Conference Report

Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 24 (2016): 152-158

The conference was hosted by the ERC Advanced Grant Project, “The Early Islamic Empire at Work – 
The View from the Regions Toward the 
Center,” under the direction of Stefan 
Heidemann. It has now entered its second 
phase, looking at the conceptualization and 
functioning of transregional and regional 
elites. The project is the first systematic 
attempt to explain the operation of the 
empire from a regional perspective, that is, 
by adopting the view from the provinces. 
It studies how elites, in the provinces 
and the caliphal center alike, contributed 
to the organization and management of 
the early Islamic empire. This regional 
perspective represents an important 
alternative to histories written from the 

perspective of the imperial center. The 
conference papers examined the myriad 
roles that regional and transregional elites 
played in governing the vast early Islamic 
Empire (7th10-th century CE). 

In his introduction, ‘Transregional 
and Regional Elites,’ Stefan Heidemann 
(Hamburg) noted the current lack of any 
theoretical conceptualization of elites 
in ou r field  and  exp res s ed  t he hope 
that the conference might address this 
shortcoming in scholarship. Heidemann 
began by offering a working vocabulary: 
he defined ‘elites’ as groups of people with 
an elevated (political, military, judicial, 
religious and/or economic) status that 
entitled them to power, wealth, influence, 
and other notable benefits. The status of 

Regional and Transregional Elites: 
Connecting the Early Islamic Empire 

(Universität Hamburg, 7-8 October 2016)

Stefan Heidemann*

Universität Hamburg

(stefan.heidemann@uni-hamburg.de)

Website: https://www.islamic-empire.uni-hamburg.de/ 
en/news-and-events/conferences/elite-conference.html

* This report was written with the team of the 
ERC project “The Early Islamic Empire.” The research 
leading to these results has received funding from 
the European Research Council under the European 
Union’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013/
ERC grant agreement no. [340362].

file:///Users/Marie/Desktop/ 
file:///Users/Marie/Desktop/ 


153  •  Stefan Heidemann

Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 24 (2016)

elites depended on conceptions of merit, 
performance, ethnicity, ancestry, wealth, 
military prowess, religion, education, 
social capital, and forms of privilege.

Heidemann’s presentation expanded 
upon the project’s distinction between 
‘ r e g i o n a l ’  a n d  ‘ t r a n s r e g i o n a l ’  e l i t e s . 
Transregional elites operated across the 
regions of the empire, as in the case of Arab 
governors during the Umayyad and early 
ʿAbbāsid period and Khurāsāni generals at 
the peak of ʿAbbāsid power. Transregional 
elites were vital for the maintenance of 
the empire. Regional elites largely were 
confined to specific provinces, and it was 
in these regions where their sphere of 
influence was most visible. Their influence 
often had pre-Islamic roots. However, 
there were occasions where regional elites 
evolved into transregional elites, and vice 
versa, as in the case of the Aghlabids, 
whose founder was a (transregional) 
Khurāsānī Arab commander, who built up 
a regional dynasty in North Africa/Ifrīqiya. 
The advantage of the use of these qualifiers 
over others – such as ‘imperial’ – is that 
they are measurable; prosopographical 
research into the careers of individuals 
can reveal their movements. A term such 
as ‘imperial elites’ is not synonymous 
with transregional elites, because it is too 
vague, but may refer to an entitlement by 
the caliphal administration.

By design, the project puts less emphasis 
on the important role of religion and 
ideology in elite formation. Summarising 
the current research of the group, the 
i n t r o d u c t i o n  f u r t h e r  q u e s t i o n e d  t h e 
concept of territoriality of the provinces, 
except for Iraq and Egypt, and the notion 
of an imperial capital. Instead it hinted at a 
layered structure of authority within each 
province. Considering the projection of 

power from the imperial center through 
the appointment of a governor (usually 
from one of the entitled elites) and the 
establishment of a loyal garrison, the idea 
of the capital was dismissed in favour of 
imperial cities. Heidemann highlighted 
the exchange of military elites of different 
geographical and ethnic backgrounds 
after two to three generations as a feature 
that set the early Islamic empire apart 
from the Roman and Sasanian empires, 
both of which were characterised by a 
more evolutionary development of their 
elite structures. Under the Umayyads, 
for example, the military elite consisted 
almost entirely of Arabs; and under the 
ʿAbbāsids this military elite was replaced 
first by Khurāsānis, who themselves were 
displaced by Central Asian military elites. 
The question of military elites in the early 
Islamic empire was a recurrent theme in 
the conference papers. This prompted 
many of the participants to discuss the 
nature of the mamlūk institution and 
question whether the terminology used to 
describe them (mamlūks as slaves) should 
give way to new concepts such as bonded 
military.

