Historiography of early Islam
Encyclopedia
The historiography
of early Islam
refers to the study of the early origins of Islam based on a critical analysis, evaluation, and examination of authentic primary source
materials and the organization of these sources into a narative timeline.
historical traditions first began developing from the earlier 7th century with the reconstruction of Muhammad
's life following his death. Because narratives regarding Muhammad and his companions
came from various sources, it was necessary to verify which sources were more reliable. In order to evaluate these sources, various methodologies were developed, such as the "science of biography
", "science of hadith
" and "Isnad" (chain of transmission). These methodologies were later applied to other historical figures in the Muslim world
.
Ilm ar-Rijal
(Arabic
) is the "science of biography" especially as practiced in Islam, where it was first applied to the sira, the life of the prophet
of Islam, Muhammad, and then the lives of the four Rightly Guided Caliphs who expanded Islamic dominance rapidly. Since validating the sayings of Muhammad is a major study ("Isnad"), accurate biography has always been of great interest to Muslim biographers, who accordingly attempted to sort out facts from accusations, bias from evidence, etc. Modern practices of scientific citation
and historical method
owe a great deal to the rigor of the Isnad tradition of early Muslims. The earliest surviving Islamic biography is Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, written in the 8th century, but known to us only from later quotes and recensions (9th–10th century).
The "science of hadith
" is the process that Muslim scholars use to evaluate hadith
. The classification of Hadith into Sahih (sound), Hasan (good) and Da'if (weak) was firmly established by Ali ibn al-Madini
(161–234 AH). Later, al-Madini's student Muhammad al-Bukhari
(810–870) authored a collection that he believed contained only Sahih hadith, which is now known as the Sahih Bukhari
. Al-Bukhari's historical method
s of testing hadiths and isnads is seen as the beginning of the method of citation
and a precursor to the scientific method
which was developed by later Muslim scientists
. I. A. Ahmad writes:
Other famous Muslim historians who studied the science of biography or science of hadith included Urwah ibn Zubayr (d. 712), Wahb ibn Munabbih
(d. 728), Ibn Ishaq
(d. 761), al-Waqidi
(745–822), Ibn Hisham
(d. 834), al-Maqrizi
(1364–1442), and Ibn Hajar Asqalani (1372–1449), among others.
Reliability of ahadith has mostly been considered under a skeptical angle by non-Muslim historians, who have observed that forgery of the chains of transmission (isnads) may be just as frequent as inaccuracy of the content (matn).
This is, in particular, the opinion of Ignaz Goldziher
, who can be considered as the first Western scholar to conduct a systematic analysis of the corpus of Islamic ahadith.
itself and the first critiques on historical method
s appeared in the works of the Arab
Muslim
historian and historiographer Ibn Khaldun
(1332–1406), who is regarded as the father of historiography
, cultural history
, and the philosophy of history
, especially for his historiographical writings in the Muqaddimah
(Latin
ized as Prolegomena) and Kitab al-Ibar (Book of Advice). His Muqaddimah also laid the groundwork for the observation of the role of state
, communication
, propaganda
and systematic bias in history, and he discussed the rise and fall of civilization
s.
Franz Rosenthal
wrote in the History of Muslim Historiography:
In the Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun warned of seven mistakes that he thought that historians regularly committed. In this criticism, he approached the past as strange and in need of interpretation. The originality of Ibn Khaldun was to claim that the cultural difference of another age must govern the evaluation of relevant historical material, to distinguish the principles according to which it might be possible to attempt the evaluation, and lastly, to feel the need for experience, in addition to rational principles, in order to assess a culture of the past. Ibn Khaldun often criticized "idle superstition and uncritical acceptance of historical data." As a result, he introduced a scientific method
to the study of history, which was considered something "new to his age", and he often referred to it as his "new science", now associated with historiography
. His historical method also laid the groundwork for the observation of the role of state
, communication
, propaganda
and systematic bias in history, and he is thus considered to be the "father of historiography" or the "father of the philosophy of history
".
(838–923) is known for writing a detailed and comprehensive chronicle
of Mediterranean
and Middle Eastern
history in his History of the Prophets and Kings in 915. Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī (896–956), known as the "Herodotus of the Arabs", was the first to combine history
and scientific
geography
in a large-scale work, Muruj adh-dhahab wa ma'adin al-jawahir (The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems), a book on world history
.
Until the 10th century, history most often meant political and military history, but this was not so with Persian
historian Biruni (973–1048). In his Kitab fi Tahqiq ma l'il-Hind (Researches on India), he did not record political and military history in any detail, but wrote more on India
's cultural
, scientific
, social and religious
history. Along with his Researches on India, Biruni discussed more on his idea of history in his chronological
work The Chronology of the Ancient Nations.
's compilation Seeing Islam As Others Saw It
. One of the first books to analyze these works was Hagarism authored by Michael Cook
and Patricia Crone
. Hagarism concludes that looking at the early non-Islamic sources provides a much different and more accurate picture of early Islamic history than the later Islamic sources do, although its thesis has little acceptance. For some, the date of composition is controversial. Some provide an account of early Islam which significantly contradicts the traditional Islamic accounts of two centuries later.
/ I, Zuhayr, wrote (this) at the time 'Umar died/year four/And twenty."
It is worthwhile pointing out that caliph
Umar
bin al-Khattāb died on the last night of the month of Dhūl-Hijjah of the year 23 AH
, and was buried next day on the first day of Muharram of the new year 24 AH, corresponding to 644 CE. Thus the date mentioned in the inscription (above) is authentic and conforms to the established and known date of the death of ʿUmar bin al-Khattāb.
into European languages including German, Italian, French, or English, then summarized and commented in a fashion that was often hostile to Islam. Notable Christian scholars include:
All these scholars worked in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Another pioneer of Islamic studies, Abraham Geiger
(1810–1874), was a prominent Jewish
rabbi
and approached Islam from that standpoint in his "Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen?" (1833). Geiger's themes were continued in Rabbi Abraham I. Katsh's "Judaism and the Koran" (1962)
Other scholars, notably those in the German tradition, took a more neutral view. The late 19th century scholar Julius Wellhausen
(1844–1918) is a prime example. They also started, cautiously, to question the truth of the Arabic texts. They took a source critical
approach, trying to sort the Islamic texts into elements to be accepted as historically true, and elements to be discarded as polemic or pious fiction
. These scholars might include:
In the 1970s, what has been described as a "wave of sceptical scholars" (Donner 1998 p. 23) challenged a great deal of the received wisdom in Islamic studies. They argued that the Islamic historical tradition had been greatly corrupted in transmission. They tried to correct or reconstruct the early history of Islam from other, presumably more reliable, sources such as coins, inscriptions, and non-Islamic sources. The oldest of this group was John Wansbrough
(1928–2002). Wansbrough's works were widely noted, but perhaps not widely read. Donner (1998) says:
Wansbrough's scepticism influenced a number of younger scholars, including:
In 1977, Crone and Cook published Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World
, which argued that the early history of Islam is a myth, generated after the conquests of Egypt, Syria, and Persia to prop up the new Arab regimes in those lands and give them a solid ideological foundation. According to their theory the Qur'an was composed later, rather than early, and the Arab conquests may have been the cause, rather than the consequence, of Islam. The main evidence adduced for this thesis was based upon a contemporary body of non-Muslim sources to many early Islamic events. If such events could not be supported by outside evidence, then (according to Crone and Cook) they should be dismissed as myth.
