User:Al Ameer son/Hisham

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Early life[edit]

Hisham was born in Damascus, the administrative capital of the Umayyad Caliphate, in AH 72 (691–692 CE). His father was the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705). His mother was A'isha, daughter of Hisham ibn Isma'il of the Banu Makhzum, a prominent clan of the Quraysh, and Abd al-Malik's longtime governor of the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina.[1][a] According to the history of al-Tabari (d. 923), Hisham was given the kunya (patronymic) of Abu al-Walid.[3]

There is scant information about Hisham's early life. He was too young to play any political or military role during his father's reign. He supposedly led the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca once during his brother al-Walid I's reign (r. 705–715) and while there, he met the respected descendant of Caliph Ali (r. 656–661), Zayn al-Abidin.[2] He is held by al-Tabari to have led an expedition against the Byzantines across the Caliphate's frontier in 706 and to have captured a number of their fortified positions.[4]

Hisham began to demonstrate aspirations for the caliphate at the death of his brother Sulayman in 717. On his deathbed Sulayman had nominated their paternal first cousin Umar II but kept the order secret, entrusting the revelation to his chief advisor Raja ibn Haywa. When Raja informed the Umayyad family of the caliphal decision, Hisham protested that the office was the preserve of Abd al-Malik's direct descendants and only relented from his opposition when threatened with the use of force.[5] He played no political or military role under Umar (r. 717–720) but is mentioned in the latter's 10th-century biography as having issued a letter to the caliph complaining of his and brothers' treatment under Umar's rule. Hisham also held no posts under his brother Yazid II (r. 720–724), Umar's successor.[6]

Accession[edit]

Upon the counsel of their brother, the leading general Maslama, Yazid nominated Hisham as his successor over his own son al-Walid II, whom he had originally intended to designate as first-in-line. Hisham acceded after Yazid died in January 724.[7] He received the news while at his Syrian desert estates, al-Zaytuna, identified as Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi, near al-Rusafa,[8] identified as Hisham's favored residence known today as Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi. He was given the caliphal ring and staff by a postal messenger, after which he rode to Damascus,[3] where he was publicly acclaimed caliph.[9]

Domestic policies[edit]

Hisham projected an image of himself as a pious and just ruler, forsaking the consumption of wine and careful to keep private the occasional audience of singers and jesters at his court.[10] This contrasted him with many of his more self-indulgent predecessors.[11] He attempted to enforce rigid and righteous behavior within his immediate family, punishing his sons for religious transgressions and having them instructed in Islamic law by the prominent Muslim scholars of his time. He cultivated close ties with the scholars, especially Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri and Abu Zinad ibn Dhakwan. He accorded considerable respect to al-Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr, a noted transmitter of hadiths and the scion of the family of Abu Bakr, the first caliph.[12] To inaugurate his reign in 725, Hisham led the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, with al-Zuhri in his company. He often led the funeral prayers of noted Muslim scholars.[12][13] Out of sensitivity to pious Muslim circles, he did not ritually curse Caliph Ali (r. 656–661), the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, who was opposed by the Umayyads and ritually cursed in the Friday prayers beginning with the reign of the first Umayyad caliph, Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680).[12]

One of the "crucial, if under-appreciated", events of Islamic history was Hisham's order to al-Zuhri to write down hadiths to help educate his sons.[14] Previously, the norm was oral transmission and attempts to record hadiths was opposed by Muslim scholars, who believed written hadiths were vulnerable to forgery or alteration.[15] Through Hisham's order, written hadiths became an acceptable form of hadith transmission.[16]

Al-Zuhri introduced the Muslim scholar al-Awza'i to Hisham's court at a unknown point. Although he was not formally employed by the caliph and did not reside at court like al-Zuhri, he became one of Hisham's chief religious advisers.[17] Al-Awza'i was one of the main architects and overseers of Hisham's persecution of the Qadarites, who subscribed to a rationalist Islamic doctrine opposed to the predestinarian beliefs advocated by the Umayyad caliphs and the mainstream Muslim scholarly community.[18]

Although a number of his governors mistreated their Christian subjects, Hisham generally treated Christians with favor. This reputation was probably due to the caliph not enacting new measures that targeted Christians, such as the iconoclastic policies enforced by Yazid II and anti-Christian acts by earlier Marwanid caliphs, which were completed by the time of Hisham's accession.[10]

Marriages and children[edit]

Hisham's favored wife was Umm Hakim, the daughter of Yahya ibn al-Hakam, brother of Hisham's grandfather Caliph Marwan I (r. 684–685),[19] and Zaynab bint Abd al-Rahman, the granddaughter of the Syrian conquest commander al-Harith ibn Hisham of the Banu Makhzum.[20] Umm Hakim, like her mother, was well-known for her beauty and love for wine.[21] She gave Hisham five sons,[22] including Sulayman,[23] Maslama,[24] Yazid al-Afqam,[25] and Mu'awiya.[26]

