Revisionist school of Islamic studies

The Revisionist school of Islamic studies, (also Historical-Critical school of Islamic studies and skeptic/revisionist Islamic historians)[1] is a movement in Islamic Studies[2][3][4] questioning much of "what the Muslim historical tradition can tell us about the origins of Islam".[5][6]

Until the early 1970s,[7] non-Muslim Islamic scholars — while not accepting accounts of divine intervention — did accept its origin story[8] "in most of its details",[9] and accepted the reliability of tafsir (commentaries on the Quran),[10] hadith (accounts of what the Islamic prophet Muhammad approved or disapproved of), and sira (biography of the prophet). Revisionists instead use a "source-critical" approach to this literature, as well as studying relevant archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics and contemporary non-Arabic literature.[11] They believe these methodologies provide "hard facts" and an ability to crosscheck, whereas traditional Islamic accounts — written 150 to 200 years after Muhammad — are/were subject to biases of and embellishments by the authors and transmitters.[12]

The school is thought to have originated in the 1970s and includes (or included) scholars such as John Wansbrough and his students Andrew Rippin, Norman Calder, G. R. Hawting, Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, as well as Günter Lüling, Yehuda D. Nevo and Christoph Luxenberg).[13] It is "by no means monolithic" and while its proponents share "methodological premises", they have offered "conflicting accounts of the Arab conquests and the rise of Islam".[14] It is sometimes contrasted with "traditionist" historians of Islam who do accept the traditional origin story,[1] though the two approaches "usually implicit" rather than "stated openly".[15]

Main thesis and the concept of Revisionism

The revisionist school has been said to be based on the study of Hadith literature by Islamic scholars Ignác Goldziher (1850-1921) and Joseph Schacht (1902-1969), who argued that the traditional Islamic accounts about Islam's early times — written 150 to 200 years after Muhammad — cannot be relied on as historical sources.[16] Goldziher argued (in the words of R.S. Humphreys), "that a vast number of hadith accepted even in the most rigorously critical Muslim collections were outright forgeries from the late 8th and 9th centuries — and as a consequence, that the meticulous isnads which supported them were utterly fictitious".[17] Schacht argued Islamic law was not passed down without deviation from Muhammad but "developed ... out of popular and administrative practice under the Umayyads, and this practice often diverged from the intentions and even the explicit wording of the Koran ... norms derived from the Koran were introduced into Muhammadan law almost invariably at a secondary stage."[18][19]

The revisionists extended this argument beyond hadith to other facets of Islamic literature — sira (Muhammad's biography), the history of the Quran's formation, and the historical developments under the first Islamic dynasty, the Umayyad Caliphate. The true historical events in the earliest times of Islam have to be newly researched and reconstructed (revisionists believe) by applying the historical-critical method,[4] or alternately, in the words of Cook and Crone, historian must "step outside the Islamic tradition altogether and start again".[20] This requires using the

  1. "source-critical approach to both the Koran and the Muslim literary accounts of the rise of Islam, the Conquest and the Umayyad period"; [21]
  2. comparing traditional accounts with
    1. accounts from the seventh and eighth century CE that are external to the Muslim tradition;[21]
    2. archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics[11] from the seventh and eighth century CE -- sources which should be preferred when there is a conflicts with Muslim literary sources.[21]

Revisionists believe that the results of these methods indicates that (among other things) the break between the religion, governance, culture of the pre-Islamic Persian and Byzantine civilization, and that of the 7th century Arab conquerors was not as abrupt as the traditional history describes (an idea advanced in the statement of the Fifth colloquium of the Near Eastern History Group of Oxford University). Colloquium organizers argued that if "we begin by assuming that there must have been some continuity, we need either go beyond the Islamic sources or ... reinterpret them".[22]

The designation Revisionism was coined first by the opponents of the new academic movement and is used by them partially still today with a less than positive connotation.[23][24] Then, the media took up this designation in order to call the new movement with a concise catchword.[25] Today, also the adherents of the new movement use Revisionism to designate themselves, yet mostly written in quotation marks and with a slightly self-mocking undertone.[26]

