Adhering To The Community

Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA)
“Adhering to the Community” (Luzūm al-Jamāʿa) Continuities between late Umayyad

Political Discourse and “Proto-Sunni” Identity
Author(s): Abbas Barzegar
Source: Review of Middle East Studies, Vol. 49, No. 2 (AUGUST 2015), pp. 140-158
Published by: Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA)
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Review of Middle East Studies, 49(2), 140–158
© Middle East Studies Association of North America, Inc. 2016
DOI:10.1017/rms.2016.35
_ _
“Adhering to the Community” (Luzum al-Jamaʿa):
Continuities between late Umayyad Political Discourse and
“Proto-Sunni” Identity1
Abbas Barzegar
Georgia State University
Abstract
This article addresses the early formation of Sunni “orthodoxy” through the prisms of
historical memory and collective identity rather than those of theology, law, and formal
political power.2 It does so by exploring the socio-political context in which the phrase luzūm
al-jamāʿa3 (adhering to the community) was deployed during the late Umayyad/Marwanid
(64/684–132/750) and early Abbasid (132/750–333/945) periods, primarily among the
networks of hadith transmitters who circulated the idea during that period. The results of
this analysis reveal that ideas central to Sunni conceptions of community first developed in
Umayyad patronage structures and networks, before being adopted by the so-called “proto-
Sunni” elite.
Key Words: Sunni, Shiite, Orthodoxy, Umayyad, Marwanid, Abbasid, Hadith, Isnad, Jama‘a,
Community
his article addresses the early formation of Sunni “orthodoxy” through

T the prisms of historical memory and collective identity rather than those
of theology, law, and formal political power.4 It does so by exploring
the socio-political context in which the phrase luzūm al-jamāʿa 5 (adhering to
the community) was deployed during the late Umayyad/Marwanid (64/684–
132/750) and early Abbasid (132/750–333/945) periods, primarily among
the networks of hadith transmitters who circulated the idea during that
period. While theological (kalām) and jurisprudential (ʿus.ūl al-fiqh) works
discuss the notion of al-jamaʿa (political community) from a rarified scholarly
perspective that assumes a pre-existing hermeneutic orientation, a review
of the way in which the term al-jamaʿa is used in hadith literature, and
specifically its transmission history, allows insight into the Sitz im Leben of a
discursive tradition foundational to Sunni identity. The results of this analysis
reveal that in the religious imperial context of late antiquity, the discourse
of al-jamaʿa stressed unity and loyalty, operated as an element of statecraft
e-mail: abarzegar@gsu.edu.
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MESA R o M E S 49 2 2015
in the turbulent Marwanid period, and was promoted by religious and

political elites of the Umayyad state. Ideas central to Sunni conceptions of
community first developed in Umayyad patronage structures and networks,
before being adopted by political and religious elites (often referred to
in modern secondary literature as proto-Sunni), who endorsed them for
purposes of political stability and legitimation just a few generations later
during the Abbasid period. In other words, Sunni ideas about community and
orthodoxy drew significantly from late-Umayyad political discourse, rather
than representing a radical rejection on the part of the piety-minded of the
Umayyad imperial legacy.
Sunni communitarian discourses underlie a range of aesthetic and
ideological sensibilities that remain operative even in the present moment
but remain outside of the scope of formal theological doctrine or legal
thought and thus escape analysis under the rubric of conventional
intellectual history. Given the rhetorical and symbolic power of Muslim
collective identity, as seen in its enduring appeal and multiple adaptations
throughout history, Sunni communitarian discourses that employ and deploy
key terms such as al-umma or al- jamaʿa deserve further inquiry as subjects
in and of themselves, and not just as sub-topics in the intellectual history
of jurisprudence or theology. What are the socio-historical origins and
contexts of such concepts? How do they operate through time and space
and moreover, across literary, theological, and jurisprudential genres? What
are the hermeneutic practices and assumptions underlying these discursive
environments? Such inquiries are all the more important given that Sunni
claims to orthodoxy (like comparable assertions of exclusive religious
authority in Judaism, Christianity, and even Buddhism) are predicated
on the idea that the present community represents an unbroken, intact,
and authoritative chain of continuity to the original Prophetic moment
(Henderson 1998, 85). Approaching the problem of Sunni orthodoxy through
the notion of an imagined community—namely that of al-jamaʿa—allows one to
consider authority in the Islamic tradition in unconventional ways. Consider,
for example, Sherman Jackson’s passing but pithy observation that:
the threat of stigma, malicious gossip, ostracism, or verbal attack by

respected members of the community is far more imminent, far more
effective, and far more determinative of religious belief and behavior
than is the threat of formal excommunication. (2002, 30)
This study explores the formation of Islamic communitarian sensibilities in

the late Umayyad and early Abbasid periods by reviewing the transmission
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history of an important Sunni proof text concerning the probity of the