Crone and Cook's more recent work has involved intense scrutiny of early Islamic sources, but not total rejection of those sources. (See, for instance, Crone's 1987 publications, Roman, Provincial, and Islamic Law and Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, both of which assume the standard outline of early Islamic history while questioning certain aspects of it; also Cook's 2001 Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought, which also cites early Islamic sources as authoritative.)
In 1972 a cache of ancient Qur'ans in a mosque in Sana'a, Yemen was discovered – commonly known as the Sana'a manuscripts
. The German scholar Gerd R. Puin
has been investigating these Qur'an fragments for years. His research team made 35,000 microfilm photographs of the manuscripts, which he dated to early part of the 8th century. Puin has not published the entirety of his work, but noted unconventional verse orderings, minor textual variations, and rare styles of orthography. He also suggested that some of the parchments were palimpsest
s which had been reused. Puin believed that this implied an evolving text as opposed to a fixed one.
Contemporary scholars have begun to turn to the study of the Islamic sources in a sceptical mood. They tend to use the histories rather than the hadith, and to analyze the histories in terms of the tribal and political affiliations of the narrators (if that can be established), thus making it easier to guess in which direction the material might have been slanted. Notable scholars include:
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
of early Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
refers to the study of the early origins of Islam based on a critical analysis, evaluation, and examination of authentic primary source
Primary source
Primary source is a term used in a number of disciplines to describe source material that is closest to the person, information, period, or idea being studied....
materials and the organization of these sources into a narative timeline.
Science of biography, science of hadith, and Isnad
MuslimMuslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
historical traditions first began developing from the earlier 7th century with the reconstruction of Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
's life following his death. Because narratives regarding Muhammad and his companions
Sahaba
In Islam, the ' were the companions, disciples, scribes and family of the Islamic prophet...
came from various sources, it was necessary to verify which sources were more reliable. In order to evaluate these sources, various methodologies were developed, such as the "science of biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
", "science of hadith
Science of hadith
Hadith studies are a number of religious disciplines used in the study and evaluation of the Islamic hadith by Muslim scholars. It has been described by one hadith specialist, Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti, as the science of the principles by which the conditions of both the sanad, the chain of...
" and "Isnad" (chain of transmission). These methodologies were later applied to other historical figures in the Muslim world
Muslim world
The term Muslim world has several meanings. In a religious sense, it refers to those who adhere to the teachings of Islam, referred to as Muslims. In a cultural sense, it refers to Islamic civilization, inclusive of non-Muslims living in that civilization...
.
Ilm ar-Rijal
Ilm ar-Rijal
Biographical evaluation, , literally: "knowledge of men", refers to a discipline of Islamic religious studies within hadith terminology in which the narrators of hadith are evaluated. Its goal is to distinguish authentic hadith from hadith unacceptable in establishing sanctioned religious...
(Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
) is the "science of biography" especially as practiced in Islam, where it was first applied to the sira, the life of the prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
of Islam, Muhammad, and then the lives of the four Rightly Guided Caliphs who expanded Islamic dominance rapidly. Since validating the sayings of Muhammad is a major study ("Isnad"), accurate biography has always been of great interest to Muslim biographers, who accordingly attempted to sort out facts from accusations, bias from evidence, etc. Modern practices of scientific citation
Scientific citation
Scientific citation is providing detailed reference in a scientific publication, typically a paper or book, to previous published communications which have a bearing on the subject of the new publication...
and historical method
Historical method
Historical method comprises the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidence to research and then to write histories in the form of accounts of the past. The question of the nature, and even the possibility, of a sound historical method is raised in the...
owe a great deal to the rigor of the Isnad tradition of early Muslims. The earliest surviving Islamic biography is Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, written in the 8th century, but known to us only from later quotes and recensions (9th–10th century).
The "science of hadith
Science of hadith
Hadith studies are a number of religious disciplines used in the study and evaluation of the Islamic hadith by Muslim scholars. It has been described by one hadith specialist, Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti, as the science of the principles by which the conditions of both the sanad, the chain of...
" is the process that Muslim scholars use to evaluate hadith
Hadith
The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
. The classification of Hadith into Sahih (sound), Hasan (good) and Da'if (weak) was firmly established by Ali ibn al-Madini
Ali ibn al-Madini
Abū al-Ḥasan ʻAlī ibn ʻAbdillāh ibn Jaʻfar al-Madīnī was a ninth century Sunni Islamic scholar who was influential in the science of hadith.-Biography:...
(161–234 AH). Later, al-Madini's student Muhammad al-Bukhari
Muhammad al-Bukhari
Muhammad Ibn Ismail Ibn Ibrahim Ibn al-Mughirah Ibn Bardizbah al-Bukhari , popularly known as Bukhari or Imam Bukhari, , was a Sunni Islamic scholar of Persia...
(810–870) authored a collection that he believed contained only Sahih hadith, which is now known as the Sahih Bukhari
Sahih Bukhari
Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī , as it is commonly referred to, is one of the six canonical hadith collections of Islam. These prophetic traditions, or hadith, were collected by the Persian Muslim scholar Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari, after being transmitted orally for generations. Muslims view this as one of...
. Al-Bukhari's historical method
Historical method
Historical method comprises the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidence to research and then to write histories in the form of accounts of the past. The question of the nature, and even the possibility, of a sound historical method is raised in the...
s of testing hadiths and isnads is seen as the beginning of the method of citation
Citation
Broadly, a citation is a reference to a published or unpublished source . More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression Broadly, a citation is a reference to a published or unpublished source (not always the original source). More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated...
and a precursor to the scientific method
Scientific method
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...
which was developed by later Muslim scientists
Islamic science
Science in the medieval Islamic world, also known as Islamic science or Arabic science, is the science developed and practised in the Islamic world during the Islamic Golden Age . During this time, Indian, Iranian and especially Greek knowledge was translated into Arabic...
