La khuṭba d’Abū Ḥamza al-Shārī

Abstract

The present paper investigates the famous khuṭba attributed to Abū Ḥamza al-Shārī, an Ibāḍī warlord on behalf of ʿAbd Allāh b. Yaḥyā. In the middle of the 2nd/8th century, he seized Mecca and Medina as the outcome of an Ibāḍī rebellion that had begun in the remote region of Ḥaḍramawt. The khuṭba has been well-known for decades, as fragments are scattered throughout various Sunnī and Shīʿī sources. However, few studies have addressed the broader context of the sermon so far, or offered a comprehensive translation of it. This article is divided into two parts. The first part is devoted to the history of Ibāḍism in the Arabian Peninsula during the 2nd/8th century. We propose explanatory hypotheses to understand the various reasons that led ʿAbd Allāh b. Yaḥyā to rebel against the Umayyad dynasty. We also offer a commentary on the khuṭba to help in its reading. The second part contains an extensive translation based on a longer version of the khuṭba found in a little-known eighteenth-century Ibāḍī source, the Kashf al-ghumma al-jāmiʿ li-akhbār al-umma, drafted in Oman and attributed to Ibn Sirḥān al-Izkawī.