Muslim community as a theological precept.
Sectarianism, theological competition, and political discord are some of
the most prominent and persistent features of early Islamic history. Despite,
or perhaps because of, this the question of orthodoxy and heresy in the study
of the Islamic formative period has been fraught with analytic and conceptual
problems since its inception. For generations scholars have explored the
precise nature, function, and location of “authority” in Islamic tradition.
Goldziher’s influential comments on Sunni conceptions of consensus (ijmāʿ)—
the idea that the Muslim community enjoys a general sense of divinely guided
probity—are familiar to most students of early and medieval Muslim societies
and have had a lasting impact:
There is no parallel between dogma in Islam and dogma in the religious
system of any Christian church. In Islam there are no councils and
synods that, after vigorous debate, fix the formulas that henceforth
must be regarded as sound belief. There is no ecclesiastic office that
provides a standard of orthodoxy. There is no exclusively authorized
exegesis of the sacred texts, upon which the doctrines of a church,
and the manner of their inculcation, might be based. The consensus is
the highest authority in all questions of religious theory and practice,
but it is a vague authority, and its judgment can scarcely be precisely
determined. (163)
However, just as Goldziher’s views on the top-down formation of Christian
doctrine are considerably outdated, so too may it be time to reconsider
the relationship between the jurisprudential principle of consensus and the
ever-nebulous notion of Sunni orthodoxy, a concept that continually resists
definition.
Wael Hallaq (1986), in his classic article “On the Authoritativeness of
Sunni Consensus,” explored the historical development of the doctrine of
consensus in Sunni Islam, noting that it eventually “became one of the
most remarkable doctrinal features which distinguished ahl al-sunna wa-l-
jamaʿa [Sunni Islam] from other sects and movements,” (420–28). Hallaq’s
contribution was an important one in that it advocated an anti-positivist
intellectual history of the doctrine; namely that, rather than exploring the
potential origins of this concept, it was the overwhelming belief in the probity
of the Muslim community as a critical element of collective entity which lies
at the center of Sunni self-conceptions of religious authority. Problematically,
however, Hallaq, Goldizher, and most other scholars tend to conflate ijmaʿ
and jamaʿa; while the former is extracted from the latter etymologically and
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hermeneutically, they are far from synonymous. To be sure, Imam Shafiʿi (d.
204/820) himself was among the very first to derive the principle of ijmaʿ from
the proof texts of hadith that seemingly advocated the general inviolability of
the collective body of the Muslims.6 Of course, it is one thing for the Muslim
jurisprudent to adopt this conceptual premise, but it is quite another for the
modern historian.
This essay decouples the jurisprudential principle of ijmaʿ from the
concept of al-jamaʿa in order to explore the ways in which the latter
functioned as an element of Marwanid period Islamic statecraft and thereby
established a discursive precedent linking Sunni identity to early Muslim
imperial ambitions. It does so by charting the notion of al-jamaʿa as a
political and ethical idea in the late Umayyad and early Abbasid periods
through a biographical analysis of hadith transmitters who participated in
the discourse of luzum al-jamaʿa (adhering to the community) by collecting
and passing on hadith that articulated the concept. This exercise rereads
what the concept of al-jamaʿa may have looked like in the context of the social
network which subscribed to it before the idea became associated with the
Sunni jurisprudential principle of ijmaʿ. What emerges is that the idea and
practice of al-jamaʿa are synonymous with the requirements for inclusion
in the community of believers, which, at the time, also meant loyalty to the
Umayyad state, Islam’s first imperial dynasty.
Political Community, Religious Identity, and the Umayyad State
Modern political sensibilities often posit a strict distinction between
the political and religious realms and thereby obscure late antique
understandings of belonging and being. For its constituents, patrons, and
benefactors, the Umayyad state constituted the community of believers and
the exclusive conduit through which a Muslim could reach fruition in this life
and salvation in the next. In terms of religious discourse, the notions of al-
jamaʿa (community), samʿ (acquiescence), and t.āʿa (obedience), were linked
to the patronage structures of the Umayyad polity: loyalty to the Umayyad
state was synonymous with inclusion in the jamaʿa.
Andrew Marsham’s recent study of allegiance and ceremonial in early
Islam provides particularly helpful insight into this phenomenon. He cites
the reaction of a prominent figure in early Islamic history, ʿAbd Allah b.
ʿUmar (d. 73/693) when the people of Medina refused to continue their
allegiance to Yazid, the controversial Umayyad caliph in 60/680:
When the people threw off allegiance to Yazid b. Muʿawiya, Ibn ʿUmar
gathered his sons and his family. After uttering the fundamental creed,
he stated: ‘To begin: we have already pledged allegiance to this man
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according to the pact of God and His Messenger, and I heard the
Prophet say: ‘Truly on the Day of Resurrection a flag is raised for the
traitor on which is written of what his betrayal consists. There is no
greater treachery, besides idolatry, than to pledge allegiance to a man
according to the pact of God and His Messenger and then to violate his
pledge.’ So let none of you throw off allegiance to Yazid, nor should any
one of you venture to do this, for there will be a cutting-off between
me and him. (Marsham 2009, 99; Ibn Hanbal 1993, vii, 5088)7
Ibn ʿUmar’s comments represent a pervasive understanding during the
Umayyad period which did not distinguish between religious and political
identity, be it communal or individual. Political solidarity and loyalty in early
Islamic history, then, should be understood as a religious ethical practice that
tied the individual not only to his community but to the divinely mandated
temporal order through which it is constituted.
ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwan, the Marwanid-Umayyad Caliph who ruled from
86/705 to 96/715, regularly invoked the ethic of communal solidarity and
loyalty to the state as he attempted to reconsolidate the Islamic empire
after a series of destructive civil wars. There is a growing consensus among
modern historians that his ruling policies not only influenced structures of
governance but the very identity of the Sunni tradition as well. In this sense,
the idea of jamaʿa is one of many examples of Marwanid era theopolitical
statecraft. For example, upon assuming the mantle of the Caliphate, ʿAbd al-
Malik’s first son, al-Walid I (r. 86/705–96/715) praised his father for opening
the pilgrimage routes and expanding the frontier zones. He implored those
that were congregated before him towards unity:
O people, incumbent upon you are obedience and cleaving to the
collective body [luzum al-jamaʿa], for Satan is with the individual.
O people, he who reveals to us his inner thoughts (that is, of
opposition) . . . and he who remains silent will die of his malady. (Al-
Tabari 1990, 126)
Marwanid efforts to stabilize the fledging Islamic empire required a range of
tools. In addition to overt military and political levers of power, the ideology
of political community manifested here in the discourse of the jamaʿa also
clearly played an important role.
A few decades later al-Walid II (r. 125/743–126/744), although reigning
for only a short period, also participated in this discourse. He sent a highly
charged letter to the people of Iraq and Khurasan which aptly demonstrates
the way in which ideas of community, empire, and religious identity were
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fused together in early Muslim society. In their influential study God’s Caliph,
Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds (2003) first drew scholars’ attention to
this letter in order to buttress their argument concerning the divinely
mandated sovereignty of Umayyad kingship. Andrew Marsham builds on
their conclusions by pointing out the significance of the themes of covenant
and community in Umayyad ceremonial:
So the caliphs of God followed one another, in charge of that which
God had caused them to inherit from His prophets and over which He
had deputed them. Nobody can dispute their right without God casting
him down, and nobody can separate from their polity (jamaʿa) without God
destroying him. This is how God acts towards anyone who departs from the
obedience to which He has ordered people to cling, adhere and devote
themselves, and through which the heaven and earth are supported.
(Marsham 2009, 174, originally: al-Tabari, v. 2, 1758; tr. Crone and Hinds
2003, 120)
Among the most important Qurʾanic themes alluded to in this text is that the
polity, the jamaʿa, fulfills God’s primordial covenant which is understood as
that made between God, Adam, and his offspring prior to the creation. This
can be seen, for example, in the verse: “And hold fast, all together, to God’s
rope (or “covenant”) . . . and do not scatter . . . .(Q 3:103)” (Marsham 2009,175).
The jamaʿa is both a temporal and a transcendental body that fuses imperial
prerogatives with divine importance. Hence, membership in, and loyalty to,
the jamaʿa, or here the Umayyad state, became inextricably bound with the
discourse of religious and political obedience; the combination was in fact
divinely mandated.
Some may argue that the religious overtones of Umayyad self-
representations were disingenuous and that Umayyad elites deployed
Islamic concepts for purely political reasons. This argument rests upon the
idea that Umayyad governors, generals, and courtiers were drawing upon
pre-existing religious concepts and ideas in order to draw support from
independent religious classes and their constituents. Proponents of this
idea maintain that the religious ethics and principles central to Sunni Islam
developed in isolation from the Umayyad state, which functioned in a kind
of “secular” or non-religious capacity. However, as will be seen below, a
preliminary survey of the chains of transmission of prophetic reports (isnads)
that articulate the idea of “adhering to the community” (luzum al-jamaʿa)
demonstrate a much different picture.
The long debate among modern scholars over the religious or political
nature of Umayyad legitimacy is in fact rooted in conflicting medieval
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perceptions of the first Islamic monarchy.8 My research has found that the
concept of adhering to the community, central to Sunni identity much later,
was circulated and promoted by religious scholars who were wedded to
Umayyad state structures. This finding is corroborated by Steven Judd’s
recent study, Religious Scholars and the Umayyads (2014), which challenges
long-held assumptions in the modern scholarly literature that depict a
strict separation between the Umayyad court and the religious scholarly
class (ʿulamāʾ). He argues that modern scholars have largely based their
conclusions on narratives deriving from Abbasid era sources that sought to
diminish the significance of the Umayyads in the shaping of the Muslim
community’s history (Judd 2014, 4). This long overdue intervention adds to a
growing consensus among historians of early Muslim history that Umayyad
imperial policies, especially during the Marwanid period (64/684–132/750),
significantly influenced the development of Islamic ritual and doctrinal
discourses. For example, Chase Robinson (2005) and Fred Donner (2010)
recently and convincingly argue that ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwan, along with
his sons, who reigned until the end of the Umayyad period, are effectively
responsible for shaping the imperial confessional identity in Islamic terms.
This conclusion is further corroborated in the following section in which one
of many hadith reports exhorting believers to “adhere to the community” is
analyzed in terms of social and political context.
Luzum al-Jamaʿa: A Marwanid Political Theology?

