204 UMAIYAD PRACTICE AS THE STARTING-POINT

ʿAbdalmalik’s reform. This ancient Iraqian theory was first put into the mouth of Ibrāhīm Nakhaʿī and then projected back to ʿUthmān, who was alleged to have fixed the weregeld at 12,000 dirham of 'standard six'. Later still, an alleged currency reform of ʿUmar on the basis of 'standard six' was deduced.¹ The reform of ʿAbdalmalik was projected back to the Umaiyad governor Ziyād b. Abī Sufyān.² The traditions from the Prophet concerning the amount of weregeld in gold and silver, which occur in the classical traditions, were as yet unknown to Shaibānī.³

The minting fees of the Umaiyad administration gave the lawyers an occasion for elaborating strict rules on the exchange of bullion for coins.⁴

Law of War

It was the policy of the Umaiyads, for reasons of expediency, not to lay waste the enemy country wantonly. This was well known to Auzā'ī and to Abū Yūsuf.⁵ In justification of the Umaiyad policy it was alleged that Abū Bakr instructed Yazīd b. Abī Sufyān, a member of the Umaiyad family, to adopt it when he sent him at the head of an army group against Syria.⁶ Syrian doctrine acknowledged the Umaiyad practice, and Ibn Ḥanbal considered the Abū Bakr tradition a Syrian invention.⁷

The devastation of enemy country, on the other hand, was advocated by reference to Koran lix. 5 which authorizes the cutting down of trees in warfare, by counter-traditions from Abū Bakr and from the Prophet,⁸ and by 'historical' traditions from the Prophet.⁹

Against this, the Syrians took the Abū Bakr tradition as an authoritative interpretation of the Koranic passage, referred to Koran ii. 205 which forbids the causing of devastation, and as far as the 'historical' traditions from the Prophet were concerned, concluded that there must have been a change of dispensation.¹⁰