. I. A. Ahmad writes:
Other famous Muslim historians who studied the science of biography or science of hadith included Urwah ibn Zubayr (d. 712), Wahb ibn Munabbih
Wahb ibn Munabbih
'Wahb ibn Munabbih' was a Muslim traditionist of Dhimar in Yemen; died at the age of ninety, in a year variously given by Arabic authorities as 725, 728, 732, and 737 C.E....
(d. 728), Ibn Ishaq
Ibn Ishaq
Muḥammad ibn Isḥaq ibn Yasār ibn Khiyār was an Arab Muslim historian and hagiographer...
(d. 761), al-Waqidi
Al-Waqidi
Abu `Abdullah Muhammad Ibn ‘Omar Ibn Waqid al-Aslami , commonly referred to as al-Waqidi , was an early Muslim historian.He was born and educated in Medina...
(745–822), Ibn Hisham
Ibn Hisham
Abu Muhammad 'Abd al-Malik bin Hisham , or Ibn Hisham edited the biography of Muhammad written by Ibn Ishaq. Ibn Ishaq's work is lost and is now only known in the recensions of Ibn Hisham and al-Tabari. Ibn Hisham grew up in Basra, Iraq, but moved afterwards to Egypt, where he gained a name...
(d. 834), al-Maqrizi
Al-Maqrizi
Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn 'Ali ibn 'Abd al-Qadir ibn Muhammad al-Maqrizi ; Arabic: , was an Egyptian historian more commonly known as al-Maqrizi or Makrizi...
(1364–1442), and Ibn Hajar Asqalani (1372–1449), among others.
Reliability of ahadith has mostly been considered under a skeptical angle by non-Muslim historians, who have observed that forgery of the chains of transmission (isnads) may be just as frequent as inaccuracy of the content (matn).
This is, in particular, the opinion of Ignaz Goldziher
Ignaz Goldziher
Ignác Goldziher , often credited as Ignaz Goldziher, was a Hungarian scholar of Islam. Along with the German Theodore Noldeke and the Dutch Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, he is considered the founder of modern Islamic studies in Europe.-Biography:Born in Székesfehérvár of Jewish heritage, he was...
, who can be considered as the first Western scholar to conduct a systematic analysis of the corpus of Islamic ahadith.
Historiography, cultural history, and philosophy of history
The first detailed studies on the subject of historiographyHistoriography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
itself and the first critiques on historical method
Historical method
Historical method comprises the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary sources and other evidence to research and then to write histories in the form of accounts of the past. The question of the nature, and even the possibility, of a sound historical method is raised in the...
s appeared in the works of the Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
historian and historiographer Ibn Khaldun
Ibn Khaldun
Ibn Khaldūn or Ibn Khaldoun was an Arab Tunisian historiographer and historian who is often viewed as one of the forerunners of modern historiography, sociology and economics...
(1332–1406), who is regarded as the father of historiography
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
, cultural history
Cultural history
The term cultural history refers both to an academic discipline and to its subject matter.Cultural history, as a discipline, at least in its common definition since the 1970s, often combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular cultural traditions and cultural...
, and the philosophy of history
Philosophy of history
The term philosophy of history refers to the theoretical aspect of history, in two senses. It is customary to distinguish critical philosophy of history from speculative philosophy of history...
, especially for his historiographical writings in the Muqaddimah
Muqaddimah
The Muqaddimah , also known as the Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun or the Prolegomena , is a book written by the Maghrebian Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun in 1377 which records an early view of universal history...
(Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
ized as Prolegomena) and Kitab al-Ibar (Book of Advice). His Muqaddimah also laid the groundwork for the observation of the role of state
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
, communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
, propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
and systematic bias in history, and he discussed the rise and fall of civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
s.
Franz Rosenthal
Franz Rosenthal
Franz Rosenthal was the Louis M. Rabinowitz professor of Semitic languages at Yale from 1956 to 1967 and Sterling Professor Emeritus of Arabic, scholar of Arabic literature and Islam at Yale from 1967 to 1985....
wrote in the History of Muslim Historiography:
In the Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun warned of seven mistakes that he thought that historians regularly committed. In this criticism, he approached the past as strange and in need of interpretation. The originality of Ibn Khaldun was to claim that the cultural difference of another age must govern the evaluation of relevant historical material, to distinguish the principles according to which it might be possible to attempt the evaluation, and lastly, to feel the need for experience, in addition to rational principles, in order to assess a culture of the past. Ibn Khaldun often criticized "idle superstition and uncritical acceptance of historical data." As a result, he introduced a scientific method
Scientific method
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...
to the study of history, which was considered something "new to his age", and he often referred to it as his "new science", now associated with historiography
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
. His historical method also laid the groundwork for the observation of the role of state
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
, communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
, propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
and systematic bias in history, and he is thus considered to be the "father of historiography" or the "father of the philosophy of history
Philosophy of history
The term philosophy of history refers to the theoretical aspect of history, in two senses. It is customary to distinguish critical philosophy of history from speculative philosophy of history...
".
World history
Muhammad ibn Jarir al-TabariMuhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari
Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari was a prominent and influential Sunni scholar and exegete of the Qur'an from Persia...
(838–923) is known for writing a detailed and comprehensive chronicle
Chronicle
Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronological order, as in a time line. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the...
of Mediterranean
History of the Mediterranean region
The history of the Mediterranean region is the history of the interaction of the cultures and people of the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea —the central superhighway of transport, trade and cultural exchange between diverse peoples...
and Middle Eastern
History of the Middle East
This article is a general overview of the history of the Middle East. For more detailed information, see articles on the histories of individual countries and regions...
history in his History of the Prophets and Kings in 915. Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī (896–956), known as the "Herodotus of the Arabs", was the first to combine history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
and scientific
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
in a large-scale work, Muruj adh-dhahab wa ma'adin al-jawahir (The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems), a book on world history
World History
World History, Global History or Transnational history is a field of historical study that emerged as a distinct academic field in the 1980s. It examines history from a global perspective...
.
Until the 10th century, history most often meant political and military history, but this was not so with Persian
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...
historian Biruni (973–1048). In his Kitab fi Tahqiq ma l'il-Hind (Researches on India), he did not record political and military history in any detail, but wrote more on India
History of India
The history of India begins with evidence of human activity of Homo sapiens as long as 75,000 years ago, or with earlier hominids including Homo erectus from about 500,000 years ago. The Indus Valley Civilization, which spread and flourished in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent from...
