Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 30 (2022): 384-434

“The ʿAbbās after Whom Those 
Who Rule in Baghdad Are Named”:                                                                                                   

Al-ʿAbbās b. al-Walīd in Late Antique Accounts of the 
Marwānids and the Third Fitna*

Leone Pecorini GoodaLL
University of Edinburgh

(s1434872@ed.ac.uk)

Abstract
This article is concerned with the representation of al-ʿAbbās b. al-Walīd’s involvement in the Muhallabid revolt 
(102/720) and the third fitna (126–36/744–54) across Arabic-Islamic and Christian sources. The contribution 
makes a case for the study of “minor figures” as a means to contend with the eulogizing and historiographical re-
imagining of the Marwānid past by later ʿAbbāsid compilers. It sheds light on the status of concubine-born sons 
of Marwānid caliphs, who were unable to become caliph until precisely this period and the generational shift 
that occurred in the 120s/740s. Al-ʿAbbās appears in Arabic-Islamic sources as foreshadowing the impending 
fitna, warning of its consequences and attempting to dissuade his brother, Yazīd b. al-Walīd (d. 126/744), from 
revolting against the caliph al-Walīd b. Yazīd (d. 126/744). Eventually “captured” by his brother Yazīd b. al-
Walīd’s supporters, al-ʿAbbās’ bayʿa (oath of allegiance) turns the tide in Yazīd’s favor. In contrast, late antique 
Christian sources in Arabic, Armenian, Greek, and Syriac see him as instrumental in the fall of al-Walīd b. 
Yazīd, wanting the caliphate for himself and betraying his cousin. The following analysis will demonstrate how 
Christian sources employed figures internal to their own traditions to understand and explain caliphal history. 
The overlapping but competing historiographies of al-ʿAbbās shed light on the source material and agendas of 
Arabic-Islamic and Christian late antique sources. This study also helps to disentangle some of the conflicting 
elements of the fitna narrative, while underlining the polycentric nature of Marwānid rule and how members 
of the imperial elite were legitimized and exerted authority.

1. Introduction

Of the four fitnas of early Islamic history, the third (126–36/744–54) is the most confusing, 
at times a contradictory and tumultuous object of study.1 Perhaps because of this, it has 

* This research was made possible by the generous support of the SGSAH AHRC Doctoral Training 
Partnership. This paper was first delivered at the Fourth Annual Edinburgh Graduate Conference in Late 
Antique, Islamic, and Byzantine Studies. Huge thanks to everyone who asked questions and shared their 
reflections. I am grateful to Marie Legendre, Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, Yannis Stouraitis, and Tim Greenwood, 

© 2022 Leone Pecorini Goodall. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 
License, which allows users to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only 
so long as attribution is given to the original authors and source.

mailto:s1434872%40ed.ac.uk?subject=


385  •  Leone Pecorini GoodaLL

Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 30 (2022)

not attracted substantial scholarly interest, whereas scholars have discussed at length the 
background and the reasons for the success of the ʿAbbāsid revolution—itself arguably 
part of the fitna—reaching the point where even in the early 1990’s Humphreys noted the 
ʿAbbāsid movement had “engendered a substantial scholarly literature.”2 Just as many 
questions should be asked, however, of the events that preceded it, as the ʿAbbāsid daʿwa 
was not the first or only revolt confronted by the Marwānids in the turbulent 120s/740s.3 
The present paper addresses these issues by looking at the role of al-ʿAbbās b. al-Walīd 
(d. 132/750), the eldest son of the third Marwānid caliph, al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 
86–96/705–15) and the events leading up to death of the eighth caliph al-Walīd b. Yazīd (d. 
126/744) as preserved in Arabic, Armenian, Greek, and Syriac sources.4 One of the difficulties 
with studying the fitna is undoubtedly the number of different figures who appear in the 
narratives; to aid with this a genealogical tree is available in the Appendix (Appendix 1). 

Focusing on a “minor” figure such as al-ʿAbbās touches upon issues of periodization 
and evidences the generational developments of the late Marwānid period.5 The decision 
to focus on al-ʿAbbās is informed not only by his presence across a variety of sources but 
also because, as Hämeen-Anttila noted in his study of Khālid b. Ṣafwān (d. 135/752), “stories 
about minor characters are less prone to conscious manipulation. They have, obviously, 
also undergone changes during transmission but there is no strong hidden agenda behind 
these.”6 As we shall see, references to al-ʿAbbās are confined to two major events, Yazīd b. 
al-Muhallab’s revolt in 102/720 and the third fitna. Both these events are described as fitna 

and the Edinburgh early Islam group for their comments and suggestions. I am additionally indebted to Kyle 
Brunner (for transliteration) and Andy Hilkens for their generosity and assistance in approaching the Syriac 
texts. I would also like to thank the peer reviewers and editors for their feedback and advice.

1.  The third fitna is notoriously hard to date. The dating adopted here take as its extremities the rebellion 
against al-Walīd b. Yazīd in 126/744 (as per Hawting) and the defeat of the ʿAbbāsid pretendant ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAlī 
in 136/754, which, as argued by Borrut, saw the consolidation of the ʿAbbāsid dynasty. See Gerald R. Hawting, 
The First Dynasty of Islam (London: Routledge, 2000), 90; Antoine Borrut, Entre mémoire et pouvoir: L’espace 
syrien sous les derniers Omeyyades et les premiers Abbassides (v. 72–193/692–809) (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 354–81.

2.  R. Stephen Humphreys, Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry, rev. ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton 
University Press, 1991), 104.

3.  The work of Steven Judd is one exception to this; see Steven Judd, “The Third Fitna: Orthodoxy, Heresy 
and Coercion in Late Umayyad History’ (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1997); idem, “Reinterpreting al-Walīd 
b. Yazīd,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 128, no. 3 (2008): 439–58; idem, “Medieval Explanations for 
the Fall of the Umayyads,” in Umayyad Legacies: Medieval Memories from Syria to Spain, ed. Antoine Borrut 
and Paul M. Cobb, 89–104 (Leiden: Brill, 2010).

4.  Al-Zubayrī, Kitāb Nasab al-Quraysh, ed. E. Levi-Provencal (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif li-l-Ṭibāʿa wa-l-Nashr, 
1953), 165. Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārīkh madīnat Dimashq, ed. ʿUmar al-ʿAmrawī, 70 vols. (Cairo: n.p., 1995), 36:438.

5.  My characterization of al-ʿAbbās as a “minor figure” is not a comment on his historical significance, 
but rather reflect the fact that accounts concerned with him are not widespread, but are confined to specific 
events. He does not have a significant presence in adab works, nor has he been focused on by secondary 
literature, and he is largely absent from the indices of major publications and historical overviews. The most 
recent Encyclopaedia of Islam entry on him goes some way to recognizing his significance. See K. Blankinship, 
“al-ʿAbbās b. al-Walīd,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd ed., ed. Kate Fleet et al. (Leiden: Brill Online).

6.  Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, Portrait of an Eighth-Century Gentleman: Khālid Ibn Safwān in History and 
Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2020), vii.



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in the Arabic-Islamic sources and are salient examples of the factionalism of the Marwānid 
state as well as of competing historiographies.7 Despite only featuring prominently in these 
two events, al-ʿAbbās is depicted as the most senior figure of the late Marwānid state and is 
associated with narratives of piety, foreshadowing the looming fitna. 

This study aims to disentangle some of the conflicting elements of the narrative as well 
as to underline the polycentric nature of Marwānid rule and the ways that members of the 
imperial elite were legitimized and exerted authority. This cannot be done using exclusively 
Arabic sources, which modern scholars have long recognized as having consolidated and 
synthesized conflicting memories of the past to generate an imperial and hegemonic 
narrative.8 It is necessary then to incorporate the sources of the wider late antique tradition, 
produced in regions within or peripheral to the Marwānid caliphate, in this case Armenian, 
Greek, and Syriac. This decision to adopt a comparative approach is greatly informed by 
the insightful and influential studies carried out by Conrad, Hoyland, Borrut, Conterno, and 
Vacca.9 All of these scholars have contributed by evidencing that many traditions circulated 
between different confessional and linguistic groups, although, as stressed by Hoyland and 
Vacca, this does not presume direct written textual transmission. 10 Specifically, the present 
paper builds on the work of Borrut in choosing a figure who is present across a wide variety 
of late antique sources and studying the instances in which he appears across the canon.11 

The aim of this paper is to use a moment of tribulation and tension, paired with a relatively 
minor figure who has not been subjected to extensive historiographical re-imagining, to 
illuminate the ʿAbbāsid-era memory of Marwānid collapse. It first investigates the depiction 

7.  For the Muhallabid revolt as fitna, see Ibn ʿAtham al-Kūfī, Kitāb al-Futūḥ, ed. S. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb 
al-Bukhārī, 8 vols. (Hyderabad: Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif al-ʿUthmāniyya, 1975), 8:8; For a full discussion on competing 
historiographies in fourth-/tenth-century texts, see Antoine Borrut, “Vanishing Syria: Periodization and Power 
in Early Islam,” Der Islam: Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur des Islamischen Orients 91, no. 1 (2014): 37–68, 
at 51. I aim to publish a more comprehensive comparative discussion of the various representations of fitna in 
Arabic sources in future.

8.  Chase F. Robinson, Islamic Historiography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 40–43, esp. 41; 
Borrut, Entre mémoire et pouvoir, 61–108.

9.  Lawrence I. Conrad, “The Conquest of Arwad: A Source-Critical Study in the Historiography of the Early 
Medieval Near East,” in The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East: I. Problems in the Literary Source Material, 
ed. Averil Cameron and Lawrence I. Conrad, 317–404 (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1992); Robert G. Hoyland, 
Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian Writings on 
Early Islam (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1997); Theophilus of Edessa, Theophilus of Edessa’s Chronicle and 
the Circulation of Historical Knowledge in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, trans. Robert G. Hoyland (Liverpool: 
Liverpool University Press, 2011); Borrut, Entre mémoire et pouvoir; Maria Conterno, La “descrizione dei tempi” 
all’alba dell’espansione islamica: Un’indagine sulla storiografia greca, siriaca e araba fra VII e VIII secolo, La 
“descrizione dei tempi” all’alba dell’espansione islamica (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014); Alison Vacca, “The Fires of 
Naxčawan: In Search of Intercultural Transmission in Arabic, Armenian, Greek, and Syriac,” Le Muséon 129, no. 
3–4 (2016): 323–62.

10.  Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 34; Vacca, “The Fires of Naxčawan,” 353.
11.  E.g., Borrut’s chapter on the generation of the heroic figure Maslama b. ʿAbd al-Malik (Borrut, Entre 

mémoire et pouvoir, 229–82); This paper is also heavily influenced by Conrad and Vacca’s studies of a single 
event through the comparison of sources internal and peripheral to the Arabic tradition; see Conrad, “The 
Conquest of Arwād”; Vacca, “The Fires of Naxčawan.”



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of al-ʿAbbās before the fitna, highlighting the circumstances faced by concubine-born sons 
of caliphs and how they participated actively within the polity despite seemingly being 
ineligible for the caliphate itself. This is followed by a brief discussion on the generational 
and genealogical changes that underpinned the third fitna: the emergence of a new 
generation of the Marwānid elite—grandsons or great grandsons of ʿAbd al-Malik—and 
the centrality of concubine-born sons. Finally, it turns to a comparative overview of the 
accounts of the fitna across our late antique sources, dealing with each narrative tradition 
separately to demonstrate how different communities and authors interpreted the fall of 
the Marwānids in different contexts of production. While al-ʿAbbās takes center stage in 
both the Arabic-Islamic and late antique traditions, he is seen as a pious and foreshadowing 
figure in the Arabic-Islamic tradition whilst in the late antique Christian tradition he is 
presented as the architect of the dynasty’s demise, actively wanting the caliphate for 
himself and betraying his cousin al-Walīd b. Yazīd.

2. Al-ʿAbbās b. al-Walīd Before the Fitna

Al-ʿAbbās has perhaps not been the focus of extensive scholarship due to his perceived 
ineligibility for the caliphate: his mother was an unnamed concubine, or umm walad (lit. 
mother of child), making him hajīn (mixed).12 He first appears in Islamic sources during the 
reign of his father al-Walīd, accompanying his uncle Maslama b. ʿAbd al-Malik (d. 121/738) 
on the raid of Tyana in 88/707 and playing a central role in its conquest.13 Maslama first 
appears only two years earlier, in 86/705, underlining al-ʿAbbās’ longevity in the source 
material and his advanced age for being a grandson of ʿAbd al-Malik; he was al-Walīd’s 
eldest son.14 Al-ʿAbbās was granted the governorship of Ḥimṣ by his father, which he would 

12.  See the recent Encyclopaedia of Islam entry on al-ʿAbbās: K. Blankinship, “al-ʿAbbās b. al-Walīd.” The use 
of hajīn here does not entirely reflect the language of our annalistic and genealogical sources, which typically 
refer to sons in relation to their parents’ generation, i.e., commenting that their mother was an umm walad 
(mother of child) or jāriya. However, in other genres such as poetry, eschatology, dictionaries, and adab sources 
we see it employed frequently. See al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, ed. ʿ Aẓm Maḥmūd Firdaws, 13 vols. (Damascus: 
Dār al-Yaqaẓa, 1997), 9:249; al-Farāhīdī, Kitāb al-ʿAyn, ed. Mahdī al-Makhzūmī and Ibrāhīm al-Samārāʾī, 8 vols. 
(Beirut: Dār wa-Maktabat al-Hilāl, n.d.), 3:392; Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, al-ʿIqd al-farīd, ed. Muḥammad Saʿīd al-ʿAryān, 
8 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1983), 7:140; Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād, Kitāb al-Fitan, ed. Sumayr b. Amīn 
al-Zuhayrī, 2 vols. (Cairo: Maktabat al-Tawḥīd, 1991), 2:449; Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād, The Book of Tribulations: The 
Syrian Muslim Apocalyptic Tradition, trans. David Cook (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017), 265. 
For a discussion on how hajīns may have been viewed as non-Arab in the pre-Islamic period see, Rachel Schine, 
“Race and Blackness in Premodern Arabic Literature,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature, 2021, https://
oxfordre.com/literature/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.001.0001/acrefore-9780190201098-e-1298.

13.  Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, Tārīkh Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, ed. Suhayl Zakkār, 2 vols. (Damascus: Wizārat al-Thaqāfa 
wa-l-Siyāḥa wa-l-Irshād al-Qawmī, 1967), 1:399; idem, Khalifa Ibn Khayyat’s History on the Umayyad Dynasty 
(660–750), trans. Carl Wurtzel (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015), 172–73; al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh al-Yaʿqūbī, 
ed. M. T. Houtsma, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1883), 2:350; idem, The Works of Ibn Wāḍiḥ Al-Yaʻqūbı̄: An English 
Translation, trans. C. F. Robinson et al., 3 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 3:1002; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, 
ed. M. J. de Goeje, 15 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1879–1901), 2:1194; idem, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 23, The Zenith 
of the Marwānid House, trans. Martin Hinds (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 142; anon., 
Fragmenta historicorum arabicorum, ed. M. J. de Goeje, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1869–71), 1:3.

14.  Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, Tārīkh, 1:359; idem, Khalifa Ibn Khayyat’s History, 159; al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh, 2:350; 

https://oxfordre.com/literature/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.001.0001/acrefore-9780190201098-e-1298
https://oxfordre.com/literature/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.001.0001/acrefore-9780190201098-e-1298


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hold until 96/715.15 He regularly led the summer raid (ṣāʾifa) during his father’s reign and 
may have even led the ḥajj in 86/705 or 94/713.16 McMillan interprets al-Walīd’s ḥajj policy, 
which saw many of his sons lead the pilgrimage (including ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, al-ʿAbbās, Bishr, 
ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān), as mirroring “his intention of keeping leadership of the community 
within that same family.”17 Al-ʿAbbās was not the only hajīn to be granted the role; both 
Bishr and ʿUmar were born to umm walads, indicating that despite there not being a hajīn 
caliph until the third fitna, these individuals were not exempt from accumulating religious 
or military capital in the early eighth century.18

Al-ʿAbbās is best remembered for his military legacy; al-Masʿūdī (d. 346/956) says that 
owing to his valorous nature (shihāma) he was known as fāris Banī Marwān (Horseman 
of the Marwānids).19 Al-ʿAbbās is recorded as having raided the thughūr a total of nine 
separate times, most often in the company of his uncle Maslama. 20 Six of these raids took 
place during the caliphate of his father and three under his uncle Yazīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik 
(d. 101–5/720–24).21 Al-ʿAbbās appears to have fallen out of favor in the intervening reigns 
of his uncle Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 96–99/715–17) and cousin ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz 
(r. 99–101/717–20). Sulaymān removed him from his governorship in Ḥimṣ and seemingly 
barred him from military positions, but Yazīd restored him in 102/720, although, as will be 
discussed, he also fell out of favor during the rule of his uncle Hishām.22 The following section 
will explore al-ʿAbbās’ absence during these five years to demonstrate the factionalism of 
the Banū Marwān and how the sons of previous caliphs were not guaranteed to maintain 
their positions of authority under a new ruler.

2.1 Al-ʿAbbās between the Caliphate of al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik and Yazīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik 
(96–101/715–20)

Evidence for al-ʿAbbās’ loss of favor under Sulaymān can be seen in part of a larger speech 
given by the governor turned rebel, Yazīd b. al-Muhallab (d. 102/720), in which he explicitly 

idem, The Works, 3:1002.
15.  Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, Tārīkh, 1:417; idem, Khalifa Ibn Khayyat’s History, 186.
16.  M. E. Mcmillan, The Meaning of Mecca: The Politics of Pilgrimage in Early Islam (London: Saqi Books 

Publishers, 2011), 95–96.
17.  Ibid., 106.
18.  Al-Zubayrī, Kitāb Nasab al-Quraysh, 165. Notably al-Masʿūdī highlights al-ʿAbbās, Bishr, ʿ Umar, and Yazīd 

as the only sons of al-Walīd deserving of praise; see al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab wa-maʿādin al-jawhar, ed. and 
trans. Barbier de Meynard and A. Pavet de Courteille, 9 vols. (Paris: Société Asiatique, 1861–77), 5:361.

19.  Al-Masʿūdī, Murūj, 5:361.
20.  I opt to use the Arabic thughūr (sing. thaghr) rather than “frontier,” reflecting the language of the 

sources. For more on the nomenclature, see Asa Eger, The Islamic-Byzantine Frontier: Interaction and Exchange 
among Muslim and Christian Communities (London: I. B. Tauris, 2015), esp. 8.

21.  Under al-Walīd in 88/707, 90/709, 93/712, 94/713, 95/714, 96/715; and under Yazīd in 102/721, 103/722, 
104/722–23. 

22.  Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, Tārīkh, 1:418; idem, Khalifa Ibn Khayyat’s History, 186. Khalīfa specifically states 
under the subheading of [governors] of the Syrian districts (al-shāmāt) that al-ʿAbbās governed Ḥimṣ until 
al-Walīd died (ḥattā mawt al-Walīd), indicating he was removed after this.



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states that Sulaymān wanted to remove al-ʿAbbās from the Banū Marwān but was talked out 
of it by Yazīd b. al-Muhallab.23 That Sulaymān would be able to remove al-ʿAbbās from the 
Banū Marwān is indicative of the “liminal” status of hajīns under the Umayyads. Al-ʿAbbās’ 
loss of favor under his uncle Sulaymān is clear from his absence from the second siege of 
Constantinople (97–99/715–17) led by Maslama, which is surprising given how often the two 
are paired together in the source material. Borrut has pointed out that Maslama owes much 
of his “heroic” reputation to the siege.24 If Maslama gained such prominence from a failed 
conquest, it is likely that al-ʿAbbās would have too, as we shall see later; his other activities 
on the thughūr led to a sustained memory of him in Syriac chronicles. So, al-ʿAbbās does 
not seem to have participated in the failed siege. One Syriac source does place him at the 
siege, but it appears to have muddled it with the already mentioned conquest of Tyana.

