Muhammad and the Believers

While Boyarin challenges what we thought we knew about Judaism and Christianity, Fred Donner does the same for the history of the origins of Islam. Most of what we know, or think we know, about Muhammad comes from the hadiths (traditions), sayings, and deeds of the prophet that were transmitted orally and put down in writing two centuries after the prophet’s death. Leaving aside hadith and the traditional biographies of the prophet, Donner looks at what we can say about Muhammad and his first followers based on the Quran alone. While the terms “Islam” and “Muslim” are present in the… show more.

Donner’s account of Muhammad and of the early Muslim empires is breathtaking in its scope, always original in its insights, and a challenge to hidebound traditions of writing on these subjects. Donner sees early Islam as ecumenical and the first Muslim empire as a multicultural enterprise of Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians. He challenges the black legend of the spread of Islam by the sword.