The Umayyads, the first dynasty of Islam, ruled over a vast empire from their central province of Syria, providing a line of caliphs from 661 to 750. Another branch later ruled in al-Andalus - Islamic Spain - from 756 to 1031, ruling first as emirs and then as caliphs themselves. This book is the first to bring together studies of this far-flung family and treat it not as two unrelated caliphates but as a single enterprise. Yet for all that historians have made note of Umayyad accomplishments in the Near East and al-Andalus, Umayyad legacies - what later generations made of these caliphs and...

Cet ouvrage entend demontrer qu'une solide culture de l'ecriture de l'histoire existait dans la Syrie du 2e/8e siecle, et propose de nouvelles approches methodologiques afin d'offrir un acces vers cette historiographie perdue, tiraillee entre memoire et oubli. En etudiant la fabrique des heros omeyyades ou des mythes d'origines abbassides, cette etude s'efforce de mettre au jour les significations successives donnees a l'histoire syrienne, et d'identifier les differentes strates d'ecritures et de reecritures de l'histoire au cours des premiers siecles de l'islam. L'ensemble de ces elements...