The only reference to al-ʿAbbās and the siege is found in the eighth-century Chronicle 
of Zuqnīn, well known for its preservation of a unique narrative of the event. However, 
al-ʿAbbās only appears after the Marwānid defeat, routing a Roman army who had attempted 
to ambush the retreating, famished, and weakened Muslim forces.25 The narrative ends with 
the conquest of Tyana and the sacking and raiding of the surrounding area. The author 
here appears to have mixed up the retreat of 99/716–17 with the 88/707 raid.26 Indeed, 
the narrative as preserved in Zuqnīn fits much better with the events of Tyana found in 
al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) and the Chronographia of Theophanes (d. 817). Both attest that the 
force led by Maslama and al-ʿAbbās wintered nearby, with Theophanes adding that the 
Muslims were considering turning back due to famine.27 The famine experienced by the 
Muslim forces besieging Constantinople is well documented, and the retention of this 

23.  Francesco Gabrieli, “La Rivolta dei Muhallabiti nel ʿIrāq e il nuovo Balāḏurī,” Rendiconti della classe di 
Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche 14, no. 6 (1938): 199–236, at 226. Related on the authority of Abū Mikhnaf (d. 
157/773–74), al-Balādhurī states: “wa-ʿāqir al-nāqat Nasṭūs b. Nasṭūs—yaʿnī al-ʿAbbās—alladhī kāna Sulaymān 
b. ʿAbd al-Malik ʿazama ʿalā nāfihi fa-kalimatahu fīhi ḥattā aqarahu ʿalā nasabihi (The one who hamstrung the 
she-camel, Nasṭūs b. Nasṭūs—i.e., al-ʿAbbās—who Sulaymān b. ʿ Abd al-Malik was determined to banish [nafy], but 
I [Yazīd] spoke to him concerning him [al-ʿAbbās] until he [Sulaymān] established his genealogy)” (al-Balādhurī, 
Ansāb al-ashrāf, ed. Suhayl Zakkar, 13 vols. [Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 1997], 8:326). Identifying al-ʿAbbās as the 
wounder of the she-camel (ʿāqir al-nāqa) is a reference to the myth of the Thamūd, who, having been tasked 
by the prophet Ṣāliḥ to allow the she-camel of God (nāqat Allāh) to drink from their water on alternate days, 
were struck down after having hamstrung the camel (fa-ʿaqarū-l-nāqata, Q 7:77). The comparison here is that, 
like the Thamūd who were destroyed by God for having harmed His she-camel, al-ʿAbbās shall suffer for having 
opposed Yazīd’s revolt. On the Thamūdic myth, see Jaroslav Stetkevych, Muhammad and the Golden Bough 
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996).

24.  Borrut, Entre mémoire et pouvoir, 231: “Maslama doit essentiellement sa renommée à son expédition 
dirigée contre la capitale Byzantine.” For a full discussion, see the chapter on “La fabrique des héros Omeyyades: 
Maslama b. ʿAbd al-Malik, le héros combattant,” 229–82.

25. Anon., Chronicle of Zuqnīn: Part III and IV, A.D. 488–775, trans. A. Harrak (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of 
Mediaeval Studies, 1999), 152.

26.  Palmer alludes to this transposal but is not explicit; see Andrew Palmer, The Seventh Century in the West 
Syrian Chronicles (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1993), 64.

27.  Theophanes the Confessor, Theophanis Chronographia, ed. Carl De Boor (Lipsiae: B.G. Teubnneri, 1883), 
377; idem, The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and near Eastern History A.D. 284–813, trans. Cyril 
A. Mango and Roger Scott (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 525–26.



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element in both Theophanes and Zuqnīn may account for the latter’s transposal to the siege 
narrative. Furthermore, al-Ṭabarī and Zuqnīn follow a similar sequence of events, with the 
conquest being preceded by a heavy loss for the Muslim forces, followed by al-ʿAbbās taking 
matters into his own hands.28 Tyana is then conquered and the Muslim army pillages the 
surrounding environs. Theophanes states, “They [the people of Tyana] accepted a promise 
of immunity and came out to the Arabs, leaving the city deserted until this very day.”29 
Tyana was conquered again a century later by Hārūn al-Rashīd (d. 193/809) in 190/806, 
meaning that Theophanes’ comment about its depopulation derived from the source(s) he 
relied on rather than reflecting the realities of the early ninth century.30 It is doubtful that it 
was raided again a decade later by the same two individuals since Zuqnīn does not preserve 
any earlier narrative regarding Tyana; the presence of al-ʿAbbās in Zuqnīn should then be 
chalked up to a transposal rather than his participation in the siege. Possible confusion 
could even be attributed to an account in the Breviarium of Patriarch Nikephoros (d. 828) 
who claims that after Tyana a contingent of thirty troops went all the way to Chrysopolis 
(across from Constantinople) to burn the ferries on the Bosporus.31 Al-ʿAbbās’ relevance 
amongst non-Muslim communities living around the thughūr is made further evident 
by the Chronicle of Zuqnīn’s characterization of him as “one among the famous of the 
caliphate.”32 The insertion of al-ʿAbbās into the siege narrative was not an attempt to grant 
him status through the event; rather, it is indicative of his strong association with the the 
thughūr and his uncle Maslama.

It is unlikely, then, that al-ʿAbbās was involved in the siege of Constantinople, and this 
would support a five-year hiatus from military activity and the loss of his governorship 
under Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Malik. This was probably the result of the newly ascended 
caliph’s attempts to demote the sons of his predecessor al-Walīd, who had attempted to 
replace him with al-ʿAbbās’ brother, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. al-Walīd (d. 110/728–29).33 ʿUmar b. 

28.  Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1191–92; idem, The History, 23:140–1; anon., Chronicle of Zuqnīn, 152. In al-Ṭabarī 
he invokes his troops by asking “Where are the people of the Qurʾan who desire Paradise?”(ʿayn ahl al-Qurʾān 
alladhīna yurīdūna al-janna). In Zuqnīn he is said to have personally asked Maslama for a force to fend off the 
Byzantines.

29.  Theophanes, Chronographia, 377; idem, The Chronicle, 525–26; anon., Chronicle of Zuqnīn, 152; al-Ṭabarī, 
Tārīkh, 2:1191–92; idem, The History, 23:140–41.

30.  For Theophanes’ sources on the eighth century, see Muriel Debié, “Theophanes’ ‘Oriental Source’: What 
Can We Learn from Syriac Historiography?,” in Studies in Theophanes, ed. Marek Jankowiak and Federico 
Montinaro, 53–71 (Paris: Association des Amis du Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance, 2015); on 
the conquest of Tyana as found in Theophanes, see Conterno, La Descrizione dei Tempi, 92–94; on Hārūn’s 
conquest of Tyana, see al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 3:710; idem, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 30, The ʿAbbasid Caliphate in 
Equilibrium, trans. C. E. Bosworth (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 263.

31.  Nikephoros, Patriarch of Constantinople, Short History, trans. Cyril A. Mango (Washington, DC: 
Dumbarton Oaks, Research Library and Collection, 1990), 106–7. Notably, Nikephoros does not claim al-ʿAbbās 
was present but rather that it was Maslama and Solymas (Σολυμᾶς), which is probably Sulaymān. However, no 
Sulaymān is found raiding until Sulaymān b. Hishām in 117/736. It could be a reference to Sulaymān b. ʿAbd 
al-Malik, but I have not found any record of him on the thughūr.

32.  Anon., Chronicle of Zuqnīn, 152.
33.  On al-Walīd’s attempts to subvert the succession order, see al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1274; on poetry produced 



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ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, who succeeded Sulaymān, instituted a change in military policy and ceased 
aggressive raiding, meaning that even if al-ʿAbbās were to have regained his position, it is 
not visible in the source material.34 His fortunes changed upon the accession of his other 
uncle, Yazīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik, under whose rule he led raiding expeditions three times over 
a four-year reign. This reversal is most visible in Yazīd’s decision to task al-ʿAbbās and 
Maslama with suppressing the revolt of Yazīd b. al-Muhallab in 102/720, but would be short-
lived as al-ʿAbbās reportedly lost favor again under his uncle Hishām b. ʿAbd al-Malik.35 
The following section will investigate the representation of al-ʿAbbās in the Muhallabid 
revolt, shedding light on how non-Arab heritage was often used to deride hajīns as well as 
al-ʿAbbās’ matrilineal line.

2.2 The Rebel and the Hajīns

Yazīd b. al-Muhallab, once governor of Khurāsān under ʿAbd al-Malik and later also of Iraq 
under Sulaymān, had been imprisoned during the reign of ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, escaping 
to Basra just before ʿUmar died; upon the accession of Yazīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik he promptly 
refused to give him the bayʿa (oath of allegiance) and entered into open rebellion.36 Yazīd 
b. al-Muhallab’s revolt throughout the narratives takes on a distinctly anti-Syrian tone 
and perhaps even serves as a foreshadowing for the ʿAbbāsid “revolution.”37 Yazīd b. ʿAbd 
al-Malik dispatched his brother and nephew to deal with the revolt. Upon discovering the 
impending arrival of the two hajīns al-ʿAbbās and Maslama to Iraq, Yazīd b. al-Muhallab 
exclaimed—according to al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/868), on the authority of Khālid b. Ṣafwān (d. 
135/752)—during his khutba delivered in Wāsiṭ: “Maybe the rabble says: ‘Maslama has come, 
al-ʿAbbās has come, and the Syrians (ahl al-shām) have come,’ but the people of Syria are 
nothing more than nine swords, seven of which are with me, and two of which are against 
me. As for Maslama he is a Yellow Locust (jarāda ṣafrāʾ) whereas al-ʿAbbās is Nasṭūs b. 
Nasṭūs.”38 A similar version is preserved in the Futūḥ of Ibn ʿAtham, who adds that Maslama 
was Qusṭanṭīn b. Qusṭanṭīn.39 This notice is unique to the Futūḥ, with all other sources 

to support his claim, see Andrew Marsham, Rituals of Islamic Monarchy: Accession and Succession in the First 
Muslim Empire (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 114–15.

34.  Khalid Yahya Blankinship, The End of the Jihād State: The Reign of Hishām Ibn ʿAbd al-Malik and the 
Collapse of the Umayyads (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 31–33.

35.  Al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh 2:372–73.
36.  Al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh 2:370. For what is still the best discussion of the revolt, see Gabrieli, “La Rivolta dei 

Muhallabiti.” 
37.  Borrut, Entre mémoire et pouvoir, 261.
38.  Innī qad asmāʿu qawl al-raʿāʿ: wa-qad jāʾa Maslama, wa-qad jāʾa al-ʿAbbās, wa-qad jāʾa ahl al-Shām, 

wa-mā ahl al-Shām illā tisʿat asyāf, sabʿa minhā maʿī wa-ithnān minhā ʿalayī, wa-ammā Maslama fa-jarāda 
ṣafrāʾ, wa-ammā al-ʿAbbās fa-Nasṭūs b. Nasṭūs (al-Jāḥiẓ, al-Bayān wa-l-tabyīn, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad 
Hārūn, 3 vols [Beirut: Dār al-Jīl],  1:292–93). The nine swords here most probably refer to generals or military 
contingents; the assertion that seven of the Syrian swords are with him are indicative of the widespread support 
enjoyed by Yazīd b. al-Muhallab, whilst the two against him refer to the two named generals opposing him, i.e., 
Maslama and al-ʿAbbās. 

39.  Ibn ʿAtham al-Kūfī, Kitāb al-Futūh, ed. ʿAlī Shīrī, 8 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Aḍwāʾ, 1991), 7:225. 



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that preserve the insults levied by the rebel against the two hajīns referring to Maslama 
solely as “the Yellow Locust” and al-ʿAbbās as Nasṭūs b. Nasṭūs.40 Borrut has noted that the 
“yellowness” ascribed to Maslama is a reference to the Byzantines, who are often called 
banū al-aṣfar in both ḥadīth and historical narratives, and thus stresses Maslama’s non-Arab 
descent.41 Nasṭūs or Nasṭās is the Arabic rendition of the Greek Anastasios, which accounts 
for the varied spellings of the lampoon.42 Both Maslama and al-ʿAbbās were concubine-born, 
so we should view Yazīd’s comments as a means by which to undermine their “Arabness” as 
well as to present the Syrians as non-Muslim. Al-Balādhurī’s account of the event underlines 
this, as he describes the Marwānid force as composed of barbarians (barābira), Chaldeans 
(jarāmqa), Mardaites (jarājima), Nabateans (anbāṭ), sons of peasants (abnāʾ fallāḥīn), mixed 
riff-raff (awbāsh akhlāṭ) and Copts (aqbāṭ).43

Urban has shown that hajīns in the early Islamic period proved themselves to the umma 
either through military service (using Maslama as an example) or through scholarship.44 
The presence of various hajīns on the frontier speaks to this phenomenon, whether it was 
because, as she posits, “they had one foot in the land of the conquerors, and one foot in 
the land of the conquered,” or more simply that Arab-born sons had more connections at 
birth to draw upon, and as such were better equipped to use tribal connections to attain the 
caliphate.45 In the case of Marwān b. Muḥammad, the support generated through military 
leadership would eventually be sufficient to allow him to lay claim to the caliphate.

Al-ʿAbbās’ non-Arab maternal heritage is stressed in the descriptions in al-Ṭabarī’s 
Tārīkh and al-Balādhurī’s Ansāb al-ashrāf of the pivotal moment when al-ʿAbbās is “forced” 
to defect from al-Walīd b. Yazīd, in which he is referred to as ibn Qusṭanṭīn (a son of 
Constantine).46 Ibn ʿAsākir reports on the authority of Abū Bakr b. ʿAyyāsh (d. 193/809) that 
his mother was Christian.47 Unfortunately, we do not know her name or anything else about 
her; like many women in premodern society, and particularly unfree women, her existence 
is only preserved due to her connection with a male member of the ruling elite. On this 

40.  Al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 8:318; anon., Kitāb al-ʿUyūn, 70; al-Masʿūdī, Murūj 5:454; Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, 
al-ʿIqd al-farīd, ed. Muḥammad Saʿīd al-ʿAryān, 8 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1983), 4:214. The Kitāb 
al-ʿUyūn reads Basṭūs b. Basṭūs, which should be corrected to read Nasṭūs b. Nasṭūs, as al-Balādhurī, al-Jāḥiẓ, 
al-Masʿūdī, and Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih preserve Nasṭūs/Nasṭās.

41.  Borrut, Entre mémoire et pouvoir, 261.
42.  For instance, al-Masʿūdī renders the regnal title of Emperor Anastasios II (r. 713–15) as Nasṭās b. Fīlibiqūs. 

This was not, in fact, the son of the preceding emperor Phillipikos, but his secretary. The assumption that 
Byzantine emperors achieved the post dynastically is noteworthy in and of itself but is deserving of separate 
treatment. See al-Masʿūdī, Kitab al-Tanbīh wa-l-ishrāf, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1894), 141; idem, Le Livre 
de l’avertissement et de la révision, trans. B. Carra de Vaux (Paris : Imprimiere Nationale, 1896), 225.

43.  Al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 8:318.
44.  Elizabeth Urban, Conquered Populations in Early Islam: Non-Arabs, Slaves, and the Sons of Slave Mothers 

(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020), 122.
45.  Urban, Conquered Populations in Early Islam, 131. Other hajīn sons of caliphs to feature on the thughūr 

are: Muḥammad b. Marwān, Sulaymān b. Hishām, and Marwān b. Muḥammad b. Marwān.
46.  Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1798; al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 9:177. 
47.  Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārikh madīnat Dimashq, 36:440.



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occasion, the appellation may in fact reflect a kernel of historical truth: instead of Nasṭūs 
here we have Qusṭanṭīn, which underlines once again al-ʿAbbās’ non-Arab heritage. The use 
of different catch-all and generic Greek names is significant in that across the sources there 
was a stress on the idea of al-ʿAbbās’ non-Arab maternal line. These references to al-ʿAbbās’ 
genealogy occur exclusively in narratives of fitna and internal caliphal violence. As pointed 
out by Borrut, for Maslama vis-à-vis the Muhallabid revolt, these narratives are influenced 
by two simultaneously competing historiographical strands: one that exalts Maslama, and 
the other Yazīd b. al-Muhallab.48 Furthermore, it should be added that Khālid b. Ṣafwān, 
who narrates the above-mentioned story, was in all probability an eyewitness to events and 
was, at the very least, “friendly” with Yazīd b. al-Muhallab.49 Therefore, this narrative is told 
from a pro-Muhallabid perspective, lending credence to Borrut’s conclusions. Al-ʿAbbās is 
afforded a less central role in these narratives and presented as a sidekick and a source of 
derision, contrasting with the more “heroic” Maslama with whom he appears. 

The literary pairing of the two hajīns can be seen in another khabar (notice, report) 
narrated by Khālid b. Ṣafwān and relating to events said to have occurred between Khālid 
and al-ʿAbbās at Hishām b. ʿAbd al-Malik’s (r. 105–25/724–43) court at Ruṣāfa. The first point 
of note is that the account states that the people flooded upon al-ʿAbbās when he arrived 
at the caliphal capital, indicating the esteem in which he was held. He is also said to have 
been fasting, inserting a narrative of piety, as is common in depictions of al-ʿAbbās.50 He 
then prompted Khālid to share the story of Aḥnaf b. Qays (d. 72/691)—the conqueror of 
Khurāsān—and how he allegedly won the day at Marw al-Rūdh by disguising himself and 
walking unnoticed amongst his own camp, in turn obtaining the inspiration on how to 
defeat the Hephthalite armies.51 So, al-ʿAbbās is again presented as a military figure and as 
a visitor to Ruṣāfa, despite not having led any expeditions under Hishām, nor holding any 
governorate. 

Khālid’s narrative, in and of itself, says little about al-ʿAbbās at the time of Hishām; 
however Hämeen-Anttila highlights it as an example of what he calls “the upgrading of 
interlocutors,” i.e., the replacement of a lesser-known figure in an anecdote by a more 

48.  Borrut, Entre mémoire et pouvoir, 262.
49.  The relationship between the two is touched upon in Hämeen-Anttila, Portrait of an Eighth-Century 

Gentleman, 24, 75. There is even an anecdote involving Maslama and Khālid after the death of Yazīd, where 
the former enquires about the pietist al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728), with Maslama expressing shock at how a 
community led by such a figure could follow Yazīd b. al-Muhallab (ibid., 156–58.).

50.  See the discussion, translation, and full references of the khabar in Hämeen-Anttila, Portrait of an 
Eighth-Century Gentleman, 158–60. This khabar is preserved in Ibn Nubāta (d. 768/1366), al-Jarīrī (d. 390/1000), 
and Ibn ʿAsākir (d. 571/1176). This is not the only time al-ʿAbbās is presented as pious as we shall see in the 
following discussion of the killing of al-Walīd. In al-ʿAwtabī’s (d. early sixth/twelfth century) Kitāb al-Ansāb, 
a genealogical history of the tribe of ʿAzd with particular focus on the Muhallabids, upon returning to Yazīd 
b. ʿAbd al-Malik with the captured Muhallabids, al-ʿAbbās is said to have recited from Sūrat Nūḥ (Q 71:26–27) 
implying that in this case the kāfirs are the Muhallabids. See Martin Hinds, An Early Islamic Family from Oman: 
Al-ʿAwtabī’s Account of the Muhallabids (Manchester: University of Manchester, 1991), 75.

