164 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 

Book Review 

Islamic History: a Framework for Inquiry 
(Studies in Middle Eastern History, No. 9) 

Vol. 6, No. l. 1989 

l:,y R. Stephen Humphreys; Minneapolis: Bibliotheca /slamica, 1988, 
375 pp. 

Stephen Humphreys' Islamic History: a Framework for Inquiry represents 
a new approach to the old problem of the historian and his sources. Following 
the current trend among Western scholars ofislam and of history in general , 
Humphreys 'lays much more emphasis on the methodology of dealing with 
pre-modern historical sources than on establishing the "facts" to get at the 
"truth." This is because of Humphreys' belief, widely shared by historians 
today, that before we can learn any facts, we must understand our sources, 
their uses and their inadequacies, and that before we can understand the sources, 
we must arrive at a methodology that is universally acceptable, at least in 
its broad outJine. With reference to mecljeval Islamic history, these needs 
are all the more acute, because there has been little systematic thought given 
to methodology, except in a few introductory pages in the work of certain 
scholars, and because the sources themselves present so many problems. 

Owing to these considerations, Humphreys' book focuses on methodology, 
contains no narrative history and is intended for the student of history or 
one of its allied fields rather than the layman. The book covers the period 
of medieval Islamic history, which is defined as 600-1600 CE. The reason 
for continuing to use this conventional and widely-accepted division is that 
the source material fundamentally changes in quality for the period after 
1500 because of the survival of Ottoman archival material subsequent to that 
date (p. 9) . This seems reasonable, for the lack of contemporary documents 
for the medieval Islamic period imposes a greater reliance on non-literary 
epigraphic and archaeological evidence, as well as traditional literary sources 
which are usually not contemporary with the events described , leading in 
tum to a different methodology than that of modem social science. On the 
other hand , one must remember that the study of history should not mold 
itself simply according to the dictates of what is and is not available in the 
sources, for that could exaggerate the distortions to which our information 
is already subject. AJso, we should not forget that artificial periodizations 
may obscure the real continuity of the flow of history and impair our ability 
to see its unifying features. Nevertheless, the atomization of history did not 
begin with Humphreys, whose methodology rather tends to unify Islamic 



The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences Vol. 6, No. I, 1989 165 

history by seeing similar patterns in and drawing comparisons between widely 
divergent times and places. 

To demonstrate his methodology, Humphreys divides his work into two 
parts. The first part consists of two chapters covering modem reference works 
and the medieval sources of evidence generally, while the second part contains 
ten chapters. each dealing with a broad problem of Islamic history and detailing 
the sources relevant to that problem. Humphreys' strong bibliographical 
emphasis makes his work most closely resemble Jean Sauvaget's Introduction 
to the History of the Muslim East (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University 
of California Press, 1965), as revised by Claude Cahen, a work which 
Humphreys himself refers to as "the best overview we have of Islamic historical 
studies" (p. 20) . Sauvaget, however, was selective, whereas Humphreys aims 
to be comprehensive, and to a large extent succeeds. Because it is both broader 
and more recent, Humphreys' work supersedes the earlier book. As a general 
annotated bibliography, Humphreys' work is certainly a useful resource for 
students of Islamic history. 

There are, however, some minor errors and gaps in his bibliographies, 
such as Humphreys' dated assertion that "oaJy three volumes have ever 
materialized" of the complete edition of Ibn J\sakir's Tankh madinar Dimashq 
a/-kabti planned by the Arabic Language Academy of Damascus (p. 221). 
Actually, by 1986, nine volumes had already appeared and more have come 
forth since. Humphreys also did not note that Ibn Manzur's medieval 
abridgement of Ibn 'Asakir has also come out in a scholarly edition. But, 
considering how difficult it is to keep up with the publications even in one's 
narrow field of interest , the author can be forgiven a few slips. His 
bibliographical information , on the whole, is up-to-date and fairly 
comprehensive for the Eastern Mediterranean core areas of the Islamic world , 
though he skimps on North Africa and other peripheral regions . 

But Humphreys' work goes beyond the level of a mere annotated 
bibliography ; rather, he integrates the bibliography with analysis in his book's 
second part, and this is perhaps his most important contribution . Here, in 
each chapter, he presents a historical problem. The ten problems he deals 
with are: the value of the early Islamic historical tradition, the :A.bbasid 
revolution , royal autocracy, ideology and propaganda , fiscal administration, 
status of the 'ulama as an elite, Islamic law in society, urban topography 
and social history, non-Muslim minorities, and rural inhabitants. In each case, 
the sources are described, including whatever modem commentary there may 
be. The breadth of the problems all together enables the author to cover Islamic 
historical studies fairly completely. Then specific cases taken from Islamic 
history are discussed and analyzed. Each of these analyses constitutes a small 
research paper in its own right and is meant as a model of what is to be 
done, thus bringing the reader back to Humphreys' emphasis on methodology. 



166 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences Vol. 6, No. I, 1989 

The use of particular cases of each problem as examples keeps up the reader's 
interest and also unites methodological theory with historical practice. 

There are only a couple of reservations one might have about Humphreys' 
work, aside from those already mentioned. First, while he tries to be objective, 
detached , and non-commital, and thus sometimes appears to hedge his 
statements too much, he nowhere discusses the question of Western bias in 
discussing Islamic history. Rather, he appears to show a tendency in favor 
of a certain trend of thinking. Thus, in the chapter on early Islamic historical 
tradition, he criticizes A . A . Duri, F. Sezgin, N . Abbott, and N. A . Faruqi, 
while praising, or at least not attacking, Goldziher, Wellhausen, Schacht, 
Crone and Cook at much greater length. Despite the mild language of his 
criticism, bis attitude is particularly revealed by his characterization of G. 
H . A . Juynboll's discussion oflbn Hajar's Tahdhfib as "sympathetic." Anyone 
who has read JuynbolJ cannot doubt the hostile and deliberately anti-Islamic 
polemical character of his work, not only in his treatment of Ibn Hajar, but 
also in his conclusion calling openly on present-day Muslims to abandon 
the hadith . On the other hand , Humphreys can be partly excused on the plea 
that here his bibliography only reflects what has been produced by scholars 
and is thus presently available. 

The other reservation concerns the underlying materialistic assumptions 
that have affected Humphreys' choice of subject matter. As a result of such 
assumptions, discussion of religion as such has generally been skimped. Despite 
reference to it in terms of propaganda, ideology, and the 'ulama as a social 
class, Humphreys' work contains no chapter basing itself on religious 
developments in Islam. Thus, discussion of Shiism, Kharijism, and the sources 
about them is confined to the margin of the chapter on the 'Abbasid revolution , 
whlle the chapter on Islamic law concerns only what the Jaw can infonn 
us about social history. Historians have long since gotten past the notion 
that history is merely a litany of kings and battles, so that social history has 
begun to be cultivated, as is so admirably shown by Humphreys' book. Perhaps 
it is now time to begin to consider all human fields of endeavor as part of 
history, including religion and its ideas viewed in broad perspective. 

Despite these reservations, Humphreys' work should prove most useful 
to students and scholars of Islamic history. It should be noted that it contains 
no overt bias against Islam and that it does mention the works of modem 
as well as medieval Muslim writers, a feature that has often been absent 
from the bibliographies of other Western Orientalists. 

Khalid Y. Blankenship 
University of Washington 
Seattle, Washington