Scholarship on early Near Eastern/Islamic political culture is now the richer with the appearance of two studies: Andrew Marsham's new volume and the more recent publication by Ella Landau-Tasseron.Footnote ¹ The two authors adopt rather different approaches. Landau-Tasseron's monograph, shorter than Marsham's full-length study, is organized topically and covers a broader sweep of Near Eastern history. One understands that it is directed, at least in part, at policy makers. The aim, it appears, is to further understanding of ideological trends in the contemporary Islamic world, no doubt with an eye to identifying moderate, non-extremist elements “with whom the West can talk” (my phrase). Landau-Tasseron is a seasoned historian, with a subtle writer's way with evidence. One hopes that the nuances of her discussion will not be lost on the intended audience.

It seems naïve to also hope that the same readers will turn to Marsham's fine new book. Marsham proceeds through the successive periods of Late Antique/pre-Islamic Arabia to the end of the Middle ʿAbbasid Caliphate (809–865 CE). He carefully considers the many facets of early Islamic political ritual and the stages of its history, with a sharp eye to the character and details of the evidence (material and written). He demonstrates admirable skills as a historian, bringing together considerable evidence to support his ideas, writing these up effectively, and thus guiding the reader with seeming ease through often unwieldy terrain. Marsham is in spots overly generous with his evidence; the discussion can grow crowded. It is also a rather conventional work; Marsham adheres closely to the rules, format and tone of the academic monograph. He keeps, however, to the highest standards of the genre. He is particularly good at situating his topic against the wider backdrop, in this case of early Arab/Islamic imperial history. This is, after all, the sine qua non of successful history writing. The politics of the early caliphate is, to be sure, well-travelled ground; the work of Hinds, Sourdel, Crone, Kennedy and ʿUmar (Omar) come readily to mind. But Marsham has found much to say that is new. It is in sum a deftly executed, intelligent and very useful work of scholarship.

His topic is ritual, the system of ideas and ceremony underlying “accession and succession” to Arab/Islamic imperial office. The system turned, of course, on the bayʿa, a term that Marsham has as “the pledge of allegiance” (American readers may be put off by the phrase, one normally associated with mumbled declarations of loyalty to flag and nation). The pledge, sealed with a hand clasp, expressed from its very origins reciprocity of loyalty and service, “an exchange of obligations” (p. 75). Political and military service was, in turn, imbued with higher purpose: the achievement of divine/Qurʾanic prescription, with His representatives (the caliphs, in their capacity as “deputies of God”) at the helm. Underlying these notions was a long-standing commercial ethos; the verbal form bāyaʿa, occurring six times in the Qurʾan, connotes ‘bargain,’ in this case of a religio-moral sort.

Marsham opens briskly with the period of Late Antiquity and the Arab/Islamic conquests. The relative confidence with which he treats the period will not sit well with some readers; skepticism regarding any effort at reconstructing the pre-Marwanid period is well-founded. There seems little reason, however, to question Marsham's general point about these notions – the idea of a “religio-political covenant contracted before God” (p. 54) and the idea of a reciprocal exchange colored deeply by long-standing commercial attitudes – as springing from a heady mix of ancient Arabian custom and Late Antique monotheism (especially in its Christian forms).

Dynastic succession was an Umayyad innovation. If informed by practical considerations (unity and continuity) and Near Eastern imperial tradition, it nonetheless provided anti-Umayyad forces with a casus belli. Marsham devotes considerable comment throughout to the institution of the wilāyat al-ʿahd. (His translation, though accurate, is long: “succession to/possession of the covenant”). By the Marwanid period, and into that of the early ʿAbbasids, it was customary to have two successors in line to both of whom Muslims offered their pledge. The wilāyat al-ʿahd would be abandoned only in the second half of the third/ninth century by the Samarra-era caliphs. A short-lived coda, as it were, occurred with al-Mutawakkil (r. 847–861) but the institution then fell away. It was, in other words, a conservative practice, enduring over two centuries. Marsham explains the transformation as the outcome of shifting center-province relations, that is, between Iraq and the key territories of Khurasan and Egypt. (Marsham's discussion illustrates nicely his ability to relate the narrow topic to its wider imperial setting.) If Marsham is right, and he builds a good case, it was of a piece with the disintegration of ʿAbbasid control: provincial elites, enjoying mostly unfettered authority, no longer sought a role in Iraqi/imperial politics. New caliphs, their domain much reduced, were now the candidates of military-civilian cliques at home.

Perhaps because of the sturdier character of the evidence, much of it derived from al-Tabari and al-Yaʿqubi, both of whom witnessed (the former up close, the latter at a provincial distance) the difficult years of the third/ninth century caliphate, Marsham's account of the first ʿAbbasid period is particularly good. The great bulk of his evidence is literary; Marsham refers, mostly in passing, however, to the archaeological and numismatic record. My sense on the latter score (and I rely on the substantial work of Michael Bates which remains, unfortunately, largely unpublished) is that there remains a good deal more to be learned from ʿAbbasid coinage than we know to date. Nonetheless, Marsham moves our understanding of ʿAbbasid political culture ahead a number of paces. The new dynasty, following the ouster of the Umayyad house, saw to a series of innovations. At the center now stood a thoroughly imperial, charismatic figure, “a world-ruler,” whose authority transcended “ethnic or tribal distinctions” (p. 184). No less a development was that which produced a thoroughly Arabic/Islamic paradigm of discourse, ceremony and leadership. It was certainly informed by Iranian/Sasanid tradition, or, in broader terms, pre-Islamic Near Eastern imperial tradition. Memory of the Sasanid past, as historians have long acknowledged, was carefully nurtured by ʿAbbasid scribes, scholars and merchants, all of Iranian extraction; Marsham adds in valuable manner to our understanding of the phenomenon. But legitimation and power now derived firstly from Qurʾanic imperatives, the memory and example of the Prophet, and a spreading if delicate web of contacts with an ever confident elite of urban traditionists and legal scholars.

The book is sustained by long and invaluable discussion of documents, both in the specific sense – Chapters 9, 12 and 16 contain detailed analysis of relevant Arabic documents – and the general (the contribution and historicity of documents preserved in the Arabic/Islamic canon). Specialists are likely to find this feature of the book especially helpful. The book is equipped otherwise with three useful maps, two genealogical tables and a very good bibliography. One wonders if more might not be done with the maps, particularly in this case the two maps of ʿAbbasid Samarra, given the city's purpose, at least in part, as a monument to Hashimite authority. Marsham (pp. 268–70, 279–80) speaks to the topic, and has taken the time, usefully, to provide specific toponyms on both maps, so perhaps these would have worked better had they been placed within the text. The question, in any case, is one that could be directed not only at Marsham's book but of many others published in the field as well. Regarding the bibliography, Marsham lists two authors (Marlia Mundell Mango and Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych) incorrectly by their middle names.

The book deserves to be read by specialists and advanced students. Instructors will find it an invaluable resource, particularly for upper-level and graduate teaching (Marsham presumes much prior knowledge of the background history so the book would work less well for first-year courses). The Press would do well to produce an affordable edition of the book.