51.  For a discussion of a similar narrative concerning Aḥnaf as found in al-Ṭabarī, see Robert Haug, The 
Eastern Frontier: Limits of Empire in Late Antique and Early Medieval Central Asia (London: I. B. Tauris, 2018), 
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important one.52 In this case, other variations of the narrative identify Maslama as the 
interlocutor rather than his less famous nephew. This “upgrading” continues until allegedly 
it is Hishām himself who prompts Khālid to talk about Aḥnaf.53 The replacement of al-ʿAbbās 
with Maslama reflects their roles in historiography, where we often find al-ʿAbbās as 
subordinate to his uncle. There is some indication that al-ʿAbbās opposed Hishām’s attempts 
to remove al-Walīd b. Yazīd from the succession, but this is only preserved in Ibn ʿAsākir.54 

A further khabar, narrated by al-Balādhurī on the authority of al-Madāʾinī (d. 225/843), 
may reveal why al-ʿAbbās lost favor under Hishām.55 In the aftermath of the Muhallabid 
revolt, al-ʿAbbās is said to have gone to his uncle Yazīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik to convince him 
to nominate his half-brother ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. al-Walīd as his successor over Hishām.56 Yazīd 
initially agreed but then was convinced by Maslama, who asked him: “Are the sons of ʿAbd 
al-Malik dearer to you or the sons of al-Walīd?”57 The caliph listened to Maslama, and 
nominated their brother Hishām as his immediate successor, to be succeeded by his own 
son al-Walīd b. Yazīd.58 This narrative indicates that some Marwānid hajīns had sufficient 
authority to attempt to influence succession. Al-ʿAbbās, additionally, continues to mirror 
his uncle in these narratives; they are both hajīn military commanders and amongst 
the most senior members of the Banū Marwān, a position they used to shape succession 
politics. More importantly, this dialogue highlights a pivotal concern for the sons of ʿAbd 
al-Malik and stresses a generational component to succession. If the caliphate were to 
pass to a nephew, it is probable that older generations, and their progeny, would lose 
their status and individual spheres of influence. It is well documented that members of 
the Banū Marwān received sizable stipends and land grants, and privileged positions such 
as governorships probably augmented this.59 The following section will place al-ʿAbbās as 
having operated primarily around Ḥimṣ and the thughūr, to demonstrate the long-lasting 
effects of gubernatorial appointment and the continued elite status of members of the Banū 
Marwān.

52.  Hämeen-Anttila, Portrait of an Eighth-Century Gentleman, 106–8.
53.  Ibid., 108, 160. One variation of the report even sees Muʿāwiya b. Hishām prompt Khālid.
54.  This is introduced with: “I read in the writing (khaṭṭ) of Abū al-Ḥasan Rashaʾ b. Naẓīf and he was 

informed by Abū al-Qāsim b. ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm and Abū Waḥsh Subayʿa b. al-Muslim […] Haythām b. ʿAdī (d. ca. 
208/822) narrated to him from ʿĀmir b. Muslim al-Haḍramī.” The letter is written in verse. See Ibn ʿAsākir, 
Tārikh madīnat Dimashq, 26:446–47.

55.  As will be discussed in part 4, al-Balādhurī seems to be accessing al-Madāʾinī directly. 
56.  ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz was the son of al-Walīd and his cousin Umm Banīn bt. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Marwān, and thus his 

grandfathers were ʿAbd al-Malik and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. Al-Walīd had tried to replace Sulaymān as heir with his son, 
but was unsuccessful: upon Sulaymān’s death ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz tried to seize the caliphate but renounced his claim 
when he discovered that his uncle ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz had been chosen. For more on this, see S. Judd, “ʿAbd 
al-ʿAzīz b. al-Walīd,” in Encylopaedia of Islam, 3rd ed., ed. Kate Fleet et al. (Leiden: Brill Online); on Umm Banīn, 
see al-Zubayrī, Kitāb Nasab al-Quraysh, 165.

57.  Yā amīr al-muʾminīn, awlād ʿ Abd al-Malik aḥabb ilāyka am awlād al-Walīd?; al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 
8:369–70.

58.  Ibid., 370.
59.  See for instance the granting of Egypt as ṭuʿma to ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Marwān by his brother ʿAbd al-Malik 

in al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh, 2:335; idem, The Works, 3:985.



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2.3 Locating al-ʿAbbās on the Thughūr

Khālid b. Ṣafwān’s placement of al-ʿAbbās at Ruṣāfa in the previous anecdote is 
noteworthy, as it fills in some of the gaps in al-ʿAbbās’ career between Yazīd and the fitna. 
Al-Yaʿqūbī reports that he led the prayers over Hishām in 125/743 after he died in his 
capital of Ruṣāfa.60 Al-Balādhurī and al-Ṭabarī state that al-ʿAbbās was sent to the city by 
Hishām’s successor, his cousin al-Walīd b. Yazīd, to retrieve what riches were left there and 
imprison Hishām’s sons. 61 These notices make it probable that al-ʿAbbās was still operating 
out of Ḥimṣ despite being replaced as governor nearly thirty years earlier.62 If he were in 
Ḥimṣ, as I suggest, he would have been well positioned to go to Hishām’s capital, as travel 
between the two took less than a week. 

Tracing al-ʿAbbās across the forty years he is present in the source material we can 
determine a distinct geographical remit in which he operated; bounded by the Orontes 
in the West and the Euphrates to the East, al-ʿAbbās appears pre-eminent in the central 
thughūr.63 The maintenance of the central thughūr may have been his responsibility at one 
point as well. Al-Balādhurī claims he fortified and built a congregational mosque (masjid 
jāmiʿ) in Marʿash at some point between 75/695 and 127/745.64 Al-ʿAbbās is also reported 
by al-Balādhurī to have moved people from Qinnasrīn to Marʿash, indicating he had 
authority over his uncle Maslama’s previous governorship.65 Following al-ʿAbbās regaining 
favor under his uncle Yazīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik, his actions in Marʿash should be dated to the 
aftermath of the Muhallabid revolt as Maslama saw his remit expand to encompass Iraq 
(from which he was quickly removed) and then to governor of the North under Hishām, 
leaving al-ʿAbbās to fill this void.66 Eger defines Marʿash as “the divide between the western 

60.  Al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh, 2:394. For Hishām’s death, see also Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, Tārīkh, 1:533; idem, Khalifa 
Ibn Khayyat’s History, 245; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1729; idem, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 26, The Waning of the 
Umayyad Caliphate, trans. Carole Hillenbrand (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 71, where he 
is reported to have been prayed over by al-Walīd b. Yazīd and his son Maslama respectively.

61.  Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1751; idem, The History, 26, 100; al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 9:143.
62.  Ibn ʿAsākir, for instance, explicitly states that he continued to live in Ḥimṣ. See Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārikh 

madīnat Dimashq, 36:438.
63.  On the characterization of the area largely correspondent to the Aleppan Plateau, see Eger, The Islamic-

Byzantine Frontier, 34–68.
64.  For the identification of the site, see ibid., 66; these dates come from al-Balādhurī’s placement of the 

notice between a raid in 75/695 by Muḥammad b. Marwān and its being rebuilt by Marwān b. Muḥammad after 
subduing the Emesenes (after 127/745). See al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ al-buldān, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 189; 
al-Balādhurī, Origins of the Islamic State, trans. P. Hitti and F. Murgotten (New York: Columbia University Press, 
1924), 294.

65.  Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, 189; idem, Origins, 294. How this information corresponds to Robinson’s assessment 
that Qinnasrīn had been detached from the jund of Ḥimṣ (itself strongly based on al-Balādhurī) is not entirely 
clear. However, it does seem as if al-ʿAbbās had significant authority over the central thughūr. See C. Robinson, 
Empire and Elites after the Muslim Conquest (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 39.

66.  For a very good discussion on Maslama’s actions in the North, see Alison Vacca, “The Umayyad North 
(Or: How Umayyad Was the Umayyad Caliphate?),” in The Umayyad World, ed. Andrew Marsham, 219–39 
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2021), 226–29. For his removal as governor of Iraq, see Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, Tārīkh, 1:473; 
idem, Khalifa Ibn Khayyat’s History, 206.



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 The ʿAbbās after Whom Those Who Rule in Baghdad Are Named •  396

thughūr al-shāmiyya and eastern thughūr al-jazariyya.”67 The association of al-ʿAbbās with 
Marʿash in the 100s/720s consolidates the image of him as an important figure on the 
thughūr, so that despite him seemingly not having an official role in the caliphate of his 
uncle, he seems to have remained active in Marwānid political life. 

These links to the central thughūr become even more evident when one considers the 
construction of the city of ʿAnjar in modern day Lebanon.68 The site is located approximately 
fifty kilometers northwest of Damascus in the Biqāʿ valley. The account of its foundation 
dates to the reign of al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik and is preserved both in The Anonymous 
Syriac Chronicle of 846 and the Chronographia of Theophanes the Confessor. The former 
attributes it to al-Walīd, whereas the latter states that in 709–10 al-ʿAbbās raided the location, 
took many captives, returned home, and began to build Garis in the region of Heliopoulis 
(Baʿalbek).69 Mango identified this toponym as ʿAnjar or ʿAyn al-Jarr. The construction of 
the city is further attested in P. Lond. IV 1434, a Greek papyrus dated to 96–97/714–16, 
which enquires about a worker from ʿAyn al-Jarr (Αειναλγερ) who had returned to Egypt.70 
This papyrus corroborates that construction began during the reign of al-Walīd with the 
assistance of Egyptian workmen; the city was home to both a mosque and a dār al-imāra 
alongside minor palaces and a ḥammām.71 The coincidental dating of the building and 
al-ʿAbbās’ successful raids and taking of captives led Chehab to speculate on whether or 
not these captives were used as labor in the city’s construction.72 If so, the city would have 
been constructed by a multilingual and multiethnic community from Egypt, Anatolia, and 
Syria. Epigraphic evidence from the quarries at Kamid, seventeen kilometers southwest 
of the city, indicates that a multilingual community was, in fact, present in 96/714–15.  
Five Syriac inscriptions refer to the year 96 of the Hijri calendar, and there is also one 
inscription in Pahlavi and one in Greek.73 Three of the dated inscriptions announce the 
beginning of a trench-cut, indicating that the masonry used for the construction of ʿAnjar 
may have been from the nearby quarry. Chehab has demonstrated that some of the dressed 
 

67.  Eger, The Islamic-Byzantine Frontier, 66.
68.  The city exists to this day and in the 1930s was resettled by Armenian refugees; archaeological work is 

ongoing.
69.  E. W. Brooks, “A Syriac Chronicle of the Year 846,” Zeitschrift Der Deutschen Morgenländischen 

Gesellschaft 51, no. 4 (1897): 569–88, at 581; Theophanes, Chronographia, 377; idem, The Chronicle, 526.
70.  H. I. Bell, “Translations of the Greek Aphrodito Papyri in the British Museum. IV,” Der Islam: Zeitschrift 

für Geschichte und Kultur des Islamischen Orients 4 (1913): 87–96, at 87.
71.  Aila Santi, “ʿAnjar in the Shadow of the Church? New Insights on an Umayyad Urban Experiment in 

the Biqāʿ Valley,” Levant 50, no. 2 (2018): 267–80, at 269. The presence of a dār al-imāra and a congregational 
mosque validates its qualification as a madīna; on this see, idem, “The Mosque‒Dār al-Imāra Complex at ʿAnjar: 
Preliminary Notes from a Multi-layered Exploration of Ceremonial Spaces in the Marwānid Period,” Al-ʿUṣūr 
al-Wusṭā 30 (2022): 235–66.

72.  Hafez K. Chehab, “On the Identification of ʿAnjar (ʿAyn al-Jarr) as an Umayyad Foundation,” Muqarnas 
10 (1993): 42–48, at 44.

73.  Paul Mouterde, “Inscriptions en syriaque dialectal à Kāmed (Beqʿa),” Mélanges de l’Université Saint 
Joseph 22 (1939): 73–106. They are numbered 5, 10, 20, 21 and 28.



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stones seem to derive from the quarry; however, more work needs to be done in this regard 
before the two sites can be concretely linked.74 

Situated less than two days from Damascus, on the other side of the anti-Lebanon 
mountains, and on the main route between the Umayyad capital and Ḥimṣ (al-ʿAbbās’ old 
governorate), ʿAnjar was well positioned to serve as an administrative center or gathering 
place. Al-Walīd, much like his father ʿAbd al-Malik, was known for his “itinerant kingship,” 
according to which the ruler travels around his dominion to maintain loyalty and publicly 
display authority.75 Borrut has convincingly argued that this was not only undertaken by 
caliphs but also by “prince-soldiers,” indicating that perhaps ʿAnjar was constructed or 
used by al-ʿAbbās to generate his own sphere of influence.76 It bears noting that the Arabic 
tradition does not contain any mention of ʿAnjar until the third fitna, when it was the site of 
the decisive battle between Marwān b. Muḥammad and Sulaymān b. Hishām.77 

Summarizing, al-ʿAbbās was an active military figure, tasked from a young age and early 
in his father’s reign with a role on the thughūr and granted the influential governorship 
of Ḥimṣ. However, despite his prominence as eldest son he was never factored into the 
succession plan, probably due to his concubine-born status. By the time of the fitna he was 
amongst the eldest members of the Marwānid family (or the eldest son of the eldest son, i.e. 
al-Walīd), and al-Ṭabarī even cites a notice that says that al-ʿAbbās was “the head (sayyid) of 
the Banū Marwān” and that his son al-Ḥārith was old enough to be given the governorship 
of Iraq by Yazīd b. al-Walīd.78 As we have seen al-ʿAbbās held considerable political and 
military clout, comparable to that of his uncle Maslama with whom he was often paired. 
Studying the two in conjunction reveals important aspects of the representations of hajīns; 
while concubine-born sons could prove themselves through external military actions, 
narratives that take place within the Marwānid polity conflict with other “historiographical 
filters” and use their matrilineal line as a source of derision.79 Furthermore, al-ʿAbbās’ 
removal from some anecdotes indicates that, despite his being an influential figure, later 
ʿAbbāsid compilers “upgraded” their narratives by inserting more “heroic” and recognizable 
figures such as Maslama or Hishām. The high esteem in which Maslama was held by the 
ʿAbbāsids, epitomized by the fact his family were allowed to maintain their positions in and 
around Ḥiṣn Maslama in the Balikh Valley of al-Jazīra, means that he was quite simply not 
an easy figure to forget.80 Al-ʿAbbās, on the other hand, despite playing a bigger role than is 

74.  Chehab, “On the Identification of ʿAnjar,” 45.
75.  For the most recent contribution on itinerant kingship in early Islam, see Antoine Borrut, “Pouvoir 

mobile et construction de l’espace dans les premiers siècles de l’islam,” in Le gouvernement en déplacement: 
Pouvoir et mobilité dans l’Antiquité à nos jours, ed. S. Destephen, J. Barbier, and F. Chausson, 243–67 (Rennes: 
Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2019).

76.  On the term “prince-soldiers,” see Borrut, “Vanishing Syria,” 58.
77.  Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1876–79; idem, The History, 26:249.
78.  Al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 9:193; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1784, 1838; idem, The History, 26:137, 198. A 

similar notice is found in anon., Kitāb al-ʿUyūn, 133.
79.  Borrut, Entre mémoire et pouvoir, 61–62.
80.  Asa Eger, “Ḥiṣn, Ribāṭ, Thaghr or Qaṣr? Semantics and Systems of Frontier Fortifications in the Early 

Islamic Period,” in The Lineaments of Islam: Studies in Honor of Fred McGraw Donner, ed. Paul M. Cobb, 427–56 



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 The ʿAbbās after Whom Those Who Rule in Baghdad Are Named •  398

typically recognized, was not as well remembered. The “forgetting” of al-ʿAbbās can be seen 
in all four manuscripts of al-ʿAwtabī’s (d. early sixth/twelfth century) Kitāb al-Ansāb, where 
he is found as al-ʿAbbās b. Yazīd rather than al-Walīd.81 Like other sons of Marwānid caliphs, 
we can associate al-ʿAbbās with a geographical space and region, strengthening the case for 
a polycentric understanding of Marwānid history and the generation of local support and 
legitimacy.

3. The Genealogical Context of the Third Fitna

Before investigating the long-term memory of al-ʿAbbās across the sources for the third 
fitna, it is important to understand the generational changes of the elite that characterized 
the fall of the Marwānids. When accounting for the causes of the fitna, we can identify two 
novel demographic phenomena. First, all of the claimants to the caliphate—al-Walīd b. Yazīd 
b. ʿAbd al-Malik, Yazīd b. al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik, Ibrāhīm b. al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik (d. 
126/744), and al-Ḥakam b. al-Walīd b. Yazīd (d. 126/744)—represented a new generation of 
the Marwānid elite; they were grandsons (or great-grandsons) of ʿAbd al-Malik, whereas 
up until that point every caliph was a son of ʿAbd al-Malik or ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.82 It might not 
be a coincidence that the victor to emerge from the inter-Marwānid conflict, Marwān 
b. Muḥammad b. Marwān, who is depicted as avenging his murdered cousin al-Walīd b. 
Yazīd (and al-Walīd’s sons al-Ḥakam and Ibrāhīm), belonged to an earlier generation.83 This 
generational component informs the older generations’ anxieties regarding losing their 
status and, as discussed above, the restricting of the caliphal line appears to be a chief 
concern of the Banū Marwān. In other words, when the caliphate moved “vertically” down 
it was unlikely to move back up again. 

The second demographic change brought to the fore by the fitna was that Yazīd b. 
al-Walīd, al-Ḥakam, and Marwān were all sons of umm walads, who had begun to form a 
much larger portion of the population of the Qurashī elite in the generations following 
Marwān b. al-Ḥakam (r. 64–65/684–85).84 Scholars have long noted that hajīns were impeded 
from becoming caliph within the early Umayyad polity.85 Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064) in his Naqṭ 

(Leiden: Brill, 2012), 433, n. 23.
81.  M. Hinds, An Early Islamic Family from Oman, 69, n. 184. Perhaps al-ʿAwtabī’s original read correctly; 

however, that the copyists of the manuscript were unable to recognize the mistake speaks to the relatively 
unknown status of al-ʿAbbās.

82.  On the continued importance of Marwānid paternal descent, see Marsham, Rituals, 118.
83.  Our Arabic sources claim to retain verses produced by al-Ḥakam nominating Marwān as his successor 

as the heir was in prison, further indicating that Marwān positioned himself as re-establishing the appropriate 
succession order. See al-Balādhurī, Ansāb, 9:249; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1891; anon., Fragmenta, 1:156.

84.  Robinson, making use of the Nasab Quraysh of al-Zubayrī (d. ca. 233/848), demonstrates that for the two 
generations after ʿAbd al-Malik concubine-born children account for 42% and 38% of Qurashī-born children. 
See Majied Robinson, Marriage in the Tribe of Muhammad: A Statistical Study of Early Arabic Genealogical 
Literature (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019), 96. For the mothers of Yazīd, Ibrahīm, and Marwān, see al-Zubayrī, Kitāb 
Nasab al-Quraysh, 165, 167; for the mother of al-Ḥakam, see Ibn Ḥazm al-Andalusī, Jamharat ansāb al-ʿarab 
(Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿIlmiyya, 1983), 91. 

