ABSTRACT
Hopefully this book has contributed toward a better understanding of the mosaics of tribal traditions on battles and their heroes, the web of praise and blame that spokesmen for their tribes wove. Tribal lore is tension and rivalry, a result not only of limited resources of praise. The Egyptian Ibn Abd al-Hakam provided an account of the Arab conquest of his homeland, so local claims for an adventurous story were reflected in other regions, and just as Sayf and Ibn Ishaq, both Iraqi authorities and al-Tabari's sources, were especially concerned with the conquest of Iraq, so al-Azdi and other Syrians gave voice to their own region. At the time of the Yarmuk battle, Ibn Zubayr curiously watches a group of Muslims who do not participate in the fighting. The book concludes by looking into the coastal province at the Persian Gulf, admittedly a region distanced from the centers of power in early - Abbasid time.
