Sketching a picture of Arabic historiography in Abbasid Syria is often a tedious process since many of the works produced by the region’s scholars exist primarily in quotations scattered throughout Ibn `Asakir’s "Ta'rikh Madinat Dimashq." Recently Talal al-Da`jani (2003) and Jens Scheiner (2017) identified hundreds of written sources that Ibn `Asakir likely had at his disposal while composing his voluminous biographical dictionary. Among the sources in Ibn `Asakir’s “library” was a cluster of biographical works authored by Syrian scholars from the mid-third/-ninth century to the mid-fourth/-tenth century, most of which are no longer extant. In an attempt to recover what was thought lost, modern scholars such as Gerhard Conrad (1989, 1991) have compiled and organized Ibn `Asakir’s citations of a few of these biographical works to produce reconstructions that have expanded our knowledge of Arabic historiography in Abbasid Syria. Inspired by the fruitful results of Conrad’s studies, my paper attempts to reconstruct Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Baghdadi’s (d. late 3rd/9th c.) "Ta'rikh al-Himsiyyin" and `Abd al-Samad b. Sa'id al-Himsi’s (d. 324/936) "Ta'rikh Hims," the two earliest local histories dedicated to residents of the northern Syrian city. Al-Baghdadi’s "Ta'rikh al-Himsiyyin," which Ibn `Asakir cites nearly a hundred times, is the more expansive of the two works as he provides detailed biographical information for prominent Himsis from the Islamic conquests up to the third/ninth century. Al-Himsi’s work, on the other hand, is focused on documenting the numerous Companions of the Prophet who settled in his hometown. Given our lack of other sources dedicated to early Islamic Hims, the local histories of al-Baghdadi and al-Himsi are vital for broadening our understanding of early Islamic Hims. My paper recognizes the pitfalls of reconstructing lost texts (L. Conrad, 1993; Landau-Tasseron, 2004) and has no illusions of reproducing al-Baghdadi’s "Ta'rokh al-Himsiyyin" and al-Himsi’s "Ta'rikh Hims" as they were originally composed. Rather it seeks to produce a comprehensive compilation of Ibn `Asakir’s quotations from these works arranged, when possible, in accordance with the section headings given by the authors (e.g. al-Baghdadi appears to have organized his biographies into "tabaqas" whereas al-Himsi grouped the biographies of his subjects by their tribal affiliations). From these reconstructions, my paper will seek to outline a basic prosopography of early Islamic Hims while also contextualizing these local histories within the landscape of Arabic historiography in Abbasid Syria.

This paper examines two recently published works pertaining to Mu'tazili biographical literature: the Kitab al-Maqalat of al-Ka'bi al-Balkhi (d. 319/931) and Josef van Ess’ encyclopedic Theology and Society, recently translated into English. I consider debates about the early caliphate and document the idiosyncratic political views of the Mu'tazila that disappeared with the school’s extinction. I pay special attention to theories about the legitimacy (or illegitimacy) of 'Ali b. Abi Talib (d. 40/661) as a ruler. The biographical information preserved in the works of al-Ka'bi and van Ess offers researchers a new set of lenses to understand second/eighth century debates about early Islamic history and the formation of political doctrines.

