A CRITICAL RECONSTRUCTION AND EDITION OF THE HISTORICAL WRITINGS OF MADA'INI

Abstract

Abstract : This study is an attempt to compile Abu al-Hasan al-Madā'ini's works as a historian and author in order to be able to appreciate their merits and value. The ultimate aim of the study is to allow us to evaluate al-Madā'ini's writings as a whole rather than as quotations in later sources. The Introduction serves two main purposes: to provide an account of al-Madā'ini's life and times and to give an idea of his large output as a writer of wide interests. It will be shown that al-Madā'ini's influence as a chronicler and author was dominant among his contemporary fellow writers and their successors, to the extent that nearly all of them borrowed from and relied upon him for information and enlightment on various subjects The body of the thesis is made up of as much as possible of the works of al-Madā'ini, collected, classified, and decribed with the intention of revealing the huge contribution to scholarship and historical scholarship in particular that they represent. The emphasis on 'history' is deliberate, for it is in this field more than in any other that al-Madā'ini made the most original contribution, as his books dealing with the conquests illustrate. Probably the most trenchant and authoritative of these is his book Futūb Khurāsān. Closely related to this area are his books and pamphlets treating the sira, the chronicles of Quraysh, and the historical events and conflicts such as those involving 'Ali and Mu'awiya and their respective followers. It comes as a surprise that al-Madā'ini expressed himself better and provided us with more historical data in his very numerous pamphlets than in his much longer monographs such as Akhbar al-Khulafa, although it must be said that his book Futūh Khurasan has proved to be a major work indeed and probably his best work. It must have been the model for the Futūb of both al-Waqidi and al-Baladhuri. As a prolific author and a man of many talents, al-Madā'ini was also able to deal with many topics as varied as the social traditions of the Arabs, marital relationships, and the lives of the poets, with a special interest in al-Farazdaq and Abi al-Aswad al-Du'ali. In these and many other subjects, al-Madā'ini wrote with authority and insight, a quality that characterizes his writings throughout and recommends him to present-day readers as it did to earlier ones.