's cultural
Culture of India
India's languages, religions, dance, music, architecture, food and customs differ from place to place within the country, but nevertheless possess a commonality....
, scientific
Science and technology in ancient India
The history of science and technology in the Indian subcontinent begins with prehistoric human activity at Mehrgarh, in present-day Pakistan, and continues through the Indus Valley Civilization to early states and empires. The British colonial rule introduced some elements of western education in...
, social and religious
Religion in India
Indian religions is a classification for religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent; namely Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. These religions are also classified as Eastern religions...
history. Along with his Researches on India, Biruni discussed more on his idea of history in his chronological
Chronology
Chronology is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time, such as the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It is also "the determination of the actual temporal sequence of past events".Chronology is part of periodization...
work The Chronology of the Ancient Nations.
Traditional Islamic sources for early Islamic history
- See also: List of Islamic texts
- Qur'anQur'anThe Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
- HadithHadithThe term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
- SīraSiraThe sīrat rasūl allāh or al-sīra al-nabawiyya or just al-sīra, is the Arabic term used for the various traditional Muslim biographies of Muhammad from which, in addition to the Qur'an and Hadith, most historical information about his life and the early period of Islam is derived.-Etymology:In the...
- TafsirTafsirTafseer is the Arabic word for exegesis or commentary, usually of the Qur'an. Ta'wīl is a subset of tafsir and refers to esoteric or mystical interpretation. An author of tafsir is a mufassir .- Etymology :...
- FiqhFiqhFiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the code of conduct expounded in the Quran, often supplemented by tradition and implemented by the rulings and interpretations of Islamic jurists....
- FutūhFutuhIn classical Islamic literature the futūh were the early Arab-Muslim conquests which facilitated the spread of Islam and Islamic civilization.Futūh is an Arabic word with the literal meaning of "openings"....
- Inscriptions
- CoinageNumismaticsNumismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, and related objects. While numismatists are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, the discipline also includes the broader study of money and other payment media used to resolve debts and the...
- Manuscripts
- Sana'a manuscriptsSana'a manuscriptsThe Sana'a manuscripts, found in Yemen in 1972, are considered by some to be the oldest existent version of the Qur'an. Although the text has been dated to the first two decades of the eighth century The Sana'a manuscripts, found in Yemen in 1972, are considered by some to be the oldest existent...
- OxyrhynchusOxyrhynchusOxyrhynchus is a city in Upper Egypt, located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo, in the governorate of Al Minya. It is also an archaeological site, considered one of the most important ever discovered...
papyri (e.g. PERF 558PERF 558PERF 558 is the oldest surviving Arabic papyrus, and the oldest dated Arabic text from the Islamic era, dating from 22 AH and found in Heracleopolis in Egypt...
) - Qur'an collections
- Sana'a manuscripts
- Archaeological records
- Non-Muslim sources
- Qur'an
7th Century Islamic sources
- 692692Year 692 was a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 692 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.- Asia :* Leontios leading a substantial Byzantine army,...
– Qur'anQur'anThe Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
ic Mosaic on the Dome of the RockDome of the RockThe Dome of the Rock is a shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. The structure has been refurbished many times since its initial completion in 691 CE at the order of Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik...
. - The Book of Sulaym ibn QaysThe Book of Sulaym ibn QaysThe Book of Sulaym ibn Qays is a Hadith collection, collected by Sulaym ibn Qays who entrusted it to Aban ibn abi-Ayyash.According to the Shi'a, the book "has received endorsement from five Infallible Imams." The author researched and verified events before he penned them so that their...
; by Sulaym ibn QaysSulaym ibn QaysSulaym Ibn Qays was one of the purported Companions of Ali but he "is widely considered an anti-Umayyad polemical invention" by Sunni scholarship. He has a well-known book known as The book of Sulaym ibn Qays...
(death: 75–95 AH (694694Year 694 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 694 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.- Europe :* November 9 – Hispano-Visigothic king...
–714714Year 714 was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 714 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.- Asia :* February 28 – An earthquake strikes...
)). This is a collection of HadithHadithThe term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
and historical reports from first century of the Islamic calendar. Sulaym ibn QaysSulaym ibn QaysSulaym Ibn Qays was one of the purported Companions of Ali but he "is widely considered an anti-Umayyad polemical invention" by Sunni scholarship. He has a well-known book known as The book of Sulaym ibn Qays...
is the first Shia author in "al-Fihrist" of Ibn al-NadimIbn al-NadimAbu'l-Faraj Muhammad bin Is'hāq al-Nadim , whose father was known as al-Warrāq was a Shia Muslim scholar and bibliographer. Some scholars regard him as a Persian, but this is not certain. He is famous as the author of the Kitāb al-Fihrist...
. Also al-Mas'udi refers to this book. A manuscript of the book survived from the early 10th. While its the earliest available book of Shia Islam, some Shia scholars are dubious about the authenticity of some part of it. However the oldest known copy, on which the majority of modern manuscripts are based, was written in 1676 CE
7th Century non-Islamic sources
There are numerous early references to Islam in non-Islamic sources many have been collected in historiographer Robert G. HoylandRobert G. Hoyland
Robert G. Hoyland is a scholar and historian, specializing in the medieval history of the Middle East. He is a former student of historian Patricia Crone and was a Leverhulme Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford. He is currently Professor of Islamic History at the Oriental Institute at the University...
's compilation Seeing Islam As Others Saw It
Seeing Islam as Others Saw It
Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam from the Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam series is a book by scholar of the Middle East Robert G...
. One of the first books to analyze these works was Hagarism authored by Michael Cook
Michael Cook (historian)
Michael Allan Cook is an English-Scottish historian and scholar of Islamic history. He has co-authored a book with Patricia Crone, notably Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World....
and Patricia Crone
Patricia Crone
Patricia Crone, Ph.D., is a scholar, author, Orientalist, and historian of early Islamic history working at the Institute for Advanced Study. She established herself as a major challenger to the established narrative of the early history of Islam.- Career :Patricia Crone completed her...
. Hagarism concludes that looking at the early non-Islamic sources provides a much different and more accurate picture of early Islamic history than the later Islamic sources do, although its thesis has little acceptance. For some, the date of composition is controversial. Some provide an account of early Islam which significantly contradicts the traditional Islamic accounts of two centuries later.
- 634 Doctrina Iacobi
- 636 Fragment on the Arab Conquests
- 639 Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem
- 640 Thomas the Presbyter
- 640 Homily on the Child Saints of Babylon
- 642 PERF 558PERF 558PERF 558 is the oldest surviving Arabic papyrus, and the oldest dated Arabic text from the Islamic era, dating from 22 AH and found in Heracleopolis in Egypt...
