Jewish
Apocalypse Reader (Leiden, 2006), pp. 7–12. ʿUmar ibn al-Khat.t.āb is also said to have entered Jerusalem, upon the
city’s capitulation, riding an ass.
105 On the numerological significance of the number seven, see Lawrence I. Conrad, “Seven and the tasbı̄ʿ:
On the Implications of Numerical Symbolism for the Study of Medieval Islamic History”, JESHO 31 (1988),
pp. 42–73, especially pp. 43-53.
106 The numerological significance of this number in near-eastern religious traditions is well-known; for the
case of Islamic apocalyptic, see Uri Rubin, “Apocalypse and Authority in Islam: The Emergence of the Twelve
Leaders”, al-Qant.ara 18 (1997), pp. 11–42.
107 It is, nonetheless, possible that it is our sources that are trying to cast Yazı̄d III’s actions in a messianic light,
but even in that case it would have very likely been a conscious, contemporary attempt with official sanction for
propaganda purposes (I am indebted to Mushegh Asatryan for this alternative scenario).
108 According to al-Hasan ibn Ahmad al-Muhallabı̄ (d. 380 ah), al-Kitāb al-ʿAzı̄zı̄ aw al-masālik wa-l-mamālik,
. .
(ed.) Taysı̄r Khalaf (Damascus, 1426/2005), p. 91, the qibla of this mosque faces an inordinately easterly direction
(munh.arifatan . . . ilā nah.w al-mashriq kathı̄ran). He then (Ibid., p. 92) states that the Green Palace is located “behind”
(fı̄ z.ahr) the grand mosque, which evidently means in the direction opposite to its qibla; in other words, in its
west-northwest; contra Finbarr Barry Flood, The Great Mosque of Damascus: Studies on the Meaning of an Umayyad
Visual Culture (Leiden, 2001), pp. 149–150, who misinterprets Ibn Jubayr’s (divergent) description.
109 al-Tabarı̄, Taʾrı̄kh, vii, pp. 239-241; al-Balādhurı̄, Ansāb, ix, pp. 172-173; Fragmenta historicorum arabicorum (al-
.
ʿUyūn wa-l-h.adāʾiq fı̄ akhbār al-h.aqāʾiq), (ed.) Michael Jan de Goeje (Leiden, 1871), pp. 135–136 (only the latter two
record the application of adverbs derived from the terms rāshid and mahdı̄ to him). Some of the messianic elements
in Yazı̄d’s actions have already been noted by Saı̈d Amir Arjomand, “Islamic Apocalypticism in the Classic [sic]
Of the three people said to rise in Syria the as.hab is to be identified with Marwān, who
in other traditions is referred to as “Marwān, the flame-hued ass of Mesopotamia” (h.imār al-
Jazı̄ra al-as.hab Marwān).110 The man from the ahl bayt abı̄ Sufyān who lays siege to Damascus is
none other than Abū Muh.ammad al-Sufyānı̄. The sources give us to know that, on hearing
of the coup, al-Walı̄d II ordered Abū Muh.ammad to march against his enemies with the
ahl H . ims.. He obliged and marched out with his forces and encamped outside Damascus,
but was won over by Yazı̄d and pledged allegiance to him.111 His recognition of Yazı̄d
notwithstanding, when al-Walı̄d was murdered he rose in revolt, calling for his revenge,
and once more marched with the ahl H . ims. against the usurper, but, after defeat outside
Damascus, was taken prisoner and thrown into the Green Palace’s dungeon.112 But it is
more likely that there was only one expedition against Damascus, with our sources trying to
make sense of seemingly contradictory reports by postulating two.113 In either case, the Kalb
seem to have cast their lot with their Sufyānid kinsman on neither occasion, though there is
a passing mention of one branch of them as being among Abū Muh.ammad’s supporters in
al-T.abarı̄’s narrative.114 It was at this time that Marwān began marching towards Syria with
his army of the Armenian frontier, but his advance came to a halt in Mesopotamia due to an
outbreak of mutiny within the ranks of his own soldiers,115 led by one Thābit ibn Nuʿaym
al-Judhāmı̄, a perennial trouble-maker.116 Yazı̄d III’s sudden demise six months later and
the succession of his brother Ibrāhı̄m, however, provided Marwān with the opportunity to
launch a second bid for power. The abqaʿ of this tradition must, therefore, either refer to
Yazı̄d or, less likely, to his brother Ibrāhı̄m,117 and the statement “their kingdom shall end
where it began” to the infighting in Syria. The first stratum of the tradition would have
been composed at this very juncture (126 ah), for it continues by stating that the coming
of the ahl al-maghrib to Egypt, “will mark the beginning of the Sufyānı̄’s rule”, two events
Period”, in B. McGinn, J. J. Collins, and S. J. Stein (eds), The Continuum History of Apocalypticism (New York, 2003),
pp. 380–413, at p. 394.
110 Nuʿaym, Fitan, p. 194; cf. Ibid., p. 695.
111 al-Tabarı̄, Taʾrı̄kh, vii, p. 243; Fragmenta, pp. 138-139 (mistakenly calls him “Abū Muhammad Muhammad
. . .
ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazı̄d”).
112 Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh, xix, pp. 153-155; lvii, pp. 307-309; al-Tabarı̄, Taʾrı̄kh, vii, pp. 262-266; al-Balādhurı̄,
.
Ansāb, ix, pp. 203-204.
113 al-Azdı̄, Taʾrı̄kh al-Mawsil, p. 58, only knows of one expedition. So does Khalı̄fa, Taʾrı̄kh, p. 364, followed
.
by Ibn ʿAbd Rabbihi, al-ʿIqd al-farı̄d, (ed.) ʿAbd al-Majı̄d al-Tarh.ı̄nı̄ (Beirut, 1404/1983), v, p. 205, who, however,
mentions al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Walı̄d I, a brother of Yazı̄d III, as the leader of this expedition. For his own part,
al-Yaʿqūbı̄, Taʾrı̄kh, (ed.) ʿAbd al-Amı̄r Muhannā (Beirut, 1431/2010), ii, p. 266, states that the ahl H
. ims. were led by
al-ʿAbbās, but that he was accompanied by Abū Muh.ammad, as well as Sulaymān ibn Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik.
But the presence of this latter in an expedition to restore or avenge al-Walı̄d II is a virtual impossibility, given that
he harboured an unflinching grudge against al-Walı̄d after being lashed on his orders and was also the very person
who, according to other reports, blocked Abū Muh.ammad’s advance outside Damascus.
114 al-Tabarı̄, Taʾrı̄kh, vii, pp. 265-266.
.
115 For these events, consult the works cited in fn. 80 supra.
116 Thābit is not, contrary to what Patricia Crone, Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity (Cambridge,
1980), p. 161, thinks, of unknown origins. His genealogy is given by al-Balādhurı̄, Ansāb, ix, p. 225 (against other,
late authorities adduced by Maribel Fierro, “al-As.far”, Studia Islamica 77 [1993], pp. 169–181, at p. 170 and fn 7.
thereto). He was a great grandson of Abū Zurʿa Rawh. ibn Zinbāʿ, a lifelong servant of the Umayyads and ʿAbd
al-Malik’s police chief, on whom see Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh, xiix, pp. 240-251; and Isaac Hasson, “Le Chef judhāmite
Rawh. ibn Zinbāʿ”, Studia Islamica 77 (1993), pp. 95–122.
117 However, I deem it necessary to state that no source known to me refers to either of them as such, neither
could any tradition mentioning the abqaʿ be easily connected to them – or, for that matter, to any other historical
personage.
424 Mehdy Shaddel
of which none ever came to materialise. At the time the Great Berber Revolt (123-44 ah)
was racking North Africa, but it never succeeded in wresting Egypt from the Caliphate –
though, as it appears, it did succeed in inspiring fears that Egypt, too, might be lost.
The tradition was at some later point updated by the addition of the part beginning
with “but before that”. The absence of the black banners motif rules out the ʿAbbāsids as
a possible referent of the phrase “the person summoning to the family of Muh.ammad”.
Moreover, the h.adı̄th plainly envisages a single person here, whereas the traditions on the
ʿAbbāsid revolution never speak of their protagonists in the singular. This figure has thus
to be identified with ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muʿāwiya ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar ibn Abı̄ T.ālib,
the T.ālibid who rebelled in 127 ah and, like the ʿAbbāsid duʿāt, called to “the chosen one
of the family of Muh.ammad”, al-rid.ā min āl Muh.ammad.118 He initially managed to take
control of large swathes of territory in western and southern Iran, but was eventually put
to flight and forced to seek shelter with Abū Muslim al-Khurāsānı̄, in whose custody he