Major representatives

Among the "foremost" proponents of revisionism are/were John Wansbrough (1928-2002), Patricia Crone (1945-2015), Michael Cook, Yehuda D. Nevo (1932-1992, and Fred M. Donner.[16] The new movement originated at the SOAS (School of Oriental & African Studies) at the University of London with the publications of two works by Wansbrough: Quranic Studies (1977) and The Sectarian Milieu (1978). Andrew Rippin (1950-2016), Norman Calder, G. R. Hawting, Patricia Crone and Michael Cook were students of Wansbrough. In 1977 Crone and Cook published Hagarism, which postulated -- among other things -- that Islam was established after, not before, the Arab conquests and that Mecca was not the original Islamic sanctuary.[4] Later, both distanced themselves from the theses of Hagarism as too far reaching, but continued to "challenge both Muslim and Western orthodox views of Islamic history".[4] Martin Hinds (1941-1988),[27] also studied at SOAS and Robert G. Hoyland was a student of Patricia Crone.[28]

In Germany at the Saarland University, Günter Lüling (1928-2014) and Gerd-Rüdiger Puin focused on the historical-critical research of the development of the Quran starting in the 1970s, and in the 2000s, Karl-Heinz Ohlig, Volker Popp, Christoph Luxenberg and Markus Groß argued that Muhammad was a legendary, not historical figure. Hans Jansen from the Netherlands published a work in 2005/7 arguing in detail why (he believed) known accounts of Muhammad's life were legendary. Yehuda D. Nevo also questioned the historicity of Muhammad.[Note 1] Sven Kalisch, a convert to Islam, taught Islamic theology before leaving the faith in 2008[29] when he questioned the historicity of Mohammad (as well as Jesus and Moses).[30] [Note 2]

James A. Bellamy has done textual criticism of the Quran and his proposed "emendations", i.e. corrections of the traditional text of the Quran. Fred Donner, in his several books on early Islamic history has argued that only during the reign Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (685-705) did the early ecumenical monotheism of the Arab conquerors begin to separate from Christians and Jews.

Popular historian Tom Holland's work In the Shadow of the Sword (2012)[32][33] has popularized the new research results and depicted a possible synthesis of the various revisionist approaches.

Historical description of the school

The influence of the different tendencies in the study of Islam in the West has waxed and waned. Ibn Warraq believes "the rise of this revisionist school" may be dated from the Fifth colloquium of the Near Eastern History Group of Oxford University in July 1975,[22] and Robert Hoyland believes revisionists were ascendant in the 1970s and 1980s.[1]

Prior to that, from World War II to sometime around the mid-1970s, there was what scholar Charles Adams describes as "a distinctive movement in the West, represented in both religious circles and the universities, whose purpose" was to show both a "greater appreciation of Islamic religiousness" and to foster "a new attitude toward it"[Note 3] And in doing so make "restitution for the sins of unsympathetic, hostile, or interested approaches that have plagued the tradition of Western Orientalism".[35] Herbert Berg gives Wilfred Cantwell Smith and W. Montgomery Watt as examples of proponents of this "irenic approach" (traditionalist) approach to Islamic history,[36] and notes that the approach necessarily clashed with the questions and potential answers of revisionists since these clashed with Islamic doctrine.

Hoyland believes the heyday of revisionism, diminished as the "public profile of Islam" increased "massively" sometime after the 1980s, when, (Hoyland argues) the tendency towards "left-leaning" liberalism "shy of criticizing Islam", of Western academics "favored the traditionalist approach" while "pushing skeptics/revisionists to become more extreme." (Hoyland seeking to find a middle way between revisionism and avoiding criticism.)[1]

The thesis of the implausibility of the traditional Islamic accounts

The arguments against the plausibility of the classical Islamic traditions about Islam's beginnings were summarized by Hans Jansen in his work De Historische Mohammed. Jansen discusses chapter by chapter the depictions in the prophet's biography by Ibn Ishaq, by way of Ibn Hisham (d.833), which is an important text for traditional Islam. Jansen reveals self-contradictions; contradictions with other historical sources; embellishments by later authors; politically or theologically motivated distortions of the depiction; symbolic meanings of allegedly historical names; literary construction of the depiction according to biblical models; and chronological and calendrical improbabilities.