The notion of “adhering to the community” (luzum al-jamaʿa) was a pervasive
idea in early Islamic society. It figured prominently in Marwanid rhetorical
efforts to stabilize the fractured Muslim empire after a series of civil wars
and uprisings. Later in the Abbasid period these ideas continued to constitute
central Sunni notions of belief and belonging. The discourse of “adhering
to the community” was so widespread that prominent compilers of hadith
such as ʿAbd al-Razzaq al-Sanʿani (d. 211/826) and al-Tirmidhi (279/892)
considered it important enough to dedicate a specific subject heading to the
concept in their collections. In addition, early figures identified as belonging
to the ahl al-hadith in the nascent Hanbali milieu such as Abu Bakr al-Khallal
(d. 311/923), Abu Bakr al-Ajurri (d. 360/971), and Ibn Abi ʿAsim (d. 287/900)
considered it a cornerstone of their theological system.
As Wael Hallaq points out, hadith reports praising the probity and general
inviolability of the community were used as proof texts by early Sunni jurists
in their justification of the principle of consensus (1986, 438). One such hadith
report, cited by al-Shafiʿi in his Risala, figures prominently in a number of
authoritative hadith collections:
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God will make radiant any servant who hears my words, remembers
them, understands them, and conveys them further. Many a bearer of
religious knowledge is not himself knowledgeable, and many a bearer
of such knowledge bears it to one more knowledgeable than himself.
Three things will not fill a man’s heart with rancor: sincere devotion
in works for God, sincere advice to Muslims, and adhering to the
Muslim community. Their religious mission protects them from what
they cannot see.9 (Hallaq 1986, 433; Al-Shafiʿi 2013, 337)10
Referred to hereafter as the “Three Things Hadith,” this tradition appears

