Translated into English by Philip Hitti and Francis Murgotten in the early twentieth century as The Origins of the Islamic State, the Futūḥ al-Buldān by Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Balādhūrī (d. c. 892/279) has been a staple source for students of early Islamic history. Few works rival the Futūḥ's importance for providing details on the Arab Conquest and the early history of the Muslim state. Despite the Futūḥ's centrality in early Islamic historiography, Ryan J. Lynch's Arab Conquests and Early Islamic Historiography. The Futuh al-Buldan of al-Baladhuri is the first comprehensive study of this work. Lynch aims to contextualize the work within Arabic historical writing, and to expand our understanding about the Futūḥ's author, his sources, the work's content, and its reception and reuse in later medieval texts.
The book is a revised version of Lynch's 2016 Oxford D.Phil dissertation. Lynch starts his Introduction with a brief review of the scholarship on early Islamic history, and a discussion and comparison with al-Balādhūrī's other extant work, the large genealogical compendium Ansāb al-ashrāf. As Lynch notes, the works both “represent a unique synthesis of historical information from the first two centuries of Islamic history”, likely addressing different audiences. Indeed, Lynch suggests that the Futūḥ was written for a very specific audience: secretaries and high-level bureaucrats of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate, for whom the book would serve as an “administrator's handbook” (p. 8). At the same time, the work also provided a lieu de mémoire for narratives of a unified caliphate to educate that same audience, thus serving both practical and theoretical purposes (p. 228).
Chapter 1 (“The text of Futūḥ al-Buldān”) discusses the making of the two scholarly editions and the two manuscripts that were used in their production (Leiden University Library MS Or 439, and British Library BS Add 23264). Particularly interesting is the discussion of an additional manuscript, now held at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Landberg MSS 33) that was not used in either edition and is likely older than the other two manuscripts, dating to the mid-tenth/fourth century (p. 31). Lynch notes that there are not any immediately recognizable variants between the Yale MS and the ones held in Leiden and the BL; nonetheless, a new edition or translation would greatly benefit from this discovery (p. 32).
In chapter 2 (“The author and the context”), Lynch suggests that the Futūḥ was completed after the reign of the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 847–861/232–247), and likely during the reign of al-Muʿtazz (r. 866–869/252–255). This period after the death of al-Mutawakkil is known as “the anarchy of Sāmarrā”, a period of great political turmoil in which the caliphate was effectively ruled by Turkish military commanders and whence began the fracturing of central authority and a turn to provincial autonomy. This context would have made al-Balādhūrī's work a vital source for ʿAbbāsid administrators, Lynch argues, who intended to project ʿAbbāsid authority and emphasize the legitimacy of the Islamic state. Al-Balādhūrī himself was likely part of the inner circle of the caliphate in Iraq; he is described as a boon companion (nadīm) of al-Mutawakkil, and as a scribe (kātib), and appears to have been close to certain officials (there are two well-known qāḍīs among his main sources); apparently, however, he never held an official post in the ʿAbbāsid administration.
Al-Balādhūrī's closeness to certain officials nonetheless provided him with much material for his work. In a fascinating chapter 3 (“The sources of the Futūḥ al-buldān”), Lynch shows through careful analysis of the often shortened chains of transmission (isnāds) and the introductory expressions (qāla/hadadhanī/hadadhanā/rawā/akhbaranī/thakara) that al-Balādhūrī relied on a mixture of written and oral sources. Lynch's analysis suggests that al-Balādhūrī intended to demonstrate how he acquired his material, whether in oral or written form, through the manner of citation; for example, the information from a Kitāb al-Kharāj (Book of Taxation) of Yaḥyā b. Ādam b. Sulaymān (d. 818/203) he likely heard from a student called al-Ḥusayn al-ʿIjlī, and thus introduces the material with the words hadadhanī/hadadhanā (he told me/he told us; p. 86); the citations from authorities such as al-Wāqidī or Abū Mikhnaf, which he appears to have had access to only in written form, he introduces mostly with qāla (he said). There are some less clear cases (al-Madāʾinī, for instance, is cited with a range of words, p. 79), but this finding, i.e. the extent to which particular expressions were chosen to delineate the use of oral or written material, deserves further comparative study.
Lynch highlights the many professions of the early Islamic historian – as a author, editor, and compiler – and in chapter 4 (“The content and themes of the text”) shows the clear choices that al-Balādhūrī made in his work, particularly the “purpose of cataloguing long-lasting administrative decisions” (p. 106) focused on the “imperial project” of the ʿAbbāsid administration. He shows that the themes that al-Balādhūrī emphasizes in his narratives of the Arab conquests (such as…) were chosen as reminders of as well as a blueprint for the successful maintenance of authority in a sometimes disorderly Islamic state.
Chapter 5 (“The matter of genre and the classification of the Futūḥ al-Buldān”) and Chapter 6 (“The medieval reception and reuse of the Futūḥ”) further place the work in the historiographic context of both its time and the following centuries. Lynch highlights the inclusion of Futūḥ material in major later works such as Yāqūt's Muʿjam al-buldān, or Ibn al-Athīr's al-Kāmil fī-l-taʾrīkh, though he notes the great variety of reuse in both type and form. Notably, however, it was not the seemingly important information on matters of state that was transmitted, but exceptional and quaint material (such as al-Balādhūrī's account of the conquest of Sind, or his explanations on how a location got its name, p. 212–3).
Studies of individual works have largely gone out of style in the historical study of Islam; Lynch's book shows that a great deal of insight can be gained by a careful reading and analysis of one specific work. Another recent single-work study is M. R. J Bonner's al-Dīnawarī's Kitāb al-Akhbār al-ṭiwāl: An Historiographical Study of Sasanian Iran (Res Orientales vol. XXIII, Groupe pour l'Étude de la Civilisation du Moyen-Orient, Paris 2016). It is hoped that these publications will inspire similar studies of other important works of early Islamic history, few of which have received such undivided attention. One obvious candidate may be al-Balādhūrī's Ansāb al-ashrāf, which would now benefit from Lynch's careful study.
