ʻUmar II’s vast correspondence with governors is examined for the discussion of Islamization and acculturation. From the caliph’s point of view, these two processes had to be regulated and the dilemma was how to formulate a policy that was both in line with Islamic ethics and, at the same time, controlling Islamization by setting a high entrance bar for the converts. The struggle against acculturation attempted to preserve Muslim political dominance by controlling the administration.
La vasta correspondencia de ʻUmar II con los gobernantes es examinada para la discusión de la islamización y la aculturación. Desde el punto de vista del califa, estos dos procesos tenían que ser regulados y el dilema era cómo formular una política que estuviera en línea con la ética islámica y, al mismo tiempo, controlar la islamización estableciendo un alto nivel de entrada para los conversos. La lucha contra la aculturación intentaba preservar el dominio político musulmán controlando la administración.
The goal of this paper is to examine two unrelated processes that took place in early Islam: conversion to Islam and, concomitantly, Islamization and acculturation. I perceive conversion as the beginning of a long process of religious change that led to Islamization. Recently, Corisande Fenwick, has referred to Islamization as a much abused term which is taken as synonymous with conversion.
The methodology for the study of Islamization is still ill defined, and most studies are focused on the presumed indicators of the process such as name patterns. In an attempt to integrate sources and studies into a meaningful discussion, the first part of the paper consists of extensive discussion of studies on Islamization and the insights derived from this discussion are constantly referred to in parts two and three. Part two is a case study of Ifrīqiya (Tunisia and north-east Algeria) and ʻUmar II’s policies in the province, while part three examines the broader scope of the caliph’s policies on both conversion and acculturation. My discussion of acculturation relies on sources and is also informed by recent publications on the subject.
Before any discussion of methodology is attempted, the rites associated with conversion to Islam require an explanation. For example, the question of whether a conversion to Islam driven by opportunistic motives such as the wish to escape financial hardship or gain personal benefits can be considered as genuine was much debated in diverse medieval Arabic writings. The position attributed to the Prophet was that the pronouncement of the declaration of faith (There is no god except for God) was enough to accept the conversion of a pagan Arab. Christians and Jews were, however, also obliged to admit Muḥammad’s status as a Prophet. They had to pronounce the double declaration of faith: “There is no god except for God and Muḥammad is God’s Messenger”.
The inner logic of the conversion process, especially when well-known people were involved, obliged the act to be public. One of the most famous converts to Islam in tenth century Egypt was the Jew Yaʻqūb ibn Killis, who converted during the rule of Kāfūr (966-968) and became his vizier. The conversion took place at Kāfūr’s residence and, subsequently, a great crowd accompanied Ibn Killis to his house. The procession was witnessed by Sībawayh, a noted contemporary “holy fool”, who was highly critical of the event.
As important as the rites associated with conversion to Islam were, the meaning of adopting Islam must also be addressed. The attempt to elucidate this issue at the time of the Prophet and the caliphs of Medina (632-661) and Damascus (661-750) is, for example, at the heart of Harry Munt’s, Jack Tannous’ and Uriel Simonsohn’s discussions of the transformation from Arab paganism (
On the individual and collective levels, the knowledge of the precepts of the new religion remained rudimentary for many decades and was characterized by syncretism between paganism and Islam. The mechanism of propagating Islam is illustrated by a unique report recounted by the Damascus historian Abū Zurʻa (d. 894), which refers to
Although the rites associated with conversion to Islam were simple, the question of the sincerity of conversion continued to dominate the medieval discourse on conversion and is highlighted by the term
The discussion of the methodological issues involved in the conversion process was brought to the fore of the scholarly debate in 1950 by Daniel C. Dennett, who provided a summary of Julius Wellhausen’s findings (1902), and of subsequent studies. Dennett proposed adopting a regional approach to questions such as the status of land and taxation and pointed out the need for precision when terms such as
One must bear in mind that since the publication of Dennett’s book a significant shift about how Islamization is studied has taken place. In 1979, Richard W. Bulliet suggested a completely different methodological approach to Islamization, claiming that: “…changes in name patterns accurately reflect the general course of religious conversion…” He went on to explain the quite complex structure of medieval Arabic names and suggested that the first appearance of a name drawn from the Arabic onomasticon serves as an indicator of conversion to Islam. Bulliet’s data are culled from the extensive medieval Arabic biographical literature, which mostly deals with people of the learned class and is presented in the form of graphs depicting the process of Islamization in various regions of the Middle East.