Some examples:[37]

  • The most accurate dating of so many events by an author who writes 150 years later lacks credibility.
  • Although there were leap months at the time of Muhammad, which had to be inserted frequently into the lunar calendar, and which only later became abandoned (allegedly by Muhammad), not a single of the many most accurately dated events depicted by Ibn Ishaq falls in a leap month.
  • The depiction of a close relationship between Muhammad and his wife Aisha has a strong political and theological motivation: Aisha was the daughter of Abu Bakr, who became Muhammad's successor against the claims of his rival, Ali. In order to defend this succession against the claims of the Shia, who were in favour of Ali, the relationship of Abu Bakr's daughter to Muhammad became emphasized: That Aisha allegedly was the favourite wife of Muhammad, and that various hadith state that Aisha was either nine or ten years old when the prophet consummated the marriage.
  • The depiction of the slaughter of the Jewish tribe of the Banu Qurayza also has a strong political and theological motivation: As the Constitution of Medina shows, the Jews were initially part of the Ummah and were addressed as "believers"; cf. the research of Fred Donner. When Islam later separated from Judaism, antisemitic readings of the past came into being. The threefold treason of Muhammad by three Jewish tribes is a literary construction according to biblical models, e.g. the threefold treason of Jesus by the Apostle Peter, and thus is historically questionable. There are other traditions about the same event which tell that only the leaders of the tribe had been punished, but not every single member of the tribe. The names of the three Jewish tribes do not occur in the Constitution of Medina. Finally, such a mass slaughter would not have gone unnoticed, not even in Muhammad's time, and especially not considering that the victims were Jews, who had international trade networks, and are known to record their history. Most likely, the slaughter of the Banu Quraiza never happened.
  • The depictions of Ibn Ishaq are generally known to give questionable accounts of the capabilities of the prophet, such as satisfying all his wives in one night and killing more enemies than in similar hadith stories. In the same category is the depiction of Muhammad as illiterate: the revelation of the Quran becomes even more miraculous, and the capabilities of the prophet even more astonishing.
  • The account of Muhammad's letters to the Heads-of-State, saying that they should convert to Islam — according to traditional Islamic historiography, he sent ambassadors with such letters to Heraclius the Caesar of Byzantium, Chosroes II the Khosrau of Persia, the Negus of Abyssinia, Muqawqis the ruler of Egypt, Harith Gassani the governor of Syria, Munzir ibn Sawa and to the ruler of Bahrain[Note 4] — retrospectively justifies the Arabic expansion as a religious, Islamic expansion.

Jansen points out that because of the cryptic nature of the Quran, which usually alludes to events rather than describing them, and seldom describes the situation for which a revelation was made, the historically questionable traditions are of great importance for the interpretation and understanding of the Quran. Many Islamic traditions came into being long after Muhammad on the basis of mere guesses for what situation a Quranic verse had been revealed. Because of these historically questionable traditions, the interpretation of the Quran has been restricted ever since.

In her work Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, Patricia Crone gives a general examination of the credibility of Islamic traditions. This work is often cited in literature and discusses a few aspects of Muhammad's biography, which are intended to illustrate the nature of Islamic traditions. Concerning the encounter of the young Muhammad with Jews who recognize him as a prophet, and other stories, Crone writes: "These stories are no different from those on Muhammad's encounter with Jews and others. Being non-miraculous, they do not violate any laws of nature, of course, and in that sense they could be true. In fact, they are clearly not. [...] We cannot even tell whether there was an original event: in the case of Muhammad's encounter with the Jews and others there was not. Either a fictitious theme has acquired reality thanks to the activities of storytellers or else a historical event has been swamped by these activities."[38]

The new theses about the beginnings of Islam

The events in early Islamic times have to be newly researched and reconstructed with the help of the historical-critical method. In the following the theses of the revisionists in broad outline:

  • The Quranic text as is in use today shows many differences to the earliest existing manuscripts. A core part of the Quran may derive from Muhammad's annunciations, yet some parts of the Quran were definitively added later or were reworked later. In addition to this, many small deviations came into the text as with other ancient texts which were manually copied and copied again.[39]
  • The existence and significance of the prophet Muhammad as a historical person depends especially on the question whether any, and if so, how many, parts of the Quran can be attributed to his time, or whether all or most parts of the Quran came into being only after Muhammad's time. The researchers' opinions differ over this question.[40] Fred Donner suggests an early date for the Quran.[41]
  • The Quran is not written in a "pure" Arabic as the Syriac language seems to have had a certain influence on the language of the Quran which was forgotten later. This could be a possible explanation of why a fifth of the Quranic text is difficult to understand.[42]
  • Islam did not rise among polytheistic pagans in the desert, but in a milieu where Jewish and Christian texts were well-known. The "infidels" were no pagan polytheists but monotheists who were polemically considered to deviate slightly from monotheism.[43]
  • The geographical descriptions in the Quran and later traditions do not fit Mecca. They rather point to a place somewhere in north-western Arabia, e.g. Petra in Jordan.[44]
  • The connection between Muslims and Jews was very close in the early times of Islam. Jews too were called "believers" and were part of the umma. Antijewish texts such as, for example, the account of the slaughter of the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza came into being long after Muhammad when Islam had separated from Judaism.[45]
  • In the beginning, secular and spiritual power were united in the person of the caliph. There were no special religious scholars. Religious scholars came into being only later and conquered the spiritual power from the caliphs.[46]
  • The Islamic expansion was probably not Islamic, religiously motivated, expansion, but a secular, Arab expansion. The expansion did not yet result in oppression of the non-Muslim population.[47]
  • After Muhammad there were at least two phases which were of major importance for the formation of Islam in its later shape:
    • Under the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem was built. There the word "Islam" appears for the first time. Until this moment the Muslims called themselves simply "believers", and coins were minted in the Arabic empire showing Christian symbols. Abd al-Malik also plays a major role in the reworking of the Quranic text.[48]
    • It was during the Abbasid Caliphate that practically all Islamic traditional texts about Islam's beginnings were written. The Abbasids as the victorious party in the conflict with the Umayyads had great interest in legitimizing their rule. This motivation obviously crept into the traditional texts.[49]

Criticism of Revisionism

The consequent historical-critical analysis of early Islam met severe resistance in the beginning since then provocative theses with far-reaching meaning were published without sufficient evidence. Especially Patricia Crone's and Michael Cook's book Hagarism (1977) stirred up a lot of harsh criticism. Important representatives of Revisionism like Patricia Crone or Michael Cook meanwhile distanced themselves from such radical theses and uncautious publications. [50]

Criticism is expressed by researchers like Tilman Nagel, who aims at the speculative nature of some theses and shows that some revisionists lack some scholarly standards. On the other hand, Nagel accepts the basic impulse of the new movement, to put more emphasis on the application of the historical-critical method.[51] A certain tendency to take revisionists seriously becomes obvious e.g. by the fact that opponents address their criticism not any longer to "revisionism" alone but to "extreme revisionism" or "ultra-revisionism".[52]

Gregor Schoeler discusses the revisionist school and depicts the early controversies. Schoeler considers revisionism to be too radical yet welcomes the general impulse: "To have made us thinking about this all and much more remarkable things for the first time -- or again, is without any doubt a merit of the new generation of the 'skeptics'."[53]

François de Blois rejects the application of the historical-critical method to Islamic texts. He argues that this method was developed for Christian texts and thus there is no reason to apply this method to Islamic texts, too.[54]

A challenge for reflection and reform to Islam

The relationship between religion and science had always been shaped by conflicts... It is always a painful process for any religion to realize that parts of its teachings were wrong: at the beginning, new scientific results are often considered to be an attack on religion itself; only later is it realized that religion can live with the new findings, so long as the religion's core is not affected, and things are sorted out in the way of religious reforms.[55]