perished, under mysterious circumstances.119 The “several emirates” mentioned must be a
reference to the several ill-fated Hāshimı̄ revolts of this period, notably those of Zayd ibn ʿAlı̄
(ca. 122 ah), his son Yah.yā ibn Zayd (125 ah),120 and the aforementioned ʿAbd Allāh ibn
Muʿāwiya, but possibly others too.121 This updated version must have been redacted at this
very juncture, as the next episode, the coming of the Byzantines to Palestine and the Turks to
Mesopotamia, is, likewise, ahistorical. If the sentence “the rule of the family of your prophet
will be at the end of time” is indeed an allusion to the ʿAbbāsids, the tradition would have
been again updated at the time of the revolution to take account of the latest developments,
and this stratum may then be seen to reflect a pronounced pro-ʿAbbāsid posture. Yet, it is
also possible that the statement is not a historical allusion, and reflects attempts to promote
quietism (quʿūd) and dissuade the Shı̄ʿa from associating with various late-Umayyad rebels
who took up arms in the name of the family of the prophet.122
118 This elusive slogan is very hard to render into English. Ridā al-jamāʿa (and not al-ridā wa-l-jamāʿa, as commonly
. .
misstated by scholars, both mediaeval and modern) could roughly be translated “communal consensus”, and
frequently recurs, in the shorthand form al-rid.ā – or al-rid.ā wa-l-shūrā – from the time of the First Civil War onwards
as a slogan adopted by rebels who question the authority of a reigning caliph or pretender, as pointed out by Patricia
Crone in her classic, “On the Meaning of the ‘Abbasid Call to al-rid.ā”, in C. E. Bosworth et al. (eds), The Islamic
World, from Classical to Modern Times: Essays in Honor of Bernard Lewis (Princeton, 1989), pp. 95–111. The concept
of rid.ā al-jamāʿa later became one of the focal points of the classical Sunni theory of caliphate, as is clear, perhaps
above all, from the recurring references to it in the Muʿtazilı̄ theologian al-qād.ı̄ ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s treatise on imamate
(volume 20 of his al-Mughnı̄ fı̄ abwāb al-tawh.ı̄d wa-l-ʿadl, [ed.] Mah.mūd Muh.ammad Qāsim).
119 Sharon, Black Banners, ii, pp. 127-142; Teresa Bernheimer, “The Revolt of ʿAbd Allāh b. Muʿāwiya, ah
127-130: A Reconsideration through the Coinage”, BSOAS 69 (2006), pp. 381–393; William F. Tucker, Mahdis
and Millenarians: Shı̄ʿite Extremists in Early Muslim Iraq (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 88–108; Crone, Nativist Prophets,
pp. 92-95; Antoine Borrut, “ʿAbd Allāh b. Muʿāwiya”, EI3 .
120 On which see Wilferd Madelung, “Zayd b. ʿAlı̄”, EI2 ; idem, “Yahyā b. Zayd”, EI2 ; Saleh Said Agha,
.
The Revolution which Toppled the Umayyads: Neither Arab nor ʿAbbāsid (Leiden, 2003), pp. 26–33; Najam Haider,
The Origins of the Shı̄ʿa: Identity, Ritual, and Sacred Space in Eighth-Century Kūfa (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 193–201;
Andrew Marsham, “Attitudes to the Use of Fire in Executions in Late Antiquity and Early Islam: The Burning of
Heretics and Rebels in Late Umayyad Iraq”, in R. Gleave and I. T. Kristó-Nagy (eds), Violence in Islamic Thought:
From the Qurʾān to the Mongols (Edinburgh, 2015), pp. 106–127, at pp. 111-113 and pp. 120-122.
121 On pro-ʿAlid rebellions of the period in general, see Ibid., pp. 109-113 and pp. 120-125; and Judd, The Third
Fitna, pp. 272-278; as well as Tucker, Mahdis and Millenarians.
122 Apart from the hāshimiyya movement that brought the ʿAbbāsids to power, a number of these rebels succeeded
in establishing their authority over some areas and minted coins in their own name. The legends on their coinage
bear ample testimony to their efforts at legitimisation by appeal to their blood relations with the prophet; Luke
5. As luck would have it, one of Nuʿaym’s two mutilated versions more or less takes up
where al-Dānı̄’s version leaves off, and consequently these two fragments complement each
other to give the full version as recorded by al-T.ūsı̄. It reads,
an ʿAbd Allāh will pursue another ʿAbd Allāh and the armies of the two will join battle in
Qarqı̄siyāʾ on the river. There will be a great battle between them and then the ruler of the west
(s.āh.ib al-maghrib) will go and kill men and enslave women and will then return, accompanied
by the Qays, until Mesopotamia bows to the Sufyānı̄. He [the Sufyānı̄?] will follow the Yamānı̄
afterwards and massacre the Qays in Jericho. The Sufyānı̄ will then seize for himself whatever
forces they have mustered [?] and turn towards Kūfa.123
The tradition then closes with the Sufyānı̄’s triumph over the three banners in Syria (which
technically would require his also defeating his own forces!) and the stock accounts of
his atrocities in Kūfa, as well as an expedition despatched against Khurāsān. This section
apparently was added to our tradition during the abortive rebellion of ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlı̄,
the ʿAbbāsid governor of Syria (hence his moniker of .sāh.ib al-maghrib in our Iraqi tradition),
against his nephew, the new caliph Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd Allāh al-Mans.ūr, in late 136-early 137
ah. Anti-ʿAbbāsid factions seem to have been filled with immense glee at the sight of the
ʿAbbāsids fighting off each other, both at this time and during the Fourth Civil War six
decades later, and anticipated the imminent fall of the new regime. Both occasions witnessed
a proliferation of traditions prognosticating the proximity of their demise. These hopes are
best expressed in a tradition found in the Kitāb al-Ghayba of the Shı̄ʿı̄ scholar Muh.ammad
ibn Ibrāhı̄m al-Nuʿmānı̄ (d. 360 ah), ascribed to the fifth Shı̄ʿı̄ imām Muh.ammad al-Bāqir,
which clearly dates to this period:
when an internecine feud (ikhtilāf) erupts in the house of so-and-so, then wait for your redemption
(faraj). Verily your redemption will be in the feud amongst the house of so-and-so. . . . The qāʾim
will only rise and you will only see what you long for when their infighting begins. When that
happens . . . the Sufyānı̄ will rise. The family of so-and-so are bound to rule; but when they
come to rule, they shall begin to quarrel (ikhtalafū) and their kingdom shall become fragmented
(tafarraqa mulkuhum)124 and their cause divided (wa-tashattata amruhum), until the Khurāsānı̄ and
the Sufyānı̄ rise against them, the former from the east and the latter from the west, racing
towards Kūfa. They shall meet their end at the hands of these two, and no doubt these two will
not leave a single one of them alive.125
“The family of so-and-so” has explicitly been referred to as “the ʿAbbāsid family” in an
abridged version.126 On the other hand, Kūfa is evidently the capital of the ruling dynasty
Treadwell, “Qur’anic Inscriptions on the Coins of the ahl al-bayt from the Second to Fourth Century AH”, Journal
of Qur’anic Studies 14 (2012), pp. 47–71.
123 Nuʿaym, Fitan, pp. 302-303; cf. al-Tūsı̄, Ghayba, p. 464; al-Majlisı̄, Bihār al-anwār, lii, p. 208; cf. also al-
. .
Nuʿmānı̄, Ghayba, pp. 279-282 (this last version is a highly embellished, late elaboration).
124 The editors emend the phrase to tafarraqa kulluhum, which does not make much sense in this context.
125 al-Nuʿmānı̄, Ghayba, p. 255; al-Majlisı̄, Bihār al-anwār, lii, pp. 231-232, pp. 234-235. Another case in point is
.
Nuʿaym, Fitan, p. 210 (see Madelung, “The Sufyānı̄”, p. 33, for its analysis), and yet another al-Nuʿmānı̄, Ghayba,
pp. 262-263. For apocalyptic anxieties generated by the Fourth Civil War, consult David Cook, “The Apocalyptic
Year 200/815-16 and the Events Surrounding It”, in A. I. Baumgarten (ed.) Apocalyptic Time (Leiden, 2000),
pp. 41–67; and now Hayrettin Yücesoy, Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics in Medieval Islam: The ʿAbbāsid Caliphate
in the Early Ninth Century (Columbia, 2009).
126 al-Nuʿmānı̄, Ghayba, p. 259.
426 Mehdy Shaddel
in this h.adı̄th, and this fact dates it to 132-46 ah, the only occasion, apart from ʿAlı̄ ibn
Abı̄ T.ālib’s short-lived caliphate (35-40 ah), that the city served in that capacity.127 The