in the works of most major early hadith collections, for example: al-Musnad,
Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241/855) (Ibn Hanbal 1993, 13058, 16435,16419); al-
Sunan, Al-Darimi, (d. 255/869) (Al-Darimi 1996, 232–5); al-Sunan, Ibn Majah
(d. 274/887) (Ibn Majah 1998a, 3130); al-Musnad, Al-Tayalisi (d.204/819) (Al-
Tayalisi 1990, 326); and al-Mustadrak, Hakim al-Naysaburi (d. 405/1014) (Al-
Naysaburi 1997, 151–2). It is transmitted through many chains of authority
back to a number of Companions of the Prophet, and so enjoys the status
of being substantially corroborated, or mutawatir in hadith terminology. For
the purposes of this study, however, the question of authentic transmission
from Muhammad is in fact irrelevant; more important is the general belief
that early Muslims invested not only in these purported words of the Prophet
but also in the credibility of their transmitters. Put simply, whether or not
the hadith report does in fact reflect the words of Muhammad is far less
significant for this argument than its rhetorical function in the politics of
the Marwanid period.
The reign of ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwan (r. 65/685–86/705), according to
Chase Robinson, marks the “effective beginning of the [Islamic] state,” in
which a number of ideological and governing structures that would mark
the imperial Islamic polity for centuries to come were established (2005,
6). Given the intense level of fragmentation and discord that marked the
late Umayyad and early Abbasid periods, it is significant that the idea of
the jamaʿa operated as an idiom and signifier of the legitimate body politic
and of the community of believers simultaneously. Indeed most of ʿAbd al-
Malik’s time was spent putting down internal rebellions and regaining lost
territory from the Byzantines. For example, al-Mukhtar al-Thaqafi (d. 68/687)
raised his rebellion from Kufa in the name of the ʿAlid claimant Muhammad
b. al-Hanafiyya (d. 81/700) in the year 66/685. ʿAbd Allah Ibn al-Zubayr (r.
61/680–73/692) staged his “counter-caliphate” from the Hijaz, controlling a
vast swath of the Arabian Peninsula and extending his command as far as
Iraq. ʿAbd al-Rahman b. al-Ashʿath (d. 84/703), an Umayyad general himself,
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revolted against ʿAbd al-Malik’s infamous governor al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf (d.

95/714). When one adds to this list the Azraqi Kharijite rebellions in Iran and
that of Najda b. ʿAmir in Yamama during the same period, it becomes clear
that the Umayyad state faced ideological and military opposition from nearly
all quarters of the empire. No wonder, then, that the discourse of “adhering
to the community” would be a critical piece of the late Umayyad regime
statecraft. The Marwanid imperial moment therefore provides the social,
historical, and political context for the emergence of discourse of the jamaʿa
as a signifier of legitimate Muslim belonging, an idea that would later be
appropriated by Sunni exegetes. The following section offers a biographical
survey and analysis of the individuals involved in the transmission of the
Three Things Hadith report, mentioned above, in order to demonstrate that
the continuity of the discourse of “adhering to the community” between the
Umayyad and Abbasid periods, although seemingly counterintuitive, was an
accomplishment of state-affiliated hadith transmitter networks.
Perhaps the most prominent representative of this phenomenon is
Muhammad Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri (d. 124/742), who appears in numerous
chains of transmission of the Three Things Hadith. His role in its transmission
seems to be central (Ibn Majah 1998b, 230).11 Al-Zuhri is often remembered
as a prominent Medinese scholar given that he was born and raised there
and later spent significant time in the city. However, because of his close
proximity to the Umayyad court, he is better understood in a Syrian political
context. Al-Zuhri arrived in Damascus as a casualty of the turbulent politics
of Medina and Damascus at the time. His father and his tribe/clan had
been excised from the court register that distributed stipends (diwān) on
account of their support of Ibn al-Zubayr. In fact, in one account, al-Zuhri
explicitly asks ʿAbd al-Malik for forgiveness for his father’s transgression
(Abou El Fadl 2001, 69). It is possible that he went to Damascus either to seek
employment or to participate in fighting, both routes of rapprochement with
the Umayyads. As Stephen Judd notes, upon his reception by ʿAbd al-Malik,
he “gained the respect of [the Caliph] by reciting hadith that affirmed his
decisions,” and thereafter became a “fixture in the Umayyad court,” (2014,
53). Throughout his subsequent career he served as an Umayyad judge, police
chief, tax collector, commander in the army, and court tutor.
Al-Zuhri’s wider influence on Sunni scholarship suggests that his political
and intellectual ambitions and accomplishments are somewhat inextricable.
As Judd notes,
Even the most tentative foray into the canonical hadith collections
reveals the extent of al-Zuhri’s influence on the corpus of materials
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from which later generations would draw. For instance, al-Bukhari

