Notes for an Archaeology of Muʿāwiya:Material Culture in the Transitional

Period of BelieversDonald Whitcomb, The Oriental Institute

Muʿāwiya [...] rebuilt some of the walls and repaved the northern part of the platform. There was even some talk of ambitious new building plans for the ar ea.1 Perhaps

there will always be an uncertainty whether Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān became involved with the Ḥaram al-Sharīf and initiated the building known as the Qubbat al-Ṣakhra.2

On the other hand, there is an inscription from the baths renovated at Hammat Gader in 662, a few years after Muʿāwiya became caliph (fig. 1.1). He is styled “the servant of

God […] commander of the Believers.”

*The Hammat Gader inscription

* Setting of the Muʿāwiya inscription

The inscription was in Greek and not dissimilar to another of the empress Eudocia, also placed in the same hall some 200 years earlier. Both stones bear a cross and one may assume the local builder of the later to have been Christian, working under the authority of Abū Hāshim, the Muslim governor.These two aspects of the career of Muʿāwiya, an indirect implication of activity inJerusalem and specific evidence of restoration in Gadara, may be taken as extremes for an “archaeology” of Muʿāwiya. This paper explores this concept, that one may reconstruct this historical person from his effect on material culture of his time. While it is always possible to discover direct evidence relating to a person (i.e., the above inscription), this is not exactly modern archaeology, as a discipline beyond serendipitous discovery. Archaeological research is much better suited for broad questions of social and cultural history, economic and ecological development. This usually involves comparative analyses of patterns within corpora of material evidence. For an archaeologist, the study of a person is anomalous, if not counterintuitive, as a research subject.

This study stretches this understanding of modern archaeology for the sake of developingan understanding of the early Islamic period. Muʿāwiya is a particularly appropriate subjectfor this experiment. He follows the crucial but nebulous period of the Rāshidūn withoutan obvious cultural break; he enjoyed an extraordinarily long period of power, some fortyyears as governor of Bilād al-Shām and caliph of the Dār al-Islām; he presided in the shiftfrom Ḥijāz-based polity into one based in al-Shām and encompassing the Diyār al-ʿAraband Diyār al-ʿAjam; he coordinated settlement of large numbers of Believers into differingregions that remained predominantly Christian. Setting aside the nature of his politicalstructure, that is, the vexed question of a state, he made major contributions toward thephysical manifestation of Islamic structures. Parameters of this phase of development may beoutlined in anticipation of a second phase, the production of ʿAbd al-Malik’s sons, al-Walīd I,Sulaymān, and Hishām (705–743, another forty-year span).

A Locus of Authority?To return to the Hammat Gader inscription and historical sources on Muʿāwiya, it is entirelypossible that Muʿāwiya frequented this bath, perhaps employing the therapeutic watersfor his son Yazīd, on his way to his winter quarters at Ṣinnabra (some 10 km distant). Thepalace of Ṣinnabra may be the earliest of the so-called desert castles, here the seasonalresidence of the governor of al-Shām and then commander of the Believers.

* Early Islamic administrative structures atTiberias, Sinnabra, and Rusafa

These three examples may indicate a new architectural form for the dār al-imāra, which may be traced back to Muʿāwiya’s rule in Bilād al-Shām and then imitated by his successors, ʿAbd al-Malik and his son Hishām. What makes this transformation interesting is the structural similarity to a church, as in the example of the building of al-Mundhir, also at Ruṣāfa, identified by Sauvaget as a praetorium, an interpretation seconded by Shahid (contra the identification as a church by Brandt and Fowden). As Fowden points out, the ambiguity itself may be significant as is the association with the Ghassanids (also of personal significance to Muʿāwiya, as suggested by Shahid).8

Association of the Arab populations in Shām with these structures may reveal an element of Muʿāwiya’s organization of Qinnasrīn; as Athamina notes, “[…] during the first civil war, many tribal sub-groups left the amṣār of Iraq and joined the camp of Muʿāwiya in Syria. There they were settled by Muʿāwiya in Qinnasrīn which from then on was a miṣr.” The terms used by al-Ṭabari are maṣṣarahā wa-jannadahā, from miṣr and jund. The combination of these terms suggests that the creation of a separate military district (jund) north of Ḥimṣ was an administrative operation and distinct from the creation of a new urban entity (miṣr), necessarily residential in nature.

