A companion to late Antiquity

1. Introduction: A Language and its Secrets 2. Old Arabic, Neo-Arabic, and Comparative Linguistics 3. Case and Proto Arabic 4. Al-Idgham al-Kabiyr and Case Endings 5. Pre-Diasporic Arabic in the Diaspora: A Statistical Approach to Arabic Language History 6. Nigerian Arabic and Reconstruction of the Imperfect Verb 7. Imala 8. Suffix Pronouns and Reconstruction 9. Summary and Epilogue Appendix References Index

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A Linguistic History of Arabic

Part I. Narrative: 1. Rome and Iran to the beginning of the third century AD 2. Rome and the Sasanian Empire - a chronological survey Part II. Sources and Contexts: 3. Political goals 4. Warfare 5. Military confrontations 6. The diplomatic solutions 7. Arabia between the great powers 8. Shared interests - continuing conflicts 9. Religion - Christianity and Zoroastrianism 10. Emperor and King of Kings 11. Exchange of information between West and East Part III. Appendices.

Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity: Neighbours and Rivals

Natron glass production and supply in the late antique and early medieval Near East: The effect of the Byzantine-Islamic transition

Any interpretation of Near Eastern history touching upon the sixth and seventh centuries must invariably come to terms with the numerous causes of mortality, destruction, and social and economic disruption that preceded the Arab conquests. One of these factors was undoubtedly the bubonic plague, which descended the Nile in the summer of 641, spread through the Delta and passed to Syrian ports in the winter of that year; by the summer of 542 it had reached Constantinople itself and infected, among many other places, large parts of inland Asia Minor and Syria.

Epidemic disease in central Syria in the late sixth century Some new insights from the verse of assān ibn Thābit

The Early Islamic Conquests

Narratives of Islamic Origins

How and why did Muslims first come to write their own history? The author argues in this work that the Islamic historical tradition arose not out of idle curiosity", or through imitation of antique models, but as a response to a variety of challenges facing the Islamic community during its first several centuries (ca. seventh to tenth centuries CE). The narratives that resulted focused on certain themes of Islamic origins, selected to legitimise particular aspects of the Islamic community and faith in one or another. These included the need to establish the status of Muhammad (d. 632) as prophet, to affirm that the community to which they belonged was the direct descendant of the original community founded by the Prophet, to explain Muslim hegemony over vast populations of non-Muslims in the rapidly growing Islamic empire, and to articulate different positions in the ongoing debate with the Islamic community itself over political and religious leadership. An examination of these key themes of early Islamic historiography and the issues generating them is placed in the context of other styles of legitimisation in the early Islamic community, including such methods as appeals to piety and genealogy. Narratives of Islamic Origins is a ground-breaking work that represents the first comprehensive tradition -- critical account of the origins and rise of Arab-Islamic historiography, and is essential reading for all historians of medieval Islamic history and civilisation, and for all those interested in the historiography of comparative civilisations.

Narratives of Islamic origins : the beginnings of Islamic historical writing

The origins of Islam have been the subject of increasing controversy in recent years. The traditional view, which presents Islam as a self-consciously distinct religion tied to the life and revelations of the prophet Muhammad in western Arabia, has since the 1970s been challenged by historians engaged in critical study of the Muslim sources. In "Muhammad and the Believers", the eminent historian Fred Donner offers a lucid and original vision of how Islam first evolved. He argues that the origins of Islam lie in what we may call the 'Believers' movement' begun by the prophet Muhammad - a movement of religious reform emphasizing strict monotheism and righteous behavior in conformity with God's revealed law. The Believers' movement thus included righteous Christians and Jews in its early years, because like the Qur'anic Believers, Christians and Jews were monotheists and agreed to live righteously in obedience to their revealed law. The conviction that Muslims constituted a separate religious community, utterly distinct from Christians and Jews, emerged a century later, when the leaders of the Believers' movement decided that only those who saw the Qur'an as the final revelation of the One God and Muhammad as the final prophet, qualified as Believers. This separated them decisively from monotheists who adhered to the Gospels or Torah.

Fred M. Donner

Papers

The Early Islamic Conquests

The Early Islamic Conquests

Narratives of Islamic Origins

Narratives of Islamic origins : the beginnings of Islamic historical writing

Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam