ABSTRACT
Since the time of Wellhausen and Lammens, almost everything that has been written on the dynastic change from Umayyads to ‘Abbasids has been primarily based on the written sources already available, for the most part, to early twentieth-century scholarship. It is true, of course, that much in our understanding of the events and of their religious, ethnic and social components has been refined to a far greater degree than is apparent in earlier works. All the arguments and discussions so far have centered on written sources, whose partiality has often been pointed out and whose specific reliability in precise instances of fact as well as interpretation is hence often difficult to assess. As far as the early ‘Abbasid period is concerned, the Round City of Baghdad, the mysterious palace at Ukhaydir, and ill-defined remains at Raqqah have often been described, but rarely brought to bear on the wider historical and cultural problems of the period.
