Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam – serie

Detailed examination of traditions about Muhammad which illustrate particular themes thought to be part of the biblical prophetic paradigm: attestation, preparation, the experience of revelation, persecution, and "salvation," this last meaning the hijra. The author analyzes the ways in which Muhammad's early biographers sought to shape the Prophet's biography through biblically based, and later Qur'anic, modes of authentication. The author has abandoned the quest for the historical Muhammad because of the impossibility of separating the "real" Muhammad from legends about him. He challenges the notion that earlier traditions about Muhammad are more authentic than later ones, arguing that the moulding of accounts of Muhammad's life according to what were perceived as standard criteria of prophethood began at the outset, as Muslims sought to prove themselves worthy successors to the civilizations of the Jews and the Christians..

This volume provides a discussion of the works of Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (d. 932 CE) the greatest historian of the early Islamic world. An international team of well-known scholars examine the life of the man, his work, the sources he used and his intellectual legacy. Grouped around four major themes - Caliphate and power, economy and society, Abbasids, and frontiers and the others - the contributions deal with the history, archaeology, architecture and literature of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond, from the time of the Prophet until the fifteenth century. It is difficult to say whether we should treat him as an author or as an editor, repackaging earlier works, all fully acknowledged. What were his biases and prejudices? Was he a propagandist for the reigning Abbasid dynasty or simply a passer on of the traditions he found? This volume, bringing together some of the most eminent scholars of early Arabic historiography is the first attempt to answer some of these questions and it will be of fundamental importance to anyone interested in the early Islamic world or in comparative historiography..

This book investigates the literary role played by the Bible in Islamic sources. It focuses on the tension between Biblical and Qur'anic models as revealed in Islamic texts describing contacts between the Muslims and the "Children of Israel", as Jews and Christians are usually called in the context of world history.By adopting the method of his earlier work on the image of the Prophet Muhammad, The Eye of the Beholder: The Life of Muhammad as Viewed by the Early Muslims, Rubin examines hadith reports of the first three Islamic centuries that draw on Qura'nic and biblical material. Each of the work's three parts reflects a particular historical attitude toward the Jews and definition of the relationship between Jews and Muslims.This book will be of interest to students of the history and interpretation of the Qur'an and of early Islamic tradition and dogma and early Islamic history, as well as to all those interested in comparative religion and intercultural relations between Muslims and non-Muslims.

The 'Constitution of Medina' is probably the first legal document of Muhammad and dates back to the first year after his hijra (622 CE), or "emigration", which brought him from his hometown Mecca to the cluster of towns known as Yathrib or Medina in the Hijaz (northern Arabia) and marked the beginning of the Islamic era. Muslim historians and jurists have been familiar with this important document for centuries, and aware of its legal and theological implications for Islamic law. It was first brought to the attention of scholars in the West at the end of the 19th century by Wellhausen, who accepted it as an authentic document from the time of the Prophet. Since then, such leading orientalists as Goldziher, Gil, Serjeant, Goto, U. Rubin and J. B. Simonsen have studied various aspects of it. This monograph offers an edited translation and interpretation of the earliest and most important document from the time of Muhammad. Lecker's focus is on the Jewish tribes, the Treaty of the Mu'minun and the Treaty of the Jews..

The main part of this book consists of a compilation and evaluation of the corpus of traditions about the life of Muhammad attributed to the early scholar 'Urwa ibn al-Zubayr (c. 643-c. 712). 'Urwa was the nephew of the Prophet's wife 'A'isa, who was also his most important informant. The authenticity of a large part of these traditions is certain, since they were handed down independently from each other by two or more tradents of 'Urwa. They are thus the oldest authentic Muslim reports about the Prophet. The authors argue that 'Urwa's reports by and large correctly reflect the basic features of the historical events described. Somewhat older than 'Urwa's traditions about Muhammad is only a report in a non-Islamic Armenian source attributed to the chronicler Sebeos (wrote around 660). This and other external evidence partly agree with the Islamic sources, sometimes providing new perspectives on the life of the Prophet. But there are also contradictions. The authors can show that in such cases the 'Urwa transmission is preferable. The crux of the much-discussed so-called Hagarism hypothesis, which proposes an alternative narrative of the origins of Islam (Muhammad, after having established a community which comprised both Arabs and Jews, set off with these allies to conquer Palestine) is demonstrably based on a misreading of a Sebeos passage..

This two-volume set delves deeply into the life of the Muslim scholar Ibn Aʿtham al-Kūfī and his monumental historical work, the Kitāb al-futūḥ (Book of Conquests). Previous research has treated this work with considerable suspicion, and its historical value was called into question almost from the very moment of its discovery. This study firmly situates Ibn Aʿtham within the historical context of the early fourth/tenth century, shedding new light on his notable contributions to Islamic historiography. Volume 1 examines Ibn Aʿtham’s biography, proposes a refined timeframe for his life and work, and investigates the reception of his work across the Muslim world and in modern scholarship, identifying significant periods of popularity in different regions. Detailed codicological descriptions of the Kitāb al-futūḥ’s surviving Arabic manuscripts underscore the complexity of the textual tradition, while analyses of the sources of the narrative on the ridda (’apostasy’) wars and its poetic elements enrich our understanding of Ibn Aʿtham’s sources and his authorial methods. The book also provides critical editions of the Kitāb al-futūḥ’s collective isnāds, prepared on the basis of all available Arabic manuscripts, alongside their translations and detailed analyses. Volume 2 presents a new critical edition of the Kitāb al-futūḥ’s first sections, covering the saqīfa and ridda narratives based on the chronicle’s two manuscripts kept in the Forschungsbibliothek Gotha and the Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library in Patna.