By nature new findings about the early times of Islam touch the identity of the Islamic religion. Thus it is a justified claim of religious people that any research concerning their religion has to progress with high diligence and cautiousness in order to avoid unnecessary irritations. At the same time it is a justified claim by academics that they can do their research freely and without any restraint, even if the results run contrary to religious teachings.[56]

The gravity of irritation provided to Islam depends on the question whether core teachings of Islam are touched or not, especially the historicity of Muhammad and the attribution of the Quran to Muhammad. According to this question, the historical-critical school can roughly be divided into two groups (for details see the researchers' articles):

  • As far as the research results do not deny the historicity of Muhammad and assume the Quran to have come into being mainly in Muhammad's time, the core essence of the Islamic religion is left untouched. This is the case e.g. for the following representatives of revisionism: Patricia Crone, Michael Cook, Fred Donner, Tom Holland, Günter Lüling.
  • As far as the research results do deny the historicity of Muhammad and assume the Quran to have come into being mainly after Muhammad's time, the core essence of the Islamic religion is put into question. This is the case e.g. for the following representatives of revisionism: John Wansbrough, Hans Jansen, Karl-Heinz Ohlig, Yehuda D. Nevo.

Besides the discussion of the historicity of Muhammad as a historical person and the Quranic text attributed to him, Islam faces the following debates:[57]

  • Traditional texts which had shaped Islam for centuries - yet not from the beginning - are not true.
  • The Quranic text has not been handed down to our times unchanged.
  • Even in the Quran, God's word is in many respects clothed in human words.
  • Muhammad did not live in Mecca.
  • The relationship between Muhammad and Jews and Christians was different than always thought it had been.

Revisionism by non-specialists

Ibn Warraq, an author known for his criticism of Islam, has compiled several revisionist essays in his book, The Quest for the Historical Muhammad. Fred Donner, reviewing the book, notes that by favoring Wansbrough's school of revisionism, the author presents a "one-sided selection" that fails to consider the challenges to this line of revisionism. The result is "a book that is likely to mislead many an unwary general reader."[58]

See also

References

Notes
  1. in his 2003 work Crossroads to Islam: The Origins of the Arab Religion and the Arab State
  2. Kalisch rejected the idea of teaching Islamic theology without taking into consideration the new results of historical-critical research and as of 2008 was teaching the history of ideas in the Near East in Late Antiquity in Münster Germany.[31][30]
  3. Adams was writing in 1976 and didn't mention revisionism [34]
  4. For example, Sigismund Koelle reports that "Ibn Ishak also mentions the names of nine different messengers who had to carry Mohammed's letters to the following potentates: (1) to the Emperor of the Greeks; (2) to Chosroes, the king of Persia; (3) to Najashi, the prince of Abyssinia; (4) to Mokawkas, the prince of Alexandria; (5) to Jeifar and Iyaz, the princes of Oman; (6) to Thumama and Hawza, the princes of Yemama; (7) to Munzir, the prince of Bahrein; (8) to El Harith, the prince of the border districts of Syria; and (9) to the Himyarite Harith Ibn Abd Kulal, the prince of Yemen." Koelle, S. W. (1889). Mohammed and Mohammedanism Critically Considered (p. 194). London: Rivingtons.

