ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr and the Mahdī: Between propaganda and historical memory in the Second Civil War
AbstractThe subject of the present paper is a prophetic tradition found in some compendia of eschatologicalaḥādīthwhich has received considerable scholarly attention since Wilferd Madelung dedicated an article to it in 1981. Whereas Madelung shares the opinion of earlier scholars that only some of the incidents “prophesied” by this tradition are historical, this study aims to show that it is a whollyex post factocomposition which, in its various strata, remarkably captures episodes from the Zubayrid war of propaganda against their rivals as well as their later attempts to redeem the memory of their lost cause as a just one. The discussion closes by producing a highly singular Syrian tradition most certainly put into circulation with the intent of countering these Zubayrid propaganda efforts.