P e t e r  V e r k i n d e r e n  a n d  S i m o n 
Gundelfinger (Hamburg), “Governors of 
the Early Islamic Empire – A Comparative 
R e g i o n a l  P e r s p e c t i v e , ”  a n a l y z e d  t h e 
appointments of governors in Fārs and 
al-Shām on several levels. Due to the lack 
of a distinct hierarchical terminology 
in the sources, these individuals were 
classified using the terms governor, super-
governor and sub-governor. Verkinderen 
and Gundelfinger identified patterns in 
the backgrounds of these officials that 
changed over time and noted that these 
patterns rarely applied in both provinces 
at the same time. They closed their paper 



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 Connecting the Early Islamic Empire  •  154

by highlighting, therefore, the need for 
a regional approach to the study of elites 
and government structures. 

F a n n y  B e s s a r d  ( B r i s t o l ) ,  “ T h e 
Twilight of the Late Antique Clerical 
and Landowning Elite and the Dawn of 
a Civilian Bourgeoisie,” highlighted the 
shift from a pre-Islamic landowning elite 
to an urban landowning merchant elite 
(tujjār). She dates the emergence of this 
new elite to the beginning of the ninth 
century, when they began taking up 
government functions and developing a 
class consciousness. The discussion raised 
the question of overlapping or layered 
identities: were merchants also ḥadīth 
transmitters, land holders, etc.? A related 
question is whether the apparent rise of 
an urban merchant class might be related 
to the changing emphasis of the primary 
sources, and a shift in stress on the layers 
of identity. Finally, Bessard’s presentation 
raised questions about whether the notion 
of a bourgeoisie serves as a useful heuristic 
for locating the rise of merchant elites in 
early Islamic society.

Amikam Elad (Jerusalem), “Preliminary 
Notes on the Term and Institution of 
al-Shākiriyya in Early Islam,” addressed the 
problem of terminology in Arabic sources 
as it relates to the case of the shākiriyya. 
In a close examination of references to the 
shākiriyya in primary sources up to the 
reign of al-Maʾmūn, he challenged current 
scholarship on the term. His view is that 
the term denotes different groups in 
varying contexts. Sometimes, ‘shākiriyya’ 
refers to a group of people with a military 
character (as armed guards or as a fighting 
force on the battle field). In other contexts, 
no military connection is apparent, and 
the shākiriyya in question appeared to 
be simply servants or devoted followers. 

A certain link with Khurāsāni/Central-
Asian practices seemed apparent, but Elad 
stressed how both an institution and the 
meaning of its name can change once they 
are transplanted to another context. The 
discussion raised, not for the last time 
during the conference, the question of 
military slavery and the tension between 
slave and elite status. 

Cyrille Aillet (Lyon), “Connecting the 
Ibadi Network in North Africa with the 
Empire,” focused on the Ibāḍī imamate of 
the Rustumids in Tahart and its economic 
and other connections with the rest of 
the Empire, especially Iraq. He noted how 
the Ibāḍī Rustumids drew on their alleged 
‘eastern’ Persian heritage in an effort to 
create common ground with their Berber 
supporters against the rule of the ‘Arab’ 
ʿAbbāsids.