Citations
  1. Hoyland, In God's Path, 2015: p.232
  2. François de Blois, Islam in its Arabian Context, S. 615, in: The Qur'an in Context, edited by Angelika Neuwirth etc., 2010
  3. Alexander Stille: Scholars Are Quietly Offering New Theories of the Koran, New York Times 02 March 2002
  4. Lester, Toby. "What Is the Koran?". The Atlantic (January 1999). Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  5. Holland, 'In the Shadow of the Sword, 2012: p.38
  6. Holland, Tom (2012). In the Shadow of the Sword. UK: Doubleday. p. 38. ISBN 978-0-385-53135-1. Retrieved 29 August 2019.
  7. Donner, "Quran in Recent Scholarship", 2008: p.30
  8. Holland, In the Shadow of the Sword, 2012: p.45
  9. Donner, "Quran in Recent Scholarship", 2008: p.29
  10. Crone, Patricia (1987). Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam. Oxford University Press. p. 223.
  11. Neva & Koren, "Methodological Approaches to Islamic Studies", 2000: p.420
  12. Neva & Koren, "Methodological Approaches to Islamic Studies", 2000: p.422-6
  13. Reynolds, "Quranic studies and its controversies", 2008: p.8
  14. Neva & Koren, "Methodological Approaches to Islamic Studies", 2000: p.420-441
  15. Neva & Koren, "Methodological Approaches to Islamic Studies", 2000: p.421
  16. Feroz-ud-Din Shah Khagga, M.; Warraich, M. Mahmood (April 2015). "Revisionism: A Modern Orientalistic Wave in the Qurʾānic Criticism". Al-Qalam: 2. Retrieved 26 November 2019.
  17. Humphreys, R.S. Islamic History, A Framework for Inquiry, Princeton, 1991, p.83
  18. Schacht, Joseph (1950). The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Oxford: Clarendon.
  19. Ibn Rawandi, "Origins of Islam", 2000: p.97
  20. Hagarism; The Making Of The Islamic World Crone, Cook, p.3
  21. Neva & Koren, "Methodological Approaches to Islamic Studies", 2000: p.426
  22. statement of the July 1975 Fifth colloquium of the Near Eastern History Group of Oxford University, cited in Ibn Warraq, ed. (2000). "1. Studies on Muhammad and the Rise of Islam". The Quest for the Historical Muhammad. Prometheus. pp. 55.
  23. Cf. e.g. François de Blois, Islam in its Arabian Context, S. 615, in: The Qur'an in Context, ed. by Angelika Neuwirth etc., 2010.
  24. Judith Herrin, Patricia Crone: memoir of a superb Islamic Scholar, openDemocracy 12 July 2015
  25. Cf. e.g. Toby Lester: Lester, Toby. "What Is the Koran?". The Atlantic (January 1999). Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  26. Cf. e.g. Patricia Crone: Among the Believers, Tablet Magazine 10 August 2010
  27. Takim, Liyakat N. (2006). Heirs of the Prophet, The: Charisma and Religious Authority in Shi'ite Islam. NY: SUNY. p. 187. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  28. Khan, Muhammad (29 September 2017). "Revisionist account of early Islamic history and culture". Muslim News. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  29. Neues Aufgabengebiet für Sven Kalisch| WWU Munster| 13 July 2010
  30. "Professor Hired for Outreach to Muslims Delivers a Jolt". The Wall Street Journal. November 15, 2008. Retrieved 2011-07-16.
  31. Neues Aufgabengebiet für Sven Kalisch| WWU Munster| 13 July 2010
  32. Bowersock, Glen (4 May 2012). "In the Shadow of the Sword by Tom Holland – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 November 2019.
  33. Brown, Jonathan (26 July 2015). "Tom Holland, the Five Daily Prayers and they Hypocrisy of Revisionism". Dr. Jonathan Brown. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  34. Adams, Charles (1976). "The Islamic Religious Tradition". In Binder, Louis (ed.). The Study of the Middle East: Research and Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences. John Wiley and Sons. p. 38.
  35. Adams, Charles (1976). "The Islamic Religious Tradition". In Binder, Louis (ed.). The Study of the Middle East: Research and Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences. John Wiley and Sons. p. 50. cited in Berg, Herbert (2000). "15. Implications of, and Opposition to, the Methods and Theories of John Wansbrough". In Ibn Warraq (ed.). The Quest for the Historical Muhammad. Prometheus. p. 502.
