The Echoes of Fitna
ISBN: 9789004524255
Platform/Publisher: BRILL / BRILL
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: Monuments; Classical antiquities.;

In The Echoes of Fitna , Aaron M. Hagler engages in a close reading of the fitna narratives of three related texts: al-Ṭabarī's Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-muluk , Ibn al-Athīr's al-Kāmil fī al-taʾrīkh , and Ibn Kathīr's Kitāb al-bidāya wa-l-nihāya . Because the latter two texts' presentations of the fitna follow al-Ṭabarī's so closely, moments of divergence in the texts are understood as clear markers of the later historians' goals, perspectives, and literary-narrative strategies.



The analysis of these changes demonstrates that the desire to reframe the meaning of Karbalāʾ is central to Ibn al-Athīr's and Ibn Kathīr's narrative construction, and that--while they left al-Ṭabarī's versions of key events intact--small, even minute changes to contextual expository moments fundamentally change their meaning.


hidden image for function call