85.  For instance, see the Encyclopaedia of Islam entry where Lammens claims, “The chance of [Maslama’s] 



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al-ʿarūs, states that: “In the first place no caliph was appointed who had an umm walad 
except Yazīd b. al-Walīd, Ibrāhīm b. al-Walīd, and Marwān b. Muḥammad.”86 This should 
not be viewed as prejudice or the idealization of pure-Arab identity (as championed by 
Goldziher). Rather, as shown by Majied Robinson, the absence of hajīn caliphs among the 
Umayyads of the East was owed instead to the informal tribal connections and alliances 
afforded by paternal and maternal familial relations, upon which the hajīn could not call.87 
Urban agrees with Robinson, adding: “As the Arabian tribesmen gradually migrated to the 
garrison towns and frontiers—away from their wives, mothers, other kin groups—these 
tribal ties ceased to operate and were replaced by other types of political networks, most 
notably military factionalism.”88 The rise of Marwān b. Muḥammad fits in well with these 
ideas; as long-term governor of the North, Marwān was able to draw upon not only his 
local garrisons, but also apparently 15,000 Armenian cavalry led by Prince Ashot Bagratuni 
(d. 762).89 Urban’s argument bears considerable weight here when one considers that all 
caliphs preceding al-Walīd b. Yazīd were products of unions made prior to or during the 

birth—his mother was a slavegirl—prevented him from rising higher” (H. Lammens, “Maslama,” Encyclopaedia 
of Islam, 1st ed., ed. M. Th. Houtsma et al. [Leiden: Brill Online]); while Rotter, in the second edition of the 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, says, “Like his uncle Muḥammad b. Marwān, whom he [Maslama] succeeded in Asia 
Minor in many respects, he was, as the son of a slave-girl, excluded from the succession to the caliphate” (G. 
Rotter, “Maslama b. ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., ed. P. J. Bearman et al., [Leiden: 
Brill Online]).

86.  Ibn Ḥazm al-Andalusī, Rasāʾil Ibn Ḥazm al-Andalusī, ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās, 4 vols. (Beirut: al-Muʾassasa 
al-ʿArabiyya li-l-Dirāsāt wa-l-Nashr, 2007), 2:104. No such limitations were in place during Ibn Ḥazm’s own 
lifetime, when it came to both the ʿAbbāsids and the Umayyads of al-Andalūs, where caliphs were born nearly 
exclusively to concubines; see D. Fairchild Ruggles, “Mothers of a Hybrid Dynasty: Race, Genealogy, and 
Acculturation in al-Andalus,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 34, no. 1 (2004): 65–94.

87.  The debate on whether there was a general prejudice against hajīns is a long one, starting with Goldziher, 
passing through Lewis, towards the slightly more nuanced interpretations of Bashear and ʿAthamina. Whereas 
Lewis uses this discrimination to argue for the success of the ʿ Abbāsid revolution, he brings minimal evidence to 
the discussion and makes use of discriminatory language. The other three instead inform Robinson’s assessment 
of the Goldziher argument, which he summarizes as: “Not all men took concubines; the majority seem to have 
been highly critical of the practice. The children of these unions were subsequently discriminated against as a 
result of the chauvinistic beliefs of the Arab majority; evidence for this is in the derogatory reports that claim 
to be dated to the time, as well as the lack of hajīn caliphs and the poor performances of hajīns in the marriage 
market. But over time these attitudes softened and with the arrival of the ʿAbbāsids came greater tolerance” 
(Robinson, Marriage, 98–106, quote from 102). See also I. Goldziher, Muslim Studies, ed. S. M. Stern, trans. C. R. 
Barber and S. M. Stern, 2 vols. (Chicago: Aldine, 1966), 1:98–136; Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle 
East: An Historical Enquiry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 38–39; Suliman Bashear, Arabs and Others in 
Early Islam (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1998), 39–40; K. ʿAthamina, “How did Islam Contribute to Change the 
Legal Status of Women,” Al-Qantara 28, no. 2 (2007): 383–408, at 395–96.

88.  Urban, Conquered Populations in Early Islam, 125–26.
89.  Łewond, “The History of Łewond (Patmabanut‘iwn Łewond),” in Matenagirk‘ Hayoc‘, ed. Geworg 

Tēr-Vardanean, 6:711–854 (Ant‘ilias: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2007), 6:817. Et‘ē ehas patrikn Hayoc‘ 
i t‘ikowns awgnaganowt‘ean ew owni ǝnd iwr ǝntirs heceloc‘ hngētasan hazar aranc‘ vaṙeloc‘; translated in 
Jean-Pierre Mahé, Bernadette Martin-Hisard, and Alexan Hakobian, eds. and trans., Lewond Vardapet: discours 
historique; avec en annexe La Correspondance d’Omar et de Léon (Paris: Peeters, 2015), 124; Vacca cautions 
against viewing this as explicit support for Marwān’s claims to the caliphate, but a consequence of the Bagratuni-
Mamikonean rivalry; see Vacca, “The Umayyad North,” 231.



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 The ʿAbbās after Whom Those Who Rule in Baghdad Are Named •  400

second fitna.90 By the third fitna considerable generational and demographic shifts had 
taken place amongst the imperial elite, with the descendants of ʿAbd al-Malik splintering 
into disparate factions in an attempt to achieve the caliphate. In turn, these factions began 
to be constituted around military ties that allowed individual heirs to draw upon local 
power bases, primarily in Syria, al-Jazīra, and the caliphal North. As evidenced by the case 
of Marwān b. Muḥammad, these dynamics favored heirs who had served on the frontier 
or as long-term governors, and our narrative sources place the events in these areas of 
the caliphate.91 As we shall see, both al-Walīd b. Yazīd and Yazīd b. al-Walīd, who had not 
enjoyed gubernatorial and military appointments, were highly reliant on the loyalty of 
their kinsmen who had. Maslama, as the scholarship’s hajīn par excellence, is said to have 
never become caliph due to lack of opportunity, the circumstances of his birth, and because 
he died during Hishām’s long reign.92 Al-ʿAbbās, who outlived both Maslama and Hishām, 
saw both his concubine-born brothers take up the title of caliph, so why would he not throw 
his own name into the lot? As will be discussed in the subsequent section, the Christian 
tradition shows he may have, while the Arabic-Islamic sources present a figure who foresaw 
the fitna and aimed to prevent it. 

4. Al-ʿAbbās’s Role in Late-Antique Sources on the Fitna

The two main sets of sources used to reconstruct the role of al-ʿAbbās in the third fitna 
are Arabic-Islamic sources and Christian sources in Greek, Syriac, and Arabic. As can be seen 
in the following table these sources overlap considerably in their memory and presentation 
of al-ʿAbbās, preserving raiding notices prior to the fitna as well as maintaining a similar 
chronology of events. Łewond, interestingly, omits the role of al-ʿAbbās, but does make 
mention of al-Walīd’s killing. What is particularly notable is the fact that the Christian 
sources’ perception of al-Walīd b. Yazīd is in line with the notices in the Arabic-Islamic 
sources, where he is presented as a drunkard and unfit for the caliphate.93 Furthermore, 

90.  The youngest of ʿAbd al-Malik’s sons to become caliph was Hishām, born in 72/691, the same year as the 
defeat of Muṣʿab al-Zubayr. See al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1466.

91.  Blankinship argues that this model originates with Maslama b. ʿAbd al-Malik, referring to Marwān b. 
Muḥammad as one of his protégés. As we have seen, al-ʿAbbās appears at a very similar time, and perhaps the 
first hajīn to do this was Muḥammad b. Marwān. However, Blankinship correctly identifies the possibility of the 
generation of independent power bases established by various princes in the 100s/720s. See Blankinship, The 
End of the Jihād State, 87–88.

92.  As Robinson rightly points out, “There are other reasons [besides being concubine-born] why Maslama 
never became caliph such as his lack of opportunity (he died towards the end of the long reign of his brother 
Hishām) and his responsibility for the failed siege of Constantinople” (Majied Robinson, “Prosopographical 
Approaches to the Nasab Tradition: A Study of Marriage and Concubinage in the Tribe of Muḥammad, 500–750 
CE” [PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2013], 126). For examples of Maslama’s ineligibility in the scholarship, 
see n. 85 in this article.

93.  This is not only the case for al-Walīd, as shall be demonstrated, but also for Hishām b. ʿAbd al-Malik. 
Notably, the same cannot be said for ʿ Umar b. ʿ Abd al-ʿAzīz, as his representation in Michael the Syrian is overtly 
negative whilst in other Syriac sources it is largely positive. See Borrut, Entre mémoire et pouvoir, 303–5; This 
is not unique to the Syriac either, with the Armenian author Łewond stating that: “He [ʿUmar] was, they say, 
the noblest of all those people of his lineage (zsa asen aznowakanagoyn k‘an zamenayn ars azgatohmi iwroy)” 



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nearly all of the sources assessed here preserve the notice of al-ʿAbbās’ arrival at Ruṣāfa and 
imprisonment of the Banū Hishām.

Table 1: Al-ʿAbbās in Late Antique Sources.94

Arabic Arme-
nian

“Eastern Source” Syriac
Al-Madāʾinī “Dionysius”

                           
Sources

Information

A
l-

La
yt

h 
b.

 S
aʿ

d

A
l-

Y
aʿ

qū
bī

K
ha

līf
a 

b.
 K

ha
yy

aṭ

A
l-

Ṭa
ba

rī

A
l-

Ba
lā

dh
ur

ī

K
it

āb
 a

l-
ʿU

yu
n

Łe
w

on
d

Th
eo

ph
an

es

A
ga

pi
us

 o
f M

an
bi

j

M
ic

ha
el

 t
he

 S
yr

ia
n

Ch
ro

ni
cl

e 
12

34

M
ic

ha
el

 t
he

 S
yr

ia
n 

(A
rm

)

Ch
ro

ni
cl

e 
of

 
Zu

qn
īn

Ch
ro

ni
cl

e 
84

6

Conquest of Tyana X X X X X X X X X X

Raid, 90/708–9 X X X X X

Raid 93/711–12 X X X X X X X X X

Raid 94/712–13 X X

Raid 103/721–22 X X X X X X

Prays over Hishām X

Al-ʿAbbās sent to 
Ruṣāfa (imprisoning 
Hishām’s sons)

X X X X X X X

Put in charge of 
caliphate

X X X

Mistreats Hishām’s 
family

X X X X X

Desires caliphate X X

Spreads rumors X X

Betrays al-Walīd X X X X X X X X X X

Al-Walīd’s 
licentiousness

X X X X X X X X X

Concubine narrative X X X

Forced to betray al-
Walīd for Yazīd

X X X X X

Revolt in Ḥimṣ X X X X X X X X

Al-ʿAbbās dies in 
prison

X X X X X

Mistakes al-ʿAbbās 
b. al-Walīd for 
ʿAbbāsids

X X

(Łewond, Patmabanut‘iwn, 6:761).
94.  The categorization of the sources reflects the needs of the article and the divisions presented do not 

reflect late antique sources as a whole, as these are not easily classifiable or independent of one another based 
on the confessional identity of the author or language of production.



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4.1 Arabic-Islamic Sources

The main Arabic-Islamic sources for reconstructing the third fitna are the histories of 
Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ (d. 240/855), al-Balādhurī (d. 279/892), al-Yaʿqūbī (d. 284/897–98), and 
al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923). The following discussion will trace the role of al-ʿAbbās in the killing 
of his cousin al-Walīd b. Yazīd across the four Arabic-Islamic sources mentioned above, 
which do not appear to have been reconciled and demonstrate significant confusion and 
contradictions. For the sake of clarity, a brief outline of the main themes is warranted. 

First of all, we must recognize that the only detailed narrative account of events is that 
of al-Madāʾinī, which is accessed by al-Ṭabarī through the recension of Aḥmad b. Zuhayr, 
while al-Balādhurī seems to have been accessing the material directly.95 The absence of the 
transmitter in Khalīfa’s account of the killing of al-Walīd—despite al-Madāʾinī serving as one 
of his main sources prior to this—may indicate that he did not have access to this material, 
or that it did not fit the terse narrative style of his text. Khalīfa’s narrative corroborates the 
two al-Madāʾinī transmissions of al-Balādhurī and al-Ṭabarī; in it al-ʿAbbās warns against 
the uprising against al-Walīd b. Yazīd, following which he was captured by his brother 
Yazīd’s supporters. The other possibility is that Khalīfa had yet to incorporate this material 
by the time Baqī b. Makhlād (d. 276/889) learnt his Tārīkh and brought it west, but this 
we cannot prove.96 The sources (aside from al-Yaʿqūbī) all agree that al-ʿAbbās tried to 
dissuade his brother Yazīd b. al-Walīd from opposing al-Walīd b. Yazīd. Second, paired with 
al-Ṭabarī’s classification of him as sayyid Banī Marwān, we should identify al-ʿAbbās as the 
most senior figure in the wider Marwānid family. This responsibility may have prevented 
him from immediately joining the younger aggrieved factions of the Banū al-Walīd b. ʿAbd 
al-Malik and Banū Hishām, who appear explicitly as the opposition to al-Walīd b. Yazīd. 
That in both traditions he turns the tide of events testifies to his position within the polity, 
as well as foreshadowing the impending fitna. Third, al-ʿAbbās’ high status indicates that 
hajīns were integral to late Marwānid politics and is a reminder that caliphal succession 
was often determined years, if not decades, prior to the event and thus should not reflect 
how we view the political realities of individual reigns.97 Furthermore, almost all of the 
major figures presented in the narratives were hajīns: Yazīd b. al-Walīd, Bishr b. al-Walīd, 
ʿUmar b. al-Walīd, al-ʿAbbās b. al-Walīd, Ibrāhīm b. al-Walīd, Saʿīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik, and ʿAbd 
al-ʿAzīz b. Ḥajjāj. This is probably not a coincidence; as mentioned above, they had been 
appointed to governorships and they led raids. In the increasingly fragmented Marwānid 
state they appear to be among the few members of the imperial elite who maintained a 
sustained territorial influence and could rely on military support. However, as in the case of 

95.  Ilkka Lindstedt, “The Transmissions of al-Madāʾinīs Historical Material to al-Balādhurī and al-Ṭabarī: 
A Comparison and Analysis of Two Khabars,” Studia Orientalia 114 (2013): 41–64. On al-Balādhurī’s use of 
al-Madāʾinī, see also Ryan J. Lynch, Arab Conquests and Early Islamic Historiography: The Futuh al-Buldan of 
al-Baladhuri (London: I. B. Tauris, 2019), 78–79.

96.  On the transmission of Khalīfa’s Tārīkh, see Tobias Andersson, Early Sunnī Historiography: A Study of the 
Tārīkh of Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 16–20.

97.  As we saw earlier, al-Walīd b. Yazīd’s nomination was secured in the aftermath of the Muhallabid revolt 
in the early 100s/720s. 



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the Muhallabids, they also had to face anti-hajīn rhetoric, probably reflecting the anxieties 
of a “pure” Arabian elite in the face of growing practice of concubinage.98 Fourth, all the 
build up to al-Walīd’s death at al-Bakhrāʾ allows us to ascertain that al-ʿAbbās was operating 
largely out of Ḥimṣ and was able to call upon active military support. This is a further 
reminder that even if a figure were removed from a position they could continue to enjoy 
the privileges and status associated with office. 

Steven Judd has demonstrated that the narratives of the beginning of the third fitna, 
including al-Walīd’s killing in al-Bakhrāʾ, are often confused and anachronistic, reflecting 
the contemporary concerns of the ʿAbbāsid-era compilers.99 His analysis is built on the 
accounts as found in al-Balādhurī and al-Ṭabarī, who nearly exclusively follow the Basran 
transmitter, al-Madāʾinī (d. ca. 228/842–43). Despite their reliance on the same source, the 
two compilers focus on different aspects; al-Balādhurī highlights religious disputes, while 
al-Ṭabarī identifies tribal and factional divisions.100 Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ’s account of the fitna, 
on the other hand, does not use what up until this point was his main source, al-Madāʾinī, 
but a minor authority, Ismāʿīl b. Ibrāhīm—Khalīfa may have used al-Madāʾinī more for 
chronology than akhbār.101 As Steven Judd’s analysis does not include Khalīfa’s account, a 
brief outline of it is warranted, as it corroborates al-Madāʾinī’s account but does not contain 
its pietistic and foreshadowing embellishments. The only legitimizing narrative present 
in Khalīfa’s account pertains to the killing itself, where he draws a comparison between 
al-Walīd b. Yazīd and another murdered caliph, ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān (d. 35/654). According to 
the historian, when al-Walīd was surrounded he picked up the Qurʾān and said, “I shall be 
murdered the same way the son of my paternal uncle, ʿUthmān, was murdered [i.e. reading 
the Qurʾān].”102 This is the only eulogizing or legitimizing narrative within his account of 
al-Walīd’s killing, and the fact that it is positioned after a khabar in which the caliph is 
referred to as a “sodomite” (lūṭī), and a sermon delivered by Yazīd b. al-Walīd, imply that it 
is doubtful that Khalīfa lent it much credence. Khalīfa downplays al-Walīd’s depravity and 
drunkenness, focusing on administrative and political matters.103 There is no reference to 
the Qadarīs or Kalbīs, and Khalīfa’s matter of fact narration places the caliph’s cousins at 

98.  Robinson has shown that by the 100s/720s the percentage of Marwānid sons born to concubines 
outstripped the Qurashī average (Robinson, Marriage, 180–81). For the anxieties around the liminal status of 
hajīns, see the apocalyptic tradition stating that they will join the Byzantines (al-rūm) against the caliphate in 
Nuʿaym b. Ḥammad, Fitan, 2:449; idem, The Book of Tribulations, 265.

99.  Judd, “Medieval Explanations,” 103–4.
100.  Ibid., 91–93. This tribal distinction is strongly taken up by later compilers, e.g., al-Masʿūdī, al-Tanbīh 

wa-l-ishrāf, 8:323; idem, Le Livre de l’avertissement, 418.
101.  As mentioned, his main source is Ismāʿīl b. Ibrāhīm who, by my count, for the years between 126/743–44 

to 130/747–48 is cited as his transmitter for seventeen of thirty-nine notices. This is operating on Wurtzel and 
Andersson’s suggestion that Khalīfa (or his transmitter Baqī b. Makhlad) may have regularly confused Ismāʿīl’s 
paternal grandfather, so Ismāʿīl b. Isḥaq and Ismāʿīl b. Ibrāhīm were counted as one and the same. See Khalīfa b. 
Khayyāṭ. Khalifa Ibn Khayyat’s History, 36; Andersson, Early Sunnī Historiography, 112, 119.

102.  Wa-qāla aqtula kamā qutila ibn ʿammī ʿUthmān (Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, Tārīkh, 2:550; idem, Khalifa Ibn 
Khayyat’s History, 256).

103.  Andersson, Early Sunnī Historiography, 270–71.



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the forefront of the plot to overthrow him. The first khabar of his reign (after the notice 
regarding his date of death, age, birthplace, and regnal length) states:

Ismāʿīl b. Ibrāhīm < ʿAbd Allāh b. Wāqid al-Jarmī, who was a witness to the killing of 
al-Walīd.

