The conquest of Damascus is one of the main events of the Islamic conquests in bilād al-Shām. Consequently, it appears with approximately 1000 narratives in the Islamic literature. This book shows the dependencies of these narratives. It therefore exemplifies the historiography from 700-1300 CE using one single event. Using the method of isnād-cum-matn-analysis the oldest forms of Islamic historiography are reconstructed. Among them are not only the version by Ibn Ishāq, but also the narratives in the futūh-work ascribed to al-Waqidī and in al-Azdī's...

This volume contains six articles on Ibn ʿAsākir and his Taʾrīkh madīnat Dimashq illustrating a variety of perspectives and approaches to the material. It includes a seventh article that discusses the process by which the now standard Dār al-fikr edition was compiled. The contributions address both the geographical and biographical sections of the Taʾrīkh madīnat Dimashq. Some of the authors examine Ibn ʿAsākir’s sources, while others describe how Ibn ʿAsākir’s works were used by later generations of scholars and how he influenced multiple genres of later writings. The volume...