includes over 600 hadith reports on al-Zuhri’s authority in his Sahih
and Ibn Hanbal includes over 1,200 al-Zuhri reports in his Musnad. Al-
Bukhari, Ibn Hanbal, al-Tirmidhi, al-Nisaʿi, and Abu Daʾud all include
more material from al-Zuhri than even from Nafiʿ, the mawla [client]
of Ibn ʿUmar.” (2014, 57)
Viewed from one angle, al-Zuhri may seem like an independent religious
scholar placed in the unenviable position of advising the powers that be.
Viewed from another angle, al-Zuhri, can be seen as one of many scholars
who shaped Islamic communal discourse in an overtly imperial context,
working in tandem with Umayyad state interests.
Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri related the Three Things Hadith on the authority of
Muhammad b. Jubayr b. Mutʿim b. ʿUdayy, whose father and grandfather
were important figures in Mecca in the first Islamic century. Muhammad
b. Jubayr’s father, the Companion Jubayr b. Mutʿim b. ʿUdayy al-Qurayshi
(d. 56/675), was among the elites of the Quraysh. He and his father were
among the chief adversaries of Muhammad’s prophetic mission. For example,
Jubayr was the “owner” of Wahshi b. Harb, the Ethiopian slave who slayed
Hamza, the Prophet’s uncle, at the Battle of Uhud. He also led the funeral
prayer for ʿUthman b. Affan, the assassinated third caliph, an anecdote
which places Jubayr and his family in a firmly ʿUthmanid partisan social
context.
It should be noted that the medieval scholar of hadith criticism al-
Dhahabi (d. 748/1348) reports that Muʿawiya received Muhammad b. Jubayr
in Damascus as part of a Qurashi delegation.12 Ibn ʿAsakir (d. 571/1175)
records that ʿAbd al-Malik also received him after he defeated Ibn al-Zubayr
(Ibn ʿAsakir, TMD, v. 55, 141). In this sense, like al-Zuhri, Muhammad b. Jubayr
represents a class of Hijazi aristocracy that was eager to make amends with
the Umayyads after Ibn al-Zubayr’s failed counter-caliphate. The presence
of scholars with close connections to the Umayyad court in the isnads of the
Three Things Hadith corroborates the notion that the idea of the jamaʿa in the
first Islamic centuries was synonymous with Marwanid claims to represent
the legitimate religious body politic.
Another line of transmission which goes back to al-Zuhri and indicates a
strong Umayyad connection is that of Salah b. Kaysan (d. 140/757).13 Salah b.
Kaysan resided in Medina and tutored the children of the reputable Umayyad
Caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-Aziz (r. 98/717–101/720) when he was the city’s
governor; he was sent there by al-Walid b. ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 86/705–96/715).
Salah was considered by the scholars of hadith criticism to be among the most
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reliable and prodigious of al-Zuhri’s students and earned the approval of al-
Bukhari (Al-Dhahabi 1997, v. 6, 234–5).
After Salah b. Kaysan, the hadith report was transmitted by Ibrahim b. Saʿd
b. ʿAbd al-Rahman b. ʿAwf (d. 182/798) (Al-Dhahabi 1997, v. 7, 551) and then
in Baghdad environs through Nuʿaym b. Hammad (d. 229/843). As his name
indicates Ibrahim b. Saʿd was the grandson of one of Islam’s most important
early figures, ʿAbd al-Rahman b. ʿAwf (d. 33/653), who is counted as one of
the al-Ashara al-Mubashshara (the ten promised direct entry to paradise) and
was the key power broker in the consultation that led to the appointment of
ʿUthman as the third Caliph. Ibrahim’s father Saʿd (d. 127/745) was a staunch
supporter of ʿUthman’s position in Islam’s first civil war and served as judge
of Medina during the Marwanid period on behalf of the caliph Yazid b. ʿAbd
al-Malik. He harshly rebuked the city’s population for the murder of ʿUthman
b. ʿAffan (Judd 2014, 154–5). Ibrahim was entrusted with the administration of
the treasury in Abbasid Baghdad and seems to have been one of the primary
conduits through which the Three Things Hadith traveled from Medina to
the Abbasid capital. Well-known hadith transmitters such as Shuʿba b. al-
Hajjaj (d. 160/776) and al-Layth (d. 175/791) ranked Ibrahim among their
teachers.
Nuʿaym b. Hammad (d. 227/842) was considered by his biographers as
having “embodied the sunna,” using the distinctive terminology of “sahib
al-sunna” and as such is considered by later ahl al-hadith as a progenitor of
their school (Al-Dhahabi 1997, v. 9, 249–60). Nuʿaym was a martyr of the
mihna, having died in prison for refusing to concede that the Qurʾan was
created. He also took a strong stand, it is said, against the so-called Jahmiyya,
an allegedly deviant group described by their critics in the early Hanbali
school as a branch of the Muʿtazilites. Sunni biographers defend him against
charges of slandering Abu Hanifa, which at the very least indicates that
perception was prevalent among learned circles, something that is consistent
with tensions between Hanbalis and Hanafis at the time. It is telling
that during this period of early sectarian formation in Islamic history, one of
the many hadith reports about the centrality of the jamaʿa to Muslim identity
was circulated by someone like Nuʿaym b. Hammad, who falls into the anti-
rationalist, nascent Hanbali milieu, the same network that would provide the
foundation of Sunni identity in the post-mihna period.
Another example of a member of the late Umayyad, early Abbasid elite
responsible for the transmission of this tradition is Ibrahim b. Abi ʿAbla
(d. 151/768).14 Ibrahim was a prominent successor (tabiʿi) well regarded by
later critics for his work in collecting and transmitting hadith in greater
Syria. Al-Dhahabi gives him the title “Shaykh of Palestine” and notes that he
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was known by various nisbas such as al-Maqdisi, al-Shami, and al-Dimashqi

(Al-Dhahabi 1997, v. 6, 485–86). He was sent by the Caliph al-Walid b. ʿAbd
al-Malik to distribute the military pension in Jerusalem, an indication of
the trusted position he must have held at the Marwanid court. He is also
said to have met prominent Companions such as Ibn ʿUmar and Anas b.
Malik.
Ibrahim b. Abi ʿAbla related the Three Things Hadith from ʿUqba b. Wassaj
al-Azdi al-Basri (d. 80/699), who was originally from Basra but settled in
Syria and was aligned with ʿAmr b. al-ʿAs’s son ʿAbd Allah (Al-Mizzi 1994, v.
13, 141). He enjoyed close ties with a number of Umayyad leaders, and one
of his students, Abu ʿUbayda, was the Caliph Sulayman b. ʿAbd al-Malik’s
chamberlain. His loyalty to the Umayyad state was demonstrated when he
killed “a Kharijite named Abu Salil who had rebelled in Basra” (Ulrich 2008,
117). Most notably, however, he participated in al-Hajjaj’s efforts to quell
the rebellion of Ibn al-Ashʿath and died doing so, either at the Battle of al-
Zawiya (82/701) or at the Battle of Skulls (83/702), named for the Nestorian
monastery near which the battle took place. This is a significant point
because, according to al-Tabari, the Battle of the Skulls demonstrated the
extent to which the people of Iraq opposed Umayyad rule:
There gathered there together at Dayr al-Jamajim the Kufans, the
Basrans, the people of the frontier ways of access and the strong
points, and the qurraʾ [Quran reciters] of the two urban centers of Kufa
and Basra. They were unanimous in making war on al-Hajjaj, being
united in that by their hatred and loathing of him. They were at that
time one hundred thousand stipendiary fighting men, accompanied
by a like number of their clients. (Al-Tabari 1990, 220)
That a hadith transmitter like ʿUqba b. Wassaj was willing to be martyred
while fighting alongside al-Hajjaj in the face of such overwhelming
opposition is telling of the social location of such scholars in the political
milieu of the moment. Through individuals like ʿUqba b. Wassaj, the discourse
of adhering to the community was actualized as an element of political
theology that equated political loyalty with inclusion in the body of religious
believers at a time of intense imperial fragmentation.
ʿAbd al-Wahhab b. Bukht (d. 113/731) (Ibn Hanbal 1993, 98)15 , whom
Ibn Kathir (d. 774/1373), the annalist and Qurʾanic exegete, remembers as
“The Commander,” is another figure affiliated with both Marwanid military
campaigns and the transmission of the Three Things Hadith (Ibn Kathir 1998,
v. 9, 304). He is often listed in the biographical dictionaries with the nisba
al-Makki (Meccan), but he also appears with that of al-Umawi (Umayyad)
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because he was a client of the Marwanids. It is likely that some biographers