When they agreed to murder al-Walīd, they entrusted the leadership (qalladū amruhum) 
to Yazīd b. al-Walīd b. ʿ Abd al-Malik b. Marwān. ʿ Abd al-ʿAzīz b. al-Ḥajjāj b. ʿ Abd al-Malik 
(d. 126/744), a member of his family, pledged allegiance to him. Yazīd b. al-Walīd went 
out one night to his brother, al-ʿAbbās, to consult him (shāwara) about killing al-Walīd. 
He advised him against it. 104

Khalīfa, therefore, does not provide a reason for the killing of al-Walīd but introduces 
the two main actors: Yazīd b. al-Walīd and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. Yazīd b. al-Walīd was the son of 
al-Walīd and Shāh Afrid bt. Fīrūz b. Yazdegerd (III), an umm walad.105 ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz was a 
minor figure up until this point, the son of the hajīn al-Ḥajjāj b. ʿAbd al-Malik and either 
an umm walad or Rayṭa bt. ʿUbayd Allāh b. ʿAbd Allāh, the mother of the first ʿAbbāsid 
caliph Abū al-ʿAbbās.106 Furthermore, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz married a daughter of Hishām, Umm 
Salama, with whom he went on pilgrimage in 124/741–42.107 Considering that al-Walīd had 
imprisoned Hishām’s family upon his accession, it is understandable that ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz was 
prominent in the anti-Walīd faction. He would be rewarded by Yazīd later, being named 
walī al-ʿahd (heir apparent) after Ibrāhīm b. al-Walīd.108 That Yazīd sought al-ʿAbbās’ advice 
supports his position in the post-Hishām period as the head of the Marwānids. Khalīfa’s 
narrative continues with al-ʿAbbās going to support al-Walīd at al-Bakhrāʾ (21 km south 
of Palmyra) with an army of Ḥimṣīs (jund min ahl Ḥimṣ) who reached al-Walīd without 
their general, as he had been seized by his brother’s troops.109 Al-ʿAbbās was seized by ʿAbd 
al-ʿAzīz’s generals and forced to swear the bayʿa to Yazīd, prompting a large defection from 
al-Walīd’s camp.110 The specification of ahl Ḥimṣ indicates that for our chroniclers al-ʿAbbās 
maintained authority in his old governorate, despite his removal nearly thirty years prior. 
Syrian military loyalty, therefore, is presented as not being to al-Walīd but to al-ʿAbbās, 

104.  Wa-kāna shahada qatal al-Walīd qāla lammā ajmaʿū ʿalā qatal al-Walīd qalladū amruhum Yazīd b. 
al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān, wa-bāyʿahu min ahl baytahu ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. al-Ḥajjāj b. ʿAbd al-Malik 
fa-kharaja Yazīd b. al-Walīd fa-atā akhāhu al-ʿAbbās laylan fa-shāwara fī qatl al-Walīd fa-nahāhu ʿan dhālika 
(Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, Tārīkh, 2:548; idem, Khalifa Ibn Khayyat’s History, 254).

105.  Al-Zubayrī, Nasab al-Quraysh, 165; al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 8:66.
106.  In the early nasab tradition he is the son of an umm walad (see al-Zubayrī, Nasab al-Quraysh, 168); 

whereas later he is found as the daughter of Rayṭa (Ibn Ḥazm, Rasāʾil, 2:147; Ibn ʿAsākir, Tārikh madīnat 
Dimashq, 36:269–71); for the mother of Abū ʿAbbās, see al-Zubayrī, Nasab al-Quraysh, 30; Ibn Ḥazm, Jamharat 
ansāb al-ʿarab, 20.

107.  Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1727; idem, The History, 26:68.
108.  Marsham, Rituals, 120.
109.  Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, Tārīkh, 2:549; on Bakhrāʾ, see D. Genequand, “Al-Bakhra (Avatha), from the Tetrarchic 

Fort to the Umayyad Castle,” Levant 36 (2004): 225–42.
110.  Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, Tārīkh, 2:549; idem, Khalifa Ibn Khayyat’s History, 255.



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indicating that the hajīn, although not the caliph, as sayyid Banī Marwān swayed loyalties 
and allegiances. 

4.1.1 Al-Madāʾinī’s account of al-ʿAbbās’ role

As noted previously, al-Balādhurī’s and al-Ṭabarī’s narratives of the killing of al-Walīd 
are transmitted on the authority of al-Madāʾinī.111 The fifth/eleventh century Kitāb al-ʿUyūn 
wa-l-ḥadāʾiq fī akhbār al-ḥaqāʾiq also makes use of al-Madāʾinī; however it is more or less 
the same account as that of al-Balādhurī with minor variations. This means we are able to 
reconstruct al-Madāʾinī’s narrative as preserved across these three sources, but because 
of the texts’ dates of production and the similarities between the Ansāb and the ʿUyūn, 
the main comparison will be between al-Balādhurī and al-Ṭabarī. This will be done by 
undergoing a thorough overview of the akhbār narrated on the authority of al-Madāʾinī, 
which will be compared to the “Dionysius circuit” later. To repeat, according to al-Balādhurī 
and al-Ṭabarī, al-Walīd b. Yazīd sent al-ʿAbbās to Ruṣāfa to imprison Hishām’s progeny and 
secure the treasury or storehouses (al-khazāʾin).112 According to al-Ṭabarī, al-Walīd’s kātib, 
ʿIyāḍ—who had been imprisoned at Ruṣāfa by the caliph—ordered the storehouse/treasury 
doors (abwāb al-khazāʾin) to be shut upon Hishām’s death.113 How the imprisoned scribe 
managed to do this is difficult to imagine; however, as we shall see, the Syriac sources 
report that al-ʿAbbās entered into the treasury (gazzâ) as well. The narrative of ʿIyāḍ being 
sent to secure the khazāʾin upon Hishām’s death and al-ʿAbbās’ imprisonment of the caliph’s 
sons may indicate that al-Walīd feared he would not be granted access to the riches of the 
caliphate, hampering his succession.

Although al-Madāʾinī’s account does not contradict that of Khalīfa, literary 
embellishments are much more common in his narrative, with the inclusion of poetry 
and conversations. Al-ʿAbbās is employed to foreshadow the impending fitna and warn of 
regicide, seemingly the only figure who perceived that the dispute between al-Walīd b. 
Yazīd and Yazīd b. al-Walīd would bring about the fall of the Banū Marwān. In terms of how 
our two main sources accessed this material, Lindstedt has argued that al-Balādhurī’s isnāds 
make it appear as if he is accessing the material directly, whilst al-Ṭabarī always cites it on 

111.  Judd, “Medieval Explanations”; Judd, “Reinterpreting Al-Walīd b. Yazīd.” The anonymous Kitāb al-ʿUyūn 
largely contains the same notices, conforming more closely to al-Balādhurī’s version. But due to its late date of 
production (late eleventh century) and close use of earlier sources, it does not factor greatly into my discussion 
here. 

112.  To what exactly khazāʾin refers here is difficult to say. Hillenbrand has opted for “storehouses” in her 
translation, but texts such as the Kitāb al-Amwāl of Qudāma b. Jaʿfar seem to imply that khazāʾin were used 
to store ghanāʾim and tribute (jizya). A more in-depth study of the terminology in question would be helpful. 
Al-Ṭabarī frequently uses khazāʾin throughout his text, while Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ includes it in his list of caliphal 
administrators as separate from bayt al-māl but still under that individual’s purview, e.g., for Hishām: al-khazāʾin 
wa-buyūt al-amwāl ʿ Abd Allāh b. ʿ Amr b. al-Ḥarith ([Administrator] of the warehouses and treasuries) (Khalīfa b. 
Khayyāṭ, Tārīkh, 2:545; idem, Khalifa Ibn Khayyat’s History, 252), For a recent discussion of these lists in Khalīfa 
b. Khayyāṭ, see M. Legendre, “The Translation of the Dīwān and the Making of the Marwanid ‘Language Reform’: 
Secretarial Agency, Economic Incentives, Regional Dynamics in the Umayyad State,” in Navigating Language in 
the Early Islamic World, ed. Antoine Borrut and Alison Vacca (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming).

113.  Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1751; idem, The History, 26:100.



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the authority of Aḥmad b. Zuhayr (d. 279/892).114 Although there are a variety of differences 
in the two authors’ accounts, for the sections dealing with al-ʿAbbās they preserve similar 
material.115 Al-Ṭabarī corroborates Yazīd’s consultation with the head of the Marwānids, 
following a discussion between Yazīd and one of his supporters:

According to Aḥmad b. Zuhayr < ʿAlī (al-Madāʾinī):

If al-ʿAbbās gives you [Yazīd b. al-Walīd] the oath of allegiance, no one else will oppose 
you (bāyaʿaka lam yukhāllifka aḥad). If al-ʿAbbās refuses, then the people will be more 
likely to obey him. If you insist on sticking to your opinion, then proclaim publicly that 
al-ʿAbbās has given the oath of allegiance to you […] Yazīd came to his brother al-ʿAbbās 
and told him what had been happening. Yazīd asked his advice (shāwarahu) and spoke 
abusively of al-Walīd. Then al-ʿAbbās said to him: “Go easy, Yazīd. By breaking God’s 
oath (ʿahd Allāh) you corrupt both true religion and this life on earth.”116

Al-ʿAbbās is again presented as pious, as a protector of the covenant of God, and as the 
most influential of the Marwānids. The use of the terms shūra/shāwara and ʿahd Allāh 
in the khabar is reflective of the language of succession in the early Marwānid period.117 
Al-Ṭabarī’s isnād is problematic here since al-Madāʾinī was born nearly a decade after the 
events, and thus could not have been an eyewitness, and we have no other indication of 
where the information comes from.118 Kilpatrick points out that al-ʿAbbās’ alleged piety in 
this matter drew comparison with his most pious uncle, ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, in the Kitāb 
al-Aghānī.119 Yazīd returned to his brother to convince him again, but was called “the most 
inauspicious lamb (ashām sakhla) of the Banū Marwān,” and al-ʿAbbās even threatened to 
tie him up and send him to al-Walīd.120 Al-Madāʾinī’s account contains further references 
to al-ʿAbbās’ opposition, such as a confrontation with his brother in reaction to Marwān’s 
letter of support for al-Walīd b. Yazīd, which Marwān, the governor of the North, had 
sent to Saʿīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik, the governor of Palestine, who forwarded it to al-ʿAbbās.121 
Al-ʿAbbās summoned (daʿā) Yazīd and threatened him. Yazīd responded that Marwān’s 
 

114.  Ilkka Lindstedt, “The Role of al-Madāʾinī’s Students in the Transmission of His Material,” Der Islam 91, 
no. 2 (2014): 295–340, at 307.

115.  For a comparison between how the two compilers used the akhbarī’s material, see Lindstedt, “The 
Transmissions.”

116.  Al-Ṭabarī, al-Tārīkh, 2:1784; idem, The History, 26:137.
117.  We should not, however, assume that this was fully formulated, nor does its appearance here indicate 

the veracity of the report; see Marsham, Rituals, 114–17.
118.  Lindstedt, “Transmission,” 42.
119.  Hilary Kilpatrick, “Images of the Umayyads,” in Umayyad Legacies: Medieval Memories from Syria to 

Spain, ed. Antoine Borrut and Paul M. Cobb, 63–87 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 69; on ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz’s image as 
the most pious caliph, see Borrut, Entre mémoire et pouvoir, 283–320.

120.  Al-Ṭabarī, al-Tārīkh, 2:1785; idem, The History, 26:138.
121.  Al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 9:170–71; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1785–88; idem, The History, 26:139–41; 

Patricia Crone, Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 
1980), 129.



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claims of rebellion were lies (irjāf), and he promised (khalafa) his brother that he would 
abandon the opposition (muʿāraḍa) and not attempt to depose al-Walīd.122 

Therefore, in al-Madāʾinī’s narratives, al-ʿAbbās wishes to preserve the status quo and 
exerts substantial authority. His allegiance, in the eyes of our compilers, would be enough to 
sway the dispute. Furthermore, his status as a senior member of the Marwānids is evident in 
his summoning of Yazīd as well as in his being Saʿīd’s port of call on how to proceed. Saʿīd’s 
presence in the narrative is curious as, despite being a son of ʿAbd al-Malik, he defers to 
al-ʿAbbās. Saʿīd was a hajīn and led the ṣāʾifa in 106/725.123 The nasab tradition is not always 
organized chronologically; however the fact that he is placed nearly last in both al-Zubayrī’s 
and al-Yaʿqūbī’s lists of ʿAbd al-Malik’s fourteen sons (he is eleventh) may indicate that 
he was in fact amongst the youngest. This is further supported by his late appearance in 
the sources and the fact that he was still active in the 120s/740s. Al-ʿAbbās’ pre-eminence 
amongst the Marwānids is probably owed to his relatively advanced age by this point, as 
well as his greater military experience.

Al-ʿAbbās’ opposition to the impending regicide is reported in another khabar relayed 
by his nephew, the unnamed son of Bishr b. al-Walīd, on the authority of al-Madāʾinī, that 
takes the shape of a conversation between al-ʿAbbās and his brother Yazīd.124 Bishr urges his 
brother, al-ʿAbbās, to support Yazīd but is again rebuffed, prompting al-ʿAbbās to exclaim, 
“I believe God has permitted your destruction.”125 The foreshadowing and anachronisms 
in the representation of al-ʿAbbās are most probably a literary construct aimed at warning 
against regicide and urging the avoidance of fitna at all costs. This motif is alluded to in a 
poem attributed to al-ʿAbbās and set after his conversation with Bishr:

May God protect you from tribulations (fitan)
            Looming like mountains, which then violently erupt.
Indeed, the creatures have grown weary (mallat) of your (pl.) policy (siyāsatakum) 
           So, hold tight to the pillar (ʿamūd) of religion and withhold yourselves. 126

Again, al-Madāʾinī presents al-ʿAbbās as wanting to preserve Marwānid rule, while the 
foreshadowing imagery of the mountains and the use of fitan are anachronistic projections. 
Al-ʿAbbās is presented as pious, dissuading Yazīd’s faction from following through, becoming 
the bulwark trying to hold back the oncoming fitna. Writing in the aftermath of the fourth 
fitna, issues of regicide and factional disputes must have been particularly relevant for 

122.  Despite both citing al-Madāʾinī as their source, the conversation between the two brothers appears quite 
different linguistically when comparing the two sources. See al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 9:171; al-Ṭabarī, 
Tārīkh, 2:1787; idem, The History, 26:140–41.

123.  Al-Zubayrī, Nasab al-Quraysh, 165; Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, Tārīkh, 2:491; idem, Khalifa Ibn Khayyat’s History, 
217; al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh, 2:394; idem, The Works, 1049.

124.  The chain of transmission is Aḥmad b. Zuhayr < ʿAlī al-Madāʾinī < Ibn Bishr al-Walīd.
125.  Al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 9:171; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1787–88; idem, The History, 26:141.
126.  The translated verses (my own) are the shorter variants found in al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 9:171; 

an extra bayt is found in the version narrated in al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1788; idem, The History, 26:141.



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al-Madāʾinī.127 Al-Madāʾinī’s narrative comes full circle in the lead up to al-Walīd b. Yazīd’s 
death. As in Khalīfa, al-ʿAbbās is intercepted by one of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. al-Ḥajjāj b. ʿAbd 
al-Malik’s generals, Manṣūr b. Jumhūr or Yaʿqūb b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Kalbī, and forced 
to go over to ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and give his allegiance to Yazīd.128 In al-Balādhurī, Manṣūr 
calls al-ʿAbbās Ibn Qusṭanṭīn, whilst in al-Ṭabarī it is Yaʿqūb; this is the only significant 
variation in the account, and both sources even agree he was accompanied by thirty men, 
corroborating Khalīfa. 

When al-ʿAbbās was forced to swear the bayʿa to his brother, Yazīd b. al-Walīd, his 
supporters raised the banner of al-ʿAbbās (naṣabū rāyatan) and announced that he had 
given his allegiance to the amīr al-muʾminīn, Yazīd, prompting again a major defection 
from al-Walīd’s camp. Al-ʿAbbās is then reported to have exclaimed, “This is one of the 
wiles of the devil (khudʿa min khudiʿ al-shayṭān). The Banū Marwān are destroyed!”129 
Al-ʿAbbās’ capture is made explicitly clear by both al-Balādhurī and the Kitāb al-ʿUyūn, 
which add: “he was like a prisoner amongst them.”130 The lack of this notice in al-Ṭabarī 
indicates some editing by our authors. A variant of the capture is preserved in al-Ṭabarī, 
still attributed to al-Madāʾinī but this time on the authority of al-Muthannā b. Muʿāwiya, an 
alleged eyewitness in al-Walīd b. Yazīd’s camp.131 Al-ʿAbbās is said to have sent a messenger 
to al-Walīd, but on this occasion we are informed that al-Walīd suspected (ittahama) 
al-ʿAbbās and asked him to go to the caliph’s camp. The return messenger was intercepted 
by Manṣūr, who threatened al-ʿAbbās, ordering him to stay in place. After being ambushed 
by the troops of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. al-Ḥajjāj, al-ʿAbbās went to his brother’s camp, and al-Walīd 
b. Yazīd’s men seeing this (al-ʿAbbās going to the other side), retreated.132 

Al-Balādhurī has a similar narrative, but not on the authority of al-Madāʾinī; instead 
it is narrated by Hishām b. ʿAmmar (d. 245/859). According to this account al-ʿAbbās 
fought on the side of al-Walīd, confirming his bayʿa, but was thrown from his horse by 
one of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz’s men. He then went over (ʿadala) to ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, again prompting 
defection, and the khabar ends with Yazīd pardoning (ṣafaḥa) and freeing his brother.133 
Al-ʿAbbās is therefore again able to single-handedly prompt large-scale defection from 
al-Walīd’s camp. These variants fill in some of the gaps, such as how Yazīd’s supporters 
knew where to intercept him but leave quite a few questions unanswered. If al-ʿAbbās was 
dedicated to al-Walīd’s cause, why did he retreat to ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and what happened to his 

127.  Signficantly al-Ṭabarī’s account of the fourth fitna also comes from al-Madāʾinī; see T. El-Hibri, “The 
Regicide of the Caliph al-Amīn and the Challenge of Representation in Medieval Islamic Historiography,” 
Arabica 42, no. 3 (1995): 334–64.

128.  Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1798–99; idem, The History, 26:152; al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 9:177–78. This 
part is introduced with the isnād Aḥmad b. Zuhayr < ʿAlī al-Madāʾinī< ʿAmr b. Marwān al-Kalbī < Yaʿqūb b. 
ʿIbrāhīm al-Walīd.

129.  Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1799; idem, The History, 26:152–53; al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 9:178; anon., Kitāb 
al-ʿUyūn, 141. 

130.  Al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 9:178; anon., Kitāb al-ʿUyūn, 141.
131.  The full isnād is Aḥmad b. Zuhayr < ʿ Alī al-Madāʾinī < ʿ Amr b. Marwān al-Kalbī < al-Muthannā b. Muʿāwiya.
132.  Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1804–5; idem, The History, 26:157–59.
133.  Al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 9:180.



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cavalry, of which we are told but who do not seem to have witnessed his “imprisonment”? 
Conveniently, their failure to witness the ambush prompts their defection, thinking their 
leader had himself defected.

Al-ʿAbbās’ role in al-Madāʾinī’s narrative, therefore, does not contradict that presented 
in Khalīfa’s, but the account is embellished with lines of verse and direct conversations, 
foreshadowing motifs that warn of the dangers of fitna and regicide. Al-ʿAbbās appears as 
the only figure who foresees that the dispute between al-Walīd b. Yazīd and Yazīd b. al-Walīd 
would bring about the fall of the Marwānids. However, reading between the lines, it also 
conveys the sense that he enjoyed substantial authority over the Marwānids, as is evident 
in his being a port of call for shūra. Additionally, al-ʿAbbās allegedly swayed the outcome 
of the dispute simply by offering his bayʿa. Al-Madāʾinī’s narrative clearly shows how 
al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik’s progeny had strongly linked themselves to those of Hishām, with 
al-Walīd b. Yazīd’s treatment of them sparking significant anger, exacerbated by his alleged 
appropriation of a jāriya belonging to the family.134 Al-ʿAbbās’ role in the imprisonment of 
Hishām’s sons, as well as his support for al-Walīd, curiously do not seem to have drawn much 
ire from his fellow Marwānids. Al-Balādhurī’s inclusion of an element in which al-ʿAbbās is 
pardoned may indicate that there was bad blood, but it is only preserved in a single khabar, 
transmitted on the authority of a figure who did not live under the Umayyads. This is why 
al-ʿAbbās’ defection narrative is unsatisfying in explaining the partisanship of the fitna 
and simply too convenient for Yazīd b. al-Walīd’s faction. Al-Madāʾinī’s use of al-ʿAbbās as 
the figure to warn of looming fitna serves to foreshadow the ensuing events, of which the 
audience, living after the fall of the Marwānids, would have been acutely aware.