In the context of Islamization in al-Andalus, Mayte Penelas has suggested a modification to Bulliet’s methodology by asserting that Islamization is represented by the name ʻAbd Allāh (servant of God) being assigned to the convert’s father and the appearance of the
It must be pointed out that the onomastic approach is a general methodological tool employed for the tracing of cultural and religious changes and is also extensively applied outside the field of Islamic studies. The most relevant case is perhaps the application of this methodology for the study of Egypt’s conversion from paganism to Christianity. Explicitly quoting Bulliet, Roger S. Bagnall has used the onomastic approach and postulated that there was a rapid Christianization of Egypt between 310 and 360 and that 90% Christianization was achieved by the end of the century.
In a broader comparative framework, the discussion about what constitutes religious identity and the nature of denominational demarcation lines is also relevant in the Islamic context. Lev Weitz, for example has suggested to shift the discussion from conversion to Islam and the demographic ratio between Muslim and non-Muslim populations to “…other meaningful markers of social change…”, which reflected “…the rising influence of Islamic institutions and norms of social organization on non-Muslims, with the emphasis that such influences need not have led to conversion”.
As innovative as Bulliet’s attempt to write quantitative history of the conversion process is, the more traditional approach focusing on conversion stories maintains its allure. Biographical literature came to typify medieval Arabic historical writings, which offer many stories about men and women who converted to Islam during the Prophet’s lifetime. In some cases the political aspects of the conversion, or the so-called conversion, come to the fore, while other cases reveal a complex interplay between the old kinship relations and the newly acquired religious identities and freshly forged loyalties.
Dennett’s regional approach has its merits and in Egypt, for example, the process of Islamization stretched over several centuries. Its chronological turning points are discussed in a number of studies, which focus on the regional differences between the Fayyūm and the Delta.
In the Egyptian context, however, Bulliet’s and Levy-Rubin’s remarks about the adoption of Arabic name forms are especially intriguing since the extensive epigraphic and documentary record pertaining to Egypt reflects wider social groups than those depicted by the biographical dictionaries of the learned class (
‘Yūhannis’ est la translittération d’un anthroponyme grec, ‘Iôannis’. Le tailleur Yūhannis s’est converti et a donné à son fils un nom très évidemment musulman, Muḥammad. Compte tenu de ce que l’on tient généralement pour 25 ans l’espace entre deux générations et que la durée d’une vie peut être estimée à 40 ans, la conversion a pu avoir lieu entre 792 et 832.
Other inscriptions depict more complex naming patterns. Stela 216, for instance, dated to 886, bears the name of Muḥammad ibn ʻAbd Allāh ibn Fawtis. Décobert interprets the name ʻAbd Allāh as signifying mere adhesion to the new religion and assumes that the conversion process progressed from adhesion in the first generation to full Islamization in the second generation.
Certain names engraved on the tombstones of the Aswān cemetery, however, offer no clue to the religious identity of the deceased. Décobert provides two examples of such enigmatic names: Bilāl ibn Andriyā and Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm. While Bilāl is a name that could have been used by both Christians and Muslims, Isḥāq and Ibrāhīm are names derived from the Semitic monotheistic tradition.
In the context of the Jewish society of the Geniza period, the practice of giving two names to men is noted by Elinoar Bareket. The Hebrew name served a person in community life while the Arabic name facilitated blending into street life and maintaining social contacts outside the community. 48% of names depicted by the Geniza documents studied by Bareket are Biblical-Koranic names while 36% are Arabic names unrelated to the Koran that signify abstract positive qualities. One of the most significant observations made by Bareket concerns feminine name patterns of which 92% are Arabic names composed of the word
Although occasionally insightful, the limitations of the onomastic approach are serious and for the study of Islamization one must go back to the literary sources. The case study of Ifrīqiya involves several intertwined topics, which include the Byzantine background of the region, the impact of the Muslim conquest and the policies of the Umayyad caliphs, especially those of ʻUmar II. The Byzantine background of North Africa is well known and the reader can be referred, for example, to a recent collection of articles that deal with a wide range of pertinent issues.