attempted to play down his relationship with the Umayyad ruling house by
emphasizing his connection to Mecca. He settled in Syria and then Medina
and is remembered as having fought alongside the famous warrior ʿAbd Allah
al-Battal (d. 122/740) in a number of raids on the Byzantine frontier, where
he died as a martyr. Through ʿAbd al-Wahhab the tradition travels to Homs,
which, like Kufa, was a turbulent center of early Shiite support that drew the
punitive attention of the Sufyanid and Marwanid regimes. It was taken there,
however, by a Damascene, Muʿan b. Rifaʿa, who settled there and transmitted
hadith from the “people of Greater Syria,” albeit with little diligence, as later
critics would concur (Al-Mizzı̄ 1994, v. 18, 190–1).
This tradition also enjoyed widespread transmission in Kufa, the well-
known center of Shiite theological movements and political insurrections.
However, here too the social milieu in which this hadith circulated was close
to official Umayyad state structures. In this context, it is safe to assume that
the hadith functioned in part as counter-opposition discourse. Transmitters
who doubled as Umayyad-appointed judges in the city seem to have been the
key figures in circulating the tradition. For example, two judges appear in
two different Kufan isnads: al-Qasim b. al-Walid al-Hamdani (d. 141/759) (Ibn
Hajar 184, v. 8, 305–6) and ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿUmayr al-Lakhmi (d. 136/754).16
It is significant to note that ʿAbd al-Malik al-Lakhmi was an ally of Bani
ʿUdayy just as ʿAbd al-Rah.man b. Muʿawiya, mentioned above. ʿAbd al-Malik
b. ʿUmar was also referred to as al-farasi, a reference to his horseback riding
skills for which he probably gained repute during his participation in the
conquest of Balkh under the command of an Umayyad general.
The most important member of the Kufan Hamdani intellectual landscape,
however, was undoubtedly ʿAmir b. Sharahil al-Shaʿbi (d. 99/718). Al-Shaʿbi,
who also served briefly as judge in Kufa, is better known for his lasting
influence in the circles of Kufan hadith transmitters. Both medieval and
modern scholars have debated his role in the city’s turbulent political
landscape especially given his support for both al-Mukhtar’s and Ibn al-
Ashʿath’s rebellions in 66/685 and 80/699, respectively. However, as Judd
concludes, al-Shaʿbi was able to secure a rapprochement with the much
feared al-Hajjaj and on the whole “was hostile to many of the Umayyads’
enemies [and] remained at the center of a pious, pro-Umayyad scholarly
network that replicated itself over several generations” (2014, 50). Indeed,
most Kufan judges for the remainder of the Umayyad period were considered
his students and protégés. Given his participation in, and support of, official
Umayyad institutions, it is not surprising to find al-Shaʿbi in another Kufan
isnad of this hadith.17
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Interestingly, this isnad includes al-Nuʿman b. al-Bashir, a well-

