L’ouvrage

MARSHAM (Andrew), Rituals of Islamic Monarchy, Accession and Succession in the first Muslim Empire, Edinburgh University Press, 2009, 352 p. ISBN 0748625127.

L’auteur

Andrew Marshall est conférencier à l’Université d’Edimburg.

Presentation

This fascinating history explores the ceremony of the oath of allegiance to the caliph from the time of the Prophet Muhammad until the fragmentation of the caliphate in the late ninth and tenth centuries.

The study of royal rituals of accession and succession in Christian Rome, Byzantium and the early Medieval West has generated an extensive literature. This has however remained unexplored in scholarship on the Islamic world. This book redresses that by examining the ceremonial of accession to the caliphate in early Islam, covering the following aspects of the subject :

* The place of ritual in political practice * Changes and continuities in that practice * The problem of how best to understand accounts of ritual.

It also offers a contribution to major, current debates in Islamic history : the development of Arab-Muslim identity and the formation of the ’Islamic state’. It presents an accessible discussion of ’royal’ ritual in early Islam which situates developments in the Islamic world in a late antique and early medieval context, adding an important comparative context to the book.Key Features o The first book-length exploration of royal ritual in the Islamic world o Focuses on the oath of allegiance pledged by subjects to their caliph o Contributes to major debates in Islamic history including the development of Arab-Muslim identity and the formation of the ’Islamic state’ o Explicitly situates developments in the Islamic world in a late antique and early medieval context

Table des matières

Introduction ;
 Section I : Rituals of Rulership in Arabia and the Conquest Polity (c.570-692) ; 1. Ritual and Authority in the Late Antique Near East ; 2. The Bay’a : the Expression of Loyalty in the First Century of Islam. ; 3. Authority and Succession in the ’Conquest Polity’ (622-661) ; 4. Near Eastern Kingship : The Sufyanid and Zubayrid Caliphates (661-692) ;
 Section II : The Marwanid State (692-749) ; 5. The Wilayat al-’ahd : Dynastic Succession in Early Islam ; 6. State Ceremonial : the Bay’a in the Early Marwanid Period ; 7. Revolutionary Bay’as : Loyalty at the End of the Marwanid Caliphate and During the Abbasid Revolution ;
 Section III : The Early Abbasid Caliphate (749-817) ; 8. Succession in the Early Abbasid Period ; 9. Documents and the Bay’a from al-Wal ?d II to al-Mu’tazz (743-870) ; 10. Al-Mansur and the Succession of al-Mahdi : 136/754-160/776 ; 11. Succession and Civil War ; 12. Al-Ma’mün and al-Rida ;
 Section IV : The Rise of the Turks (817-870) ; 13. Al-Mu’tasim and al-Wathiq ; 14. Al-Mutawakkil and the Third Century Civil War ; Conclusion and Comparisons.

(Source : euppublishing.com)