Seeing Islam as others saw it
Subtitle: a survey and evaluation of Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian writings on early Islam
By: Robert G. Hoyland.
Series: Studies in late antiquity and early Islam ;; 13
Publisher: Darwin Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Princeton, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 872
Subjects: Islamic Empire -- History -- 622-661 -- Historiography.; Islamic Empire -- History -- 661-750 -- Historiography.; Middle East -- Civilization -- To 622 -- Historiography.
Description: This book offers a new approach to the vexing question of how to write the early history of Islam. The first part discusses the nature of the Muslim and non-Muslim source material for the seventh- and eighth-century Middle East and argues that by lessening the divide between these two traditions, which has largely been erected by modern scholarship, we can come to a better appreciation of this crucial period. The second part gives a detailed survey of sources and an analysis of some 120 non-Muslim texts, all of which provide information about the first century and a half of Islam (roughly A.D. 620-780). The third part furnishes examples, according to the approach suggested in the first part and with the material presented in the second part, how one might write the history of this time. The fourth part takes the form of excurses on various topics, such as the process of Islamization, the phenomenon of conversion to Islam, the development of techniques for determining the direction of prayer, and the conquest of Egypt.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 709-825) and index.