Were Muslim believers motivated by religious zeal to proclaim Islam to the non-Muslims? Consequently, was Islam spread by the sword? This is a question that has crucial implications today. The Stated Motivations for the Early Islamic Expansion extensively analyzes the earliest Arabic Muslim sources to answer these and other questions.
"The Arabic Muslim literature on Muhammad's maghazi is bountiful. Since this book focuses on Muhammad's maghazi, a survey of this literature is important not only to establish the centrality of the topic in Islamic thought but also to relay the uniqueness and contribution of this book. To that end, in this chapter, I will first explore that which classical Muslim narrators wrote on Muhammad's maghazi and the ways they used the accounts to reflect Allah's support for Muhammad and the believers. In the second section, I will examine discussions by modern and contemporary Muslims, relaying how they interpret the accounts of the maghazi. In particular, I will discuss their articulation of the motivations and results of Muhammad's military campaigns. The first two sections of this chapter will thus establish the centrality of the maghazi, as a literary genre, as well as its importance among Muslims, past and present. In the third section, I take the discussion to non-Muslim scholarship. I explore briefly early views on Muhammad and his career by non-Muslims, before I focus on works and arguments of key Western scholars from the nineteenth century until our present day"--
Why did non-Muslims convert to Islam during Muhammad's life and under his immediate successors? How did Muslim historians portray these conversions? Why did their portrayals differ significantly? To what extent were their portrayals influenced by their time of writing, religious inclinations, and political affiliations? These are the fundamental questions that drive this study. Relying on numerous works, including primary sources from over a hundred classical Muslim historians, Conversion to Islam is the first scholarly study to detect, trace, and analyze conversion themes in early Muslim historiography, emphasizing how classical Muslims remembered conversion, and how they valued and evaluated aspects of it. Ayman S. Ibrahim examines numerous early Muslim sources and wrestles with critical observations regarding the sources' reliability and unearths the hidden link between historical narratives and historians' religious sympathies and political agendas. This study leads readers through a complex body of literature, provides insights regarding historical context, and creates a vivid picture of conversion to Islam as early Muslim historians sought to depict it.
For many in the English-speaking world, Islam remains a mysterious religion. What is Islam in the first place? Does it mean "peace," or does it mean "submission"? Can it mean both? What is jihad? Sharia? Hadith? Who is Allah? What is a caliph, caliphate, or infidel? In this compact volume, an expert in the study of Islam provides explanations for more than one hundred important Islamic concepts and terms, which are divided into major sections: texts, history, faith and belief, practice and religious duties, jurisprudence, and movements. Ayman Ibrahim first introduces the section, then defines each concept or term briefly. Readers can read a chapter at a time or flip through the book to find concepts or terms as needed. Each term is described based on original Muslim sources, mainly written in Arabic, as well as ample scholarly studies. This introductory guide is written for anyone with little to no knowledge of Islam. It complements the author's A Concise Guide to the Quran and A Concise Guide to the Life of Muhammad. Together, these three volumes are useful as a set of resources on Islam.
