Preaching in the Umayyad Era as Depicted in *Siyar Alam al-Nubala* by Al-Ḥafiz al-Dhahabi

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This study examines religious exhortation during the Umayyad period as a method of Islamic preaching and guidance, drawing on the biographies and accounts preserved in Siyar A’lam al-Nubala’ by Imam Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi. It aims to identify the terminology used by scholars to describe exhortation, explore the intellectual and doctrinal affiliations of preachers mentioned in the work, and clarify the principal fields and themes of their preaching. The study employs a historical approach to situate exhortation within its period, an inductive approach to collect relevant biographical evidence, and a descriptive approach to organize and characterize the material. The findings indicate that scholars employed two principal sets of terms: wa’z (exhortation), including wa’iz (preacher) and ya’iz (to exhort), and qasas (narrative preaching), including qass (storyteller-preacher) and the expression “he used to narrate”. Most preachers whose biographies appear in al-Dhahabi’s work for the Umayyad period are associated with Sunni Islam, although the accounts also include individuals affiliated with other religious and theological orientations, including Sufis, Shi’a, Murji’a, and Qadariyya. The findings further demonstrate that exhortation addressed diverse spheres of life, encompassing religious, social, political, ethical, and moral concerns. This diversity illustrates the range of subjects addressed by preachers during the Umayyad period and the varied contexts in which exhortation was practiced. The study also highlights the value of historical biographies for examining Islamic preaching traditions