Members-only podcast episode

Fred Donner on the History of the History of Early Islām

‘People who want to talk about the history of Islām as historians have to act as historians, which means you have to challenge, question your sources and see if they’re reliable.’

Fred Donner remains our guide on a quick but fascinating tour through developments in scholarship on Islamic origins, beginning with the early orientalists, assessing the ‘1970’s revolution’ in early Islamic studies, and landing where we are now, with progress made but a lot more work to be done.

Interview Bio:

Fred M. Donner is Peter B. Ritzma Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern History at the University of Chicago. He has written, taught, and researched widely on the early history of Islām, the Umayyad state, and associated historical developments.

Works Cited in this Episode:

Patricia Crone and Michæl A. Cook. Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World. The University Press, Cambridge, 1977.

Ignác Goldziher. Muhammedanische Studien. Max Niemeyer, Halle, 1889.

Joseph Schacht. A Revaluation of Islamic Tradition. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, pages 143–54, 1949.

John Wansbrough. Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation. The University Press, Oxford, 1977.

Idem. The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History. The University Press, Oxford, 1978.