Petra Sijpesteijn (Leiden), “Establishing 
Local Elite Authority in Egypt Through 
Arbitration and Mediation,” used Egyptian 
papyri to draw attention to jurisprudential 
matters in the period from the Arab/
Muslim conquests through the early 
ʿAbbāsid period. She concluded that, on a 
local level, arbitration and mediation was 
sought from bishops, Islamic governors, 
and qāḍīs alike, regardless of the religion 
of the petitioner. Hence, it was via the 
authority of arbitration itself that local 
elite status was created and affirmed. 
Arbitration thus became an important tool 
for elites to maintain their standing even 
as their formal administrative authority 
d e c l i n e d .  T h i s  c a n  b e  s e e n  fi r s t  a n d 
foremost with Christian elites, who were 
gradually pushed out of administrative 
functions by the Arabs, and, in turn, 
during the early ʿAbbāsid period, with 
the replacement of the Arabs by Central 
Asians. 



155  •  Stefan Heidemann

Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 24 (2016)

Y a a c o v  L e v  ( R a m a t  G a n ,  I s r a e l ) , 
addressed “The Civilian Ruling Elite of 
the Tulunid-Ikhshidid Period,” in a first 
foray into contemporary terminology for 
elites. Among the most important sources 
he identified for ninth and tenth-century 
Egypt were the works by Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam 
(789-871), al-Kindī (897-961), and Ibn Yūnis 
(894-958), as well as the significantly 
later writings of al-Maqrīzī. Lev dealt 
with such terms as aṣnāf, ʿawwām, ahl 
(al-dawla) and wujūh (al-dawla), and their 
applications.

Matthew Gordon (Oxford, OH/Beirut), 
“ S a m a r r a n  P o l i t i c s  a n d  t h e  A b b a s i d 
provinces,” set the career of Ahmad ibn 
Ṭūlūn in the context of what he termed 
‘Samarran politics.’ Ibn Ṭūlūn conducted 
himself very much in the manner of his 
peers in the Samarran military elite, at the 
heart of whose efforts lay twin goals: the 
security of lucrative interests, including 
authority over appointments to Egypt, 
and an upper hand over the Abbasid 
court in Sāmarrāʾ. It is this combination 
that defined ‘Samarran politics’ at the 
provincial level, on the part of Ibn Ṭūlūn 
but other ranking members of the Turkic/
Central Asian military as well. As Gordon 
put it, Ibn Ṭūlūn “overplayed his hand” in 
trying to balance his interest in Sāmarrāʾ 
and his own powerbase in Syria and Egypt, 
until he became an enemy of al-Muwaffaq 
and his successors. 

P h i l i p  W o o d  ( L o n d o n ) ,  “ C h r i s t i a n 
Elite Networks in the Jazira, c.730-850,” 
opened with a definition of aristocracy 
by Chris Wickham as individuals and 
groups possessing memory of ancestry, 
land, office, lifestyle, mutual recognition, 
and proximity to royal patronage. Wood 
considered the bishops of the Syrian 
Orthodox Church (the ‘Jacobites’) in 

the Jazīra as aristocratic elites. His main 
source was the chronicle of Dionysius of 
Tel Maḥrē (mid-9th century CE), whom 
he characterized as no less a patronage-
s e e k i n g  a r i s t o c r a t  t h a n  a  c l e r i c  a n d 
p a t r i a r c h .  H e  p o s t u l a t e d  a n  ‘ I n d i a n 
summer’ of the late Roman Christian 
a r i s t o c r a c y  b e t w e e n  5 8 0  t o  7 2 0  C E , 
displayed among others by the building 
of churches and monasteries. Churchmen 
received diplomas for raising taxes, making 
them compliant in justifying the new 
Islamic rule as legitimate. However, the 
rise of the Islamic Empire also resulted in 
the disempowerment of Christian laymen, 
who were largely excluded from joining 
the army, and whose Syriac education was 
temporarily devalued by the increasing 
A r a b i z a t i o n  o f  t h e  a d m i n i s t r a t i o n . 
The growing administrative apparatus 
and taxation in the Jazīra in the early 
ʿAbbāsid period curtailed some of the 
privileges enjoyed by wealthy Christian 
(ecclesiastical) elites. The period also 
witnessed increased caliphal involvement 
in church affairs and the election of 
bishops and patriarchs. Comments raised 
in the discussion compared the Jazīran 
bishops with the local aristocracy in 
other regions of the empire, including the 
dihqāns and the Bukhārān Bukhārkhudās.