only internecine conflict of this period is the one between ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlı̄ and his
nephew, thereby dating the h.adı̄th precisely to early 137 ah. By the Khurāsānı̄, Abū Muslim
al-Khurāsānı̄, the kingmaker who ruled the eastern lands of the empire as his personal
fiefdom and was, accordingly, perceived as a menacing threat to the fledgling ʿAbbāsid state,
is intended here.128 The Sufyānı̄, co-opted by Shı̄ʿı̄ apocalyptic, appears as a grey figure in
this h.adı̄th: both he and the Khurāsānı̄ are mere dogsbodies for the Shı̄ʿı̄ qāʾim, who are to
pave the way for his parousia by destroying the ʿAbbāsids.129 But the ʿAbbāsids proved to be
more resilient than that.
Abū Muslim eventually decided to cast his lot with al-Mans.ūr and marched against ʿAbd
Allāh ibn ʿAlı̄ with his khurāsāniyya. The Syro-Mesopotamian frontier force, which had come
to be dominated by the Qays in the course of the civil war,130 comprised the backbone of
ʿAbd Allāh’s troops – the divided loyalties of his Khurāsānı̄ troops made them less reliable
in a war with their fellow Khurāsānı̄s who constituted Abū Muslim’s army. According to
an unlikely account in al-T.abarı̄’s Taʾrı̄kh, he went so far as to massacre seventeen thousand
127 Hichem Djaı̈t, “Kūfa”, EI2 ; cf. Jacob Lassner, “al-Hāshimiyya”, EI2 .
128 Pace Cook, “Apocalyptic Year 200”, p. 52 and fn. 48 thereto; and Yücesoy, Messianic Beliefs, p. 76, who,
neglectful of Kūfa’s position in this h.adı̄th, mistakenly date the tradition to the time of the Fourth Civil War and
misidentify its Khurāsānı̄ with al-Maʾmūn himself or his commander, T.āhir ibn al-H . usayn Dhū al-Yamı̄nayn.
While a staggering number of studies have been dedicated to Abū Muslim’s role in the revolutionary movement, his
career in Khurāsān in the years following the hāshimiyya’s triumph has received scant, if any, attention. One of the
few exceptions to this rule is Yury Karev’s “La politique d’Abū Muslim dans le Māwarāʾannahr: nouvelles données
textuelles et archéologiques”, Der Islam 79 (2002), pp. 1–46. The author has recently published a thorough study on
the subject, Samarqand et le Sughd à l’epoque ‘abbaside: histoire politique et sociale (Leuven, 2015), which, unfortunately,
I was unable to consult before submitting this article. See also Étienne de la Vaissière, Samarcande et Samarra: élites
d’Asie centrale dans l’empire abbaside (Paris, 2007), pp. 54–58.
129 Apparently the primarily Shı̄ʿı̄ concept of qāʾim and the Islamic idea of mahdı̄ had yet to coalesce at this
time. Mahdı̄ appears to have been a rather ill-defined appellative of amorphous salvific acceptation prior to the
messianically-charged rebellion of Muh.ammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya in 145 ah, as evidenced by a monumental
inscription of the first ʿAbbāsid caliph, Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Saffāh., dated 136 ah – that is, exactly contemporary
with the above tradition. This highly important inscription, one of the only two living testimonies to al-Saffāh.’s
adoption of the title of mahdı̄, commemorates the renovation of the grand mosque of S.anʿāʾ on the caliph’s orders
and reads thusly at one point: “the mahdı̄, servant of God ʿAbd Allāh, commander of the believers, may God glorify
him, has ordered the rebuilding and renovation of mosques” (amara l-mahdı̄ ʿabd Allāh ʿAbd Allāh amı̄r al-muʾminı̄n
akramahu llāh bi-is.lāh. al-masājid wa-ʿimāratihā); Eugen Mittwoch, “Eine arabische Bauinschrift aus dem Jahre 136
AH.”, Orientalia 4 (1935), pp. 235–238 (see Moshe Sharon, Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae, ii: B-C
[Leiden, 1999], pp. 214–219, for the other inscription, from Baysān, in the historical region of jund al-Urdunn).
This publicity statement shows that at the time what was generally expected from a mahdı̄ was such pious acts as
reconstruction of mosques, and perhaps also ruling justly, in accordance with the “prophetic sunna”, however it was
conceived of at this early date. Slightly earlier, in 126 ah, Yazı̄d III had been asked to “stand up mahdı̄-like” (qum . . .
mahdiyyan; see above, sub num. 4), with the term applied as an adverb (h.āl), thereby signifying that it predominantly
denoted acts and behaviours rather than a specific personality (or personalities). Cf. also the cases adduced by
Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, God’s Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (Cambridge, 1986),
pp. 36–40, pp. 102-103. Literary evidence for al- Saffāh.’s arrogation of the title of mahdı̄ has been collected in ʿAbd
al-ʿAzı̄z al-Dūrı̄, “al-Fikra al-mahdiyya bayn al-daʿwa al-ʿabbāsiyya wa-l-ʿas.r al-ʿabbāsı̄ al-awwal”, in W. al-Qād.ı̄
(ed.), Studia Arabica et Islamic: Festschrift for Ih.sān ʿAbbās (Beirut, 1981), pp. 123–132, at pp. 127-128, to which we
may add Abū Saʿı̄d ʿAbd al-H . ayy Gardı̄zı̄ (d. ca. 442 ah), Zayn al-akhbār, (ed.) ʿAbd al-H
. ayy H
. abı̄bı̄ (Tehran, 1363
/1984), p. 134.
130 A summary of the developments leading to the Qaysı̄ domination of this force is to be found in Hawting,
The First Dynasty, pp. 101-103; and Cobb, White Banners, p. 72.
Khurāsānı̄s among his troops.131 Contrary to what our tradition reports, the sources record
no major engagement between the two factions in Qarqı̄siyāʾ, but, in his account of the
event, al-Balādhurı̄ does passingly mention a clash there.132 ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlı̄’s forces
were ultimately crushed by Abū Muslim’s crack troops in Nisibis,133 further to the west of
Qarqı̄siyāʾ.134 Hence, this part of the lengthy tradition recorded by al-Dānı̄, al-T.ūsı̄, and
Nuʿaym would have been added to it shortly before ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlı̄’s retreat to Nisibis
and appears to reflect hopes for an eventual destruction of the ʿAbbāsid state at the hands of
the warring factions.135
6. The following prophecy has been put into the mouth of the Jewish rabbi and seer Kaʿb
al-Ah.bār:136
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Marwān < Art.āt (ibn al-Mundhir) < Tubayʿ < Kaʿb:
when the cause of the ʿAbbāsids triumphs [lit., “when their mill starts grinding”], and those with
black banners tie their mounts by the olive tree of Syria, and God destroys the flame-hued one for
them, and kills him and the whole of his family at their hands, – until there remains not a single
Umayyad except on the run or in hiding – and the two branches, the Banū Jaʿfar and the Banū
al-ʿAbbās, fall, and the son of the liver-eating woman ascends the pulpit of Damascus, and the
Berbers pour into the navel of Syria, that will be the herald of the Mahdı̄’s advent (idhā dārat137 rah.ā
banı̄ al-ʿAbbās wa-rabat.a as.h.āb al-rāyāt al-sūd khuyūlahum bi-zaytūn al-Shām wa-yuhliku llāh lahum
al-as.hab wa-yaqtuluhu wa-ʿāmat ahl baytihi ʿalā aydı̄him h.attā lā yabqā Umawiyyun minhum illā hāribun
aw mukhtafiyyun wa-yasqut.u l-saʿafatān banū Jaʿfar wa-banū al-ʿAbbās wa-yajlisu bn ākilat al-akbād
ʿalā minbar Dimashq wa-yakhruju l-Barbar ilā surrat al-Shām fa-huwa ʿalāmat khurūj al-Mahdı̄).138
This Syrian tradition is likely to be the work of Art.āt (d. ca. 162 ah),139 a native of H
. ims. who
must have been an eyewitness to the events culminating in the fall of the Umayyads described
herein – the ʿAbbāsid subjugation of Syria, the killing of Marwān II (again referred to as
al-as.hab), and the open season on the Umayyad family, particularly the incident on the banks
of the Nahr Abı̄ Fut.rus.140 The fall of the Banū Jaʿfar clearly references the meteoric rise
and fall of the Jaʿfarid ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muʿāwiya (active 127-9 ah). Shı̄ʿı̄ apocalyptica of the
131 But in another account he simply states that a number of ahl Khurāsān deserted Ibn ʿAlı̄’s camp; al-Tabarı̄,
.
Taʾrı̄kh, vii, p. 475. Al-Balādhurı̄, Ansāb, iv, p. 148, only knows of “a group of them” being killed (qatala minhum
khalqan). Cf. Cobb, White Banners, pp. 23-26; Borrut, Entre mémoire et pouvoir, pp. 362-368.
133 Or, according to Ibn Aʿtham al-Kūfı̄, Kitāb al-Futūh, (ed.) ʿAlı̄ Shı̄rı̄ (Beirut, 1411/1991), viii, pp. 354–355,
