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This article will reopen the question about the identity and provenance of the abna' al-dawla. Who were they? When did they form as a collective and why? The standard view is that the abna' al-dawla were the backbone of the Abbasid dynasty, coming into existence with that regime after the revolution circa 132/750 and consisting of the original fighters from Khurasan and their descendants, who formed an elite social and political structure of supporters. This privileged status accorded them the moniker abna' al-dawla (sons/supporters of the dynasty).
Recent scholarship on premodern Islamic history typically allows modern conceptualizations of identity to determine the understanding of group dynamics and identity formation. However, these typically are not applicable to the third/ninth century.1 The abna' al-dawla are particularly in need of reinterpretation.2 Still, determining who they were presents a number of difficulties. The blanket term abna', as it is most often used, leaves little room, in its monolithic presentation as an ethnic or nationality based group, for the subtleties of social interaction. One must not forget that the abna' al-dawla as a political actor was made up of individuals with many other ties of identity. In the course of this article I will show that it was during the fourth fitna (195/810-198/813) that these individuals formed an identity for collective action. This is not based on ethnic or national affinity. Reading the sources closely reveals that they do not appear as a coherent group until that conflict, and they disappear shortly thereafter.
Scholars have taken a variety of terms as synonymous with abna' al-dawla that actually are not. When the military units were settled in Baghdad at its founding, they were grouped roughly by region of origin representing a great diversity of locales.3 Garrisoning troops in this manner does not necessarily translate into settlement by ethnic or national identity, nor does it lead to the creation of these identities.4 When hostilities broke out between al-Amin and al-Ma'mun, individuals rose to fight based on horizontal ties of loyalty, which focused vertically on the caliph and anti-caliph. These ties were not based on a shared sense of ethnicity or nationalism but rather on linkages of local commonality, meaning quarters, bonds of patronage, and perceptions of common interests. In the process of...