- 644 Coptic Apocalypse of Pseudo-Shenute
- 648 Life of Gabriel of QartminGabriel of QartminGabriel of Qartmin was an 7th century abbot in the famous Syrian Orthodox Christian Qartmin monastery located in present day Turkey.A medieval manuscript titled the Life of Gabriel of Qartmin provides a glimpse into the events in the middle east during the 7th century.The quote below provides an...
- 650 Fredegar
- 655 Pope Martin IPope Martin IPope Martin I, born near Todi, Umbria in the place now named after him , was pope from 649 to 653, succeeding Pope Theodore I in July 5, 649. The only pope during the Byzantine Papacy whose election was not approved by a iussio from Constantinople, Martin I was abducted by Constans II and died in...
- 659 Isho'yahb III of AdiabeneIsho'yahb III of AdiabeneIshoyahb III of Adiabene was Patriarch of the Church of the East from 649 to 659. Sources =Brief accounts of Ishoyahb's patriarchate are given in the Ecclesiastical Chronicle of the Jacobite writer Bar Hebraeus , and the ecclesiastical histories of the Nestorian writers Mari , Amr and Sliba...
- 660 SebeosSebeosSebeos was a 7th century Armenian bishop and historian who participated in the first Council of Dvin in 645.The history of Sebeos contains detailed descriptions from the period of Sassanid supremacy in Armenia up to the Islamic conquest in 661...
, Bishop of the Bagratunis - 660 A Chronicler of Khuzistan http://www.roger-pearse.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_Khuzistan_Chronicle
- 662 Maximus the ConfessorMaximus the ConfessorMaximus the Confessor was a Christian monk, theologian, and scholar. In his early life, he was a civil servant, and an aide to the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius...
- 665 Benjamin IPope Benjamin of AlexandriaPope Benjamin I of Alexandria was the thirty-eighth Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. He is regarded as one of the greatest patriarchs of the Coptic Church...
- 670 ArculfArculfArculf , was a Frankish Bishop who toured the Levant in around 680. Bede claimed he was a bishop , who, according to Bede's history of the Church in England , was shipwrecked on the shore of Iona, Scotland on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and was hospitably received by Adamnan, the...
, a Pilgrim - 676 The Synod of 676
- 680 George of Resh'ainaGeorge of Resh'ainaGeorge of Resh'aina was a 7th century Syriac historian. He was opposed to Maximus the Confessor, the defender of orthodoxy against monotheletism and wrote an unfriendly biography of him. This book also provides a glimpse into the events of his time....
- 680 The Secrets of Rabbi Simon ben Yohai
- 680 BundahishnBundahishnBundahishn, meaning "Primal Creation", is the name traditionally given to an encyclopædiaic collections of Zoroastrian cosmogony and cosmology written in Book Pahlavi. The original name of the work is not known....
- 681 Trophies of DamascusTrophies of DamascusTrophies of Damascus was a 7th century anti-Jewish tract written between 661 and 681 AD which presents an eye-witness accounts to the events that took place around that time period in the Middle East...
- 687 Athanasius of BaladAthanasius of BaladAthanasius of Balad AD was a medieval scholar and the patriarch of Antioch, Syria. A Christian monophysite, he devoted himself to Greek philosophy. He produced commentaries and translations of Greek texts into Syriac.- Quotes :...
, Patriarch of Antioch - 687 John bar PenkayeJohn bar PenkayeJohn bar Penkaye; Yūḥannan bar penqayê, was a 7th century East Syriac Nestorian Christian writer of the late 7th century. He lived at the time of fifth caliph of the Umayyad dynasty Abd al-Malik....
- 690 Syriac Apocalypse of Pseudo-MethodiusApocalypse of Pseudo-MethodiusThe Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius is a 7th-century apocalypse that shaped the eschatological imagination of Christendom throughout the Middle Ages. The work was written in Syriac in the late 7th century, in reaction to the Islamic conquest of the Near East, and is falsely attributed to the...
- 692 Syriac Apocalypse of Pseudo-EphraemApocalypse of Pseudo-EphraemApocalypse of Pseudo-Ephraem is a 7th century Syrian tract which provides a glimpse into the events that took place during its time in the Middle-East.- Use of Pseudo-Ephraem in Rapture Controversy :...
- 694 John of NikiuJohn of NikiûJohn of Nikiû was an Egyptian Coptic bishop of Nikiû/Pashati in the Nile Delta and appointed general administrator of the monasteries of Upper Egypt in 696...
- 697 Anti-Jewish Polemicists
7th Century sources
Analysis of the recently found sandstone inscription, determined that it reads: "In the name of AllahAllah
Allah is a word for God used in the context of Islam. In Arabic, the word means simply "God". It is used primarily by Muslims and Bahá'ís, and often, albeit not exclusively, used by Arabic-speaking Eastern Catholic Christians, Maltese Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Mizrahi Jews and...
/ I, Zuhayr, wrote (this) at the time 'Umar died/year four/And twenty."
It is worthwhile pointing out that caliph
Caliph
The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
Umar
Umar
`Umar ibn al-Khattāb c. 2 November , was a leading companion and adviser to the Islamic prophet Muhammad who later became the second Muslim Caliph after Muhammad's death....
bin al-Khattāb died on the last night of the month of Dhūl-Hijjah of the year 23 AH
Hijri year
The Hijri year is year numbering system used in the Islamic calendar. It commemorates the Hijra , or emigration of Muhammad and his followers to the city of Medina in 622 CE. In Arabic, AH is symbolized by the letter هـ...
, and was buried next day on the first day of Muharram of the new year 24 AH, corresponding to 644 CE. Thus the date mentioned in the inscription (above) is authentic and conforms to the established and known date of the death of ʿUmar bin al-Khattāb.
Famous Muslim historians
- Urwah ibn Zubayr (d. 712)
- Hadith of Umar's speech of forbidding Mut'ah
- Ibn Shihab al-ZuhriIbn Shihab al-ZuhriFor the geographer from Al-Andalus see Mohammed Ibn Abu Bakr al-ZuhriMuhammad ibn Muslim ibn Ubaydullah ibn Shihab al-Zuhri , usually called simply Ibn Shihab or al-Zuhri...
(d. 742)- Hadith of Umar's speech of forbidding Mut'ah
- Hadith of prohibition of Mut'ah at Khaybar
- Ibn IshaqIbn IshaqMuḥammad ibn Isḥaq ibn Yasār ibn Khiyār was an Arab Muslim historian and hagiographer...