  36. Berg, Herbert (2000). "15. Implications of, and Opposition to, the Methods and Theories of John Wansbrough". In Ibn Warraq (ed.). The Quest for the Historical Muhammad. Prometheus. p. 502.
  37. Cf. Jansen, De Historische Mohammed, 2005/7
  38. Patricia Crone: Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam,1987, p. 222
  39. John Wansbrough: Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation (1977) pp. 43 ff.; Gerd-Rüdiger Puin: Observations on Early Qur'an Manuscripts in San’a’, in: Stefan Wild (Hrsg.): The Qur’an as Text. Brill, Leiden 1996; pp. 107-111
  40. Yehuda D. Nevo: Crossroads to Islam: The Origins of the Arab Religion and the Arab State (2003); Karl-Heinz Ohlig (Hrsg.): Der frühe Islam. Eine historisch-kritische Rekonstruktion anhand zeitgenössischer Quellen (2007)
  41. Fred Donner: Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing (1998), p. 60
  42. Karl-Heinz Ohlig (Hrsg.): Der frühe Islam. Eine historisch-kritische Rekonstruktion anhand zeitgenössischer Quellen (2007) pp. 377 ff.; Christoph Luxenberg: The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran – A Contribution to the Decoding of the Koran (2007).
  43. G. R. Hawting: The Idea of Idolatry and the Rise of Islam: From Polemic to History (1999); Fred Donner: Muhammad and the Believers. At the Origins of Islam (2010) p. 59
  44. Patricia Crone / Michael Cook: Hagarism (1977) pp. 22-24; Patricia Crone: Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (1987); and the private researcher Dan Gibson: Quranic Geography (2011)
  45. Fred Donner: Muhammad and the Believers. At the Origins of Islam (2010) pp. 68 ff.; cf. also Hans Jansen: Mohammed (2005/7) pp. 311-317 (German edition 2008)
  46. Patricia Crone / Martin Hinds: God's Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (1986)
  47. Robert G. Hoyland: In God's Path. The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire (2015)
  48. Patricia Crone / Michael Cook: Hagarism (1977) p. 29; Yehuda D. Nevo: Crossroads to Islam: The Origins of the Arab Religion and the Arab State (2003) pp. 410-413; Karl-Heinz Ohlig (Hrsg.): Der frühe Islam. Eine historisch-kritische Rekonstruktion anhand zeitgenössischer Quellen (2007) pp. 336 ff.
  49. Patricia Crone: Slaves on Horses. The Evolution of the Islamic Polity (1980) pp. 7, 12, 15; auch Hans Jansen: Mohammed (2005/7)
  50. Cf. e.g. Toby Lester: What is the Koran?, in: The Atlantic, issue January 1999
  51. Cf. e.g. Tilman Nagel: Befreit den Propheten aus seiner religiösen Umklammerung! in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 21 September 2009
  52. Cf. e.g. Marion Holmes Katz: Body of Text: The Emergence of the Sunni Law of Ritual Purity (2012), p. 27
  53. Gregor Schoeler, Charakter und Authentie der muslimischen Überlieferung über das Leben Mohammeds, de Gruyter 1996. pp. 18 f., 23 f. 142 f.; original citation p. 24: "dies alles und noch manches Beachtenswerte mehr uns zum ersten Mal -- oder erneut -- zu bedenken gegeben zu haben, ist zweifellos ein Verdienst der neuen Generation der 'Skeptiker'."
  54. Cf. e.g. François de Blois, Islam in its Arabian Context, p. 615, in: The Qur'an in Context, ed. by Angelika Neuwirth etc., 2010
  55. Peter Harrison (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion (2010) pp. 292 f. - Karl-Heinz Ohlig: Islam und Islamismus, in: imprimatur No. 48, 2015, pp. 48-53
  56. Cf. Karl-Heinz Ohlig: Wissenschaftliches Arbeiten in der Islamwissenschaft, in: imprimatur No. 41, 2008
  57. Salwa Ismail: The Politics of Historical Revisionism: New Re-Readings of the Early Islamic Period, in: Michaelle Browers, Charles Kurzman (ed).: An Islamic Reformation?, Lexington Books (2004), pp. 101-124; especially p. 114 and footnotes 43, 44. Karl-Heinz Ohlig: Islam und Islamismus, in: imprimatur No. 48, 2015, pp. 48-53
  58. Fred Donner: Review of: The Quest for the Historical Muhammad, by Ibn Warraq, Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, 35(1), pp. 75–76.

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  • cite book |last1=Wansbrough |first1=J. |title=Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation |location=Oxford |year=1978 |ref=JWQS1978}}

Further reading
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