Rebel and Imam

I looked around for what Dr Najam Haider has been up to, since Origins of the Shi'a; this turned up The Rebel and the Imam in Early Islam. I leafed through what text Google Books would offer; also read a review and an interview.

As with Origins, Rebel and Imam delves into test-cases, from which the book can extrapolate a general-impression. These cases are the Mukhtâr in al-Kûfa, the biography of the seventh imâm Mûsâ, and accounts of the last years of the Zaydî imâm Yahyâ. The last may prove most-valuable to the casual reader on account the Zaydiya (like the Ibadiya) has been understudied, not just by us infidels but also by most Muslims.

Or... it may not. I have some Concerns. Haider seems to have acquired an apologetic focus not evident in his earlier work. Mainly he sees the Islamic historiography as a creature of rhetoric, without the fact-focused concerns of a Herodotus or other classical authors of that sort.

I mean: sure, Tacitus had his biases. So did Herodian, and Procopius; and Thucydides for that matter. But these generally tried to deliver the facts as they understood them. For full rhetoric in late-antiquity we'd have to go with someone like Theophylact of Simocatta or John bar Penkaye. Is Bar Penkaye's tiresome preaching the sort of history we want? is it the sort a Muslim wants to pose as the best in the field?

I think Muslims deserve better. I know Muslims have done better, from Khwarezmi's sober chronicle to the ethnographies coming out of mediaeval Central Asia.

I don't claim expertise in 'Abbâsid-era Shî'ism, Zaydî or otherwise. I do claim to have read summat upon al-Mukhtâr and his role in the Zubayrid Fitna. So here's why this post has harped on Bar Penkaye: because he was a northern 'Iraqi who wrote his own account of the events, as a Christian eyewitness. Yes yes I've already complained about his style and total lack of impartiality. However: Najam can't. Dr Haider's whole point is the religious-rhetorical nature of the sources. I'd hope that even if Haider dismisses Bar Penkaye is a dishonest skunk (I share some sympathy to this view) at least Haider could contrast his skunkery to others'.

I don't own the book, as noted, but Google Books offers a search. I did not find "Penkaye", "Penkaya" - or "Brock" or "Mingana". Haider is aware of Hoyland's Seeing Islam. Why didn't he use it?

As noted - Concerns. This book worries me.