The Islamization of Ifrīqiya has been examined by Allaoua Amara who, authoritatively has combined a discussion of both sources and studies. The main thrust of Amara’s arguments is that the sources depict the Islamization of Ifrīqiya as having taken place in two stages: a limited Islamization which occurred between 647 and 701 and a massive Islamization of “…les confédérations tribales pastorales du Maghreb central et du Sud de lʼIfrīqiya”, which took place between 701 and 718. The second phase is directly linked to the fiscal and religious policies of the Umayyad caliphs, especially those of ʻUmar II. Amara also draws attention to the late and retrospective nature of the sources, which have been “… élaborés dans des contextes idéologique et politique différents”.
The Islamic scene of North Africa was complex and variegated and Islamization could have meant embracing the Sunnī Islam of the ruling dynastiess - the Umayyad and Abbasid and, in the local context, the Aghlabids - as well as Khawārijī Islam. Equally complex was the ethnic-religious scene and any discussion of the Islamization of the Berbers invokes Michael Brett’s question: “Why single out the question of their (the Berbers) conversion to Islam as distinct from, say, the conversion of all North Africans, Latins, and Greeks? And, as a corollary to this, what were they converted from?”.
Amara’s reference to limited Islamization occurring between 647 and 701 possibly alludes to the Kāhina rebellion, which took place between the late 690s and 703 and still poses a mystery. The rebellion involved the Berbers of the Aurès Mountains and the sources claim that when Kāhina, the female leader of the uprising, realized that the rebellion had failed she exhorted her sons to adopt Islam and thousands converted following the collapse of the rebellion. This description of the events is, for example, at the fore of al-Raqīq al-Qayrawānī’s account (d. 1033), which remains uncorroborated.
Amara’s discussion of the second stage of the Islamization of Ifrīqiya is linked to the policies of ʻUmar II and for that we must turn to the writings of Abū Bakr al-Mālikī (d.1055) and his biographical dictionary of the
Reading between the lines of al-Mālikī’s account leaves one with the unmistakable impression that members of the delegation acted as individuals, not as a collective. Ismāʻīl ibn ʻUbayd al-Anṣārī, for example, became involved in the building of a mosque, which later came to be known as the al-Zaytūna mosque, which gained fame through North Africa as a center of Islamic learning. Another member of the delegation, Abū Masʻūd Saʻd ibn Masʻūd, participated in the writing of a pamphlet outlining the principles of faith (a type of writing known as
A further survey of the sources reveals a wide range of opinions about ʻUmar II’s delegation to Ifrīqiya. Omitting any reference to the caliph’s role in the endeavor to spread Islam in North Africa, Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ (d. 855) praises Ismāʻīl’s conduct and states that the Berbers converted to Islam during his governorship.
In his biographical dictionary, Ibn Yūnus’s emphasis is, however, different. He states that:
Umar II had installed him (Ismāʻīl) over the people of Ifrīqiya to judge them according to the Book of God and the Tradition of the Prophet, and to teach them the laws of religion. He was one of the ten
Ibn al-Athīr (1160-1233) writes that Ismāʻīl and another person named al-Samḥ ibn Mālik al-Khawlānī were appointed as governors in 100/718-719, and points out that ʻUmar II was much impressed by Ismāʻīl’s conduct.
As extensive as al-Mālikī’s biography of Ismāʻīl is, he fails to shed light on Ismāʻīl’s life before his arrival to Ifrīqiya. For that we must turn to Syrian historians such as Ibn ʻAsākir (1105-1176) and Ibn al-ʻAdīm (1192-1262). Ibn ʻAsākir’s account of Ismāʻīl’s life also explains his inclusion in the delegation sent to North Africa. Ibn ʻAsākir depicts Ismāʻīl (680-749) as a native of Damascus closely associated with the Umayyad caliphs. He served as a tutor of the sons of the caliphs ʻAbd al-Malik (685-705) and al-Walīd (705-715), and had access to ʻUmar II.
