A Study about Caliph Muawiya Bin Abi Sufyan. Notes for an Archaeology of Muʿāwiya: Material Culture in the Transitional Period of Believers Donald Whitcomb, The Oriental Institute

2. Muʿāwiya [...] rebuilt some of the walls and repaved the northern part of the platform.
There was even some talk of ambitious new building plans for the ar ea.1 Perhaps
there will always be an uncertainty whether Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān became involved
with the Ḥaram al-Sharīf and initiated the building known as the Qubbat al-Ṣakhra.2
On the other hand, there is an inscription from the baths renovated at Hammat Gader
in 662, a few years after Muʿāwiya became caliph (fig. 1.1). He is styled “the servant of
God […] commander of the Believers.”
*The Hammat Gader inscription

3. * Setting of the Muʿāwiya inscription

4. The inscription was in Greek and not dissimilar to another of the empress Eudocia,
also placed in the same hall some 200 years earlier. Both stones bear a cross and one
may assume the local builder of the later to have been Christian, working under the
authority of Abū Hāshim, the Muslim governor.
These two aspects of the career of Muʿāwiya, an indirect implication of activity in
Jerusalem and specific evidence of restoration in Gadara, may be taken as extremes
for an “archaeology” of Muʿāwiya. This paper explores this concept, that one may
reconstruct this historical person from his effect on material culture of his time.
While it is always possible to discover direct evidence relating to a person (i.e., the
above inscription), this is not exactly modern archaeology, as a discipline beyond
serendipitous discovery. Archaeological research is much better suited for broad
questions of social and cultural history, economic and ecological development. This
usually involves comparative analyses of patterns within corpora of material
evidence. For an archaeologist, the study of a person is anomalous, if not
counterintuitive, as a research subject.

5. This study stretches this understanding of modern archaeology for the sake of developing
an understanding of the early Islamic period. Muʿāwiya is a particularly appropriate subject
for this experiment. He follows the crucial but nebulous period of the Rāshidūn without
an obvious cultural break; he enjoyed an extraordinarily long period of power, some forty
years as governor of Bilād al-Shām and caliph of the Dār al-Islām; he presided in the shift
from Ḥijāz-based polity into one based in al-Shām and encompassing the Diyār al-ʿArab
and Diyār al-ʿAjam; he coordinated settlement of large numbers of Believers into differing
regions that remained predominantly Christian. Setting aside the nature of his political
structure, that is, the vexed question of a state, he made major contributions toward the
physical manifestation of Islamic structures. Parameters of this phase of development may be
outlined in anticipation of a second phase, the production of ʿAbd al-Malik’s sons, al-Walīd I,
Sulaymān, and Hishām (705–743, another forty-year span).

6. A Locus of Authority?
To return to the Hammat Gader inscription and
historical sources on Muʿāwiya, it is entirely
possible that Muʿāwiya frequented this bath,
perhaps employing the therapeutic waters
for his son Yazīd, on his way to his winter
quarters at Ṣinnabra (some 10 km distant). The
palace of Ṣinnabra may be the earliest of the
so-called desert castles, here the seasonal
residence of the governor of al-Shām and then
commander of the Believers.
* Early Islamic administrative structures at
Tiberias, Sinnabra, and Rusafa

7. These three examples may indicate a new architectural form for the
dār al-imāra, which may be traced back to Muʿāwiya’s rule in Bilād al-
Shām and then imitated by his successors, ʿAbd al-Malik and his son
Hishām. What makes this transformation interesting is the structural
similarity to a church, as in the example of the building of al-Mundhir,
also at Ruṣāfa, identified by Sauvaget as a praetorium, an
interpretation seconded by Shahid (contra the identification as a
church by Brandt and Fowden). As Fowden points out, the ambiguity
itself may be significant as is the association with the Ghassanids (also
of personal significance to Muʿāwiya, as suggested by Shahid).8

8. Association of the Arab populations in Shām with these structures may
reveal an element of Muʿāwiya’s organization of Qinnasrīn; as
Athamina notes, “[…] during the first civil war, many tribal sub-groups
left the amṣār of Iraq and joined the camp of Muʿāwiya in Syria. There
they were settled by Muʿāwiya in Qinnasrīn which from then on was a
miṣr.” The terms used by al-Ṭabari are maṣṣarahā wa-jannadahā, from
miṣr and jund. The combination of these terms suggests that the
creation of a separate military district (jund) north of Ḥimṣ was an
administrative operation and distinct from the creation of a new urban
entity (miṣr), necessarily residential in nature.

