Overview

This section of al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar, the last work of the fifteenth-century historian al-Maqrīzī, presents an overview of the genealogies of the pre-Islamic northern Arabs, regarded as the descendants of the apical ancestor figure ʿAdnān. Al-Maqrīzī’s text is embedded in the broader context of the genealogical tradition as a major organising principle in premodern Muslim historiography. The volume highlights the segmentary nature of Bedouin society, which resulted in inherently controversial tribal genealogies and historical traditions. The existence of many conflicting versions of the same pedigrees (and of the historical narratives undergirding each version) affected the Muslim historian’s work in subtle but profound ways.

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Zoltan Szombathy, Ph.D. (2001), Eötvös Loránd University, is Professor of Arabic at that university. A specialist on the social and cultural history of the Middle East, his publications include Mujūn: Libertinism in Mediaeval Muslim Society and Literature (Gibb Memorial Trust, 2013).

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