Because of the close relations between Ifrīqiya and Egypt in early Islam, rich information about Ifrīqiya is to be found in the writings of al-Maqrīzī (1364-1442), the famous historian of Egypt and Cairo. Al-Maqrīzī also writes about the Islamization of North Africa but the information is second hand. He, for example, echoes the reports that the Islamization of the Berbers took place following the failure of Kāhina’s rebellion.
However, two of al-Maqrīzī’s statements about Ismāʻīl’s life cannot be accepted. Al-Maqrīzī writes that Ismāʻīl lived (
The question that must be asked is why Ismāʻīl was successful in converting the Berbers to Islam. The simplest answer would be that, as noted by al-Maqrīzī, he put ʻUmar II’s policies into practice and made use of the fiscal responsibilities vested in him to promote conversion. The caliph’s policy toward Islamization was, however, ambivalent and why his governor in Ifrīqiya was successful in converting the Berbers remains a puzzle.
Ninth century sources are unclear about Nāfiʻ’s mission to Egypt. Ibn Saʻd (d. 845), for example, writes that he was sent to teach traditions (
ʻUmar II’s involvement with the inculcation of Islamic values comes to the fore through al-Maqrīzī’s long quote from al-Kindī’s lost
The notion that during the Umayyad period certain people in the provinces were recognized as being towering figures in the world of
Another motive that appears as an explanatory trope for the Islamization of North Africa goes back to the events of the Kāhina rebellion and postulates a link between a military victory and the subjection of people and territories to Islamization. The Islamization of the region known as Sūs al-Adnā, between Tangier and Fez (Fās), is explained in that way and dated to the governorship of Musā ibn Nuṣayr who was appointed in 705 and vanquished the Berbers who, subsequently, accepted Islam and devotedly adhered to their new faith. Musā also installed a group of 27 people in Tangier to teach the Berbers the Koran and law and instructed the local governor to supervise the educational mission.
In late medieval Egyptian and North African historiography, the link between a military victory and Islamization became prominent and repetitive. Like al-Maqrῑzῑ the Mamlūk historian Ibn Taghrī Birdī (1409-1470), was well- informed about early Islamic North Africa and how its affairs were interwoven with the history of Egypt. He portrays the Islamization of Ifrīqiya as having taken place during the reign of ʻUthmān (644-656) and being related to the campaigns of Ibn Abī Sarḥ, but is somewhat contradictory about whether Islam indeed became deeply rooted among the Berbers. He is also vague about the geographical context of these events and refers to the Mediterranean coast (
The question of the superficiality of conversion to Islam is another issue mentioned by Ibn ʻIdhārī and appears as a central motive in his account of the rebellion (685-688) of the Berber leader Kasīla (or Kusayla). ʻUqba ibn Nāfiʻ was warned by the former governor Abū l-Muhājir that Kasīla’s conversion was shallow but he mistreated him and brought about his rebellion. As informative as Ibn ʻIdhārī is about the history of North Africa, he provides no valuable information about the Islamization of the region. He, for example, states that the establishment of Muslim rule in Tangier in 704 brought about the Islamization of al-Maghrib al-Aqṣā.
I would argue that we are at the limit of what the sources and studies have to offer about the historical aspects of the Islamization of Ifrīqiya. For reasons that are beyond our grasp, medieval authors provide no information on the mechanism, the scope and the tempo of the process. They present the process as driven by conquest and taxation without establishing direct explanatory link between the two. Beyond the case study of Ifrīqiya, the theme “conquest, taxation and Islamization” surfaces in many contexts but it appears to be a literary motif rather than an explanatory model. Al-Balādhurī, for example, depicts ʻUmar II as having been an active proselytizer who invited the rulers of Transoxiana to embrace Islam but few had responded positively. In Khurāsān, where Umayyad rule was in the process of consolidation, he exempted the converts from the
Al-Ṭabarī provides a long account of ʻUmar II’s tax policies in Khurāsān. The governor of Khurāsān, al-Jarrāḥ ibn ʻAbd Allāh al-Ḥakamī, sent a delegation to Damascus and one of its members, a
In Ibn Saʻd’s version of these events the caliph was the one who set the Islamization process in Khurāsān in motion. He wrote to al-Jarrāḥ ibn ʻAbd Allāh al-Ḥakamī and ordered him to summon people to Islam and to cancel the
The broader question that must be asked is whether the linkage between taxation (poll-tax) and Islamization, repetitively stated by the sources, withstands the test of evidence. A powerful argument for the link between the two has been made by Yossef Rapoport in the case of the Fayyūm. During the late Ayyubid period, the imposition of a flat rate of
The sources provide ample information on ʻUmar II’s policies, which have also attracted considerable scholarly attention. These policies are described as having been promulgated through a “Fiscal Rescript” and a “
The question of how ʻUmar II’s letters were preserved and accessed by Ibn ʻAbd al-Ḥakam and other historians is an issue that must be discussed. The existence of archives in early and late medieval Muslim Middle East has been firmly established by modern scholarship. One might argue that the caliph’s letters were deposited in the archive of the Chancery in Damascus as well as in the archives of the provincial governors and, therefore, widely available. Furthermore, old archives were sold as scrap paper and the historians incorporated fragments of state documents in their writings.