Appropriation of the Land

The phrase “appropriation of the land,” used by Grabar in his pivotal study TheFormation of Islamic Art, is a significant aspect of Ṣinnabra and the possible association with the Ghassanids. Perhaps Humphreys misunderstands the enduring interaction with the Ḥijāz when he claims that Muʿāwiya “not only cut his personal ties with his native Mecca but also the lingering ties of Islam’s central government to its Arabian origins”;this identification was less problematic if one realizes that Muʿāwiya (and others) did not cut personal ties with Mecca. Rather it is clear that, according to al-Yaʿqūbī, the Companions of the Prophet followed the example of ʿUthmān, who amassed huge estates in Khaybar and Wādī al-Qurā in the Ḥijāz. Indeed, one notes ʿUmar purchased estates near Badr, perhaps to control the grain import from Egypt. The conqueror of Egypt and close associate of Muʿāwiya, ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ, held extensive estates between Beersheva and Hebron

There are reports of Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān owning ten farms in the vicinity of Mecca and Medina, as well as properties in the Wādī al-Qurā area. Ghabban reports numerous palaces between al-Suqyā and Medina with Abbasid decoration and ceramics, a possible continuation of such estates. The estate of al-ʿAlwīya near Mecca might have been one of these; with structures bearing similarities to Khirbat al-Mafjar. Thus in both literature and archaeology evidence abounds for intense development of the Ḥijāz from the late seventh century onward. The palace of al-ʿAlwīya might have been an elite residence not unlike the quṣūr, the so-called desert castles throughout Bilād al-Shām, of which Mafjar is counted as one. These structures were the principal feature of early Islamic estates (ḍiyāʿ); they functioned as the center of agricultural enterprises and conceptually may be considered proto-urban establishments. Ḥijāzī agriculture developed in the early Islamic period with wealthy individuals making major investments, a practice extended into the conquered Middle East.

Plan of al-ʿAlwīya

Recently al-Rāshid has reported an inscription of Muʿāwiya at Sadd al-Khanaq, a dam about 15 kilometers east of Medina on the road to the Maʿdin Banī Sulaym. He places this structure in the context of other dams, such as another of Muʿāwiya near al-Ṭāʾif, and notes that the caliph’s interests in agriculture and estates are based on al-Samhūdī’s accounts. In addition to dams, one must wonder about the use of qanats; these complex irrigation devices are often assumed to be much older (such as those at al-Mābiyāt); but the extensive system in the Wādī ʿArabah behind Aqaba has now been carefully dated to the early Islamic period.

First and second Kufic inscriptionson the dam of Muʿāwiyah (after Miles,“Early Islamic Inscriptions,”

Thus, the rise of a new, wealthy class inMedina in the seventh and eighth centuries

led to irrigation and settlement in valleysby prominent families, and foremost thepolitical leaders such as Muʿāwiya. Earlydisinclination toward urban markets (see

below) yielded to strong commercialexchange in cosmopolitan places, such asQurḥ or indeed the Ḥaramayn during the

Ḥajj.

Plan early Islamic madīna

Three Cities of MuʿāwiyaA. Damascus (Dimashq)In his study of the image of Baghdad, Wendell notes that the al-Qubbat al-Khaḍrāʾ ofMuʿāwiya was imitated by al-Manṣūr’s dome, perhaps through the intermediate example ofanother “green dome” at Wāsiṭ. He further suggests that the dome might reflect a “lingeringmemory of the old tribal qubba, the domical red leathern tent,”38 a tempting reflection ofinterests in pre-Islamic traditions. Nevertheless, the immediate prototype for the form isclearly in Byzantine architecture (perhaps from Caesarea, see below).39 Bloom provides adetailed examination of this formal relationship. The urban structure of Damascus in the time of Muʿāwiya focused on the temenos of the ancient temple; this area seems to have been divided so that, upon entering through the southern wall of the temenos, Christians turned to the left toward the cathedral of Saint John, and Muslims turned right toward the muṣallā or mosque. Flood has analyzed evidence to suggest that the Khaḍrāʾ was on the eastern side behind the miḥrāb of the Companions and south of a colonnade, estimated at 50 meters south of the qibla wall. This configuration makes a striking topographical parallel with the Hagia Sophia and Augustaion/Chalke complex of Constantinople. He continues this analysis to suggest that Muʿāwiya beautified Damascus intending it to rival Constantinople.

