ʿAbd Shams ibn ʿAbd Manāf

ʿAbd Shams ibn ʿAbd Manāf ( Arabic عبد شمس بن عبد مناف, DMG ʿAbd Šams ibn ʿAbd Manāf ) was one of the sons of the Quraishite ʿAbd Manāf ibn Qusaiy and played an important role in the political and economic life of Mecca two generations before the Prophet Mohammed . His descendants, the Banū ʿAbd Shams, were one of the most important clans of Mecca in the early 7th century and were given a central political position in the early Islamic state through the Umayyads who belonged to them.

Life

ʿAbd Shams was the twin brother of Hāschim ibn ʿAbd Manāf . Together with him and two other brothers, he created the political conditions for the Meccan trade that spanned the Arabian Peninsula . He himself is said to have established relationships with the Negus of Aksum .

After the death of his father he inherited the office of the commandant's office ( qiyāda ) of the city of Mecca from him . As the current head of the clan ʿAbd Manāf, he challenged the supremacy of the Quraishite clan ʿAbd ad-Dār, who were allied with the clans Machzūm, Sahm, Jumah and ʿAdī. He himself was able to win the support of the clans Asad, Zuhra, Taim and al-Hārith ibn Fihr.

The Banū ʿAbd Shams until the Prophet's death

ʿAbd Shams had eight sons: Habīb, Umaiya the elder, Umaiya the younger, ʿAbd Umaiya, Naufal, ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā, Rabīʿa and ʿAbd Allāh. The leading men among the ʿAbd Shams in the early 7th century were Abū Uhaiha Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀs and ʿUqba ibn Abī Muʿait, both grandsons of Umaiya the Elder, and the two sons of Rabīʿa, ʿUtba and Shaiba. During this time, the ʿAbd Shams rivaled the Machzūm clan for leadership of the city of Mecca.

While most of the ʿAbd Shams were initially hostile to the new religion proclaimed by Mohammed, there were a few who joined him, including Uthman ibn Affan and Chālid ibn Saʿīd , who were both Umayyads, descendants of Umaiya the Elder. After the Battle of Badr , in which several leading figures of the ʿAbd Shams and the Machzūm fell, Abū Sufyān ibn Harb became the head of the ʿAbd Shams and thus also the leading man of Mecca. The marriage of his daughter Ramla (= Umm Habība) with Mohammed in the year 628, which was mediated by Chālid ibn Saʿīd, paved the way for the ʿAbd shams to be balanced with the Prophet.

When Abū Bakr, who belonged to the relatively insignificant clan of the Taim , was raised to the Prophet's successor in 632 , several members of the ʿAbd Shams reverted to their kinship with the Banū Hāschim and insisted on the political privileges of the descendants of ʿAbd Manāfs, to whom they together with the Banū Hāschim belonged. Chālid ibn Saʿīd refused to take the oath of allegiance to Abū Bakr for more than two months and severely criticized ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib and ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān for allowing Abū Bakr to come to power. Another prominent member of the ʿAbd Shams who refused allegiance to Abū Bakr was Abū l-ʿĀs ibn ar-Rabīʿ, a son of ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā, who was married to Zainab, Muhammad's eldest daughter. He took sides with ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib and later, after the death of Fatima bint Mohammed , gave him his daughter Umāma as his wife.

The rise to the leading clan in the Islamic State

During the Abū Bakr caliphate, several prominent members of the ʿAbd Shams were involved in the military operations of the Muslims in Palestine, including Chālid ibn Saʿīd, Walīd ibn ʿUqba and the two sons of Abū Sufyān, Yazīd and Muʿāwiya . The latter was later installed as governor in Syria by Umar ibn al-Khattab .

