É. Apor , I. Ormos (ed.): Goldziher Memorial Conference, June 21–22, 2000, Budapest.

SZOMBATHY, Zoltán: Some Notes on the Impact of the Shu übiyya on Arabic Genealogy

SOME NOTES ON THE IMPACT OF THE SHI/" O

BIYYA points and obscure, hence shameful, details in the genealogies of pre-Islamic Arab tribes, so did authors known as supporters of the "Arab side", and I am all but convinced that it would be a largely futile undertaking to try finding any recognizable statistical difference in the frequency of such remarks on the two rival sides. Possible though it is to assume that Abü cUbayda would literally hunt for such shameful genealogical details with the express aim of gathering evidence against the Arabs", yet the fact remains that uncomplimentary details do occur in equal abundance in the works of "pro-Arab" authors like Hishäm al-Kalb! or Ibn Qutayba. On the other hand, even an author who was notorious for his support of Persian nationalism and became known, accordingly, under the name cAllän al-Shu

cübí, did compose works on the virtues (jadä'il) of some Arabic tribes like the Kinäna and the Rabi a} In fact, every scholar's reputation rested on the wealth of data he possessed in any field of Bedouin traditions, including the enumeration of the shameful details of every tribe's past (

mathälib

), as well as the ancient Arabic genre of poetical lampoons (hija

). I really do not suppose that it would be easy to tell whether, say, al-Jähiz or Ibn Qutayba was any less diligent in collecting or editing hija poems than was Abü cUbayda, and I certainly would not venture to say what may have motivated one or the other in doing so." Goldziher, having reviewed some of Abü lUbayda's genealogical and philological claims, recapitulates in these words: "Thus Abü cUbayda tried to take every foreign flower from the proud Arabs' bouquet of fame."

1

4 In all honesty, I cannot see the sporadic examples that Goldziher mentions substantiate such a conclusion, especially in the light of the gigantic bulk of Abü cUbayda's oeuvre.

1

5 I am utterly unable to tell if Abü cUbayda was ever a "hardcore" shu übi, but I frankly do not think the sources suggest that he was. When one considers the fact that Abü cUbayda was, for all practical purposes, one of the leading figures of the study of Arabic antiquity, and what we know of his works appears to be neither hostile to the Arabs nor, indeed, particularly biased, it is hard to see why a treatise or two that he produced on the disgraces of some Arabic tribes Caskel says that Hishäm al-Kalbl, together with Abü lUbayda, was a pioneer of the academic genre muthäiib. See lbn KJiallikän. Wafayät VI, 83; III, 308; Ibn al-Nadlm, Fihrist 1, 94-96; Caskel (1966) I, 80. At any rate, drawing a strict boundary between the study of mathälib and nasab respectively seems to me to be wholly unjustified. On this putative boundary, cf. Kister, Plessner (1976), 66. 1' As Goldziher sought to demonstrate, see Goldziher (1967) I, 185-9. Ibn al-Nadlm, Fihrist I, 106. 1

1 Cf. the many really injurious hija poems on various Arabic tribes in al-Jähiz, Bukhala 234-6; al-Jähiz, Hayawän 1, 160-61. 1

4 Goldziher (1967) I,' 183. 1

5 Relatively little of which, however, is extant. A sizeable compilation of his accounts on tribal raids, skirmishes and wars in pre-Islamic Arabia has been reconstructed, see Abü cUbayda, Ayyäm. 259