(d. 761)- Sirah Rasul Allah
- Imam Malik (d. 796)
- Al-Muwatta
- Al-WaqidiAl-WaqidiAbu `Abdullah Muhammad Ibn ‘Omar Ibn Waqid al-Aslami , commonly referred to as al-Waqidi , was an early Muslim historian.He was born and educated in Medina...
(745–822)- Book of History and Campaigns
- Ali ibn al-MadiniAli ibn al-MadiniAbū al-Ḥasan ʻAlī ibn ʻAbdillāh ibn Jaʻfar al-Madīnī was a ninth century Sunni Islamic scholar who was influential in the science of hadith.-Biography:...
(777–850)- The Book of Knowledge about the Companions
- Ibn HishamIbn HishamAbu Muhammad 'Abd al-Malik bin Hisham , or Ibn Hisham edited the biography of Muhammad written by Ibn Ishaq. Ibn Ishaq's work is lost and is now only known in the recensions of Ibn Hisham and al-Tabari. Ibn Hisham grew up in Basra, Iraq, but moved afterwards to Egypt, where he gained a name...
(d. 834)- Sirah Rasul Allah
- Dhul-Nun al-MisriDhul-Nun al-MisriDhul-Nun al-Misri was an Egyptian Sufi saint. He was considered the Patron Saint of the Physicians in the early Islamic era of Egypt, and is credited with having specialized the concept of Gnosis in Islam...
(d. 859) - Muhammad al-BukhariMuhammad al-BukhariMuhammad Ibn Ismail Ibn Ibrahim Ibn al-Mughirah Ibn Bardizbah al-Bukhari , popularly known as Bukhari or Imam Bukhari, , was a Sunni Islamic scholar of Persia...
(810–870)- Sahih BukhariSahih BukhariṢaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī , as it is commonly referred to, is one of the six canonical hadith collections of Islam. These prophetic traditions, or hadith, were collected by the Persian Muslim scholar Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari, after being transmitted orally for generations. Muslims view this as one of...
- Sahih Bukhari
- Muslim b. al-Hajjaj (d. 875)
- Sahih MuslimSahih MuslimSahih Muslim is one of the Six major collections of the hadith in Sunni Islam, oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. It is the second most authentic hadith collection after Sahih Al-Bukhari, and is highly acclaimed by Sunni Muslims...
- Sahih Muslim
- Ibn Majah (d. 886)
- Sunan Ibn Majah
- Abu Da'udAbu Da'udAbu Dawood Sulayman ibn Ash`ath Azdi Sijistani , commonly known as Abu Dawud, was a noted Persian collector of prophetic hadith, and wrote the third of the six canonical hadith collections recognized by Sunni Muslims, Sunan Abu Dawood.-Biography:He was born in Sistan, in east of Iran, and died in...
(d. 888)- Sunan Abi Da'ud
- Al-TirmidhiAl-TirmidhiTirmidhī , also transliterated as Tirmizi, full name Abū ‛Īsá Muḥammad ibn ‛Īsá ibn Sawrah ibn Mūsá ibn al Ḍaḥḥāk al-Sulamī al-Sulamī al-Tirmidhī Tirmidhī , also transliterated as Tirmizi, full name Abū ‛Īsá Muḥammad ibn ‛Īsá ibn Sawrah ibn Mūsá ibn al Ḍaḥḥāk al-Sulamī al-Sulamī al-Tirmidhī...
(d. 892)- Sunan al-TirmidhiSunan al-TirmidhiJāmi` al-Tirmidhi , popularly and mistakenly Sunan al-Tirmidhi , is one of the Sunni Six major Hadith collections. It was collected by Abu 'Eesa Muhammad ibn 'Eesa al-Tirmidhi.-Title:...
- Sunan al-Tirmidhi
- Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī (896–956)
- Muruj adh-dhahab wa ma'adin al-jawahir (The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems) (947)
- Ibn WahshiyyaIbn WahshiyyaIbn Wahshiyya was an Iraqi alchemist, agriculturalist, farm toxicologist, egyptologist and historian born at Qusayn near Kufa in Iraq.Ibn Wahshiyya was one of the first historians to be able to at least partly decipher what was written in the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, by relating them to the...
(c. 904)- Nabataean Agriculture
- Kitab Shawq al-Mustaham
- Al-Nasa'iAl-Nasa'iAl-Nasā'ī , full name Aḥmad ibn Shu`ayb ibn Alī ibn Sīnān Abū `Abd ar-Raḥmān al-Nasā'ī, was a noted collector of hadith , and wrote one of the six canonical hadith collections recognized by Sunni Muslims, Sunan al-Sughra, or "Al-Mujtaba", which he selected from his "As-Sunan al-Kubra"...
(d. 915)- Sunan al-Sughra
- Muhammad ibn Jarir al-TabariMuhammad ibn Jarir al-TabariAbu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari was a prominent and influential Sunni scholar and exegete of the Qur'an from Persia...
(838–923)- History of the Prophets and Kings
- Tafsir al-TabariTafsir al-TabariJāmi` al-bayān `an ta'wīl āy al-Qur'ān, popularly Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī is a classic Sunni tafsir by the Persian scholar Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari...
- Al-Baladhuri (d. 892)
- Kitab Futuh al-Buldan
- Genealogies of the Nobles
- Hakim al-NishaburiHakim al-NishaburiAbu Abd-Allah Muhammad ibn Abd-Allah al-Hakim al-Nishaburi , and also known as Ibn Al-Baiyi.) was a Sunni scholar and the leading traditionist of his age, frequently referred to as the "Imam of the Muhaddithin" or the "Muhaddith of Khorasan."-Biography:Al-Hakim, who hailed from Nishapur, had vast...
(d. 1014)- Al-Mustadrak alaa al-SahihainAl-Mustadrak alaa al-SahihainAl-Mustadrak alaa al-Sahihain is a five volume hadith collection written by Hakim al-Nishaburi d. 405H.-History:He wrote it in the year 393 AH , when he was 72 years old. It contains 9045 hadith...
- Al-Mustadrak alaa al-Sahihain
- Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī (973–1048)
- Indica
- History of Mahmud of Ghazni and his father
- History of Khawarazm
- Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (13th century)
- Ibn Abi ZarIbn Abi ZarAbū al-Hassan ‘Alī ibn Abī Zar‘ al-Fāsī is the commonly presumed original author of the popular and influential medieval history of Morocco known as Rawd al-Qirtas, said to have been written at the instigation of Marinid Sultan Abu Sa'id Uthman II...
(d. 1310/1320)- Rawd al-QirtasRawd al-Qirtasis a history of Morocco written in Arabic in the 1326 C.E. It includes many details about the wider Moroccan empire in Iberian Peninsula and Algeria....