known Companion who reportedly delivered the third caliph ʿUthman’s
bloodstained shirt to Muʿawiya (E.I.2 , s.v. “al-Nuʿman b. Bashir”). He served
as Muʿawiya’s governor in Kufa and Homs dutifully but paid with his life
for the political miscalculation of supporting Ibn al-Zubayr’s claim to the
caliphate. It is also worth noting that al-Tabari records that al-Nuʿman,
while in Kufa, urged the people there towards obedience and “to adhere to
the community.” Muʿawiya’s own client, Layth b. Abi Salim (d. 143/760),
also appears in the Kufan isnads of Three Things Hadith. Taken together,
then, from a Kufan standpoint, the discourse of luzum al-jamaʿa seems to be
virtually synonymous with loyalty to the Umayyad state.
Conclusion
Modern historians such as George Makdisi, Aziz al-Azmeh, and most recently
Scott Lucas have long recognized that the scholarly community responsible
for transmitting Muhammad’s sayings, the ahl al-hadith, played a central
role in the development of Sunni orthodoxy and identity.18 Their studies have
shown that Abbasid period hadith scholars, in part, provided the discursive
framework necessary to articulate the notion of a continuous community
from the time of the Prophet Muhammad to their present moment. However,
the review here, by demonstrating that Umayyad courtiers such al-Zuhri
and al-Shaʿbi and many others spread the discourse of luzum al-jamaʿa, adds
an additional layer of significance to this argument. The ahl al-hadith, by
promoting the jamaʿa as the legitimate body politic of the community of
believers, provided the bridge between Umayyad and Abbasid articulations
of imperial religious legitimacy. This lends insight into one of the more
remarkable discursive features of Sunni mytho-history, what Patricia Crone
calls “the depoliticization of the community of believers” or the simultaneous
decoupling of the body politic from the ruling dynasty (whether Umayyad
or Abbasid) and the retention of the idea of a community as a discrete entity
(2004, 30).
By way of conclusion, we turn to an anecdote about the execution of
a prominent Shiite citizen in Baghdad recorded in Abu Bakr al-Khallal’s
(d. 311/923) al-Sunna. Al-Khallal, as Christopher Melchert argues, can be
considered the veritable founder of the Hanbali school of law, given his
synthesis of Ahmad b. Hanbal’s opinions and writings (Melchert 137–55).
It is worth noting that the story appears under the heading of the merits
of staying steadfast to the “Sunna, community, listening, and obeying” (Al-
Khallal 2007, 62). In Baghdad, in the year 241/855, a caravanserai owner by
the name of ʿIsa b. Jaʿfar b. Muhammad b. ʿAsim was subjected to a public
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flogging of 1000 lashes for allegedly cursing the first two Caliphs of Islam,
Abu Bakr and Umar, and slandering Aisha and Hafsa, the esteemed wives of
the Prophet Muhammad. Al-Mutawakkil (r. 226/847–247/861), the reigning
‘Abbasid Caliph infamous for his radical reversal of the mihna and generous
patronage of the ahl al-hadith, is said to have ordered the punishment. The
prolific Sunni writer, Ibn Abi Dunya (d. 281/894) was asked to serve as a
witness to the punishment. Ibn Abi Dunya is a significant figure for “although
he was a freedman of the Umayyads, he became the tutor of several Abbasid
princes” (E.I.2 , s.v. “Ibn Abi Dunya”). Interestingly, in the directive letter from
the Caliph, it was commanded that, “if he dies, he should be thrown into
the river without a funeral prayer, thus deterring every deviant in religion
who abandons the community (al-jamaʿa) of Muslims.” In this fashion ʿIsa b.
Jaʿfar was declared outside the pale of Islam; he died after being left limp
in the sun, and his body was discarded in the Tigris (Al-Khallal 2007, 62). It is
important to note that al-Mutawakkil’s letter equates the sin of disparaging
the Prophet’s Companions with leaving the community, a sin in and of itself.
The execution of ʿIsa b. Jaʿfar marks one of the many instances in
which al-Mutawwakil’s caliphate was defined in terms of appropriating the
theological vision of the ahl al-hadith and meeting out punishment against
Shiite and Muʿtazilite heresies. It is also an important moment in which Sunni
orthodoxy establishes itself as an imagined community, both in the execution
itself and in the pedagogical uses thereof. What is significant about the ʿat b.
Jaʿfar affair is that his heresy was not to be found in a theological issue such
as the nature of the Qurʾan or of God’s attributes, nor was it to be found in a
dispute over ritual and legal praxis. Even still, his crime was not, like that of
so many of his Shiite peers of the time, one of political rebellion and treason,
which would invite execution in just about any Islamic political theology. It
is also worthy to note that it was not until much later in Sunni tradition that
the crime of cursing the companions would be fully articulated as a violation
of orthodoxy and developed as a point of law.19 Rather, his crime, according
to the Caliph, was abandoning “the jamaʿa of the Muslims” by disparaging its
early founders. In that sense, ʿIsa b. Jaʿfar’s crime was one against not only
God, but against His chosen community, the jamaʿa, as well.
The story of ʿIsa b. Jaʿfar’s flogging demonstrates the way in which the
discourse of al-jamaʿa retains the Umayyad license of both identifying and
destroying enemies of the state as enemies of God. The execution took place
at the behest of the Caliph. However, for early Hanbalı̄s who were reputedly
averse to state power, the execution constituted not only a necessity of the
law but a religious merit as well. That the story is recounted in the opening
sections of one of the earliest and most significant Hanbali texts should be
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read not only as a point of doctrinal pedagogy but also as a moment when
al-jamaʿa is articulated as both orthodoxy and identity.
How the nascent Hanbali school, and the ahl al-hadith before them,
authorized the state as an arbiter of orthodoxy along with making it
synonymous with the jamaʿa but without investing the caliph with divine
right constitutes one of the most interesting questions in understanding
the transition from the Islam of the Umayyad era to the crystallization of
Sunni orthodoxy during the Abbasid period. One may ask what role the ahl
al-hadith played in the early ninth century in preventing the emergence of an
Abbasid imamate. While such questions exceed the scope of this study, the
data presented here suggests at least, that ideas central to Sunni conceptions
of self were first developed within the social milieu of Umayyad patronage
structures and networks. These ideas then overlapped with the interests of
Abbasid elites and their supporters who appropriated and endorsed them for