Hisham was also married to Umm Uthman, a daughter of Sa'id ibn Khalid, a grandson of Caliph Uthman (r. 644–656) and one of the wealthiest people of his time who used to divide his time between Syria and Medina. She gave birth to Hisham's son Sa'id.[27] His other sons were Muhammad, Abd Allah, Marwan, Abd al-Rahman and Quraysh.[28] He had a daughter, A'isha, to whom he granted an estate at Ras Kayfa.[29]

Assessment[edit]

In general, Hisham is viewed by modern historians and the early Islamic tradition to have overseen a successful reign,[30] on par with the similarly long reigns of the Umayyad Caliphate's founder Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680) and Abd al-Malik.[1] In the summation of Francesco Gabrieli, Hisham's rule "on the whole was glorious for the Arabs and fruitful in the development of Islamic faith and culture" and "marks the final period of prosperity and splendour of the Umayyad caliphate".[31] By dint of his sobriety, austerity and work ethic, Hisham is held by most modern historians, to have kept the Caliphate in good-standing and largely assign blame to his successor al-Walid II, and longer-standing internal factors that Hisham could not resolve, for the Umayyad dynasty's unraveling in the few years after Hisham's death.[32] Similarly, the Islamic tradition portrays Hisham as "a conscientious and efficient, if severe and tightfisted, administrator", according to Blankinship.[30] In the view of Hugh N. Kennedy, the Umayyad state "had never been as strong as it had been under Hisham only a decade before the final collapse" in 750.[33]

Blankinship, on the other hand, concludes that the military disasters of Hisham's reign brought about the Umayyad dynasty's demise.[34] The state struggled to absorb the significant losses incurred by these defeats. Its treasury was dependent on war booty and it lacked efficient means to collect tax revenue from its subjects. An unprecedented economic crisis ensued, precipitating stringent taxation efforts and a substantial reduction in spending. This caused widespread discontent throughout the Caliphate, while also failing to remedy state finances. Meanwhile, the harshness and diminishing material returns from campaigning along the frontiers sapped the enthusiasm of the provincial garrisons and further increased Hisham's dependence on the Syrian army, the bedrock of the dynasty, to the chagrin of the locally-established troops. As Syrian troops were dispatched against external forces on the frontiers and to quell major internal revolts throughout the Caliphate, they suffered the brunt of the military debacles. The Syrians were mostly Yamani and their dispersal and heavy losses disrupted the factional balance, upon which the Umayyad state depended, in favor of the Qays/Mudar of the Jazira. They became the main component of the army under Marwan II (r. 744–750) and their rout by the Khurasani troops of the Abbasids marked the end of the Umayyad dynasty.[35]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ An anecdote cited in several early Islamic sources holds that Abd al-Malik had wanted to name Hisham 'al-Mansur' ('the Victor') because he heard the news of his birth shortly after his victory over Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr. A'isha, who was divorced from the caliph by that time, had Hisham named after her father instead and Abd al-Malik consented.[2]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Gabrieli 1971, p. 493.
  2. ^ a b Khleifat 1973, p. 51.
  3. ^ a b Blankinship 1989, p. 2.
  4. ^ Khleifat 1973, p. 52.
  5. ^ Khleifat 1973, pp. 52–53.
  6. ^ Khleifat 1973, p. 53.
  7. ^ Khleifat 1973, p. 54.
  8. ^ Marsham 2009, p. 137.
  9. ^ Marsham 2009, p. 136.
  10. ^ a b Blankinship 1994, p. 95.
  11. ^ Blankinship 1994, p. 79.
  12. ^ a b c Blankinship 1994, p. 96.
  13. ^ Judd, p. 54.
  14. ^ Judd 2014, p. 54.
  15. ^ Judd 2014, p. 56.
  16. ^ Judd 2014, p. 59.
  17. ^ Judd 2014, p. 72.
  18. ^ Judd 2014, p. 75.
  19. ^ Kilpatrick 2003, pp. 72, 82.
  20. ^ Ahmed 2010, p. 56.
  21. ^ Hillenbrand 1989, p. 90, notes 455 and 456.
  22. ^ Blankinship 1989, p. 65.
  23. ^ Intagliata 2018, p. 141.
  24. ^ Hillenbrand 1989, p. 90.
  25. ^ Judd 2008, p. 453.
  26. ^ Ahmed 2010, p. 78.
  27. ^ Ahmed 2010, pp. 119–120.
  28. ^ Gordon et al. 2018, p. 1048.
  29. ^ Blankinship 1994, p. 83.
  30. ^ a b Blankinship 1994, p. 4.
  31. ^ Gabrieli 1971, pp. 493–494.
  32. ^ Blankinship 1994, pp. 4–5.
  33. ^ Kennedy 2004, p. 116.
  34. ^ Blankinship 1994, p. 6.
  35. ^ Blankinship 1994, pp. 6–9.

Bibliography[edit]

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