Changing the Narrative through Mothers, Daughters, and Sons

Abstract

This article offers a reassessment of the ties between the families of two half-brothers, ʿ⁠Abd al-ʿ⁠Azīz and ʿ⁠Abd al-Malik sons of Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam. The first succeeded their father as caliph, while the second was governor of Egypt at the turn of the eighth century. The modern historiography has made much of ninth- and tenth-century narratives of opposition between the two. Those narratives are reassessed with a focus on how ties of kinship were used as a literary tool to build a distinctive memory of the Marwanid family. Even if moments of competition are recorded between the two, the families of those two men were instrumental to the success of the Marwanids as a caliphal family. The focus here is on marriage ties between their sons and daughters as well as on how the sons and their fathers participated in the same marriage patterns. The paper offers to shift our perspective by placing emphasis on family members that are usually not given proper attention: mothers, daughters, sisters and a wider pool of sons.