A Historian’s View of the Qurʾān

The Qurʾān, as a sacred text, poses distinctive challenges for the historian. The talk will begin by addressing briefly some of these challenges, in particular the limits of what the historian can say about sacred texts like the Qurʾān. The bulk of the talk will then discuss the challenges historians face in understanding the text’s transmission, as revealed both by Muslim tradition and from the evidence of the material record, and what implications the historian might draw from the Qurʾān’s content

Robert Hoyland, In God’s Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire

Robert Hoyland’s In God’s Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire is the most recent attempt to make sense of the worldchanging developments associated with the rise of Islam. It offers an attractive, well-informed, and readily comprehensible account of the geopolitical background in the Near East, the conquests, and the rise of the first Islamic empire up to the fall of the Umayyad dynasty in 750

Günter Lüling

Dr. Günter Lüling, author of a number of revisionist works on the Qur’ān and the history of Islam’s origins, died on 10 September 2014, in Wasserburg am Inn, Germany. He had suffered a coronary thrombosis in April, followed a few days later by a stroke, and over the next few months was moved from his home in Erlangen to various rehabilitation clinics in southern Bavaria. He was 85

Arabic Fatḥ as ‘Conquest’ and its Origin in Islamic Tradition

The Arabic term fatḥ (pl. futūḥ) is often translated as “conquest,” but this meaning is not intrinsic to the root f-t-ḥ either in Arabic or in other Semitic languages. Rather, the word was applied to episodes in the expansion of the early Islamic state by later Muslim writers who described these events following a particular use of the word fatḥ in the Qur’ān, where it referred to an act of God’s grace that was favorable for the community. This might include instances of actual conquest, but could also be applied to other ways in which an area came into the state, such as by treaty agreement. The rigid translation as “conquest” is therefore potentially misleading

Qur’ânicization of Religio-Political Discourse in the Umayyad Period

Documentary and literary evidence suggests that during the Umayyad period, institutions and practices central to the operation of the state were renamed using terms from the Qur’an. The goal of this process was to legitimate the Umayyad state and government by linking them with the divine revelation and the person of the prophet Muhammad.  It also helped to define Islam as a tradition focused on the prophet and the Qur’an.Les sources documentaires et littéraires suggèrent que, durant la période omeyyade, les institutions et les pratiques centrales au fonctionnement de l’État furent renommées au profit d’une terminologie issue du Coran. Le but de ce processus était de légitimer l’État et le gouvernement omeyyade en les rattachant à la révélation divine et à la personne de Muhammad. Cela joua également un rôle dans la définition d’une identité musulmane, centrée sur le Prophète et le Coran

Muhammad und die frühe islamische Gemeinschaft aus historischer Sicht

The talk summarizes the traditional view of Islam’s origins and its limitations, particularly the problem of deficient sources, and then sketches out differing revisionist approaches on Islam’s origins and on the nature and early history of the Qur’an text. While skepticism about some information in the traditional Islamic narratives is warranted, it is also clear that these sources must be used, albeit critically, to reconstruct Islam’s origins. The paper closes with a summary of a reconstruction, based mainly on parts of the Qur’an, that posits an early community of Believers dedicated to strict monotheism and adherence to stringent standards of piety in which Jews, Christians, and Qur’anic monotheists all played some part. The fluidity or porousness of confessional identities in the early community seems to have given way to stricter boundaries around 700 CE, when the core of the community redefined itself around the Qur’an and the figure of the prophet Muhammad to become Muslims in the classic sense

The Maturing of Medieval Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies

L et me begin by expressing my profound gratitude to the officers of Middle East Medievalists for honoring me with MEM’s Lifetime Achievement Award. It is indeed a great honor to be so recognized by my esteemed colleagues—even though such an honor is a kind of double-edged sword. On the one hand, the recognition is a source of deep satisfaction; on the other, it reaffirms the sobering reality that one is nearing the end of one’s game. But, since turning the award down would not change the reality of age attained, I am most pleased and honored to accept it. Thank you all very much