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The naming of the frontier: ՙAwāṣim, Thughūr, and the Arab geographers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Michael Bonner
Michael Bonner
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Extract

The Arabic geographical literature of the Middle Ages used several terms to indicate limits and frontiers, including āfāq, ḥudūd and tukhūm. For the external frontiers of Islam itself the term most commonly used was thughūr (sg. thaghr). And among these it was the Arab-Byzantine frontier, which to some was the frontier par excellence, which came closest to having a nomenclature peculiar to itself. In this essay I wish to demonstrate that this nomenclature, and the picture which we have of this region, do not derive from administrative history so much as from a series of superimpositions made by medieval writers on geography and related subjects. I intend to follow Professor Wansbrough's lead, by showing the consequences of the ‘use by many of the same (limited) sources of information’. I also wish to emphasize that differences over how things are to be named reflect conflicts over who is to have power over them.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , February 1994 , pp. 17 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1994

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References

1 Jaՙfar, Qudāma b., Kitāb al-Kharāj, BGA (=Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum, Leiden, 1967), vol. 6, 252fGoogle Scholar.

2 Wansbrough, J., ‘Africa and the Arab geographers’, in Dalby, D. (ed.), Language and history in Africa (New York, 1970), 89–101Google Scholar.

3 Nicely illustrated by the maps at Kennedy, H., The Prophet and the age of the Caliphates (London and New York, 1986), 408–10Google Scholar. See the detailed discussion, with references, in Canard, M., Histoire de la dynastie des H'amdanides (Paris, 1953), 226–86Google Scholar; ibid., El (2nd ed.), I, 761–2. See also Strange, G. Le, Lands of the Eastern Caliphate (Cambridge, 1930), 128–34Google Scholar; Honigmann, E., Die Oslgrenze des byzantinischen Reiches (Brussels, 1935), 39–41Google Scholar; Osman, F., al-Hudud al-islāmiyya al-bīzantiyya (Cairo, 1967–68), i, 129–282Google Scholar; Shaban, M. A., Islamic history, ii (Cambridge, 1976), 28–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Janzūrī, A. [?], al-Thughūr al-barriyya al-islā miyya (Cairo, 1979), 7–19Google Scholar; Haldon, J. F. and Kennedy, H., ‘The Arab-Byzantine frontier in the eighth and ninth centuries’, Zbornik radova Visantoloshkog Instituta, 19, 1980, 106fGoogle Scholar.

4 Three according to Qudāma, 254–5; cf. Canard, , H'amdanides, 254–61Google Scholar.

5 Details at Canard, , H'amdanides, 213, 223, 232; El (2nd ed.), i, 761Google Scholar.

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24 The claim of Shaban, Islamic history, ii, 28–30Google Scholar, that the ‘old’ front-line positions were abandoned in favour of ‘new’, commercially favorable ones is not clearly supported by the sources. See Haldon, and Kennedy, , ‘The Arab-Byzantine frontier’, 107, 111.Google Scholar

25 Al-Qāsim's activity is described as ribāt in Dābiq, that is in the ‘classical’ ‘Awāsim, at Balādhurī, , 171Google Scholar; Tabarī, , III, 701–9Google Scholar; cf. Canard, M., ‘La prise d'Héraclée’, Byzantion, 32, 1962, 356, 373Google Scholar. Al-Qāsim is described as ‘governor of al-Jazīra, the Thughūr and the ‘Awāsim’ at Tabarī, Hi, 712. Thābit b. Nasr is described as wāīl al-thughūr in 192 at Tabarī, III, 730, 732.

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27 Bonner, , ‘Al-Khalīfa al-mardī’, 90–91.Google Scholar

28 The words ‘awāṣim and thaghr/thughūr never appear on coins of this district, and few coins seem to have been minted there at all from 171/788 until 278/891. See Bonner, ‘The Mint of Hārūnābād and al-Hārūniyya’; Stern, S. M., ‘The coins of Thamal and of other governors of Tarsus’, JAOS, 80, 1960, 217–25.Google Scholar

29 Bonner, M., ‘Some observations concerning the early development of jihad on the Arab- Byzantine frontier’, Studia Islamica, 75, 1992, 31.Google Scholar

30 Balādhurī, , 132, 144–52.Google Scholar

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32 Fazārī, , Siyar (Beirut, 1987), 111Google Scholar; Bonner, , ‘Some observations’, 17.Google Scholar

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34 Abū, Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharāj (Būlaāq, 1302), 28–39Google Scholar. Of course this does not include the ṣawāfī, or crown lands.

35 Buldān (BGA, vol.5), 111. Ibn al-Faqīh takes his description of Armenia (pp. 290f.) from Ya'qūbī.

36 See de Goeje's note at Buldān, 323, where Yaՙqūbī also claims to have composed a work on the Byzantine Empire and its approaches.

37 Tā՚rīkh, ii, 278, 304, 461Google Scholar. To my knowledge, no other author refers to ‘awāṣim for before the reign of Rashīd.

38 Khurradādhbih, Ibn (BGA, vol. 6), 75Google Scholar; Qudāma, , 246, 251.Google Scholar

39 Qudāma, 253. Haldon and Kennedy, ‘The Arab-Byzantine frontier’, 113, find only two instances of winter raids in the century following the ‘Abbāsid revolution.

40 Qudāma, , 259.Google Scholar

41 ibid., 253–5.

42 ibid., 252.

43 Miquel, A., La géographie humaine du monde musulman jusqu'au milieu du lle siècle (Paris, 1967–88), i, 271–5.Google Scholar

44 Iṣtakhrī, (BGA, vol. 1), 2–4Google Scholar; Muqaddasī, (BGA, vol. 3), 4 (on Balkhī)Google Scholar; Miquel, , i, 80ff., 85ff., 99.Google Scholar

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49 This is clear in the late fourth/tenth-century Persian, Ḥudūd al-ՙālam (ed. and tr. Minorsky, , London, 1937), 148–9.Google Scholar

50 Ṣubḥ al-a'shā (Cairo, 1964), iv, 131Google Scholar. Qalqashandī turns out to have been right, despite Canard's comments at EI (2nd ed.), i, 761.Google Scholar