- Rawd al-Qirtas
- Al-DhahabiAl-DhahabiMuhammad ibn Ahmad ibn `Uthman ibn Qaymaz ibn `Abd Allah, Shams al-Din Abu `Abd Allah al-Turkmani al-Diyarbakri al-Fariqi al-Dimashqi al-Dhahabi al-Shafi`i , known as Al-Dhahabi , a Shafi'i Muhaddith and historian of Islam.-Biography:...
(1274–1348)- Major History of Islam
- Talkhis al-Mustadrak
- Tadhkirat al-huffaz
- Al-Kamal fi ma`rifat al-rijalAl-Kamal fi ma`rifat al-rijalAl-Kamal fi Asma' al-Rijal is a collection of biographies of hadith narrators within the Islamic discipline of biographical evaluation by the 12th-century Islamic scholar Abd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi.-Overview:...
- Ibn KhaldunIbn KhaldunIbn Khaldūn or Ibn Khaldoun was an Arab Tunisian historiographer and historian who is often viewed as one of the forerunners of modern historiography, sociology and economics...
(1332–1406)- MuqaddimahMuqaddimahThe Muqaddimah , also known as the Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun or the Prolegomena , is a book written by the Maghrebian Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun in 1377 which records an early view of universal history...
(1377) - Kitab al-Ibar
- Muqaddimah
- Ibn Hajar al-AsqalaniIbn Hajar al-AsqalaniAl-Haafidh Shihabuddin Abu'l-Fadl Ahmad ibn Ali ibn Muhammad, better known as Ibn Hajar due to the fame of his forefathers, al-Asqalani due to his family origin , was a medieval Shafiite Sunni scholar of Islam who represents the entire realm of the Sunni world in the field of Hadith...
(1372–1449)- Fath al-BariFath al-BariFath ul-Bari fi Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari is the most valued Sunni commentary of Sahih al-Bukhari, written by Ibn Hajr Asqalani...
- Tahdhib al-Tahdhib
- Finding the Truth in Judging the Companinons
- Bulugh al-MaramBulugh al-MaramBulugh al-Maram min Adillat al-Ahkam, translation: Attainment of the Objective According to Evidences of the Ordinances by al-Hafidh ibn Hajar al-Asqalani is a collection of hadith pertaining specifically to Islamic Jurisprudence of the Shafi'i madhab...
- Fath al-Bari
Modern Western scholarship
The earliest Western scholarship on Islam tended to be Christian and Jewish translators and commentators. They translated the easily available Sunni texts from ArabicArabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
into European languages including German, Italian, French, or English, then summarized and commented in a fashion that was often hostile to Islam. Notable Christian scholars include:
- William MuirWilliam MuirSir William Muir, KCSI was a Scottish Orientalist and colonial administrator.-Life:He was born at Glasgow and educated at Kilmarnock Academy, at Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities, and at Haileybury College. In 1837 he entered the Bengal Civil Service...
(1819–1905) - Reinhart DozyReinhart DozyReinhart Pieter Anne Dozy was a Dutch scholar of French origin, who was born in Leiden...
(1820–1883) "Die Israeliten zu Mecca" (1864) - David Samuel MargoliouthDavid Samuel MargoliouthDavid Samuel Margoliouth was an orientalist. He was briefly active as a priest in the Church of England...
(1858–1940) - William St. Clair TisdallWilliam St. Clair TisdallWilliam St. Clair Tisdall was a British historian and philologist who served as the Secretary of the Church of England's Missionary Society in Isfahan, Persia....
(1859–1928) - Leone CaetaniLeone CaetaniLeone Caetani , Duke of Sermoneta , was an Italian scholar, politician and historian of the Middle-East....
(1869–1935) - Alphonse MinganaAlphonse MinganaAlphonse Mingana; was an Assyrian theologian, historian, Syriacist, orientalist and a former priest who is best known for collecting and preserving the Mingana Collection of ancient Middle Eastern manuscripts at Birmingham...
(1878–1937)
All these scholars worked in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Another pioneer of Islamic studies, Abraham Geiger
Abraham Geiger
Abraham Geiger was a German rabbi and scholar who led the founding of Reform Judaism...
(1810–1874), was a prominent Jewish
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
and approached Islam from that standpoint in his "Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen?" (1833). Geiger's themes were continued in Rabbi Abraham I. Katsh's "Judaism and the Koran" (1962)
Other scholars, notably those in the German tradition, took a more neutral view. The late 19th century scholar Julius Wellhausen
Julius Wellhausen
Julius Wellhausen , was a German biblical scholar and orientalist, noted particularly for his contribution to scholarly understanding of the origin of the Pentateuch/Torah ....
(1844–1918) is a prime example. They also started, cautiously, to question the truth of the Arabic texts. They took a source critical
Source criticism
A source criticism is a published source evaluation . An information source may be a document, a person, a speech, a fingerprint, a photo, an observation or anything used in order to obtain knowledge. In relation to a given purpose, a given information source may be more or less valid, reliable or...
approach, trying to sort the Islamic texts into elements to be accepted as historically true, and elements to be discarded as polemic or pious fiction
Pious fiction
A pious fiction is a narrative that is presented as true by the author, but is considered by others to be fictional albeit produced with an altruistic motivation. The term is sometimes used pejoratively to suggest that the author of the narrative was deliberately misleading readers for selfish or...
. These scholars might include:
- Michael Jan de GoejeMichael Jan de GoejeMichael Jan de Goeje was a Dutch orientalist.Michael Jan de Goeje was born in Dronrijp, Friesland. He devoted himself at an early age to the study of oriental languages and became especially proficient in Arabic, under the guidance of Reinhart Dozy and Theodor Juynboll, to whom he was afterwards...
(1836–1909) - Theodor NöldekeTheodor NöldekeTheodor Nöldeke was a German Semitic scholar, who was born in Harburg and studied in Göttingen, Vienna, Leiden and Berlin....
(1836–1930) - Ignaz GoldziherIgnaz GoldziherIgnác Goldziher , often credited as Ignaz Goldziher, was a Hungarian scholar of Islam. Along with the German Theodore Noldeke and the Dutch Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, he is considered the founder of modern Islamic studies in Europe.-Biography:Born in Székesfehérvár of Jewish heritage, he was...
(1850–1921) - Henri LammensHenri LammensHenri Lammens was a prominent Belgian-born Jesuit and Orientalist.Born in Ghent, Belgium of Catholic Flemish stock, Henri Lammens joined the Society of Jesus in Beirut at the age of fifteen, and settled permanently in Lebanon. During his first eight years there Lammens mastered the Arabic...