their purposes of political stability and legitimation in the face of their own
governing challenges.
Endnotes
1
I would like to thank Devin Stewart and Lou Ruprecht for their invaluable feedback on
early drafts of this article.
2
For a discussion on the applicability of the term “orthodoxy” in Islamic studies see, Richard
C. Martin and Abbas Barzegar, 2010, “Networks of Authority: Orthodoxy and Change in Islamic
Societies” in Rethinking Islamic Studies: From Post-Orientalist to Cosmopolitanism Perspectives,
edited by Carl W. Ernst and Richard C. Martin, University of South Carolina Press.
3
Arabic technical terms that have not come into modern English usage will be italicized
and fully pointed with diacritical marks on first appearance; thereafter within the article only
the ayn (ʿ ) and the Hamza (ʾ) will be indicated. The ayn and hamza, but not other diacritical
markings, will appear in traditional Arabic proper names.
4
For a discussion on the applicability of the term “orthodoxy” in Islamic studies see, Richard
C. Martin and Abbas Barzegar, 2010, “Networks of Authority: Orthodoxy and Change in Islamic
Societies” in Rethinking Islamic Studies: From Post-Orientalist to Cosmopolitanism Perspectives,
edited by Carl W. Ernst and Richard C. Martin, University of South Carolina Press.
5
Arabic technical terms that have not come into modern English usage will be italicized
and fully pointed with diacritical marks on first appearance; thereafter within the article only
the ayn (ʿ ) and the Hamza (ʾ) will be indicated. The ayn and hamza, but not other diacritical
markings, will appear in traditional Arabic proper names.
6
See p. 9 below.
7
Translation slightly modified.
8
For a useful summary of this argument see most recently: Abdulhadi Alajmi, 2013,
“Ascribed vs. Popular Legitimacy: The Case of al-Walı̄d II and Umayyad ahd” in Journal of Near
Eastern Studies 72 (1), 25–33.
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MESA R o M E S 49 2 2015
9
In the same section Shafiʿi also records another hadith with the phrase “adhere to the
community” on the authority of Umar:
God’s Emissary stood among us just as I am standing among you now. ‘Honor my
Companions,’ he said, ‘and then those who follow them, and then those who follow
them. Then lies will appear such that a man will swear without being asked to swear,
and testify without being sworn. Whoever wishes to delight in the midst of Paradise,
let him bind himself to the community. Satan is with the loner, but father from two.
No man is ever alone with a woman without Satan being a third. Whoever is delighted
by his own good works and upset by his bad deeds is a believer.
10
Translation slightly modified = “adhere to” rather than “bind to.”
11
Muhammad b. ʿAbd Allah b. Numayr related to us from his father from Muhammad b.
Ishaq from ʿAbd al-Salam from al-Zuhri from Muhammad b. Jubayr b. Mutʿim from his father
from the Prophet. Al-Darimı̄, al-Sunan, kitab al-nabi, bab al-iqtidaʾ bi-l-ʿulamaʾ, (Beirut: Dar
Ihyaʾ al-Sunnah al-Nabawiyah, n.d.): Ahmad b. Khalid related from Muhammad b. Ishaq from
al-Zuhri from Muhammad b. Jubayr b. Mutʿim from his father. Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, Hadith
Jubayr b. Muʿtim, 16419 (Beirut: Dar al-Ihya al-Turath al-ʿArabi, 1993): Allah related to us from
his father [Ahmad b. Hanbal] from Yaʿla b. ʿUbayd who said: Muhammad Ibn Ishaq related to
us from al-Zuhri fom Muhammad b. Jubayr b. Mutʿim from his father from the Prophet; and
16435: ʿfro Allah related to us from his father [Ahmad b. Hanbal] from Yaʿqub who said: My
father related to us from Ibn Ishaq who mentioned that Muhammad b. Muslim b. ʿUbayd Allah
b. Shihab [al-Zuhri] related from Muhammad b. Jubayr b. Mutʿim from his father from the
Prophet.
12
“Al-Dhahabi,” Tarikh al-Islam, v. 6, 464.
13
Al-Hakim al-Nisaburi, al-Mustadrak: Book of Knowledge, Three Things, # 301, v. 1,162:
Nuʿaym b. Hammad related to us from Ibrahim b. Saʿd who related from Salih b. Kaysan from
al-Zuhri from Muhammad b. Jubayr b. Mutʿim from his father Jubayr from the Prophet.
14
Al-Jabbar b. ʿAsim related to us from Hani b. ʿrel al-Rahman b. Abi ʿal-R from Ibrahim
from ʿUqba b. Wassaj al-Azdi from Anas b. Malik. Al-Tabarani Beirut: Muʿasisat al-Risala (n.d.)
Musnad al-Shamiin v. 1, 71
ʿAbd Allah [b. Ahmad] related from his father from Abu al-Mughayra from Maʿan b. Rafaʿa
15
who said that ʿwho al-Wahhab b. Bukht al-Makki related from Anas b. Mālik from the Prophet.
16
Al-Tirmidhi, al-Sunnan: Kitab al-ʿIlm: Bab ma jaʾ fi al-hathth ʿala tabligh al-samaʿ #2658
(Riyad : Maktab al-Maʻarif lil-Nashr, 1996) Ibn Abi ʿIbn related to us from Sufyan ʿUyayna from
ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿUmayr from ʿAbd al-Rahman b. ʿAbd Allah b. Masʿud from his father from
the Prophet.
17
Muʿajam al-Tabarani al-Kabir, v. 2, 41, Bashir: Bashir b. Saʿd al-Ansari: ʿal- al-Rahman b.
al-Hasan al-Darab al-Isbahani related to us on the authority of ʿrel Allah b. Ayyub al-Makhrami
on the authority of Muhammad b. Kathir al-Kufi on the authority of Ismaʿil b. Abi Khalid from
al-Shaʿbi from al-Nuʿman b. Bashir from his father from the Prophet.
18
Scott Lucas, 2004, Constructive Critics, Hadith Literature, and the Articulation of Sunni Islam,
Leiden: Brill; Aziz al-Azmeh, 1988, “Orthodoxy and Hanbalite Fideism,” Arabica 35; George
Makdisi, 1981, “Hanbalite Islam,” in Studies on Islam, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
19
For example see, Lutz Wiederhold, 1997, “Blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad and
His Companions (Sabb al-Rasul, Sabb al-Sahaba): The Introduction of the Topic into Shafiʿi
156
MESA R o M E S 49 2 2015
legal literature and its relevance for legal practice under Mamluk rule,” Journal of Semitic Studies
42 (1), 39–70.
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Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA)

“Adhering to the Community” (Luzūm al-Jamāʿa) Continuities between late Umayyad

his article addresses the early formation of Sunni “orthodoxy” through

in the turbulent Marwanid period, and was promoted by religious and

the threat of stigma, malicious gossip, ostracism, or verbal attack by

This study explores the formation of Islamic communitarian sensibilities in

history of an important Sunni proof text concerning the probity of the

Luzum al-Jamaʿa: A Marwanid Political Theology?

Referred to hereafter as the “Three Things Hadith,” this tradition appears

revolted against ʿAbd al-Malik’s infamous governor al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf (d.

from which later generations would draw. For instance, al-Bukhari

was known by various nisbas such as al-Maqdisi, al-Shami, and al-Dimashqi

because he was a client of the Marwanids. It is likely that some biographers

Interestingly, this isnad includes al-Nuʿman b. al-Bashir, a well-

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