With the election of ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān in 644, a member of the ʿAbd Shams himself became caliph for the first time . Under his rule, numerous clan relatives rose to leading positions in the state. Shortly after taking power, the caliph made ʿAlī ibn ʿAdī, a descendant of ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā, governor of Mecca. A year later he placed the area of Homs , Qinnasrīn and the Jazīra , which until then had been a province of its own, to the suzerainty of Muʿāwiyas. Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqās , the governor of Kufa, had to give way in 645/6 to Walīd ibn ʿUqba. When there were complaints about the governor of Basra , Abū Mūsā al- Asʿarī, in the year 649/50 , this post was also filled by a member of the ʿAbd Shams, namely ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿĀmir, a descendant of Habīb ibn ʿAbd Shams. Thus almost all governor posts were in the hands of the Banū ʿAbd Shams.

The polarization between Banū Hāschim and ʿAbd Shams

Under the caliphate of īAlī ibn Abī Tālib, which was not recognized by Muʿāwiya, there was for the first time a polarization between Banū Hāschim and kamAbd Shams. This increased when, after the assassination of ʿAlī, the Umayyads gained permanent rule. Banū Hāschim and ʿAbd Shams came more and more into a rivalry relationship, with both insisting on their priority.

The relationship between the twin brothers Hāschim and ʿAbd Schams was also discussed. The Umayyads claimed that ʿAbd Schams was the elder of the two twin brothers. The Banū Hāschim believed that ʿAbd Shams, like the biblical Esau , had lost his birthright to his younger twin brother. His son Umaiya, the ancestor of the Umayyads, could not keep up with the generosity of his uncle Hāschim and therefore had to hand over the honor of entertaining ( rifāda ) and watering ( siqāya ) of the Mecca pilgrims to him. The rivalry between Banū Hāschim and ʿAbd Schams was projected back into the time of the two brothers in the form of an image. ʿAbd Shams and Hāschim, it was said, were Siamese twins who had to be separated from one another with the sword. The blood that flowed when she was born continues to flow today.

After 750 the Abbasids , who belonged to the Banū Hāschim, seized power, they were very interested in demonstrating the superiority of their clan over the ʿAbd Shams. This political tendency is also evident in numerous works of Islamic historiography that emerged during the Abbasid period. Around the middle of the 9th century, the writer al-Jāhiz , who enjoyed the support of the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil 'alā' llāh , considered it necessary to write a treatise on the superiority of the Banū Hāschim over the ʿAbd Shams. He took the arguments for the superiority of the Banū Hāschim mainly from pre-Islamic history.

literature

• Gerald R. Hawting: The first dynasty of Islam. The Umayyad caliphate AD 661-750 . Croom Helm, London 1986.
• Wilferd Madelung: The succession to Muḥammad. A study of the early caliphate . Cambridge 1997.
• HMT Nagel: "Some Considerations Concerning the Pre-Islamic and the Islamic Foundations of the Authority of the Caliphate" in GHA Juynboll (ed.): Studies on the First Century of Islamic Society . Carbondale / Edwardsville 1982.
• W. Montgomery Watt: Muhammad at Mecca. Oxford University Press. 1953.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Watt 13.
2. ↑ Cf. al-Azraqī: Kitāb Aḫbār Makka . Ed. F. Desert field. Leipzig 1859. p. 71. Can be viewed online here: http://archive.org/stream/diechronikender00wsgoog#page/n492/mode/2up
3. ↑ See Watt 5.
4. ↑ Cf. Ibn Ḥazm: Ǧamharat ansāb al-ʿArab . Ed. ʿAbd as-Salām Muḥammad Hārūn. Cairo: Dār al-maʿārif bi-Miṣr 1962. p. 74.
5. ↑ See Watt 92f.
6. ↑ See Watt 93.
7. ↑ See Madelung 40f.
8. ↑ See Nagel 186f.
9. ↑ See Madelung 41.
10. ↑ See Ibn Ḥazm 74f.
11. ↑ See Tilman Nagel: Mohammed. Life and legend . Munich 2008. p. 559.
12. ↑ See Hawting 22.
13. ↑ Cf. Charles Pellat : Arabische Geisteswelt. Selected and translated texts by Al-Gahiz (777–869). Based on the original Arabic texts, translated from French by Walter W. Müller. Library of the Orient . Artemis Verlag, Zurich and Stuttgart 1967. p. 34.