(1862–1937) - Arthur JefferyArthur JefferyArthur Jeffery was a Protestant Australian professor of Semitic languages from 1921 at the School of Oriental Studies in Cairo, and from 1938 until his death jointly at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary in New York City...
(1892–1959) - H. A. R. Gibb (1895–1971)
- Joseph SchachtJoseph SchachtJoseph Schacht, born in Ratibor, 15 March 1902, died in Englewood, 1 August 1969, was a British-German professor of Arabic and Islam at Columbia University in New York. He was the leading Western scholar on Islamic law, whose Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence is still considered a centrally...
(1902–1969) - Montgomery Watt (1909–2006)
In the 1970s, what has been described as a "wave of sceptical scholars" (Donner 1998 p. 23) challenged a great deal of the received wisdom in Islamic studies. They argued that the Islamic historical tradition had been greatly corrupted in transmission. They tried to correct or reconstruct the early history of Islam from other, presumably more reliable, sources such as coins, inscriptions, and non-Islamic sources. The oldest of this group was John Wansbrough
John Wansbrough
John Edward Wansbrough was an American historian who taught at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies . Wansbrough's emphasis was on the critique of traditional accounts of the origins of Islam...
(1928–2002). Wansbrough's works were widely noted, but perhaps not widely read. Donner (1998) says:
- Wansbrough's awkward prose style, diffuse organization, and tendency to rely on suggestive implication rather than tight argument (qualities not found in his other published works) have elicited exasperated comment from many reviewers. (Donner 1998 p. 38)
Wansbrough's scepticism influenced a number of younger scholars, including:
- Martin HindsMartin HindsMartin Hinds was a scholar of the Middle East and historiographer of early Islam . He co-authored with Patricia Crone the book God's Caliph : Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam.-References:...
(1941–1988) - Patricia CronePatricia CronePatricia Crone, Ph.D., is a scholar, author, Orientalist, and historian of early Islamic history working at the Institute for Advanced Study. She established herself as a major challenger to the established narrative of the early history of Islam.- Career :Patricia Crone completed her...
(b. 1945) - Michael CookMichael Cook (historian)Michael Allan Cook is an English-Scottish historian and scholar of Islamic history. He has co-authored a book with Patricia Crone, notably Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World....
In 1977, Crone and Cook published Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World
Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World
Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World is a controversial, scholarly book on the early history of Islam written by the historians Patricia Crone and Michael Cook...
, which argued that the early history of Islam is a myth, generated after the conquests of Egypt, Syria, and Persia to prop up the new Arab regimes in those lands and give them a solid ideological foundation. According to their theory the Qur'an was composed later, rather than early, and the Arab conquests may have been the cause, rather than the consequence, of Islam. The main evidence adduced for this thesis was based upon a contemporary body of non-Muslim sources to many early Islamic events. If such events could not be supported by outside evidence, then (according to Crone and Cook) they should be dismissed as myth.
Crone and Cook's more recent work has involved intense scrutiny of early Islamic sources, but not total rejection of those sources. (See, for instance, Crone's 1987 publications, Roman, Provincial, and Islamic Law and Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, both of which assume the standard outline of early Islamic history while questioning certain aspects of it; also Cook's 2001 Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought, which also cites early Islamic sources as authoritative.)
In 1972 a cache of ancient Qur'ans in a mosque in Sana'a, Yemen was discovered – commonly known as the Sana'a manuscripts
Sana'a manuscripts
The Sana'a manuscripts, found in Yemen in 1972, are considered by some to be the oldest existent version of the Qur'an. Although the text has been dated to the first two decades of the eighth century The Sana'a manuscripts, found in Yemen in 1972, are considered by some to be the oldest existent...
. The German scholar Gerd R. Puin
Gerd R. Puin
Gerd Rüdiger Puin is a German scholar and an authority on Qur'anic historical orthography, the study and scholarly interpretation of ancient manuscripts. He is also specialist in Arabic paleography...
has been investigating these Qur'an fragments for years. His research team made 35,000 microfilm photographs of the manuscripts, which he dated to early part of the 8th century. Puin has not published the entirety of his work, but noted unconventional verse orderings, minor textual variations, and rare styles of orthography. He also suggested that some of the parchments were palimpsest
Palimpsest
A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped off and which can be used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin palimpsēstus from Ancient Greek παλίμψηστος originally compounded from πάλιν and ψάω literally meaning “scraped...
s which had been reused. Puin believed that this implied an evolving text as opposed to a fixed one.
Contemporary scholars have begun to turn to the study of the Islamic sources in a sceptical mood. They tend to use the histories rather than the hadith, and to analyze the histories in terms of the tribal and political affiliations of the narrators (if that can be established), thus making it easier to guess in which direction the material might have been slanted. Notable scholars include:
- Fred M. Donner
- Wilferd MadelungWilferd MadelungWilferd Ferdinand Madelung is a scholar of Islam. He was born in Stuttgart, Germany, where he completed his early education at Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium....
- Gerald Hawting
- Jonathan BerkeyJonathan BerkeyDr. Jonathan Porter Berkey is Professor of History at Davidson College.He graduated from Williams College, and from Princeton University with a Ph.D.He has become one of the most respected scholars of the history of Islam and the Middle East.-Awards:...
- Andrew RippinAndrew RippinAndrew Lawrence Rippin is a Canadian scholar of Islam.Rippin is Professor of History and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada...
- G.H.A Juynboll
Bridging the divide
A few scholars have managed to bridge the divide between Islamic and Western-style secular scholarship. They have completed both Islamic and Western academic training.- Sherman JacksonSherman JacksonSherman A. Jackson is an American scholar. He is the King Faisal Chair of Islamic Thought and Culture and Professor of Religion and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He was formerly the Arthur F...
- Fazlur RahmanFazlur RahmanFazlur Rahman Malik was a well-known scholar of Islam; M. Yahya Birt of the Association of Islam Researchers described him as "probably the most learned of the major Muslim thinkers in the second-half of the twentieth century, in terms of both classical Islam and Western philosophical and...
- Suliman BashearSuliman BashearSuliman Bashear PhD was a leading Druze Arab scholar and professor, who taught at Birzeit University, An-Najah National University, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Bashear was noted for his work on the early historiography of Islam....
External links
- http://islamonline.net/english/Contemporary/2003/04/Article01a.shtml and following; an Islamic view of the development of the academic study of Islam
- Muslim historiography an article by online Britannica
- Islamic Awareness, Dated Texts Mentioning Prophet Muḥammad From 1–100 AH / 622–719 CE