9. Appropriation of the Land
The phrase “appropriation of the land,” used by Grabar in his pivotal study The
Formation of Islamic Art, is a significant aspect of Ṣinnabra and the possible
association with the Ghassanids. Perhaps Humphreys misunderstands the enduring
interaction with the Ḥijāz when he claims that Muʿāwiya “not only cut his personal
ties with his native Mecca but also the lingering ties of Islam’s central government to
its Arabian origins”;this identification was less problematic if one realizes that
Muʿāwiya (and others) did not cut personal ties with Mecca. Rather it is clear that,
according to al-Yaʿqūbī, the Companions of the Prophet followed the example of
ʿUthmān, who amassed huge estates in Khaybar and Wādī al-Qurā in the Ḥijāz.
Indeed, one notes ʿUmar purchased estates near Badr, perhaps to control the grain
import from Egypt. The conqueror of Egypt and close associate of Muʿāwiya, ʿAmr b.
al-ʿĀṣ, held extensive estates between Beersheva and Hebron

10. There are reports of Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān owning ten farms in the vicinity of
Mecca and Medina, as well as properties in the Wādī al-Qurā area. Ghabban reports
numerous palaces between al-Suqyā and Medina with Abbasid decoration and
ceramics, a possible continuation of such estates. The estate of al-ʿAlwīya near
Mecca might have been one of these; with structures bearing similarities to Khirbat
al-Mafjar. Thus in both literature and archaeology evidence abounds for intense
development of the Ḥijāz from the late seventh century onward. The palace of al-
ʿAlwīya might have been an elite residence not unlike the quṣūr, the so-called desert
castles throughout Bilād al-Shām, of which Mafjar is counted as one. These
structures were the principal feature of early Islamic estates (ḍiyāʿ); they functioned
as the center of agricultural enterprises and conceptually may be considered proto-
urban establishments. Ḥijāzī agriculture developed in the early Islamic period with
wealthy individuals making major investments, a practice extended into the
conquered Middle East.

11. Plan of al-ʿAlwīya

12. Recently al-Rāshid has reported an inscription of Muʿāwiya at Sadd al-
Khanaq, a dam about 15 kilometers east of Medina on the road to the
Maʿdin Banī Sulaym. He places this structure in the context of other
dams, such as another of Muʿāwiya near al-Ṭāʾif, and notes that the
caliph’s interests in agriculture and estates are based on al-Samhūdī’s
accounts. In addition to dams, one must wonder about the use of
qanats; these complex irrigation devices are often assumed to be much
older (such as those at al-Mābiyāt); but the extensive system in the
Wādī ʿArabah behind Aqaba has now been carefully dated to the early
Islamic period.

13. First and second Kufic inscriptions
on the dam of Muʿāwiyah (after Miles,
“Early Islamic Inscriptions,”

14. Thus, the rise of a new, wealthy class in
Medina in the seventh and eighth centuries
led to irrigation and settlement in valleys
by prominent families, and foremost the
political leaders such as Muʿāwiya. Early
disinclination toward urban markets (see
below) yielded to strong commercial
exchange in cosmopolitan places, such as
Qurḥ or indeed the Ḥaramayn during the
Ḥajj.

15. Plan early Islamic madīna

16. Three Cities of Muʿāwiya
A. Damascus (Dimashq)
In his study of the image of Baghdad, Wendell notes that the al-Qubbat al-Khaḍrāʾ of
Muʿāwiya was imitated by al-Manṣūr’s dome, perhaps through the intermediate example of
another “green dome” at Wāsiṭ. He further suggests that the dome might reflect a “lingering
memory of the old tribal qubba, the domical red leathern tent,”38 a tempting reflection of
interests in pre-Islamic traditions. Nevertheless, the immediate prototype for the form is
clearly in Byzantine architecture (perhaps from Caesarea, see below).39 Bloom provides a
detailed examination of this formal relationship. The urban structure of Damascus in the time
of Muʿāwiya focused on the temenos of the ancient temple; this area seems to have been
divided so that, upon entering through the southern wall of the temenos, Christians turned to
the left toward the cathedral of Saint John, and Muslims turned right toward the muṣallā or
mosque. Flood has analyzed evidence to suggest that the Khaḍrāʾ was on the eastern side
behind the miḥrāb of the Companions and south of a colonnade, estimated at 50 meters south
of the qibla wall. This configuration makes a striking topographical parallel with the Hagia
Sophia and Augustaion/Chalke complex of Constantinople. He continues this analysis to
suggest that Muʿāwiya beautified Damascus intending it to rival Constantinople.

