ANOTHER KEY ISSUE that is embedded in the Islamic origins nan·atives is the question of Muslim hegemony over non-Muslims. Immediately following the Prophet's death in 11/632, the early Believers had embarked on an extended series of conquests that resulted in the subjection of all the lands of the former Sasanian empire, and half of those of the Byzantine empire, and gave rise to the creation of an empire ruled by Arabian Believers that came to be self-consciously identified with Islam. The question of the legitimacy of Muslim hegemony over non-Muslims was an especially acute one because for many centuries a relatively small Muslim community ruled far larger numbers of non- Muslims. Legitimation of Muslim hegemony was therefore of utmost importance. In the narratives of Islamic origins, this issue takes the form primarily of two themes, which we shall designate futūḥ (“conquests“) and khilāfa (“caliphate“).

Futuḥ

The theme of futūḥ, or the wars of conquest waged by the early Muslims, is much in evidence in later compilations. It is a theme of INCEPTION, in that it aims to explain (and, in doing so, to justify) the way in which Muslim hegemony over non-Muslims in the Islamic state arose, and to chronicle when particular regions and cities were first brought into the bosom of the expanding Islamic state.

The earliest surviving book on this theme is the Ta'rīkh futūḥ Shām of al-Azdī al-Baṣrī (d. ca. 200/810),2 but quotes of earlier worksthe futūḥ al-'Irāq and futūḥ al-Shām of Abū Mikhnaf (d. 157/774),3 the Futii∼ of Ibn Is﹜:ḥaq (d. 150/767 or 151), and the futūḥ of al-Sha'bi (d. 103/721) appear to survive in al

-Ṭabari's history. Quotes from the lost futūḥ Miṣr of Abu Qabīl al-Ma'afirī (d. 128/745) are found in the work with similar title by Ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥakam (d. 257/871 ). The supposed futūḥ work of Sa'īd ibn al-Musayyab (d. 94/713) may never have existed as a book, but he does seem to have collected material on this theme. The first books of futūḥ thus appear to be products of the very end of the first and early second century AH.