Given the Prophet Muhammad’s immense impact on history, surprisingly few books specifically analyze his understanding and employment of warfare as an economically, politically and socially transformational process, even though he was continuously at war for a decade and initiated around eighty armed missions, twenty-seven of which he led himself. Most Islamic biographies deal with this issue by using an understandable but insufficient logic: that because Muhammad, as the Messenger of Allah, was the ideal and paradigmatic human, he must have been an ideal and paradigmatic military commander. His successes flowed from his prophetic status and his moral perfection. Following this logic and wanting Muhammad’s behavior to conform to very modern ethical concepts and widespread (but not necessarily accurate) beliefs about the nature and conduct of war, the writers have inadvertently created a narrative which, in significant ways, departs from the account clearly and consistently revealed in the earliest extant Arabic sources. The writers’ narrative also removes the Prophet from his historical and cultural context and the realities of the harsh and competitive tribal society in which he lived. Professor Joel Hayward sees this as an unhelpful explanatory tendency and believes that the modern depiction of the Prophet’s relationship with warfare -- which presents him as being rather antipathetic to war, indeed as virtually a pacifist who only fought reluctantly in self-defense -- cannot actually be sustained by an even-handed analysis of the early Islamic sources. A committed Muslim himself, Hayward agrees that Muhammad was a moral and decent man who saw peace as a highly desirable state in which humans should live and as a goal worth pursuing. Yet Hayward has approached the Prophet’s understanding and employment of warfare from a different vantage point. He has painstakingly scrutinized the earliest Arabic sources impartially according to the strict standards of historical inquiry in order to ascertain whether Muhammad’s actions, habits and methods can -- when understood within their original seventh-century stateless Arabian context -- provide any substantial and meaningful insights into the way that he understood and undertook warfare. Hayward concludes that Muhammad was an astute, situationally aware and self-reflective man who created and communicated a believable strategic vision of a necessary and desirable future. That vision persuaded increasing numbers of people to follow him and risk everything willingly in the struggle to create the optimal conditions for their survival, security, and prosperity. In a competitive and conflictual environment with ubiquitous threats, warfare was necessary to make real the bold new world that he foresaw. Through original, meticulously researched and rigorous analysis, Hayward covers all the raids and campaigns and demonstrates that Muhammad correctly understood the necessity and utility of force and duly developed into an intuitive, effective and victorious military practitioner who developed and enforced a strict moral code so as to attain his goals whilst safeguarding the innocent. This engaging, accessible yet deeply scholarly book makes a major contribution to strategic and military analysis and to the Prophet’s biography.
What is so unique about Islam's scripture, the Quran? Who wrote it, and when? Can we trust its statements to be from Muhammad? Why was it written in Arabic? Does it command Muslims to fight Christians? These are a few of the thirty questions answered in this clear and concise guide to the history and contents of the Quran. Ayman Ibrahim grew up in the Muslim world and has spent many years teaching various courses on Islam. Using a question-and-answer format, Ibrahim covers critical questions about the most sacred book for Muslims. He examines Muslim and non-Muslim views concerning the Quran, shows how the Quran is used in contemporary expressions of Islam, answers many of the key questions non-Muslims have about the Quran and Islam, and reveals the importance of understanding the Quran for Christian-Muslim and Jewish-Muslim interfaith relations. This introductory guide is written for anyone with little to no knowledge of Islam who wants to learn about Muslims, their beliefs, and their scripture.
What evidence do we have to reconstruct the origins of Islam? On the basis of what sources can the first century of Islam be accessed? Why do historians of early Islam consider the literary sources of Islamic origins to be so problematic? How is the problem of early Islamic history framed? This book addresses these critical questions by discussing various approaches to the problem of reconstructing Islamic origins. In a spirit of welcoming diverse perspectives and encouraging healthy scholarly debate, it explores different, even conflicting modern theories about the emergence of Islam through various case studies, including recent debates on the Qur’an, the biography of the Prophet, and early conquest narratives. A broad spectrum of both traditionalist and revisionist scholarship is critically examined with the purpose of illuminating not only how modern scholars differ, but also what they have in common.
In eleventh-century Egypt, the Christian convert Būluṣ ibn Rajāʾ composed The Truthful Exposer critiquing Islam. This publication includes a study of Ibn Rajāʾ’s biography, his impact on Christian approaches to Islam, and an Arabic edition with English translation of his work.
Love your Muslim neighbors. Motivated by a deep-rooted conviction that the North American church needs to be equipped for this important task, Micah Fries and Keith Whitfield have gathered a group of experts who are deeply invested in successful outreach to their Muslim neighbors. Unlike many resources that explore the topic of Islam as a dominant religion in the Middle East, Islam and North America focuses on the presence of Islam here in North America. Answering questions about the commonalities between Christians and Muslims, freedom of worship, the Quran, and Sharia law, this book will equip North American Christians to think about Islam theologically and missionally, engage their Muslim neighbors hospitably, and encourage readers to find new opportunities for missional engagement in their own backyards.