Plan of early Islamic Damascus (details after

Saliby, “Un palaisbyzantino-omeyyade à

Damas,” and Flood, Great Mosque of Damascus)

B. Caesarea (Qayṣariyya)Caesarea maritime, the capital of Palaestina Prima, was captured by Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyānaround 640. ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān appointed Muʿāwiya governor and ordered him to garrisonthe coastal towns. There remains some question as to whether Muʿāwiya might have followedByzantine precedent and governed from this city, at least initially. This question belies alarger one: That the town was not destroyed during this conquest is generally accepted, butwhat did he find in this abandoned capital, and what c hanges did he make?Al-Balādhurī relates that Muʿāwiya found a large number of Arabs living in Caesareawhen he captured the city. This Ghassanid population seems to have been settled southeastof the Byzantine center and may have formed a ḥāḍir near the ancient hippodrome. Onefurther learns that Muʿāwiya imported a garrison of Persians when he became caliph; andone may surmise that they were installed in the former theater, made into a formidable ḥiṣnor fort (as it now appears). Thus, the earliest Islamic city was probably located south of andseparate from the continuing urban center. This pattern would change radicallyunder Abbasid and Fatimid rule, when the inner harbor was filled in and the madīna wasreplanned with a new mosque on the old Temple platform.

Plan of early IslamicQayṣariyya (after Whitcomb, “Qaysariya

as an Early Islamic Settlement”)

Comparative views of the Dome ofthe Rock (above) and the Temple Platform at

Caesarea (below), after Whitcomb, “Jerusalemand the Beginnings of the Islamic City,”,

and Holum, “The Temple Platform,”

C. Jerusalem (Īlyāʾ)Rosen-Ayalon was perhaps the first archaeologist to show clearly the axial arrangement ofthe plan of the Ḥaram al-Sharīf, the alignment of the Dome of the Rock with the Aqṣā mosque.The axis continues as streets to the north, west (Bāb Miḥrāb Dāwūd), and south, between At the very least, a conceptual matrix would seem to underlie this development in the early Islamic period. Elad has assembled references to Muʿāwiya and the Aqṣā mosque and suggests an Umayyad intention to develop Jerusalem into both “a political and religious center.” Further, he suggests that this process began with Muʿāwiya and ended with Sulaymān (and his transfer of the capital to al-Ramla). Goitein seems to have been the first to suggest that Muʿāwiya, with his special interest in Jerusalem, was the originator of the Dome of the Rock.Grabar also advanced this argument in 1990, that this organization “is not fromʿAbd al-Malik’s time, but from Muʿāwiya’s” (and subsequently brought to completion in 692).

Plan of early Islamic Jerusalem(after Whitcomb, “Jerusalem and the

Beginnings of the Islamic City”)

Islamic occupation of Jerusalem would seem to have been focused on the Ḥaram al- Sharīf and the Bāb al-Balāṭ to the south; this would leave the Christian community in the western city focused on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with an extension south to the Sion church. This development of Jerusalem becomes clear from the listing of its gates by al-Muqaddasī (some 300+ years later). He gives five gates in the south, then one on the east, one on the north, and one on the west, strongly indicating a predominance of Islamic occupation in the south. There are two gates on the inner wall of the south, the Bāb al-Tīh (perhaps for the Nea church) and the Bāb al-Balāṭ. This last term is most important for Jerusalem, perhaps from a local meaning or, in light of use of the term in other cities, a generic usage for an Islamic city

Coin of Muʿāwiya, Darabjird mint,a.h. 52–54 (672 c.e.). S. Album collection