.
in H. arrān, which seems unlikely.
134 The whole episode has been extensively treated in Borrut, Entre mémoire et pouvoir, pp. 354-368.
135 The tradition’s common link is ʿAbd Allāh ibn Lahı̄ʿa (ca. 97-174 ah), chief qādı̄ of Egypt under the caliphs
.
al-Mans.ūr and al-Mahdı̄, and he is in all probability responsible for it. On him, see Raif Georges Khoury, ʿAbd
Allāh b. Lahı̄ʿa (97–174/715–790): juge et grand maı̂tre de l’école égyptienne: avec édition critique de l’unique rouleau de
papyrus arabe conservé à Heidelberg (Wiesbaden, 1986).
136 On Kaʿb’s profile as a visionary, see John C. Reeves, “Jewish Apocalyptic Lore in Early Islam: Reconsidering
Kaʿb al-Ah.bār”, in J. Ashton (ed.), Revealed Wisdom: Studies in Apocalyptic in Honour of Christopher Rowland (Leiden,
2014), pp. 200–216.
137 Zuhayrı̄ mistakenly opts for raʾayta here, but Zakkār (p. 190) knows of no such variant.
138 Nuʿaym, Fitan, pp. 314-315.
139 For him, see Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh, xiii, pp. 8-16.
140 The massacres of the Umayyads by the revolutionaries have been studied in Chase F. Robinson, “The
Violence of the Abbasid Revolution”, in Y. Suleiman and A. Al-Abdul Jader (eds), Living Islamic History: Studies in
Honour of Professor Carole Hillenbrand (Edinburgh, 2010), pp. 226–251.
428 Mehdy Shaddel
period is acutely alive to the quick unravelling of the Jaʿfarid cause and the subsequent success
of the ʿAbbāsids,141 and occasionally also foresees the futile scrambles of the H . asanid family
for power in early ʿAbbāsid times – the abortive rebellions of Muh.ammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn
al-H. asan ibn al-H. asan ibn ʿAlı̄ ibn Abı̄ T.ālib “al-Nafs al-Zakiyya” and his brother Ibrāhı̄m,
142
and probably other H . asanids as well. The traditionist seems to expect the rapid fall of
the ʿAbbāsids immediately after their victory, apparently precipitated by the revolt of Abū
Muh.ammad al-Sufyānı̄, who is referred to as “the son of the liver-eating woman”, invoking
the alleged outrageous act of his great grandmother, Hind bint ʿUtba, Abū Sufyān’s wife, in
. amza ibn ʿAbd al-Mut.t.alib’s liver after his fall on the field of Uh.ud. But, although
143
biting H
this tradition expresses a marked disdain for the Sufyānı̄, it still does not depict him diabolically
and he remains a human being in it.144 What is more, it does not pit him against the Mahdı̄;
rather, he is simply the Mahdı̄’s forerunner. Whether the Mahdı̄ of this tradition is to be iden-
tified with the first ʿAbbāsid caliph, Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Saffāh., remains an open question.145
7. A tradition warns of seven tribulations (fitan) that will afflict the Muslim community,
prophesied by the prophet: “a fitna that shall come from Medina, another in Mecca, another
from the Yemen, yet another from Syria, one from the east, still another from the direction
of the west, and a [final] fitna from within Syria (min bat.n al-Shām) – that will be the fitna
of the Sufyānı̄”.
One of the tradents (a certain al-Walı̄d ibn ʿAyyāsh) identifies these fitan with, respectively,
those of T.alh.a and al-Zubayr, Ibn al-Zubayr, Najda (ibn ʿĀmir, the Khārijı̄ leader), the
Umayyads, and “these folks” (obviously meaning the then-ruling dynasty, the ʿAbbāsids).146
But, more appropriately, the fitna of Medina must be identified with the whole of the
First Civil War (35-61 ah), which broke out as a by-product of the murder of the caliph
ʿUthmān in Medina in 35 ah; the fitna of Mecca, as al-Walı̄d ibn ʿAyyāsh correctly noted,
with Ibn al-Zubayr’s failed caliphate (64-73 ah), with its capital of Mecca; that of the
Yemen, contra Ibn ʿAyyāsh, plausibly with the Yemeni revolt of the Kindı̄ scion ʿAbd al-
Rah.mān ibn Muh.ammad ibn al-Ashʿath, who claimed to be the south Arabian messiah,
141 al-Nuʿmānı̄, Ghayba, pp. 290-292; al-Majlisı̄, Bihār al-anwār, lii, pp. 185, 246-247 (where presumably āl Mirdās
.
should be emended to āl al-ʿAbbās, as suggested by the compiler himself).
142 yurfaʿu li-āl Jaʿfar ibn abı̄ Tālib rāyatun dalālun thumma yurfaʿu [li-]āl al-ʿAbbās rāyatun adall minhā wa-asharr thumma
. . .
li-āl al-H. asan ibn ʿAlı̄ rāyātun wa-laysat bi-shayʿin thumma yurfaʿu li-wuld al-H . usayn rāyatun fı̄hā al-amr; reported by
al-qād.ı̄ al-Nuʿmān (d. 363 ah); Sharh. al-akhbār fı̄ fad.āʾil al-aʾimma al-at.hār, (ed.) Muh.ammad al-H . usaynı̄ al-Jalālı̄
(Qumm, 1409/1988), iii, p. 356. On the joint revolts of Muh.ammad and Ibrāhı̄m, now see Amikam Elad, The
Rebellion of Muh.ammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya in 145/762: T . ālibı̄s and Early ʿAbbāsı̄s in Conflict (Leiden, 2016). On this
and other H . asanid-Zaydı̄ uprisings of this period, see Najam Haider, The Origins, pp. 189-214. On the rivalry
between H . asanids, H . usaynids, and other T.ālibid factions in this period as vented through traditions and prophecies,
see Elad, The Rebellion, pp. 425-446.
143 Fr. Buhl, “Hind bint ʿUtba”, EI2 .
144 Cf. Madelung, “The Sufyānı̄”, p. 22.
145 For al-Saffāh’s adoption of this title, see supra, fn. 129. It seems to have been the primary epithet by which he
.
was known during his lifetime, as his official inscriptions testify. According to al-S.ābiʾ, “there has been disagreement
about his titulature (ukhtulifa fı̄ laqabihi). Some say it was al-qāʾim, others say al-muhtadı̄, and still others al-murtad.ā;
but [in the time since his death] he has come to be primarily known (lammā ghalaba ʿalayhi) as al-saffāh.”; al-S.ābiʾ,
Rusūm dār al-khilāfa, (ed.) Mı̄khāʾı̄l ʿAwwād (Beirut, 1406/1986), p. 129; quoted in al-Dūrı̄, “al-Fikra al-mahdiyya”,
p. 128 (note that muhtadı̄ and murtad.ā are, respectively, from the same roots as mahdı̄ and rid.ā, and have the same
signification).
al-As.far al-Qah.t.ānı̄,147 and his “peacock army” (jaysh al-t.awāwı̄s), which nearly succeeded in
bringing down the Umayyad regime (ca. 81-3 ah);148 that of Syria with the Third Civil War
(126-9 ah), despite the fact that Ibn ʿAyyāsh apparently took it to mean the rule of the
Umayyads as a whole; that of the east with the ʿAbbāsid revolution (129-32 ah), although
taken to refer to the rule of the ʿAbbāsids; that of the west with the Berber revolt (began in
123 ah, effectively quashed only in 144 ah, during the reign of al-Mans.ūr); and, therefore,
that of the Sufyānı̄ with Abū Muh.ammad al-Sufyānı̄’s rebellion (132 ah).149
8. Elsewhere in Nuʿaym’s Fitan, we read accounts of the Sufyānı̄’s deeds which are
quite complex, conglomerates of sundry (and even contradictory) narratives;150 encounter
traditions which unmistakably date from the time of Abū al-ʿAmayt.ar’s rebellion;151 or are
simply impossible to date – with many of this latter type being either his descriptions or
merely a parroting of hackneyed statements about him, such as, “he will be the worst person
ever to rule” (sharr man malaka).152 But none of these traditions could conceivably be dated
to before the Third Civil War. I shall, thus, confine myself to investigating only one notable
example:
a man from the descendants of al-ʿAbbās will dwell in al-Raqqa for two years and will then lead
an expedition against Byzantium, but his expedition will cause more trouble for the Muslims
than for the Byzantines. He will return to al-Raqqa, but will receive news from the east that will
unsettle him. He will return (yarjiʿu) to the east and will not get back. He will be succeeded by
his son, followed by the advent of the Sufyānı̄ and cessation of their rule.
The ʿAbbāsid is to be identified with the caliph Hārūn al-Rashı̄d, who, towards the end of
his reign, took up residence in al-Raqqa, whence he led raids against Byzantium, and died
in Khurāsān, while on an expedition to quell the insurrection of al-Rāfiʿ ibn al-Layth, for
a second time (hence the tradition’s use of the verb yarjiʿu, “will return”).153 His son is, of
course, al-Amı̄n, who succeeded Hārūn upon his death, and the Sufyānı̄ is Abū al-ʿAmayt.ar
al-Sufyānı̄, who rose in revolt in 195 ah, during the Fourth Civil War.154
147 Maribel Fierro, “al-As.far again”, JSAI 22 (1998), pp. 196-213.