4.1.2 Al-Yaʿqūbī and the Ḥimṣī revolt

Al-Yaʿqūbī’s account of the death of al-Walīd contains no mention of al-ʿAbbās and 
appears too difficult to reconcile with the narratives unless we entertain, as I suggest below, 
that the author or the copyists may have mixed up the reigns of al-Walīd b. Yazīd and 
Yazīd b. al-Walīd. Al-Yaʿqūbī’s relatively short account of the caliph’s reign is characterized 
by al-Walīd b. Yazīd’s mistreatment of Hishām’s maternal family and his governors, and 
narratives of his wine drinking, building a drinking tent atop the Kaʿba, and general neglect 
for caliphal affairs.135 The narrative contains some tribal elements as found in al-Ṭabarī, but 
no mention of Yazīd’s Qadarī affiliation (as found in al-Balādhurī) until the latter’s death.136 
Al-ʿAbbās does not feature in the narrative until the reign of his brother Yazīd b. al-Walīd, 
where he is reported to have rebelled against the reigning caliph, but to have been saved 

134.  Judd, “Reinterpreting al-Walīd b. Yazīd,” 450. This is also from the al-Madāʾinī circuit; see al-Ṭabarī, 
Tārīkh, 2:1776.

135.  The account of al-Walīd’s reign is very short, occupying less than two folios of the Manchester 
manuscript. See Arabic MS 231 [801], fols. 288–89, https://luna.manchester.ac.uk/luna/servlet/detail/
Man4MedievalVC~4~4~993914~163319. For a discussion of the Manchester manuscript (the older of the two 
extant manuscripts), see al-Yaʿqūbī, The Works, 1:23–26.

136.  Al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh, 2:397–400, 402; idem, The Works, 1052–56.

https://luna.manchester.ac.uk/luna/servlet/detail/Man4MedievalVC~4~4~993914~163319
https://luna.manchester.ac.uk/luna/servlet/detail/Man4MedievalVC~4~4~993914~163319


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by Sulaymān b. Hishām b. ʿAbd al-Malik.137 However, al-Madāʾinī’s account has al-ʿAbbās 
imprison Sulaymān on al-Walīd’s orders. We are then told Sulaymān escaped from prison 
in Amman upon al-Walīd’s death and went to Yazīd b. al-Walīd, who proceeded to marry 
Hishām’s daughter Umm Hishām.138 The inclusion of this marriage notice after Sulaymān’s 
escape may be a means for the compilers to express a further consolidation between the 
sons of al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik and those of Hishām.

This is one of the major contradictions in al-Yaʿqūbī’s section on the fitna and warrants 
considerable skepticism: if al-ʿAbbās had revolted against Yazīd, why would Sulaymān come 
to his aid? Sulaymān would be Yazīd’s general at ʿAnjar against Marwān b. Muḥammad, and 
his imprisonment under al-Walīd b. Yazīd speaks to his loyalty to his cousin, evidenced also 
by the marital connection. Other figures reported by al-Yaʿqūbī to have rebelled against 
al-Yazīd b. al-Walīd are Bishr b. al-Walīd in Qinnasrīn, ʿUmar b. al-Walīd in Jordan, and Yazīd 
b. Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Malik in Palestine.139 This means that, in al-Yaʿqūbī, three of four 
revolts against Yazīd b. al-Walīd were carried out by his own brothers, which contradicts 
the strong fraternal aspect of the other accounts. In the notice from al-Madāʾinī discussed 
above, Bishr attempts to convince al-ʿAbbās to join their brother Yazīd’s cause and ʿUmar 
admonishes al-Walīd b. Yazīd regarding his appropriation of a jāriya.140 Bishr is also depicted 
in most sources as opposing Marwān b. Muḥammad during the reign of his brother Ibrāhīm 
b. al-Walīd, and al-Ṭabarī claims that he was given the governorship of Qinnasrīn only 
under Yazīd.141 ʿUmar is recorded as governor of Jordan under his father al-Walīd b. ʿAbd 
al-Malik, and like al-ʿAbbās it seems he retained his influence there long after his official 
post ended.142 It is clear that there was no love lost between al-Walīd b. Yazīd and his 
cousins; therefore their rebellion against their own brother Yazīd seems unlikely. The only 
revolt that fits with what we have already seen is that of Yazīd b. Sulaymān in Palestine, 
who was raised up by the Palestinian jund at the expense of Saʿīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik who 
escaped to Yazīd.143 Exacerbating the contradictions in al-Yaʿqūbī is the fact that the notice 
of al-ʿAbbās’ revolt is introduced with the claim that he was supported by the people of 
Ḥimṣ (shāyaʿahu ahl Ḥimṣ), his ex-governorate. As we shall see shortly that is not the case; 
al-ʿAbbās features as the main victim of this revolt due to his defection from al-Walīd in 
both the “al-Madāʾinī circuit” and the Christian sources. In their translation of al-Yaʿqūbī’s 
Tārīkh, Robinson et al. have posited that the text suffered some corruption when it comes 
 

137.  Al-Yaʿqūbī, 2:401; idem, The Works, 1057.
138.  Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1827; idem, The History, 26:185.
139.  Al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh, 2:401; idem, The Works, 1057.
140.  For Bishr, see al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 9:171; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1787–88; idem, The History, 

26:141. For ʿUmar, see al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1776; anon., ʿUyūn, 131.
141.  Bishr met Marwān in the vicinty of Aleppo, less than a day’s march from Qinnasrīn. See Khalīfa b. 

Khayyāṭ, Tārīkh, 2:564; idem, Khalifa Ibn Khayyat’s History, 267; al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 9:199–200; 
al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh, 2:403; idem, The Works, 1058; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1876; idem, The History, 26:250. 

142.  Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, Tārīkh, 2:417.
143.  Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1831; idem, The History, 26:189–90. This is, again, on the authority of al-Madāʾinī.



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to these notices, and the incongruity of the report of this revolt when compared with other 
sources seem to support this.144 

I would cautiously suggest these notices were transposed accidentally into the account of 
Yazīd b. al-Walīd’s caliphate when they were originally included in the reign of al-Walīd b. 
Yazīd. This suggestion is based, firstly, on the fact that the similarity of their names makes 
misattribution likely.145 A second reason for suspecting misattribution is that in both notices 
the author states that the “regions went into revolt (iḍṭarabat).” However, for al-Walīd no 
examples are given, whilst for Yazīd we are provided with the examples of the three sons 
of al-Walīd and that of Sulaymān.146 As pointed out by Lliteras in her study of marginalia 
in Arabic manuscripts from Timbuktu, “confusion in the copying occurs when a word is 
repeated in the text, causing the scribe to skip the sentence or words immediately following 
which ended with the repeated word.”147 Therefore, the similarity in the names al-Walīd and 
al-Yazīd coupled with the formulaic nature of the text may have led to a mistake, especially 
when considering the factional dynamics presented by other sources. As we have seen, it is 
more likely that the sons of al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik revolted under their cousin al-Walīd b. 
Yazīd rather than under their own brother Yazīd b. al-Walīd. Furthermore, in the following 
sentence of al-Yaʿqūbī’s account, we are informed that Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Malik had been 
made commander by the men of Jordan and defied Yazīd’s brother Ibrāhīm b. al-Walīd.148 
Al-Ṭabarī, still on al-Madāʾinī’s authority, indicates that Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Malik had 
opposed Yazīd in Jordan.149 This indicates that ʿUmar b. al-Walīd had been ousted by the 
jund of Jordan due to his role in the regicide of al-Walīd b. Yazīd, similarly to what occurred 
to Saʿīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik. Thus, al-Yaʿqūbī’s notices about the revolts under Yazīd b. al-Walīd 
would require us to re-evaluate the partisanship of the fitna. I am more inclined to attribute 
this to a scribal error that saw the initial notices of both caliph’s reigns get swapped, or 
textual corruption, rather than internal contradictions within al-Yaʿqūbī’s text, as he does 
not often provide alternative versions of events.

Despite the obvious contradictions and inaccuracies in al-Yaʿqūbī’s narrative, he does 
corroborate al-ʿAbbās’ long-standing influence in Ḥimṣ and indicates that a revolt occurred 
there in the aftermath of al-Walīd b. al-Yazīd’s death. This revolt is also found in the 
al-Madāʾinī circuit, where we find that the Ḥimṣī population, upon discovering al-ʿAbbās 

144.  Al-Yaʿqūbī, The Works, 3:1057, n. 2545.
145.  I would be lying if this confusion had not occurred to me throughout the course of writing, and I have 

spent more time engaging with the account than a copyist would have. The Cambridge manuscript is in all 
probability a descendant of the earlier Manchester manuscript. Despite there being two extant manuscripts, 
then, they are not independent, meaning a scribal error may have been transposed if the scribe or owner did 
not have a different version of the text to consult. 

146.  Al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh, 2:400–401; idem, The Works, 1056.
147.  Susana Molins Lliteras, “A Preliminary Appraisal of Marginalia in West African Manuscripts from the 

Mamma Haïdara Memorial Library Collection (Timbuktu),” in The Arts and Crafts of Literacy: Islamic Manuscript 
Cultures in Sub-Saharan Africa, ed. Andrea Brigaglia and Mauro Nobili, 143–78 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017), 157.

148.  Al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh, 2:402; idem, The Works, 1057.
149.  Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1831; idem, The History, 26:189–90. The isnād is Aḥmad b. Zuhayr < ʿAlī al-Madāʾinī 

< ʿAmr b. Marwān al-Kalbī < Muḥammad b. Saʿīd al-Ḥassān al-Urdunnī.



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had defected, wrecked and looted al-ʿAbbās’ home, took his wives and household, and 
imprisoned his sons. Al-ʿAbbās then escaped to Yazīd.150 So, although al-ʿAbbās enjoyed the 
support of the Ḥimṣī military (or a section of it), loyalists of al-Walīd were also present in 
Ḥimṣ and blamed al-ʿAbbās for his defeat. The mention of his house serves as final indication 
that he was based out of Ḥimṣ as well as providing another example of how strongholds 
held by participants in the anti-Walīd faction turned against their leaders upon the caliph’s 
murder. It bears noting that Ḥimṣ does appear to have had a large military population due 
to its proximity to the thughūr, much like Qinnasrīn. Therefore, it is possible the Ḥimṣī 
response was in part owed to Yazīd b. al-Walīd’s infamous reduction of military salaries, 
from whence came his laqab al-Nāqiṣ (The Reducer).151 

After the revolt in Ḥimṣ, al-ʿAbbās disappears from the narrative, aside from the notices 
about his son being named governor or deputy governor of Iraq by Yazīd b. al-Walīd that 
have been mentioned earlier.152 He returns during Marwān b. Muḥammad’s caliphate, 
imprisoned in Ḥarrān. A detailed imprisonment narrative is not known to me; however, we 
can assume that due to Marwān’s positioning of himself as avenger of al-Walīd, al-ʿAbbās’ 
role in turning the tides must not have endeared him to the new caliph. We therefore find 
him again in prison in Ḥarrān with the ʿAbbāsid imām Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad (d. 132/750) 
and Yazīd’s governor of Iraq, ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.153 There are many varying 
accounts of how the prisoners died, with the most oft repeated being that of disease 
breaking out.154 But a variant account, narrated by quite a few sources, is that al-ʿAbbās and 
ʿAbd Allāh were attacked by mawlās and smothered using pillows, while Ibrāhīm had his 
head stuck into a bag of unslaked lime (nūra).155 Although suffocation is a relatively common 
topos in early Islamic literature, I do not know of any other instance where unslaked lime 
was used for this purpose.156 The uniqueness of this method is reflected by its preservation 
across a variety of sources without a specific transmitter ascribed to it; it was rare and 
strange enough to merit preservation and transmission. The only other instance known 

150.  Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1826; idem, The History, 26:184.
151.  On the nature of Ḥimṣ, see Cobb, White Banners, 13; on the origin of the nickname, see al-Balādhurī, 

Ansāb al-ashrāf, 9:189–90; Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, Tārīkh, 2:556; idem, Khalifa Ibn Khayyat’s History, 261; al-Yaʿqūbī, 
Tārīkh, 2:401; idem, The Works, 3: 1057. Ḥimṣ throughout the fitna appears to have been constantly in revolt, 
first against Yazīd and then against Marwān, despite the Ḥimṣīs claiming to support the children of al-Walīd, 
whom Marwān claimed to have avenged.

152.  See above, n. 78. Al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 9: 193; al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1784, 1838; idem, The History, 
26:137, 198. A similar notice is found in anon., Kitāb al-ʿUyūn, 133. 

153.  On Ibrāhīm’s capture and imprisonment by Marwān, see Khalid Blankinship, “The Tribal Factor in the 
ʿAbbāsid Revolution,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 108, no. 4 (1988): 589–603.

154.  See the following two Encyclopaedia of Islam articles: K. V. Zettersteen and F. Gabrieli, “al-ʿAbbās b. 
al-Walīd,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., ed. P. J. Bearman et al. (Leiden: Brill Online); Blankinship, “al-ʿAbbās 
b. al-Walīd.” 

155.  Unslaked lime was traditionally used as a depilatory. This would have led to Ibrāhīm’s suffocation and 
would have been quite a painful death. See al-Balādhurī, Ansāb, 1996, 4:122; al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh, 2:409; idem, The 
Works, 3:1065; al-Masʿūdī, Murūj, 6:71–72; Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, ʿIqd, 5:222.

156.  See, for instance, the narrative of the caliph al-Hādī’s death in 170/786 in al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 3:569–71; 
idem, The History, 30:42–55.



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to me within adjacent historical traditions is in the Chronographia of Theophanes the 
Confessor where, amazingly, as we shall see shortly, it is not Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad who is 
suffocated with unslaked lime, but al-ʿAbbās.157

The incongruities across the Arabic-Islamic written tradition and the overtly 
foreshadowing role and anachronistic representation of al-ʿAbbās in al-Madāʾinī leave a few 
unanswered questions. Why, if he was like a prisoner in Yazīd’s camp, as al-Balādhurī points 
out, was he then let go, particularly given he had done al-Walīd’s bidding in imprisoning the 
sons of Hishām and effectively permitting him to assume caliphal office? And why would 
his son be named as governor of Iraq under Yazīd b. al-Walīd, if his father had opposed 
him? Furthermore, his imprisonment under Marwān indicates the influence he wielded 
and probably his support of Yazīd b. al-Walīd. In sum, al-ʿAbbās’ actions in the immediate 
aftermath of the killing of al-Walīd seem irreconcilable with the narrative presented of 
al-ʿAbbās warning against fitna and defecting to his own brother. If the Arabic sources were 
all we had this would probably close the chapter on al-ʿAbbās; however sources written in 
Christian milieus in a variety of languages remember al-ʿAbbās as playing a very different 
role, with a far more nefarious agenda. They represent him as central to al-Walīd’s downfall, 
which he had planned from when he first set foot in the caliphal treasury at Ruṣāfa.

4.2 Christian Sources in Arabic, Armenian, Greek, and Syriac on the Role of al-ʿAbbās

The stark contrast between the depiction of al-ʿAbbās’ role in the caliphate of his cousin 
al-Walīd in late antique Christian sources and that given in the Arabic-Islamic tradition 
merits us turning our attention to this adjacent discourse. The sources used for the following 
discussion are the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian (d. 1199),158 the anonymous Chronicle of 
1234,159 The Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor, the Kitab al-ʿUnwān of the Melkite 
author Agapius of Manbij (d. 941–42),160 the History (Patmabanutʿiwn) of the second/eighth 
century Armenian chronicler Łewond,161 and the anonymous Syriac chronicles of Zuqnīn 
and 846. These first four sources, however, appear to share a common source, what has been 
termed in scholarship the “Eastern source” associated with Theophilus of Edessa (d. 775).162 

157.  Theophanes, Chronographia, 421; idem, The Chronicle, 583.
158.  Michael the Syrian, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, ed. J. B. Chabot, 4 vols. (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1899–

1910) [hereafter referred to as MSyr].
159.  Anon., Chronicon anonymi auctoris ad annum Christi 1234 pertinens [Textus], ed. J. B. Chabot, 2 vols. 

(Louvain: Durbecq, 1917–20.) [hereafter referred to as Chron 1234].
160.  Agapius, “Kitab al-ʿunvan, histoire universelle écrite par Agapius (Mahboub) de Menbidj,” in Patrologia 

Orientalis, ed. A. A. Vasiliev, 399–547 (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1912).
161.  On the debate around the dating of Łewond, see Tim Greenwood, “A Reassessment of the History of 

Łewond,” Le Muséon 125 (2012): 99–167; C. Settipani, “The Seventh-Century Bagratids between Armenia and 
Byzantium,” in Constructing the Seventh Century, ed. C. Zuckerman, 559–78 (Paris: Association des Amis du 
Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance, 2013); Jean-Pierre Mahé, “Le problème de l’authenticité et de la 
valeur de la chronique de Łewond,” in L’Arménie et Byzance: Histoire et culture, 119–26 (Paris: Éditions de la 
Sorbonne, 2015).

162.  Conrad, “The Conquest of Arwad”; Theophilus, Theophilus. I believe that the above-mentioned works 
have done a great deal to raise awareness and push the field towards more comparative and source-critical 



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Furthermore, the first two are dependent on the now lost chronicle of Dionysius of Tel 
Mahrē (d. 845) and place al-ʿAbbās as central in their narratives of the fitna.163 However, the 
other two sources, namely those of Theophanes the Confessor and Agapius of Manbij, also 
retain a prolonged memory of al-ʿAbbās. Łewond does not mention al-ʿAbbās but largely 
supports the depictions of al-Walīd found across the sources. Al-ʿAbbās’ absence from this 
text further attests to his geographical influence being confined to the central thughūr, 
with the Armenian chronicler’s focus being on those hajīns who operated in the North, as 
well as Sulaymān b. Hishām.164 The fact that so many Syriac chronicles were produced in 
this region may be one reason why al-ʿAbbās is so well recorded.165 This geographical focus 
can also be seen in their regular recording of his raiding activities for the years 707–8, 709, 
711–13, and 721–22, indicating he was internal to their tradition. The sources that align 
most closely with the events of Arabic-Islamic tradition are those written in Syriac, and it is 
to these we shall turn next, after which we will move on to the account of al-ʿAbbās’ death 
preserved in Theophanes and his depiction as forefather of the ʿAbbāsid dynasty in the 
Chronicle of 1234.

The Christian sources maintain the same sequence of events as the Arabic-Islamic 
tradition: al-ʿAbbās being sent to Ruṣāfa, the emergence of the conspiracy against al-Walīd, 
al-Bakhrāʾ, the revolt in Ḥimṣ and then the death of al-ʿAbbās in prison. However, in these 
accounts al-ʿAbbās appears as an antagonist rather than as a supporter of his cousin and 
is given a central role in the conspiracy, allegedly even using the trust al-Walīd b. Yazīd 
placed in him to betray the caliph.

