The First Arabic Annals: Fragments of Umayyad History

The earliest development of Arabic historical writing remains shrouded in uncertainty until the 9th century CE, when our first extant texts were composed. This book demonstrates a new method, termed riwāya-cum-matn, which allows us to identify citation-markers that securely indicate the quotation of earlier Arabic historical works, proto-books first circulated in the eighth century.

As a case study it reconstructs, with an edition and translation, around half of an annalistic history writte...