Islamic Bureaucrats in Late Antiquity: Administration and Elites during the Umayyad Caliphate (c.a. 661-750 C.E.)

This dissertation examines the symbiotic relationship between state formation and the emergence of a religiously and ethnically diverse elite during the Umayyad Caliphate (41-132/661-750 C.E.). The project foregrounds the socioeconomic backgrounds of Umayyad-era administrators using a prosopographical approach to Muslim and non-Muslim sources in Arabic, Syriac, Coptic, and Greek. Previous scholarship on the early Islamic period has prioritized the religious or ethnic identity of administrators and interpreted Umayyad-era state reforms as efforts by Islamic political elites to demarcate and enforce a social hierarchy between Muslims and non-Muslims or conquerors and conquered. In contrast, the current dissertation contends that Umayyad administrative appointments and reforms were economically and politically motivated to create and maintain an emerging class of elites—one composed of both new members and those from pre-Islamic elite families. As a result, the evolving socioeconomic makeup of Umayyad administrators reflects how new and old elites negotiated identity and authority to shape a new empire.