148 On this episode, see Clifford E. Bosworth, Sı̄stān under the Arabs: From the Islamic Conquest to the Rise of the
S.affārids (30-250/651-864) (Rome, 1968), pp. 55–63; Dixon, The Umayyad Caliphate, pp. 151-168; Redwan Sayed,
Die Revolte des Ibn al-Ašʿat und die Koranleser: Ein Beitrag zur Religions- und Sozialgeschichte der frühen Umayyadenzeit
(Freiburg, 1977), especially ¯ pp. 192–276; Laura Veccia Vaglieri, “Ibn al-Ashʿath”, EI2 .
149 The murder of ʿUthmān, the caliphate of Ibn al-Zubayr, and the revolt of Ibn al-Ashʿath have elsewhere
been explicitly identified as three of five fitnas that are to afflict the Muslim umma; Nuʿaym, Fitan, p. 52.
150 For these and other similar traditions, see Cook, Studies, pp. 122-136, who does his best to offer an ironed-out
account of his career, drawing on as many sources as possible. But this is no doubt a problematic approach, for the
Sufyānı̄, being a fictional figure, has never lived a life whose accounts might need harmonisation.
151 For these, see Yücesoy, Messianic Beliefs, pp. 74-77.
153 The textbook treatments of Hārūn’s reign are Hugh Kennedy, The Early Abbasid Caliphate: A Political History
(London, 1986), pp. 115–134; and idem, The Court of the Caliphs: The Rise and Fall of Islam’s Greatest Dynasty
(London, 2004), pp. 51-84; for his last campaigns against Byzantium, see also Michael Bonner, Aristocratic Violence
and Holy War: Studies in the Jihad and the Arab-Byzantine Frontier (New Haven, 1996), pp. 96–99.
154 For him, see Cobb, White Banners, pp. 55-64; Madelung, “Abū ’l-ʿAmaytar”. This tradition has also been
.
investigated in idem, “The Sufyānı̄”, pp. 42-43; Nagel, Rechtleitung und Kalifat, pp. 255-256; Cook, “Apocalyptic
Year 200”, p. 46; and Yücesoy, Messianic Beliefs, pp. 75-76.
430 Mehdy Shaddel
III
Al-T.abarı̄ preserves a report according to which Abū Muh.ammad’s partisans claimed that
he was, “the Sufyānı̄ who used to be foretold” (huwa l-Sufyānı̄ alladhı̄ kāna yudhkaru),155
and Madelung has taken this as evidence that by this time the Sufyānı̄ was a well-known
apocalyptic personage.156 But this argument is highly problematic and neglectful of the
mechanisms of traditional forgery and apocalyptic pseudonymity. Apocalyptists usually work
under pseudonyms, attributing their compositions to authoritative figures of the past.157 By
the same token, a supporter of Abū Muh.ammad who intended to earn him following would
have hardly got anywhere by coming right out and stating that he had himself been made
privy to the events of the future and had had foreknowledge of the Sufyānı̄’s rebellion prior
to its outbreak. The standard behaviour that we expect from such a person is for him to
claim, as any other forger would do, that he has heard the tradition, prior to the actual event,
from widely-respected authorities of sound repute – preferably deceased ones, as the dead
could not denounce the false ascription.158
More to the point, the complete version of Abū Muh.ammad’s claim, recorded by al-
Balādhurı̄, leaves little doubt as to its exact nature: according to al-Balādhurı̄, when Abū
Muh.ammad al-Sufyānı̄ rose in rebellion he proclaimed that “I am the Sufyānı̄ who, it is
related, will reinstate the rule of the Umayyads” (anā al-Sufyānı̄ alladhı̄ yurwā annahu yaruddu
dawlat banı̄ Umayya).159 It is beyond doubt that such a “prophecy” could not have been put
into circulation long before the rebellion, for the Umayyad dynasty had been toppled only a
few months earlier. In other words, the claim before us, purported to have come from older
authorities, is an ex eventu statement, in the feeble guise of a “prophecy”, which dates, at
the earliest, from the time of the fall of the Umayyad dynasty in 132 ah.160 This report is,
thereby, a further testimony to Abū Muh.ammad’s messianist propaganda campaign. It must
not, moreover, be forgotten that Abū Muh.ammad was himself very dexterous in putting ex
eventu prophecies to use, a fact to which Khalı̄fa ibn Khayyāt.t.’s report on the “two lambs”
attests.
More evidence for Abū Muh.ammad’s propaganda activities comes from the biography
of his sister, ʿAbda. A Sufyānid princess and widow of the Umayyad caliph Hishām ibn
155 al-Tabarı̄, Taʾrı̄kh, vii, p. 444.