In her classic essay on a set of controversies in the life of the distinguished al-Khatib al-Baghdadi (d. 463/1071), Fedwa Malti-Douglas (1977) drew attention to the ways in which biographical dictionaries were not only repositories of prosopographical data, but also literary artefacts reflecting particular textual strategies that shape the narrative. More recently, this kind of analysis was extended further in the monograph by Michael Cooperson (2000) on the various biographical representations of four distinct figures from the time of al-Ma'mun, including the caliph himself. A key member of al-Ma'mun’s court, the chief judge Yahya b. Aktham (d. 242/857) offers a further useful test case for studying how medieval Muslims authors chose and interpreted the biographical material on a distant historical figure. For Cooperson, Ibn Aktham’s religious credentials and his relationship to the caliph proved strategically useful for a Sunni “remaking” of al-Ma'mun. But that still leaves unresolved the problems with Ibn Aktham himself, foremost among which were the accusations of liwat and related immoral conduct. A review of Ibn Aktham’s representation in the sources and their treatment of the various aspects of his life thus allows us to explore key questions about Arabic biographical literature. In particular, the topic of the scandal alone reveals a striking divergence between the tabaqat and the accounts appearing in other belletristic/adab sources—thus in a way supporting Wadad al-Qadi’s (2006) appraisal of the genre as an “alternative history” by the 'ulama. Taking a diachronic view starting with the first extensive and complicated biography of Yahya b. Aktham by none other than al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, this paper investigates whether and how the subject’s theological identity affects the perception of details reported about his personal life. In Ibn Aktham’s case, the fact that he was left untainted by the Mihna (having ceded his position to the Mu'tazili chief judge Ibn Abi Du'ad) and enjoyed the support of Ahmad b. Hanbal, became a crucial detail that helped manage his reputation. However, an interesting shift would occur such that later medieval biographers like al-Dhahabi (d. 748/1348) and Mughaltay (d. 762/1361), would impose a logic of personality on the narrative of Ibn Aktham’s life, to explain what even gets labelled as youthful indiscretions. Following the course of this development reveals how over time individual authors could both work within the tradition but also depart from it.

The field of Islamic studies has fostered pioneers in the computational analysis of prosopographical sources. As a function of the extent of this genre, individual studies posit narrow frames of inquiry: a single city (Bulliet 1972; Petry 1981); a single source (Günther 1991; Romanov 2012); or a single group of actors (Nawas and Bernards 1998; ?entürk 2005; Haider 2012). Further progress is possible through extending computational analysis of prosopographical sources to multiple cities, sources, and groups of actors. This paper describes cooperation between tenth-century Sufis and Shafi?is through a network analysis of relational data in relevant (quasi-)prosopographical works. Sufis in Nishapur almost uniquely identified with the Shafi?i law school by the middle of the eleventh century (Bulliet 1972; Halm 1974; Chabbi 1976). This arrangement is known in the field of organizational theory as "corporate interlock" (e.g. Hunter 1953). In the case of the Sufi-Shafi?i interlock, however, major elements of this cooperative agreement remain poorly understood: none of the aforementioned studies proposes a date for the onset of the "Sufi-Shafi?i interlock"; Melchert (2001) has suggested a single Nishapuri figure who achieved prominence in both groups. These results are attributable to two factors: (1) reliance on Nishapuri histories of Sufism and Shafi?ism (al-Sulami, [1953/1960]; al-?Abb?d? [1964]; al-Farisi [1965]); (2) restriction of the pool of prospective cooperators by analyzing only figures who are the subject of a full notice (_tarjamah_) in the aforementioned works. Recourse to alternative sources and data provides more extensive historical and geographical data on the Sufi-Shafi?i interlock. A number of Sufi prosopographies predate or are co-eval with al-Sulami's (al-Malini, ed. 1997; al-Naqqash, ed. 1991; al-Khuldi, [forthcoming]; there are several early lists of Shafi?is (El Shamsy 2013). Temporal and relational about the teachers and students of thefigures in these non-Nishapuri works exist in non-Nishapuri local histories (e.g. _Tarikh Baghdad_), or "universal" sources (e.g. _Siyar a?lam al-nubala?_). The resulting dataset can be used to study the temporal dynamics of Sufi-Shafi?i cooperation, comprising ~450 figures, sharing ~3,000 relational ties. The date at which this cooperation reached an "interlock" level can be ascertained through network analysis, specifically the identification of instances of "triadic closure" – i.e., when a Sufi and Shafi?i figure share a connection with a third figure (teacher or student) (Jasny 2007; Opsahl 2015). This analysis shows that "saturation point" of triadic closure between Sufis and Shafi?is occurred in the first half of the tenth century, amongst figures associated with Baghdad.