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4 results

  • 5 - Reconsideration

  • Najam Haider, Barnard College, New York
  • Book:
    The Rebel and the Imãm in Early Islam
    Published online:
    06 September 2019
    Print publication:
    19 September 2019, pp 256-262

  • Summary

    The chapter summarizes the findings in the book, focusing on the need for new approaches to the study of Muslim historical writing. It begins by documenting the utility of the model proposed in chapter one for the case studies in chapters two through four. It then turns to more foundational questions about the nature of early Muslim historiography focusing on three areas: presuppositions that governed the craft of historical writing, the intended audiences of historical works, and the methods employed by historians. This chapter also explicitly rejects the arbitrary division between Sunni and Shi‘i historical works.

The Rebel and the Imãm in Early Islam
  • Najam Haider
  • Published online:
    06 September 2019
    Print publication:
    19 September 2019
  • Engaging with contemporary debates about the sources that shape our understanding of the early Muslim world, Najam Haider proposes a new model for Muslim historical writing that draws on Late Antique historiography to challenge the imposition of modern notions of history on a pre-modern society. Haider discusses three key case studies - the revolt of Mukhtar b. Abi 'Ubayd (d. 67/687), the life of the Twelver Shi'i Imam Musa al-Kazim (d. 183/799) and the rebellion and subsequent death of the Zaydi Shi'i Imam Yahya b. 'Abd Allah (d. 187/803) - in calling for a new line of inquiry which focuses on larger historiographical questions. What were the rules that governed historical writing in the early Muslim world? What were the intended audiences for these works? In the process, he rejects artificial divisions between Sunni and Shi'i historical writing.

  • Talking about Islam's origins1

  • Fred M. Donner
  • Journal:
    Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies / Volume 81 / Issue 1 / February 2018
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    23 January 2018, pp. 1-23
    Print publication:
    February 2018

  • Neither of the terms commonly used to describe the seventh-century expansion of the movement that comes to be called Islam – “the Islamic conquests” or “the Arab conquests” – is satisfactory; both terms are anachronistic and in some ways misleading; yet there is, at present, no clear candidate for an alternative terminology. This article discusses the weaknesses of existing nomenclatures, with reference to relevant primary sources, and the conceptual problems the traditional nomenclatures pose in the context of an extensive review of scholarly literature from roughly 1900 to the present. It offers a few suggestions for possible new terminologies, but essentially opens the question for further discussion.