.
156 Madelung, “The Sufyānı̄”, p. 14.
157 See, e.g., Collins, “Pseudonymity”; Rowland, The Open Heaven, pp. 61-70, pp. 240-247, et passim; and now
DiTommaso, “Pseudonymity”.
158 In fact, pseudonymity (and, more particularly, ascription to dead authorities) is a very common, if not
defining, feature of the genre “apocalypse” – for the obvious reason that, among other things, it would help to
assure the audience of its composition prior to the events referenced therein.
160 That such prophecies should be extant alongside reports in historiographical sources attesting to their
circulation is indeed a rare occasion in pre-modern history and of considerable value in the study of apocalyptic
literature and apocalypticism. The first-century rebel Ibn al-Ashʿath was said to be, “the Qah.t.ānı̄ whom the Yemenis
await, and he will reinstate their kingdom” (dhukira lahu annahu l-Qah..tānı̄ alladhı̄ yantaz.iruhu l-yamāniyya wa-annahu
yuʿı̄du l-mulk fı̄hā), al-Masʿūdı̄, al-Tanbı̄h, 272; or that he and Yazı̄d ibn al-Muhallab, “revolted to fulfil what had
been related concerning al-As.far al-Qah.t.ānı̄” (ʿalā tah.qı̄q al-riwāya fı̄ al-As.far al-Qah..tānı̄), as reported by al-Jāh.iz.;
quoted in Fierro, “al-As.far again”, p. 199. But I know of no tradition on the Qah.t.ānı̄ that could conceivably be
connected to either of them.
ʿAbd al-Malik,161 ʿAbda was taken captive in H . ims. by ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlı̄’s troops and was
slaughtered (dhabah.ahā) on his orders, in one account in revenge for the killing of the wife
of the ʿAlid rebel Zayd ibn ʿAlı̄. Legend has it that, years earlier, her husband Hishām had
forewarned her that she would be killed, but that many women (from the ʿAbbāsid family)
would then be killed on her account. Ibn ʿAsākir’s source then explains Hishām’s words
thusly: “it means that when people from your family (re)gain the rule, they will slaughter
women from the family of those who killed you in revenge” (yaʿnı̄ idhā kānat dawlatun
li-ahliki dhabah.ū biki min nisāʾ al-qawm alladhı̄na dhabah.ūki). The (historical) account of her
death closes by this significant statement: “it has been said that the Sufyānı̄ will rise to avenge
her” (fa-yuqālu inna l-Sufyānı̄ yakhruju thāʾiran bihā).162 It must not, then, be a coincidence
that al-T.abarı̄ and al-Balādhurı̄ attribute the cause of Abū Muh.ammad al-Sufyānı̄’s rising
to the attempt of an ʿAbbāsid agent to force an unnamed Umayyad woman into marriage.
According to their account, which seems to come from a common source,163 this woman
was a descendant of Maslama ibn ʿAbd al-Malik.164 However, Ibn al-ʿAdı̄m, who narrates
this episode from the Kitāb al-Dawla al-ʿabbāsiyya of the early akhbārı̄ al-Haytham ibn ʿAdı̄
(d. ca. 206 ah),165 identifies her as a descendant of Abū Sufyān, again without divulging her
name,166 and, in a most telling report in his Book of the Feud between the Banū Umayya and
the Banū Hāshim, the Egyptian historian Taqı̄ al-Dı̄n al-Maqrı̄zı̄ counts among the misdeeds
of the ʿAbbāsids the disembowelment of Abū Muh.ammad’s sister ʿAbda on ʿAbd Allāh ibn
ʿAlı̄’s orders upon her refusal of his marriage proposal (khat.aba ʿAbda bint ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazı̄d
ibn Muʿāwiya ibn abı̄ Sufyān zawj Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān fa-abat ʿalayhi l-tazwı̄j
fa-amara bihā fa-buqira bat.nuhā).167 To reiterate, we have a tradition stating that the Umayyad
prince Abū Muh.ammad al-Sufyānı̄ rose in revolt after an Umayyad woman turned down the
marriage proposal of an ʿAbbāsid, another tradition reporting that Abū Muh.ammad’s sister
was murdered because she turned down the ʿAbbāsid general ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlı̄’s marriage
proposal, and an ex eventu prediction stating that the Sufyānı̄ will rise to avenge her. Pieced
together, these accounts demonstrate that ʿAbda was the dishonoured woman for whose
revenge her brother Abū Muh.ammad rose in rebellion, that retribution for her coldblooded
161 Or, if we trust Ibn al-ʿAdı̄m, Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik; Ibn al-ʿAdı̄m, Bughyat al-talab, ix, p. 3928.
.
According to one report adduced by Ibn ʿAsākir, she was originally the wife of the caliph Yazı̄d II and it was only
after Yazı̄d’s death that she married Hishām.
162 Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrı̄kh, lxix, pp. 263-265.
163 Presumably al-Madāʾinı̄ (d. ca. 224 or 228 ah), the principal source of the two historians for this period;
Ilkka Lindstedt, “al-Madāʾinı̄’s Kitāb al-Dawla and the Death of Ibrāhı̄m al-Imām”, in idem et al (eds), Case Studies
in Transmission (Münster, 2014), pp. 103–130, at pp. 108-109.
164 al-Tabarı̄, Taʾrı̄kh, vii, p. 443; al-Balādhurı̄, Ansāb, iv, p. 223.
.
165 For this composition, see Tilman Nagel, Untersuchungen zur Entstehung des abbasidischen Kalifates (Bonn, 1972),
pp. 9–69; and now Ilkka Lindstedt, al-Madāʾinı̄ and the Narratives of the ʿAbbāsid dawla (forthcoming).
166 Ibn al-ʿAdı̄m, Bughyat al-talab, ix, pp. 3928-3929. Though in none of these three accounts is the woman killed.
.
The anonymisation of women who behaved ungenteelly or were treated uncouthly is an unfortunate predilection
of mediaeval Muslim sources; cf. the case of the “harlots” of H . ad.ramawt; Michael Lecker, “Judaism among Kinda
and the ridda of Kinda”, JRAS 115 (1995), pp. 635–650, at pp. 646-649; or the Khazrajı̄ harlot and her demonic
paramour; idem, “Notes about Censorship and Self-Censorship in the Biography of the Prophet Muh.ammad”,
al-Qant.ara 35 (2014), pp. 233-254, at pp. 243-245. This predilection is all the more understandable in the light of
the fact that reporting the mathālib of the kith and kin of noble families could get one into serious trouble: Ibn
Ish.āq was twice flogged for digging up embarrassing details from people’s past; Ibid., pp. 245-246; quoting Abū
al-ʿArab al-Tamı̄mı̄, Kitāb al-Mih.an, (ed.) Yah.yā Wahı̄b al-Jabbūrı̄ (Beirut, 1427/2006), pp. 300–301.
167 al-Maqrı̄zı̄, Kitāb al-Nizāʿ wa-l-takhāsum fı̄mā bayna banı̄ Umayya wa-banı̄ Hāshim, (ed.) Husayn Muʾnis (Cairo,
. .
1404/1984), p. 99.
432 Mehdy Shaddel
murder was a rallying cry of Abū Muh.ammad’s partisans who, naturally enough, wanted to
cast his revolt as a just rising against the callous tyranny of the ʿAbbāsids, and that the report
prophesying that “the Sufyānı̄ will rise to avenge ʿAbda” comes from ex eventu traditions
put into circulation by them – though vengeance is unlikely to have been the revolt’s sole,
or even immediate, cause.
This conjecture is strikingly seconded by a tradition in Nuʿaym’s Fitan which has been
received from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Marwān < Art.āt ibn al-Mundhir < his informants; and also,
again, from Abū al-Mughı̄ra < Ismāʿı̄l ibn ʿAyyāsh < his masters. Nuʿaym freely admits
that one of his authorities makes additions to the account (yazı̄du ah.aduhumā ʿalā .sāh.ibihi fı̄
al-h.adı̄th), and it is clear from the other versions168 that it is Abū al-Mughı̄ra who must be
held responsible for these additions. In this tradition, we read of the killing of an unnamed
Qurashı̄ woman (tudhbah.u imraʾatun min Quraysh) whom, the narrator states, “I would have
named, if I wanted to!” (law ashāʾu an usammiyahā sammaytuhā.) Thereafter, “a man named
ʿAbd Allāh will rise, calling for [her] revenge” (thumma yathūru thāʾirun yuqālu lahu ʿAbd
Allāh). The cause of this ʿAbd Allāh, “will kindle in H . ims., flare up in Damascus, and break
out in Palestine” (we are reminded of tradition no. 2 above), and he has all the trademarks
of the Sufyānı̄ known from other traditions.169 In a shorter version of the tradition (with
the isnād ʿAbd Allāh ibn Marwān < Art.āt < Tubayʿ), a woman of Quraysh will be killed
(la-yadhbah.anna imraʾatun min Quraysh), and in revenge for her murder the Sufyānı̄ will
disembowel women from the Banū Hāshim. This Sufyānı̄ will then die and, after several
years, a second Sufyānı̄ from the Qurashı̄ woman’s family will rise to avenge her, going
by the name of ʿAbd Allāh (that is, a “servant of God”), who, however, is a godless beast.
At the time, two ʿAbbāsid men, who are “the two branches” (al-farʿān), will be deposed –
an evident allusion to the Fourth Civil War, which broke out when the brothers al-Amı̄n
and al-Maʾmūn declared each other deposed.170 These two Sufyānı̄s must, therefore, be
identified with, respectively, Abū Muh.ammad and Abū al-ʿAmayt.ar al-Sufyānı̄. The name
of the fathers of both of them was ʿAbd Allāh, and the reference to the Sufyānı̄ as ʿAbd
Allāh, along with the omission of ʿAbda’s name, in this tradition seems to be an attempt to
obscure and thus update it to accord with the new situation.171
The part on the murder of the Qurashı̄ woman in the tradition no doubt dates from the
time of Abū Muh.ammad’s rebellion and must go back to Art.āt, who, it must be remembered,
was a native of H . ims. and thus very likely an eyewitness to these events. Ismāʿı̄l ibn ʿAyyāsh,
a disciple of Art.āt, must have received the tradition from him. But the tradition as a whole,
purporting to be the transcript of a discussion, in pre-Islamic times, between Kaʿb al-Ah.bār
and a monk called, of all names, Yashūʿ (that is, Jesus) concerning the future of the Muslim
community, is an anachronistic pastiche of eschatological topoi and motifs that must be the
work of Abū al-Mughı̄ra. At one point, it states that there will rise twelve “kings” (mulūk)
in the community of Muh.ammad, their last being, “a king who comes from the direction
168 Nuʿaym, Fitan, pp. 295-296, p. 695.