17. Plan of early Islamic
Damascus (details after
Saliby, “Un palais
byzantino-omeyyade à
Damas,” and Flood, Great
Mosque of Damascus)

18. B. Caesarea (Qayṣariyya)
Caesarea maritime, the capital of Palaestina Prima, was captured by Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān
around 640. ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān appointed Muʿāwiya governor and ordered him to garrison
the coastal towns. There remains some question as to whether Muʿāwiya might have followed
Byzantine precedent and governed from this city, at least initially. This question belies a
larger one: That the town was not destroyed during this conquest is generally accepted, but
what did he find in this abandoned capital, and what c hanges did he make?
Al-Balādhurī relates that Muʿāwiya found a large number of Arabs living in Caesarea
when he captured the city. This Ghassanid population seems to have been settled southeast
of the Byzantine center and may have formed a ḥāḍir near the ancient hippodrome. One
further learns that Muʿāwiya imported a garrison of Persians when he became caliph; and
one may surmise that they were installed in the former theater, made into a formidable ḥiṣn
or fort (as it now appears). Thus, the earliest Islamic city was probably located south of and
separate from the continuing urban center. This pattern would change radically
under Abbasid and Fatimid rule, when the inner harbor was filled in and the madīna was
replanned with a new mosque on the old Temple platform.

19. Plan of early Islamic
Qayṣariyya (after Whitcomb, “Qaysariya
as an Early Islamic Settlement”)

20. Comparative views of the Dome of
the Rock (above) and the Temple Platform at
Caesarea (below), after Whitcomb, “Jerusalem
and the Beginnings of the Islamic City,”,
and Holum, “The Temple Platform,”

21. C. Jerusalem (Īlyāʾ)
Rosen-Ayalon was perhaps the first archaeologist to show clearly the axial arrangement of
the plan of the Ḥaram al-Sharīf, the alignment of the Dome of the Rock with the Aqṣā mosque.
The axis continues as streets to the north, west (Bāb Miḥrāb Dāwūd), and south, between At
the very least, a conceptual matrix would seem to underlie this development in the early
Islamic period. Elad has assembled references to Muʿāwiya and the Aqṣā mosque and suggests
an Umayyad intention to develop Jerusalem into both “a political and religious center.”
Further, he suggests that this process began with Muʿāwiya and ended with Sulaymān (and his
transfer of the capital to al-Ramla). Goitein seems to have been the first to suggest that
Muʿāwiya, with his special interest in Jerusalem, was the originator of the Dome of the Rock.
Grabar also advanced this argument in 1990, that this organization “is not from
ʿAbd al-Malik’s time, but from Muʿāwiya’s” (and subsequently brought to completion in 692).

22. Plan of early Islamic Jerusalem
(after Whitcomb, “Jerusalem and the
Beginnings of the Islamic City”)

23. Islamic occupation of Jerusalem would seem to have been focused on
the Ḥaram al- Sharīf and the Bāb al-Balāṭ to the south; this would
leave the Christian community in the western city focused on the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre with an extension south to the Sion
church. This development of Jerusalem becomes clear from the listing
of its gates by al-Muqaddasī (some 300+ years later). He gives five
gates in the south, then one on the east, one on the north, and one on
the west, strongly indicating a predominance of Islamic occupation in
the south. There are two gates on the inner wall of the south, the Bāb
al-Tīh (perhaps for the Nea church) and the Bāb al-Balāṭ. This last term
is most important for Jerusalem, perhaps from a local meaning or, in
light of use of the term in other cities, a generic usage for an Islamic
city

24. Coin of Muʿāwiya, Darabjird mint,
a.h. 52–54 (672 c.e.). S. Album collection