RESOURCEStechniques such as isnad criticism in order to identify the time when
and place where an account was probably circulated and to relate its
content to contemporary issues, as has been shown by E. L. Petersen
in 'Alt and Mu'awiya in Early Arabic Tradition (Copenhagen, 1964;
Odense, 1974), and by M. Muranye in Die Prophetengenossen in der
fruhislamische Geschichte (Bonn, 1973). The very size of the literary
corpus makes extensive collation possible so that biases in different
accounts of the same event can be identified and the underlying facts
on which they all agree can be discovered, as has been done by M. Hinds
in "The Siffin Arbitration Agreement," JSS 17 (1972): 93-129, and
by W. Schmucker in Untersuchungen zu einigen wichtigen boden-
rechtlichen Konsequenzen der islamischen Eroberungsbewegung (Bonn,
1972).
Such methods open up a huge body of literature which may be used
for the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries. It is possible to deal with
all of the old questions more effectively; but, what is more important,
new questions asked of even the standard Arabic literary sources will
yield important answers about social and economic history and his-
torical anthropology. The materials that have been discussed thus far,
as well as the incantation bowls and geographical and biographical
literature that will be discussed below, contain information about
multiple topics. In the following chapter-by-chapter treatment of re-
sources pertaining more specifically to particular subjects, it should
not be necessary to repeat that "all of the above" can be applied to
most of these subjects.
SUBJECTS
Administrative Theory and Practice
For the theory and symbols of Sasanian monarchy, it is best to start
with H. L'Orange's Studies on the Iconography of Cosmic Kingship
in the Ancient World (Oslo, 1953); G. Widengren's "The Sacral King-
ship of Iran," in Studies in the History of Religions, supp. to Numen,
no. 4 (1959), pp. 242-57; and R. Frye's "The Charisma of Kingship
in Ancient Iran," Iranica Antiqua 4 (1964): 36-54. M. Kanga's "King-
ship and Religion in Iran," Acta Iranica 3 (1974): 221-31, contains
the texts with translation of chapters 58, 133, and 134 of the third
book of the Denkart. The primary treatment of the takht-i taqdts is
E. Herzfeld's "Der Thron des Khosro," Jahrbuch der Preuszischen