169 Ibid., pp. 696-699.
170 Ibid., pp. 295-296.
171 It may also be noted that some traditions record the Sufyānı̄’s name as ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazı̄d; Ibid., p. 279.
of al-Jawf,172 bringing affliction with himself (ʿalā yadayhi takūnu l-balāʾ) and demolishing
city walls (ʿalā yadayhi tukassiru l-akālı̄l),173 and who lays siege to H
. ims. for four months” –
Marwān II.174 At this king’s heels are the armies of the ʿAbbāsid revolution. The sequence
of the twelve kings ends here, as does a shorter version of the tradition transmitted on
Art.āt ibn al-Mundhir’s authority alone,175 but it goes on to state that three people from the
house of ʿAbbās will ascend the throne, non-sequentially named as al-Mans.ūr, al-Saffāh., and
al-Mahdı̄. Still later, Kaʿb states that their rule shall continue for “nine by seven”, i.e., sixty
three years. Sixty three years brings us to the year 195 AH, to the heat of the Fourth Civil
War. It then mistakenly predicts the premature death of al-Mans.ūr shortly after ascending the
throne in 136 ah, and it is only at this point in the longer version that the Sufyānı̄ explicitly
(re)appears176 on stage. We then hear of the battle of Qarqı̄siyāʾ, the two ʿAbd Allāhs, and
the incursion of the “yellow banners” (al-rāyāt al-s.ufr; apparently the Berbers) from the west
into Egypt. The tradition ends with the killing of the Qurashı̄ woman discussed above.177
As we have seen, the oldest traditions, or the earliest strata thereof, on the Sufyānı̄ belong
to the time of the Third Civil War and the ʿAbbāsid revolution. Some of these traditions
would have been put into circulation by Abū Muh.ammad al-Sufyānı̄’s partisans, but it is
likely that bystanders overwhelmed by chiliastic anticipations also produced such traditions.
Contrary to the view of some scholars, no Sufyānı̄ tradition could be dated to the mid-
Umayyad period, and thus it is unlikely that his myth was conceived either as a response
to the Sufyānids’ loss of power to the Marwānids or came into being as an inevitable
corollary of the above-discussed Zubayrid tradition. To the credit of the exponents of the
former view, however, there is a single tradition in Nuʿaym which pits the Sufyānı̄ against
a character called the “Marwānı̄”,178 but this tradition dates from the time of the ʿAbbāsid
revolution and is a reflection of the intra-Umayyad feud that was the Third Civil War.179 To
Lammens’ credit, a singular tradition (quoted above) speaks of the Sufyānı̄’s return (fa-yarjiʿu
l-Sufyānı̄), but even if there were people who refused to believe his death and awaited his
return, as Lammens suggested,180 they are unlikely to have been more than a paltry few.
It is not hard to imagine that the factor that contributed the most to the growing belief
172 The name of several localities (Yāqūt, Muʿjam, ii, pp. 187-188), of which none could have possibly served as
Marwān’s base of operations at any point during his long career.
173 A shorter version records this as hadm al-akālı̄l and glosses it as yaʿnı̄ hadm al-mudun, “meaning destruction
of cities”, and explicitly identifies the perpetrator as Marwān II; Ibid, p. 695; cf. 194. Iklı̄l (sing. of akālı̄l) denotes
any round structure (Ibn Manz.ūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, s.v. “k-l-l”; thus it could also mean “crown”) and here obviously
refers to the round protective walls of mediaeval cities. Marwān II notoriously reduced the walls of several Syrian
cities to rubble when they rose against him a second time.
174 His career has been studied by Daniel C. Dennet, Marwan ibn Muhammad: The Passing of the Umayyad Caliphate
(unpublished PhD dissertation, Harvard, 1939; not consulted); see also Gerald R. Hawting, “Marwān II”, EI2 ; and
the works cited in fn. 80 supra.
176 The word used is yarjiʿu, “he will return”.
177 See also Rubin, “Apocalypse and Authority”, pp. 15-17, on this tradition. It must, however, be emphasised
that Rubin’s presupposition that all eschatological traditions that make mention of twelve kings/caliphs are to be
envisaged as various facets of a single “apocalypse of the twelve” is gratuitous; rather, the “twelve kings/caliphs” of
the Muslim community is merely a recurrent motif in Islamic apocalyptic, which has the numerological significance
of the number twelve and the reference to the “twelve princes of Ishmael” in Genesis 17:20 to commend it (I am
indebted to Sean Anthony for reminding me of the Genesis connexion).
179 Thus Madelung, “The Sufyānı̄”, pp. 8-9.
180 Lammens, “Sofiânı̂”, pp. 138-139.
434 Mehdy Shaddel
in the Sufyānı̄ as an eschatological figure, and subsequently an endtimes villain, was the
traditions that were put into circulation during Abū Muh.ammad’s counterrevolutionary
uprising. These traditions, no doubt, more than appealed to many factions – the Syrians,
other opposition groups, perhaps even supporters of the ʿAbbāsids who viewed the Sufyānı̄ as
an instrument of divine castigation at whose hands they would have to suffer before the final
redemption – and, although the original Sufyānı̄ was no longer alive, they continued to
circulate and even proliferate. Madelung’s claim that the figure of the Sufyānı̄ was, from the
start, bound up with that of the Mahdı̄ cannot be maintained either. Save for one, none of
the traditions discussed above make any reference to the Mahdı̄, at least not in their earliest
layer, and even when we first find the antagonist of the Zubayrid propagandistic tradition
identified with the Sufyānı̄ – in Muqātil ibn Sulaymān’s (d. 150 or 158 ah) tafsı̄r – the
Mahdı̄ is absent from the discussion.181 Nor does any of them, pace Madelung and Aguadé,
characterise the Sufyānı̄ as possessing a diabolic, Antichrist-like persona.182 Likewise, Nagel’s
contention that the rebellion of the first Sufyānı̄ was bereft of messianic undertone and that
the rise of the Sufyānı̄ as a messianic character must be situated in the insurrection of Abū
al-ʿAmayt.ar, in the closing decade of the second century, is, in the light of the foregoing,
untenable.
As strange as it might seem, the demonisation of a salvific character is not unheard of
in religious history: another case in point is the Endkaiser, the last Roman emperor of
late-ancient Christian apocalyptic. Although the “last emperor” is first mentioned in the
Sibylla Tiburtina and the Apocalypse of pseudo-Methodius, both dating to the second half of
the seventh century,183 the idea has its roots in state-sponsored Byzantine eschatological
agitations of the late 620s and early 630s.184 Almost immediately after its emergence,
the figure of the last emperor was appropriated by the Jews and recast in the form
of Armilos, the Jewish Döppelganger of the Antichrist in the Hebrew apocalyptica of
Late Antiquity, which first surfaces at around the same time in Sefer Zerubbabel.185
mehdyshaddel@gmail.com
Mehdy Shaddel
Independent scholar
181 Vide supra, fn. 92.