Hannah-Lena Hagemann (Hamburg), 
“ M u s l i m  E l i t e s  i n  t h e  E a r l y  I s l a m i c 
Jazīra: The qāḍīs of Ḥarrān, al-Raqqa, 
a n d  a l - M a w ṣ i l , ”  a r g u e d  t h a t  w h i l e 
information about governors in Jazīran 
cities is rather sketchy, the qāḍīs of the 
province are much better documented. 
Clear local differences were visible in 
the composition and dynamics of the 
juridical elite of the three cities used as 
case studies. The judges of Ḥarrān were a 
local elite having a local power base and 



Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 24 (2016)

 Connecting the Early Islamic Empire  •  156

thus being significantly independent on 
patronage from the imperial court. The 
qāḍīs of al-Raqqa, on the other hand, 
mostly represented a transregional elite. 
They served in the caliphal residence city 
under Hārūn al-Rashīd, and later al-Raqqa 
became the administrative center of the 
western empire. The standing of judges 
i n  a l - M a w ṣ i l  c o m b i n e d  f e a t u r e s  o f  a 
regional elite with those of transregional 
incumbents. Affiliation with Arab tribes 
and involvement in ḥadīth transmission 
were the defining features of almost all 
qāḍīs examined in the paper. 

Alison Vacca (Knoxville), “ʿAbbāsid 
Governors of the South Caucasus and 
Central Asia,” utilized Armenian and 
Arabic sources in locating Armenia’s 
position within the multilayered provincial 
structure of the empire. She also evaluated 
the movement of Khurāsāni elites in 
Armenian politics. A familiar pattern 
emerged in her presentation of a layered 
structure of the provincial region and the 
occasional projection of power from the 
caliphal center via garrisons. In Tbilisi, a 
Muslim elite emerged that was apparently 
not interested in royal patronage, but 
nevertheless was a part of the caliphal 
umbrella state.

Hugh Kennedy (London), “Creating 
an Imperial Elite: al-Manṣūr and the 
Formation of the Early ʿAbbāsid Ruling 
Class,” took up the original question of 
the empire’s (ex-)changing elites with 
a discussion of al-Manṣūr’s creation of 
Khurāsāni military elite. He observed that 
in the early ʿAbbāsid caliphate, the inner 
core provinces, such as ʿIrāq, the Jazīra, 
and Syria, were reserved for members 
of theʿAbbāsid family, while the newly 
created class of quwwād went to the 
militarily threatened frontiers, Ifrīqiya, 

Armīniya, and Khurāsān. As an imperial 
elite, these men were geographically 
m o b i l e ,  r e t u r n i n g  t o  B a g h d a d  a f t e r 
their assignment, before again receiving 
provincial appointments. Their status 
was almost hereditary. Their leaders, 
such as Khuzayma b. Khāzim, served their 
retainers as conduits of royal patronage 
and influence. This newly created ʿAbbāsid 
elite of quwwād lasted at most three 
generations.

Noëmie Lucas (Paris), “Landowners in 
Lower-Iraq during the 8th century: Types 
and Interplays” analyzed social shifts 
in the landholding class of lower Iraq. 
The paper defined a number of types of 
landowners (local Jewish and Christian 
landowners alongside regional and trans-
regional land-owners), and looked into the 
advancing concentration of land in the 
hands of large landowners, often members 
of the Baghdādi elite and ʿAbbāsid family 
members, at the expense of small, local 
landowners. In some cases, the process of 
transregional elites going regional can be 
observed. Lucas discussed the interactions 
between different types of landowning 
elites in regards to acquisition of land by 
purchase and protection, and conflicts 
over land and water. The discussion shifted 
to the nature of the local landowners and 
the maintenance of the irrigation system. 

