Joshua Mabra, Princely Authority in the Early Marwānid State: The Life of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Marwān

Those subject to Arab-Islamic rule are likely to have wondered at the life span of the new religio-political order at the close of the first/seventh century. The conquerors were a quarrelsome lot, as quick to engage in internecine violence as they were to subdue local opposition: the ‘believers’ were at each other’s throats. From, in part, the accounts of a then burgeoning and variegated population of clients and slaves (mawālī), it is clear that a new religious program was taking shape. But sharp disagreements over its central precepts were no less obvious; divisions of belief ran as deep as those of kinship. How long could the new masters carry on this way?