182 Though that there were people opposed to Abū Muh.ammad al-Sufyānı̄ and his ambitions of restoring the
Umayyad caliphate who composed traditions describing the Sufyānı̄ in negative, if still humanlike, terms can hardly
be doubted, even in the absence of tradition no. 6 above.
183 For the date of these texts, see now Stephen J. Shoemaker, “The Tiburtine Sybil, the Last Emperor, and the
Early Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition”, in T. Burke (ed.), Forbidden Texts on the Western Frontier: The Christian
Apocrypha in North American Perspectives (Eugene, OR 2015), pp. 218–244.
184 As Gerrit J. Reinink argues in, inter alia, his “Alexandre et le dernier empereur du monde: les développements
du concept de la royauté chrétienne dans les sources syriaques du septième siècle,” in Alexandre le Grand dans les
littératures occidentales et proche-orientales: actes du colloque de Paris, 27-29 novembre 1999 (Paris, 1999), pp. 149-159,
especially pp. 151-155; but now cf. Christopher Bonura, “When Did the Legend of the Last Roman Emperor
Originate? A New Look at the Textual Relationship between the Apocalypse of pseudo-Methodius and the Tiburtine
Sibyl”, Viator 47 (2016), pp. 47-100, who contends that the Endkaiser motif in the Sibylla Tiburtina is an eleventh-
century interpolation that draws on pseudo-Methodius.
185 Wout J. van Bekkum, “Jewish Messianic Expectations in the Age of Heraclius”, in G. J. Reinink and B.
H. Stolte (eds), The Reign of Heraclius (610-641): Crisis and Confrontation (Leuven, 2002), pp. 95–112, at pp. 109-
110; John C. Reeves, Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic: A Postrabbinic Jewish Apocalypse Reader (Leiden, 2006),
pp. 19–22; Alexei M. Siverstev, Judaism and Imperial Ideology in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 154–158.

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The Sufyānı̄ in Early Islamic Kerygma: An Enquiry

into His Origins and Early Development∗

JRAS, Series 3, 27, 3 (2017), pp. 403–434

6 Lammens, “Le Sofiânı̂”, pp. 140-141.

strata individually. Secondly, in some cases it is possible to approximately date a tradition to

32 Wilferd Madelung, “K.āʾim āl Muh.ammad”, EI2 .

64 Ibn al-ʿAdı̄m, Bughyat al-t.alab, ix, p. 3927.

147 Maribel Fierro, “al-As.far again”, JSAI 22 (1998), pp. 196-213.

155 al-Tabarı̄, Taʾrı̄kh, vii, p. 444.

168 Nuʿaym, Fitan, pp. 295-296, p. 695.

181 Vide supra, fn. 92.

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