Ibn ʻAbd al-Ḥakam and other historians refer to ʻUmar II’s letters not as documentary fragments but as reports (
One of al-Kindī’s historical writings, which did survive is the history of the Egyptian
The discussion about how the caliph’s letters were transmitted and Leder’s remarks about the
The so-called “Fiscal Rescript” is available in both English and French translations. The section of the text, immediately following the phrase: “ʻUmar ibn ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz wrote: From the servant of God, Commander of the Faithful, to the
Wherefore, whosoever accepts Islam, whether Christian or Jew or Magian, of those who are now subject to the
The policy announced by the caliph can be summarized as follows: the converts are, or rather should be, exempted from the poll tax. Fiscally they should be treated on equal terms with Muslims although they have to fulfill certain conditions. It can be fairly said that the demands outweighed any tax exemption offered. One can argue that the caliph’s directives as to how converts should be treated shed no light on the motive behind the conversion process.
Reports about ʻUmar II’s directives concerning how converts to Islam should be treated are also presented in Ibn ʻAbd al-Ḥakam’s
In contrast to
A rich source for ʻUmar II’s policies is al-Balādhurī’s account of the caliph’s reign in
Ibn Saʻd offers a different context for the caliph’s statement about the prophetic mission of Muḥammad according to which it was the governor of Egypt who informed the caliph that people were hastening to embrace Islam and stop paying
In the source material, the caliph’s letters to the governors are presented as following a simple format, which included stating the conceptual (religious) underpinnings of his policies and specific instructions on what should be done. Another letter to an unnamed governor begins with the declaration that God honored his people with Islam and through Islam alleviated them from an ignominious existence. On the practical level, the caliph instructed the governors to make sure that a person who proclaimed Islam should declare: “There is no god but God and Muḥammad is His Prophet”. The convert also had to state that he believes in God, His angels and His messengers. Additional statements of belief were required from Christians and Jews. A Christian had to declare that: “ʻIsā is a servant of God, the word of God and His messenger”, while a Jew had to declare that: “ʻUzayr is a servant of God.” All converts were supposed to perform the prescribed number of daily prayers at the right times, to read at least the opening
Al-Balādhurī’s reference to the caliph’s insistence on circumcision as a requirement for conversion invokes the question of the letter’s authenticity, especially as al-Ṭabarī attributes a completely different stand on the issue to the caliph. I see no reason to doubt that Ibn ʻAbd al-Ḥakam, al-Kindī, al-Balādhurῑ, al-Ṭabarī and others had knowledge of ʻUmar II’s correspondence but what they presented to their readers is an edited selection of the letters written by the caliph.
The caliph’s justification for the
One can argue that al-Balādhurī, like others, sheds no light on the mechanism of the conversion and what drove the process. The fragments quoted by al-Balādhurī do provide, however, significant insight into the acculturation process and the desire to blend into street life. Although a certain letter addressed to one of the
The question of whether ʻUmar II issued an edict ordering the dismissal of non-Muslim officials has been discussed by Luke Yarbrough. I would argue that the use of the term “edict” should be avoided and one has to closely examine Ibn ʻAbd al-Ḥakam’s text, which contains a letter, devoid of context, written by the caliph to one his
One of ʻUmar II’s letters reported by al-Balādhurī seems to present another, more cohesive version of the same letter in which he provides the names of two of his informants but offers no context. With no references to the Koran, the caliph states his philosophy about what the position of non-Muslims should be. The caliph’s thinking was dominated by the perception that policies must be in harmony with God’s deeds, and the insistence on
It can be argued that in the caliph’s thinking acculturation stood in stark contrast to the
Other fragments of ʻUmar II’s letters provide insights into the caliph’s broader vision of social relations and policies, which have not been studied so far.