4.2.1 The Dionysius circuit

The Chronicle of Michael the Syrian and Chronicle of 1234 are said to have both made use 
of the now lost writings of Dionysius of Tel Mahrē, and in all probability we can attribute 
their narrative of events to this common source. It is therefore tentatively possible to place 
the generation of these narratives not in the late twelfth/mid-thirteenth century, but as a 
product of mid-ninth-century Syriac historiography. Obviously, it is necessary to caution 

approaches. However, the identification of a single source used by these four sources seems unlikely. Rather, 
following the conclusions of Conterno, Debié, and Hilkens, I prefer to refer to a Semitic source or source(s). For 
recent scholarship on the matter, see Andy Hilkens, The Anonymous Syriac Chronicle of 1234 and Its Sources 
(Louvain: Peeters, 2018), 274–79. See also A. Papaconstantinou’s review of R. G. Hoyland, The Chronicle of 
Theophilus in Le Muséon 126, nos. 3–4 (2013): 459–65.

163.  Hilkens, Chronicle of 1234, 274.
164.  For whom they do remember, see Vacca, “The Umayyad North.”
165.  For an outline of the sources including place of production, see Brock, A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature 

(Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2011), 62 (Zuqnin), 73 (MSyr), 74 (Chron 1234); for a recent publication on Dionysius, 
see Philip Wood, The Imam of the Christians: The World of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre c. 750–850 (Princeton, NJ: 
Princeton University Press, 2021). The Syriac sources frequently mention the building of infrastructure such 
as canals and irrigation projects on the Euphrates. For example, Maslama and Hishām are credited as having 
built a canal in the Chronicle of Zuqnīn, while in the Chronicle of 846, the anonymous chronicler characterizes 
Hishām’s reign by his building projects. See anon., Chronicle of Zuqnīn, 160–61; Brooks, “A Syriac Chronicle 
of the Year 846,” 584. On the identification of these canals along the Euphrates, see Eger, Islamic-Byzantine 
Frontier, 82.



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that the text may have undergone significant revision by the time it was used by either of 
these authors, and one or both may have accessed it through an intermediary. However, 
for the sake of clarity, their narrative shall be referred to as the “Dionysius circuit” where 
they are in close agreement, in the same way I have referred to the “al-Madāʾinī circuit” 
in the previous section. This does not mean that we can reconstruct the history of the 
ninth-century Dionysius, but rather that these two sources’ common use of this material 
allows us to view these narratives as connected. Picking up from Hishām’s death in 125/743, 
Michael and Chronicle of 1234 support the narrative that al-Walīd b. Yazīd immediately 
acted against Hishām’s progeny and “mistreated his household and plundered their houses 
(w-ʾabeš l-bnay bayteh d-Hašîm w-bazz bātayhôn).”166 This accords with the Arabic-Islamic 
sources, lending further credence to the imprisonment of Hishām’s sons and the idea 
that they were a threat to al-Walīd b. Yazīd. The two Syriac sources—and the Armenian 
recension of Michael—place al-ʿAbbās center stage at Ruṣāfa after Hishām’s death, but with 
a different agenda: 

When this ʿAbbās came to be in charge of the treasury of the kingdom and when he fell 
upon the sea of gold of the house of Hishām, he desired to seize the rule from Walīd. 
He deceitfully won over to himself all the chiefs of the Arabs by ascribing to Walīd all 
manner of odious vices. Yet the king trusted him as he trusted himself.167 

When paired with the notice about locking the storehouse/treasury upon Hishām’s death 
in the Arabic-Islamic tradition, a serious concern about imperial finances during the 
transition of caliphal authority becomes apparent in the texts.168 That there would even be 
a “sea of gold” at Ruṣāfa is corroborated within Christian sources: Agapius and Dionysius 
both characterize Hishām as avaricious and imposing high taxes.169 This can also be found 
in the Arabic-Islamic sources, where Hishām is presented as miserly.170 This common 

166.  MSyr, 4:463; Chron 1234, 1:314; Theophilus, Theophilus, 240. The Armenian reads “And he did evil to 
the house of Hishām” (ew arar č‘ar tann Heshmay); Michael the Syrian, Zhamanakagrutʻiwn Teaṛn Mikhayēli 
Asorwotsʻ Patriarkʻi, haneal i hnagoyn grchʻagrē (Jerusalem: I Tparani Srbotsʻ Hakovbeantsʻ, 1871), 342 [hereafter 
referred to as MSyr Arm]. Notably, we can also see this in Agapius; however, he should not be constituted as part 
of the Dionysius circuit (see Agapius, “Kitab al-ʿunvan,” 510). 

167.  Chron 1234, 1:314, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 240; MSyr, 4:463, translated in Theophilus, 
Theophilus, 240. “When he fell upon the gold of the empire, which was like the sea, he desired to seize the rule. 
He won over to himself the chiefs of the Arabs by ascribing to Walīd odious vices. Yet the king trusted him as he 
trusted himself.” The Armenian recension reads: ew ēarkʾ ǝzna yoski ew I ganj tʾagaworowtʾeann Tačkatsʾ ibrew 
i cov (“he [al-Walīd] sent him [al-ʿAbbās] to the royal treasury of the Arabs, which was like a sea of gold”); MSyr 
Arm, 342. On the Armenian recension of Michael, see A. Schmidt, “The Armenian Versions I and II of Michael the 
Syrian,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 16 (2013): 93–128.

168.  It is probable that there was no clear division between caliphal finances and personal wealth, and 
since Hishām’s successor was not one of his sons, it is possible that his sons may have been able to claim it as 
inheritance. See al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1751; idem, The History, 26:100.

169.  Agapius, “Kitab al-ʿunvan,” 505; MSyr, 4:457, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 224; Chron 1234, 
1:309, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 224. 

170.  E.g., al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1733; idem, The History, 26:75; al-Masʿūdī, Murūj, 5:479, where Maslama calls 
Hishām “miserly” (bakhīl) and “cowardly” (jabān).



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representation of the caliph is a testament to the interconnectedness of these traditions 
and the fact that these sources drew upon a collective memory of Hishām.171 The idea that 
al-ʿAbbās coveted the caliphate for himself is not found in the Arabic tradition, as we have 
seen, but for now cannot be discounted as mere conjecture. 

The notice that al-ʿAbbās generated rumors about his cousin al-Walīd b. Yazīd is novel; 
this refers to al-Walīd’s reputation as a figure prone to debauchery.172 The Dionysius circuit 
mentions his penchant for drinking, gambling, and pleasure-seeking later on, informing 
the assumption that this is to what they refer.173 This representation is preserved not only 
in Michael and Chronicle of 1234 but also in the anonymous Syriac Chronicle of 846, which 
characterizes the caliph as “a man given to wine and debauchery.”174 Łewond substantiates 
this claim stating that “he [Vlitʾ/al-Walīd] also occupied himself with drunkenness [and] in 
unhindered sordid fornication.”175 This characterization of al-Walīd across Arabic-Islamic, 
Christian Arabic, Armenian, and Syriac literature draws upon a common memory and 
perception of the caliph.176 Therefore, if al-ʿAbbās spread these rumors, he certainly was 
very successful, but it is instead more likely that these sources are picking up on a narrative 
promoted by the opposition to al-Walīd, i.e., that he had shown himself unfit to be caliph. 
Thus, al-ʿAbbās is also presented as a pivotal figure in the fall of al-Walīd in the Syriac 
sources. 

The Dionysius circuit continues, setting the scene for al-Walīd’s death; the locations 
vary but are largely in agreement with the Arabic-Islamic sources: Michael simply states 
it occurred in the desert, while the Chronicle of 1234 correctly places it at al-Bakhrāʾ.177 
The other Christian sources such as Agapius do not reference al-ʿAbbās, and the events 
are given very little mention, focusing on the later events in Damascus. Agapius, however, 
does reference ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. al-Ḥajjāj as Yazīd’s general, as does Zuqnīn.178 Returning 
to the circuit, Michael the Syrian does not mention ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, but he does claim that 
these events were owed to al-ʿAbbās’ imperial ambitions, and the Chronicle of 1234 also 

171.  It bears noting that conquered populations under early Islam often characterized rulers as overly 
zealous in taxation. However, the presence of the treasury narrative in both sources should be enough for us 
not to view it simply as a topos. For a recent comparative discussion between Armenian and Syriac sources on 
taxation, see Vacca, Non-Muslim Provinces, 204–8, also 191 on taxation as humiliation.

172.  For an overview of the negative perception of al-Walīd in the Arabic sources, see Judd, “Reinterpreting 
al-Walīd b. Yazīd.”

173.  MSyr, 4: 463–64, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 246; Chron 1234, 1:315–16, translated in 
Theophilus, Theophilus, 246–47.

174.  Brooks, “Chronicle of 846,” 586.
175.  Łewond, Patmabanutʿiwn, 6:814. verēr ǝnt nmin arbašṙout‘eamb yanargel giǰout‘iwn igaxazout‘ean. I’d 

like to thank Alison Vacca for corrections to this translation.
176.  Agapius, “Kitab al-ʿunwan,” 511–12. 
177.  Of the non-Dionysius-reliant sources, Zuqnīn says “near the town of al-Qurā,” on the road from 

Palmyra, while Agapius believes it occurred at Palmyra; see Chron 1234, 1:315–16, translated in Theophilus, 
Theophilus, 246–47; MSyr, 4:463–64, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 246; Agapius, “Kitab al-ʿunwan,” 
511–12, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 245–46; anon., Chronicle of Zuqnīn, 166, n. 5.

178.  Agapius, “Kitab al-ʿunvan,” 511–12, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 245–46; anon., Chronicle of 
Zuqnīn, 166.



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places al-ʿAbbās center stage. The Dionysius circuit therefore states that al-ʿAbbās enjoyed 
substantial authority over the caliphate at this point, something that is present but not 
explicit in the Arabic-Islamic sources. 

The Dionysius circuit notably maintains that al-ʿAbbās’ rule would not have been 
recognized by the Arabs (ṭayyāyê) because he was the son of a concubine (bar druktā).179 The 
recognition that hajīns could not become caliph is surprising in twelfth/thirteenth century 
texts, particularly as the ʿAbbāsids and Umayyads of al-Andalus had no such limitations 
and all ʿAbbāsid caliphs after al-Maʾmūn (d. 218/833) were born to concubines.180 Thus, 
this knowledge of succession practices lends credence to the idea that these notices derive 
from Dionysius, as it is unlikely that later sources would have remembered or viewed his 
birth status as an impediment, given the predominance of concubine-born rulers under the 
later ʿAbbāsids. That this notice lines up with the historical context of Marwānid succession 
indicates an earlier provenance of this material and its historical accuracy. The Dionysius 
circuit then states that due to this impediment Yazīd was made caliph, while the Chronicle 
of 1234 specifies that he was born to a free woman (bar ḥêrtā), which is not the case as he 
was the son of Shāh Afrid bt. Fīrūz b. Yazdegerd, the granddaughter of the last Sasanian 
shāh.181 The insertion of details of al-ʿAbbās’ ineligibility demonstrates how these sources 
aimed to justify why this figure, so central to their narrative of the fitna, did not end up as 
caliph. Al-ʿAbbās’ concubine-born status may have previously been an impediment, but in 
this context he may have harbored imperial ambitions as a senior member of the family.

Michael then proceeds directly to al-Walīd’s decapitation whilst the Chronicle of 1234 
provides a more detailed narrative, including Yazīd sending his general ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. 
al-Ḥajjāj and informing “ʿAbbās, his brother, of the day on which they would be at the place 
where the king would be encamped on such a day. Walīd did not suspect any treachery at all, 
and it did not occur to him that he would encounter any harm from his brother ʿAbbās.”182 
This notice implies that al-ʿAbbās partook actively in the conspiracy against al-Walīd and 
used that trust against the caliph. Unlike in the Arabic-Islamic sources, al-ʿAbbās is informed 
of his brother Yazīd’s location; this may be an allusion to his later defection, implying it 
was a planned betrayal. The statement that he and al-Walīd were brothers is incorrect and 

179.  MSyr, 4: 463–44, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 246–7; Chron 1234, 1:315, translated in Theophilus, 
Theophilus, 247.

180.  ʿAthamina states, “Clear evidence of this change of attitude may be seen in the fact that only three of 
the ʿAbbāsid caliphs, whose number was 38, were born to Arab mothers, while the rest were born to freed slave 
women (ummahāt awlād)” (ʿAthamina, “How did Islam Contribute,” 395). Those born to Arab mothers are: Abū 
al-ʿAbbās al-Saffāḥ (r. 132–36/750–54) whose mother, Raytā, we have already seen; al-Mahdī (r. 158–69/775–85) 
whose mother was Arwā bt. Manṣūr al-Ḥimyarī (d. 146/764); and Muḥammad al-Amīn (r. 193–98/809–13) whose 
mother was Zubayda bt. Jaʿfar bt. Abī Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr (d. 216/831).

181.  MSyr, 4: 463–64, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 246–47; Chron 1234, 1:315, translated in 
Theophilus, Theophilus, 247. Chron 1234 gives al-ʿAbbās more agency, while MSyr uses the plural, implying 
it was the Arabs who selected Yazīd. Hoyland states (without referencing) that al-ʿAbbās’ mother was a slave 
whilst Yazīd’s was a free woman. The nasab sources are unanimous that she was an umm walad, and an umm 
walad is by definition “a slave woman who had produced a child by her master.” See Robinson, Marriage, 90; 
Theophilus, Theophilus, 246, n. 711.

182.  Chron 1234, 1:315, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 247.



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may indicate confusion with the familial make up of the late Marwānids or it may be used 
to indicate their closeness but not necessarily imply a genealogical bond. When al-Walīd is 
first introduced he is categorized correctly as son of Yazīd [b. ʿAbd al-Malik].183 

That this active role in the conspiracy is only found in the Chronicle of 1234 indicates 
that these insertions do not come from Dionysius, but from a later source or the author 
himself.184 Paired with the notices from the Arabic-Islamic sources, al-ʿAbbās’ defection 
seems a means to defeat al-Walīd. Al-ʿAbbās is also said to have revolted against al-Walīd in 
Zuqnīn implying that it was he, rather than Yazīd, who was the mastermind.185 So, Christian 
sources ranging from the late eighth to mid thirteenth centuries are largely unanimous in 
remembering that al-ʿAbbās was central in the plot against al-Walīd, contrary to the Arabic-
Islamic. The fact that this is preserved in the Dionysius circuit, as was the claim that the 
defection was planned as a means to betray al-Walīd, fills in the gaps of the Arabic-Islamic 
account of a forced defection. If this was ever circulating in the Arabic-Islamic tradition, 
it would be remarkable that the sources would have rehabilitated the figure who sparked 
the fitna into one who forewarned it; rather it should be seen as further indication of how 
the sources used a figure within their own tradition to generate a collective “historical” 
memory of the end of the Marwānids. The Arabic-Islamic tradition presents al-ʿAbbās as the 
upholder of legitimacy and respect of caliphal precedent, which is in line with other pious 
depictions of him. This does not mean that the narrative presented by the Dionysius circuit 
should be discarded as ahistorical, especially given the structural narrative similarities, 
but perhaps these were accusations lobbied against al-ʿAbbās that gained traction within 
communities who already viewed him in a negative light. In fact, even in the Arabic-Islamic 
tradition, we have seen that the Ḥimṣīs partially blamed al-ʿAbbās, indicating an accusatory 
undercurrent. The negative perception of al-ʿAbbās in Christian sources is evident in the 
case of Theophanes, the focus of the next section, and is probably owed to his raiding 
activity.

4.2.2 Al-ʿAbbās’ death and legacy

After al-Walīd’s decapitation and Yazīd’s seizure of rule, al-ʿAbbās disappears from the 
Syriac narratives, except when it comes to the ensuing events at Ḥimṣ. The Ḥimṣī reaction 
to al-ʿAbbās’ betrayal of al-Walīd is only preserved in the Chronicle of 1234, supporting 
Hilkens’ suggestion that the chronicler had access to an Arabic source for the rise of 
Marwān.186 The chronicle corroborates that the people of Ḥimṣ “pulled down and destroyed 

183.  Chron 1234, 1:314, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 240.
184.  Compare with MSyr, 4: 463, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 240. Hilkens has shown that the 

anonymous chronicler often inserted differing episodes or further expanded where available, particularly when 
compared with Michael. See Hilkens, Chronicle of 1234, 20. It is highly likely that the anonymous chronicler 
was making use of Arabic sources to augment Dionysius’ narrative (see Hilkens, Chronicle of 1234, 281–91, esp. 
285–86).

185.  “During this year civil war broke out in the whole country because of the rebellion which ʿAbbas and 
his brothers had instigated against Walid (II)” (anon., Chronicle of Zuqnīn, 166).

186.  Hilkens, Chronicle of 1234, 286; see also, as Hoyland points out, the transliteration of fitna as ptnā two 
lines later in Chron 1234, 1:316, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 248, n. 717.



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the villas, taverns, inns and all the property that belonged to ʿAbbas in their city in their 
zeal for the murdered king.”187 As in al-Madāʾinī’s narrative, al-ʿAbbās’ property is targeted 
by the revolting Ḥimṣīs, further testament to a perception of his betrayal of al-Walīd and his 
entrenchment in the city. 

Ḥimṣ is also the location of the final reference to al-ʿAbbās within the Christian sources, 
where Theophanes narrates al-ʿAbbās’ death, dating it to the year AM 6236/743–44. The 
strangeness of Theophanes’ narrative merits quoting it in full: 

He [Marwān] killed Abas in prison—a man who had shed much Christian blood and 
had devastated and depopulated many places. The Ethiopian who was dispatched by 
Marouam [Marwān] to carry out this task filled a bag with unslaked lime (ασβέστου) and 
having approached Abas, placed it over his head and nostrils and so smothered him, 
thus contriving a just punishment for the magician. For he had wrought much evil to 
the Christians by means of magic and the invocation of demons. He had also shared in 
the murder of Oualid [al-Walīd].188 

This narrative immediately recalls the account of Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad’s death discussed 
earlier, but instead of taking place in a prison in Ḥarrān in 750, it is in Ḥimṣ in 744–45. The 
narratives seem to be drawing upon the same event, but Theophanes dated it to four or five 
years prior and “upgraded” Ibrāhīm to al-ʿAbbās. The absence of al-ʿAbbās’ death from the 
other sources, means in all probability it does not come from the “Eastern source” used by 
Agapius, Michael the Syrian, and the Chronicle of 1234 but from an underlying Christian, 
potentially Greek, source available to Theophanes.189 As suggested by Conterno, remembering 
al-ʿAbbās as a “magician” (γόητι) and an invoker of demons may indicate that the material 
on his death originated from Christian communities on the thughūr, for whom al-ʿAbbās 
was an important figure due to his raiding.190 Notably, Maslama is not even afforded a death 
notice, though he too is often described in negative terms within the Chronographia.191 The 
specification that it was an Ethiopian who carried out the murder is peculiar; in the Arabic 
sources it is reported as having been a mawlā. Thus the perpetrator is “othered” in both 
narrative circuits. It is not improbable to think that frontier or local communities would 
have taken an interest in the prince’s death; since Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad was not a figure 

187.  Chron 1234, 1:316, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 248.
188.  Theophanes, Chronographia, 421; Theophanes, The Chronicle, 583. 
189.  Conterno, La “descrizione dei tempi,” 94. 
190.  Conterno goes a step further than this in asserting that this may be the same source that provides 

Theophanes’ account of the conquest of Tyana (Conterno, La “descrizione dei tempi,” 94). Theophanes (or his 
source) seemed quite keen on describing people as magicians. For example, our iconophile author blames the 
adoption of Yazīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik’s iconoclast policies on a Jewish magician (Theophanes, Chronographia, 402). 