Jürgen Paul (Halle), “Who Were the 
Mulūk Fārs?,” looked into a section of the 
elite that is usually difficult to pin down 
in the available sources: local lords in 
Iran. Using al-Iṣṭakhrī’s discussion of the 
mulūk Fārs as a starting point, he laid out 
the characteristics of this class. As a case 
study, he presented the (Arab) family of 
Muḥammad ibn Wāṣil, who had moved to 
Fārs and had become part of the regional 
land-holding elite. Paul also corrected the 



157  •  Stefan Heidemann

Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 24 (2016)

image of Ibn Wāṣil himself in the literature: 
he was not an adventurer, much less a 
Khārijite rebel, but a regional player who 
only aspired political power and patronage 
when his interests were threatened during 
the period of chaos in Sāmarrā. 

Ahmad Khan (Hamburg), “Elites and 
Empire in Khurāsān: The View From the 
Archives,” looked at documents from a 
family archive in southern Tukharistān 
from the time of al-Manṣūr and al-Mahdī. 
Khan used these documents to construct 
a taxonomy of elites in the province of 
Khurāsān (from landowning elites to state 
officials). Despite almost all of these state 
officials being absent from the literary 
and historical sources, Khan argued that 
this small cache of documentary sources 
sheds light on exactly who administered 
the early Islamic empire in the province of 
Khurāsān and what their precise functions 
w e r e .  A b o v e  a l l ,  t h e s e  d o c u m e n t a r y 
records exhibit the smooth and successful 
interaction between landowning elites in 
Khurāsān and provincial administrative 
elites. Finally, Khan examined how the 
circulation of money (nafaqāt) from the 
province to the imperial household of the 
caliph represented one important instance 
o f  h o w  l o c a l  t a x  p a y i n g  e l i t e s  w e r e 
connected to the fortunes of the empire’s 
supreme elites: the caliph and his imperial 
household. 

Luke Treadwell (Oxford), “Muṭṭawwiʿī 
and Mamlūk: Military Elites in Samanid 
Central Asia and Beyond,” treated the 
c a s e  o f  t h e  S ā m ā n i d s ,  a  f a m i l y  t h a t 
emerged as a regional elite already in 
2 0 5 / 8 2 0 ,  w h e n  a l - M aʾ m ū n  m o v e d  t o 
Baghdād. In striking contrast to t he 
Ṭūlūnids in Egypt, the Sāmānids never 
strove for caliphal patronage or positions 
at court. Just the opposite: when they 

became actual rulers of Transoxiana and 
Khurāsān, their geographical outlook 
differed tremendously from that of the 
ʿ A b b ā s i d  e m p i r e .  T h e y  w e r e  f o c u s e d 
north toward the steppes, and even their 
commercial enterprise reached via the 
Volga to the Baltic Sea. One reason for 
their seemingly atypical behavior might be 
that they were content with their status, 
viewing themselves almost as equals of 
the ʿAbbāsids, without challenging their 
position in Baghdād nor “stepping on their 
carpet” as clients.

T h e  r o u n d t a b l e  d i s c u s s i o n  t h a t 
followed highlighted the importance of 
the conference in studying the provinces 
of the empire individually and within 
a comparative perspective. Studying a 
particular province in isolation carries with 
it the risk of neglecting how developments 
in one province affected other provinces, 
and broader patterns of imperial rule. An 
integrative approach promises insights 
into the structures and administration 
of the empire, especially as we deal with 
layered structures of authority in each 
province. This, in turn, brings into focus 
the role of elites and how their character 
and function varied from province to 
province. The roundtable closed with 
remarks about important research gaps 
in scholarship on early Islamic history. 
Questions of group formation and the 
identity of elites (as regards ethnicity, 
military assignments, economic patterns, 
landowning, and religious affiliations) 
have yet to be addressed comprehensively 
in our field.

The terminology currently employed 
to describe military elites and forms of 
service requires further deliberation. 
As one example, ‘mamlūks’ as ‘slaves’ 
is misleading because mamlūk denotes 



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 Connecting the Early Islamic Empire  •  158

a variety of forms of bonded labour 
and military and contractual service. 
The notion of elites, too, is still a poorly 
theorized one in the field of Islamic 
history, and the participants offered 
original perspectives on how the results 
of this conference could be placed in 

conversation with scholarship on elites 
in other empires and societies. We hope 
that the forthcoming conference volume 
will be an important first step towards 
addressing many of these questions and 
pioneering new research into elites in the 
early Islamic empire.