A strong case for the basic authenticity of
The assumed authenticity of the first version of al-Ṭabarī’s text is corroborated by Ibn Saʻd’s fragments of ʻUmar II’s letters and instructions. One of these reports states that the caliph allowed people to make bequests in favor of churches and permitted Christians and Jews to establish endowments.
The notion that ʻUmar II ruled through “rescripts” and “edicts” is not borne out by the sources. I have adopted Luke Yarbrough’s stand that the origin of the so-called
The caliph did write to governors but this does not mean that instructions sent to a certain governor had any wider relevance and were widely implemented. The caliphate was vast and diverse and many problems were particular and local. Regionalism should be taken into account but not exaggerated since Islamization and acculturation were sweeping processes taking place across the region. From the caliph’s point of view, these processes posed great challenges since they undermined Arab superiority. In Khurāsān there was a specific problem in which Arab predominance in the military and their privileges based on military service were jeopardized by the
In 2018, an early version of the paper was presented at two international conferences in Paris and Beer-Sheva. I am grateful to the organizers - Isabelle Poutrin and Claire Sotinel in Paris, and The Center for the Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters in Beer-Sheva - for the acceptance of my paper and to the participants of both conferences for their feedback. Gratitude is also due to the two anonymous readers on behalf of
See,
There is ample literature on the sincerity of conversion and its rites, and the most recent publications include
For the role of patronage in the conversion process, see
In the Ifrīqiya context, the shifting policies towards the
See, vol. I, p. 420.
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See pp. 49-50, 51, 52, 61. These accounts refer to both the immediate Islamization in the wake of the rebellion and to later events that led to Islamization. For the most recent publication on the Kāhina rebellion, see
Some members of the delegation are praised for their personal virtues (al-Mālikī, vol. I, pp. 102, 106, 111) while others were jurists (al-Mālikī, vol. I, pp. 100, 110. 112). When the broader context of the Islamization process is considered,
A-Mālikī, vol. I, pp. 102-103, 106-107. For the Khawārijī rebellion, see
Al-Mālikī, vol. I, p. 116.
See vol. I, p. 48.
In the distant Bukhara, the governor Qutayba ibn Muslim (d. 715-716) pursued a policy of active Islamization by building a mosque and destroying Zoroastrian places of worship. He also handed out money to the poor for attending the Friday prayer. In the wider Iranian context, the case of Bukhara was exceptional.
See “
See vol. I, pp. 39, 43.
According to Bravmann archives had existed already by time of the caliph ʻUthmān. See “
For the
As has been pointed out by Crone and Hinds, in Roman law, rescript meant the emperor’s answer to a question addressed to him. See
Gibb, “
Some of the information about ʻUmar II’s tax policies is ambiguous. The governor of Egypt, for example, received a letter from the caliph, stating that the threshold for taxing a Muslim should be 40
For the reconstruction of the text and translation, see
See vol. VII, p. 373.
The same can be said about
In a broader historiographical perspective, al-Balādhurῑ and al-Ṭabarī reached different conclusions about the demise of the Umayyad regime. Although, in this case, they relied on a common source (al-Madāʼinῑ d. ca. 840). See
The caliph’s letter illustrates only one aspect of the acculturation process: the desire of the non-Muslims to blend into the culture and street life of the urban centers of the caliphate. At the other end of the process was the Islamic doctrine of
The word
See, for example,
For accounts relating to legal/social justice, see
See (ed)
See vol. VII, p. 349.
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The opposition to the employment of non-Muslims in the state administration typified the whole span of medieval Islam. Its origins can perhaps be traced to mid-to-late eighth century Kūfa. See
See, for example, the persecutions of the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil (847-861), which involved the barring of non-Muslim children from Muslim primary education (
See, for example,