191.  Maslama (found as Μασαλμας) is often described as cowardly and deceitful. E.g., AM 6222 [729–30] 
and AM 6223 [730–31] in Theophanes, Chronographia, 409; idem, The Chronicle, 567. The only Christian source 
known to me that records Maslama’s death is the Chronicle of Elias of Nisibis (d. 1046), though he is here drawing 
upon an Islamic source. See Elias of Nisibis, La Chronographie, trans. L. J. Delaporte (Paris: H. Champion, 1910), 
103.



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that was relevant to these communities, he was “upgraded” to al-ʿAbbās.192 In fact, the 
Chronicle of 1234, although remembering that an Ibrāhīm was in jail in Ḥarrān, mistakes 
him for the caliph Ibrāhīm b. al-Walīd, stating that the imprisoned Ibrāhīm was the brother 
of the “tyrants ʿAbbās and Yazīd.”193Additionally, despite not providing a detailed account 
of al-Walīd’s death, Theophanes identifies al-ʿAbbās as a participant in the plot, creating a 
unanimity about his involvement across Christian sources. 

Theophanes’ focus on al-ʿAbbās’ death brings us to the most startling assertion in the 
Christian sources, namely the claim by the Chronicle of 1234 that al-ʿAbbās “is the ʿAbbās 
after whom are named those in Baghdad who rule in our day and are called ʿAbbāsid caliphs, 
and from him they have this name and it is not, as some uneducated Arabs think and say, 
from the name of ʿΑbbās, uncle of their prophet Muḥammad.”194 This material is in all 
probability not from Dionysius, as it is not found in Michael the Syrian; therefore either 
Michael omitted it knowing it was false or it was not part of Dionysius in the first place. It 
might therefore be a later addition from another source that mentioned al-ʿAbbās, or an 
interjection from the anonymous chronicler. The source does, however, show a knowledge 
and understanding of ʿ Abbāsid legitimizing discourse. Later, during its treatment of the reign 
of Nūr al-Dīn (d. 564/1174), the Chronicle of 1234 does support the traditional etymological 
explanation, i.e., that the ʿAbbāsids took their name from the Prophet’s uncle al-ʿAbbās b. 
ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib (d. 32/653).195 This speaks to Hilkens’ conclusion regarding the composite 
nature of the text and how it draws from a variety of sources for different sections.196 The 
Chronicle also says, after the defeat of Marwān at the Zāb in 132/750, that this marked a 
shift from the Umayyads to “the sons of Hashim.”197 The addition of “who rule in our time” 
does not help us understand where this notice comes from; however, an earlier notice may. 
Recounting that Hishām appointed Marwān as governor over Armenia in 732, the Chronicle 
of 1234, states, “This Marwān was the one who made his seat at Mayferqat [Mayyāfāriqīn], 
and he named it his capital. Until today the descendants of Marwān are famous there.”198 
As Hoyland notes, this is obviously a reference to the Kurdish Marwānids who ruled from 

192.  The author does later mention Ibrāhīm in the context of the ʿAbbāsid revolution for the year AM 6240 
[747–48]. See Theophanes, Chronographia, 424; Theophanes, The Chronicle, 587. He does not mention his death 
or imprisonment, unlike Agapius or Chron 1234, lending further credence to their use of an Arabic-Islamic 
source. See Theophilus, Theophilus, 274–75. 

193.  Chron 1234, 1:324–25, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 275.
194.  Chron 1234, 1:314, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 240. hānâ îtaw(h)y ʿAbbās haw d-metknên 

hānnôn dab-Baġdād w-yawmānâ sîmîn w-metqrên kalîpê ʿAbbāsāyê. w-menneh ît lhôn hānâ šmâ. w-law ʾayk 
d-sābrîn lâ yāddûʿê d-ṭayyāyê; w-âmrîn d-men ʿAbbās lam dādeh d-Muḥammad nbîyâ dîlhôn ît lhôn šmâ hānâ.

195.  Chron 1234, 2:162; anon., Chronicon anonymi auctoris ad annum Christi 1234 pertinens, trans. J. B. 
Chabot and A. Abouna, 2 vols. (Louvain: Durbecq, 1937–74), 2:122. I am grateful to Andy Hilkens for pointing 
out that the Chronicle inserts the Prophet’s uncle as accompanying ʿUmar into its narrative of the conquest of 
Jerusalem. This insertion probably comes from the chronicler’s use of Islamic sources. See Chron 1234, 1:254–55, 
translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 116.

196.  Hilkens, Chronicle of 1234, 325–30, especially 327.
197.  Chron 1234, 1:330, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 278.
198.  Chron 1234, 1:310, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 230. 



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380–478/990–1085, indicating that the source for this material can be dated at the earliest 
to the end of the tenth century.199 These two attempts at genealogical and nomenclatural 
identification may derive from the same source, ruling out Dionysius as the origin of this 
material as he predates the Kurdish Marwānids. As with Theophanes’ focus on al-ʿAbbās, 
these identifications of contemporary ruling powers with Marwānid figures demonstrate 
how certain figures known for their raiding, who appear as largely peripheral in the Arabic 
sources, were used as reliable and central references in the Christian tradition.200 

Theophanes’ “upgrading” of al-ʿAbbās in the narrative of the death of Ibrāhīm 
b. Muḥammad paired with the Chronicle of 1234’s assertion that it was the Marwānid 
al-ʿAbbās who was the forefather of the ʿAbbāsids raises questions about the ʿAbbāsid daʿwa 
as presented in Arabic sources. It is clear that Christian communities in the west of the 
caliphate explained the dynastic shift through figures internal to their own traditions and 
concerns. Perhaps we should not simply assume that these sources are mistaken though, and 
instead interpret these notices as testaments to the gradual development and articulation 
of the narrative of the ʿAbbāsid call to riḍā (satisfaction or agreement [with the leader of the 
Islamic umma]), the origins of which are still debated and which undoubtedly underwent 
significant reworking to establish ʿAbbāsid legitimacy.201 The development of the ʿAbbāsid 
daʿwa is a complicated topic, best reserved for a study of its own. However, as demonstrated 
by Blankinship, the ʿAbbāsid sources were “informed by the needs of the ʿAbbāsids to make 
the interregnum as short as possible to help establish their own legitimacy.”202 Blankinship 
goes on to say that “following these conclusions we can reject […] [Ibrāhīm’s] designation of 
Abū al-ʿAbbās (d. 137/754) as his successor, as apocryphal.” Therefore, the role of al-ʿAbbās 
b. al-Walīd in the Christian tradition is testament to the fact that the narrative of the 
ʿAbbāsid revolution had not yet developed in the 130s/mid-eighth century.

Overall, the Christian tradition places al-ʿAbbās center stage and corroborates what we 
saw in the Arabic sources; Umayyad family and Syrian loyalty appears to have been towards 
him rather than al-Walīd. In both textual traditions, al-ʿAbbās’ change of allegiances 
(whether purposeful or not) was a crucial turning point in the earliest part of the third 
fitna. These sources leave no doubt that al-ʿAbbās is the subject of their focus due to his 
activities on the thughūr; his raiding is regularly recorded, and Theophanes’ account of 
his death refers to his actions against Christians. Furthermore, his hajīn status is specified 
by the Syriac sources. This may have been an attempt to delegitimize al-ʿAbbās, although 
this seems unlikely as it may come from Dionysius who was typically positive about the 

199.  Theophilus, Theophilus, 230, n. 655. 
200.  We can see the same for Muḥammad b. Marwān and Maslama b. ʿAbd al-Malik in the Armenian sources, 

where their frontier activities are re-dated or reinterpreted to fit the agenda of the sources. See Vacca, “The 
Fires of Naxčawan,’ 346–47; Greenwood, “Reassessment,” 131.

201.  On the development of the ʿAbbāsid riwāya (recension) of the revolution, see Saleh Said Agha, The 
Revolution Which Toppled the Umayyads: Neither Arab Nor Ἁbbāsid (Leiden: Brill, 2003), especially chapters 1 
and 5, 7–38, 117–44; on the call to riḍā see, Patricia Crone, “On the Meaning of the ʿAbbāsid call to Riḍā,” in The 
Islamic World: From Classical to Modern Times, ed.  C.E. Bosworth et al., 95–111 (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 
1989).

202.  Blankinship, “The Tribal Factor in the ʿAbbāsid Revolution,” 603.



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ʿAbbāsids, especially al-Maʾmūn, who was born to an umm walad, Marājil.203 We are also 
presented with the same sequence of events as is given in the Arabic-Islamic tradition, 
corroborating the framework of the al-Madāʾinī dominated narrative. The absence of a 
shūra narrative makes a convincing case that the Christian sources were not drawing 
upon Islamic sources for their accounts of al-ʿAbbās’ imperial pretentions; rather, it most 
probably reflects localized memories and interpretations of events. Al-ʿAbbās’ relevance 
within these sources is clear throughout; he was a referenceable figure that the reader 
would recognize.204

5. Conclusions

The various accounts of al-ʿAbbās’ involvement in al-Walīd’s death as told in the Arabic, 
Armenian, Greek, and Syriac sources, raise a variety of questions related to the development 
of Late Antique historiography and memory. By assessing these narratives, we can see that 
al-ʿAbbās is representative of the changes that occurred during the establishment and 
development of early Islamic rule. Not only is he remembered in sources largely internal to 
the centralizing narratives of fourth-/early-tenth-century caliphal historiography, but he is 
center stage in sources adjacent to these discourses. As I have argued, the focus on him is 
due to his long-term presence and impact on the central thughūr and his raiding practices, 
rather than the result of a legitimizing rhetoric aimed at promoting imperial or religious 
ambitions. It is exactly this localized influence that allowed him to impact succession and 
maintain a power base in the central thughūr. Al-ʿAbbās is not the only Marwānid who was 
able to do this; his brothers appear to have maintained influence in their ex-governorates as 
well.205 Al-ʿAbbās should then be viewed as another Maslama, the two having had relatively 
parallel careers, as that is how the primary sources remember him: an important military 
figure and a leading member of the family. While secondary scholarship has actively 
focused on Maslama—probably due to his role in the siege of Constantinople—al-ʿAbbās has 
not received the same treatment, due to his presence across fewer events, which in turn 
informs our understanding of how these authors produced their narratives.

Neither Maslama nor al-ʿAbbās became caliph. However, the lack of discussion on hajīn 
succession during the third fitna may, in fact, indicate this was not the barrier to the throne 
that recent scholarship has assumed it to be.206 Certainly, al-Walīd’s nomination of his own 

203.  On the relationship between the two figures, see Wood, The Imam of the Christians, 161–85; Hilkens, 
Chronicle of 1234, 289; on al-Maʾmūn’s mother Marājil, see al-Yaʿqūbī, Tārīkh, 2:538; idem, The Works, 1205. 

204.  E.g., when recounting Marwān’s uprising against Yazīd and Ibrāhīm, Yazīd is identified as “the brother 
of ʿAbbās.” See Chron 1234, 1:316–17, translated in Theophilus, Theophilus, 249–50.

205.  ʿUmar b. al-Walīd in Jordan and Bishr b. al-Walīd in Qinnasrīn.
206.  Bashear uses a poem attributed to al-Walīd b. Yazīd against Yazīd b. al-Walīd and found in Ibn ʿAsākir 

to argue that being “a hajīn was a reason for the rejection of his claim to the throne” (Bashear, Arabs and 
Others, 39–40). However, this same poem is attributed to al-Walīd’s son al-Ḥakam in al-Ṭabarī and al-Balādhurī, 
in the Fragmenta Historicorum Arabicorum (ed. de Geoje), as well as later on in Ibn ʿAsākir. Al-Ḥakam was 
himself a hajīn, meaning we should read the verse: a-tankuthu bayʿatī min ajli ummī // wa-qad bāyaʿtumū qablī 
hajīnā (“Did you break your oath to me on account of my mother?// when you have pledged allegiance to a 
hajīn before me?”) as a means of establishing his (and Marwān’s) eligibility rather than as a means to discredit 



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hajīn son al-Ḥakam and the eventual succession of Marwān b. Muḥammad b. Marwān as 
the final Marwānid caliph should suffice to show that towards the end of the Marwānid 
period sons of concubines were eligible for the caliphate.207 Representations of Marwān as 
the rightful heir of al-Walīd b. Yazīd’s sons indicate the generation of a layer of historical 
memory that aimed to maintain a narrative of continuous succession and an attempt at 
legitimizing the final Marwānid caliph.208 

The comparative approach used in this study serves to draw out various layers of 
historical memory and, by seeing where sources agree, to understand what they identified 
as relevant. As already mentioned, al-Walīd b. Yazīd was the first of a new generation of 
Marwānids—grandsons of ʿAbd al-Malik—to come to power. Unlike his cousins, however, 
al-Walīd had not benefited from sustained governorship or raiding activity. Furthermore, 
given the extended rule of Hishām and the time al-Walīd spent as heir (more than any other 
walī al-ʿahd), the sons of other previous caliphs were in a strong position to make a claim.

Tracing the changing role of hajīns and understanding the nuances of succession policy 
within the Umayyad polity is not the sole benefit of studying al-ʿAbbās. Like Maslama, he 
is extremely well documented across the source material; however, unlike Maslama, no 
“heroization” took place, leaving us with a more conflicting but perhaps less problematic 
picture of him.209 The question of reliability of sources is the foremost one raised by an 
analysis of this nature. However, the narratives about al-ʿAbbās do not appear reconcilable, 
nor should we expect them to be. Whether al-ʿAbbās had planned to betray al-Walīd or was 
captured is beyond our ability to determine. Thus we cannot know the “correct” account, 
but by investigating we can shed light on what the authors wanted to convey. As Vacca has 
put it when assessing the burning of Armenian churches at Naxčawan, “these discrepancies 
in fact reveal the tampering of the compiler or historian. If so, the misinformation is at 
least as significant as the ‘correct’ account, because it provides clues to the goal of the 
historian.”210

The near absence of any internal Arabic narrative for al-Walīd’s death that is not 
transmitted on the authority of al-Madāʾinī raises the question of the agenda behind their 
transmission. Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ’s account, as demonstrated, is terser than al-Madāʾinī’s 
but does not contradict it. Al-Yaʿqūbī provides an extremely short and muddled account 
for al-Walīd’s reign. Al-Madāʾinī’s use of al-ʿAbbās to warn of fitan and to foreshadow 

Yazīd b. al-Walīd. See al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, 2:1891; anon., Fragmenta, 1:156; al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 9:249; Ibn 
ʿAsākir, Tārikh madīnat Dimashq, 15:81, 83. 

207.  On the documents for al-Ḥakam’s nomination, see Marsham, Rituals, 146–64.
208.  In the same poem as referenced in n. 206, attributed to al-Ḥakam b. al-Walīd while imprisoned, the 

short-lived heir nominated Marwān as caliph after himself: fa-inna ahlaku anā wa-walī ʿahdī // fa-Marwānun 
amīru al-muʾminīnā (“If I and my heir-apparent [walī ʿahdī] should die//then Marwān [should be] commander 
of the faithful”) (al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-ashrāf, 9:249).

209.  Borrut’s analysis of Maslama’s “héroisation” touches upon a plethora of eulogizing narratives that 
are used to redeem his memory. The lack of these narratives for al-ʿAbbās who, as we have seen, fulfilled a 
very similar role, may indicate a less worked and perhaps earlier historical memory. Borrut, Entre mémoire et 
pouvoir, 271–84.

210.  Vacca, “The Fires of Naxčawan,” 351.



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coming events appears anachronistic or teleological at best, while Khalīfa does not have this 
undercurrent and merely points out that he dissuaded Yazīd from his political ambitions. 
The fact that all extant Arabic sources were produced after al-Maʾmūn’s killing of his 
brother al-Amīn must be borne in mind. El-Hibri has outlined the similarities between 
these two narratives of regicide—both narrated by al-Madāʾinī—which focus on al-Walīd 
and al-Amīn’s inadequacies for caliphal rule and even include mirroring accounts of their 
deaths.211 The notion of how the source material grapples with regicide and adhere to the 
“orthodox” succession narrative is an important one, and further work comparing the two 
accounts is warranted.

The Arabic-Islamic and Christian traditions both attribute the beginning of the end 
of the Umayyad dynasty to al-ʿAbbās’ eventual support of his brother Yazīd. Al-ʿAbbās’ 
representation as pious in the Arabic sources runs against the Christian sources, which 
present him as orchestrating al-Walīd’s death. Theophanes’ “upgrading” of Ibrāhīm b. 
Muḥammad for al-ʿAbbās may demonstrate that the Christian sources were attempting to 
contextualize the fall of the Umayyads through a figure internal to their historical tradition. 
However, it is highly unlikely that Theophanes’ narrative of al-ʿAbbās’ death is entirely 
independent of that in the Arabic-Islamic sources; suffocating someone with lime is hardly 
common. This is not to suggest that the chroniclers used the same sources. Rather, these 
traditions were circulating amongst different linguistic and confessional groups, who 
interpreted and reappropriated them to fit their needs. It is apparent from the Christian 
sources that there was not a strong understanding of where the ʿAbbāsids came from, 
which is unsurprising given that this was still being conceived and formatted in precisely 
this period. Thus, they explained it through a different al-ʿAbbās rather than the Prophet’s 
uncle, as is visible in the Chronicle of 1234’s preservation (or insertion) of the claim that 
al-ʿAbbās was the forefather of the ʿAbbāsid dynasty. 

Therefore, despite their similarities in chronological structure, the sources emphasize 
different aspects to suit their contexts of production and target audience. Within linguistic 
groupings we cannot and should not expect to find agreement. The shared use of al-Madāʾinī 
by al-Balādhurī and al-Ṭabarī, though, does indicate the use and interpretation of a single 
tradition, while the accounts of Khalīfa and al-Yaʿqūbī demonstrate the fact that the 
narrative of al-Walīd’s death did not develop uniformly. In a similar way, Michael the Syrian 
and the Chronicle of 1234’s common use of Dionysius of Tel Mahrē indicates the centrality 
of succession narratives for Syriac sources, which use caliphal order to structure their texts, 
underlining the fact that their historiographical tradition was internal to caliphal history. 
 

211.  Like al-Walīd, al-Amīn “stands out as the epitome of political incompetence and reckless behavior. A 
man deficient in political wisdom, most at home in extended sessions of drinking and revelry, and with a flair 
for unpredictable eccentricities.” El-Hibri’s analysis at times may be overstated and the literary nature of the 
sources over-emphasized; however, the question of how one discusses the killing of a recognized Caliph was 
undoubtedly one ʿAbbāsid-era sources grappled with. See T. El-Hibri, Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography: 
Harun al-Rashid and the Narrative of the Abbasid Caliphate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 
59–94, at 59.



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Theophanes’ focus on al-ʿAbbās but not on wider succession issues, by contrast, indicates 
the localized focus of the non-Roman elements of his narrative.

This article has demonstrated that al-ʿAbbās is a significant figure in early Islamic history 
and historiography despite his presence in only two events recounted in the primary 
sources and the minimal attention hitherto paid to him in secondary literature. However, 
both events, the Muhallabid revolt and the third fitna, are fundamental for understanding 
the ʿAbbāsid memory of the Marwānid period. Moments of tribulation and tension reveal 
the nuances and agenda of the source material. At the very least it is hoped that the present 
contribution will serve to incorporate al-ʿAbbās into footnotes concerned with “caliphs 
that could have been” like Maslama and add to the growing body of work on hajīns and the 
demographic changes of the late Marwānid period.



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Appendix 1: Marwānid family tree

Legend: 
[#] — indicates order in Marwānid succession
Al-ʿAbbās b. al-Walīd — Italicised name indicates they were born to an umm walad.



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