Muhammad and the Believers

Author: Fred M. Donner
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674064143
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 301

Book Description
Looks at the history of Islam, arguing that its origins began with the "Believers" movement that emphasized strict monotheism and righteous behavior that included both Christians and Jews in its early years.

Muhammad and the Believers

Author: Fred M. Donner
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674050976
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
Traces the history of Islam back from the twentieth century to its origins, discussing the faith-based "Believers' movement" started by the prophet Muhammad, and explaining how this led to the separation of Muslims from Christians and Jews as monotheists.

Muhammad and the Believers

Author: Fred M. Donner
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674503759
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 301

Book Description
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.

The Crucible of Islam

Author: G. W. Bowersock
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674978218
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 120

Book Description
Little is known about Arabia in the sixth century, yet from this distant time and place emerged a faith and an empire that stretched from the Iberian peninsula to India. Today, Muslims account for nearly a quarter of the global population. A renowned classicist, G. W. Bowersock seeks to illuminate this obscure and dynamic period in the history of Islam—exploring why arid Arabia proved to be such fertile ground for Muhammad’s prophetic message, and why that message spread so quickly to the wider world. The Crucible of Islam offers a compelling explanation of how one of the world’s great religions took shape. “A remarkable work of scholarship.” —Wall Street Journal “A little book of explosive originality and penetrating judgment... The joy of reading this account of the background and emergence of early Islam is the knowledge that Bowersock has built it from solid stones... A masterpiece of the historian’s craft.” —Peter Brown, New York Review of Books

Mother of the Believers

Author: Kamran Pasha
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416580697
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 565

Book Description
Deep in the heart of seventh-century Arabia, a new prophet named Muhammad has arisen. As his message of enlightenment sweeps through Arabia and unifies the warring tribes, his young wife Aisha recounts Muhammad's astonishing transformation from prophet to warrior to statesman. But just after the moment of her husband's greatest triumph -- the conquest of the holy city of Mecca -- Muhammad falls ill and dies in Aisha's arms. A young widow, Aisha finds herself at the center of the new Muslim empire and becomes by turns a teacher, political leader, and warrior. Written in beautiful prose and meticulously researched, Mother of the Believer is the story of an extraordinary woman who was destined to help usher Islam into the world.

Muhammad and the People of the Book

Author: Sahaja Carimokam
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1453537856
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 567

Book Description
Muhammad and the People of Book by Sahaja Carimokam asks the question, what was the nature of Muhammad’s relationship to non-Muslims, particularly Jews and Christians, and how did it change over time? This work is based on a chronological reading of the chapters of the Qur’an supplemented with Muslim commentary literature and biographical materials on the life of Muhammad. Carimokam traces Muhammad’s evolving religious viewpoint based on his borrowings of primarily Jewish and some Christian traditional/apocryphal materials. He shows how Muhammad’s inaccurate and anachronistic rendition of Jewish traditional literature ensured that the Jews would reject him as a Prophet. This rejection lead to his ultimatum to the Jews early in the Medinan period of the Qur’an and culminated with his call to Jihad against all non-Muslims, including those Jews and Christians who refused to acknowledge his Prophethood. The origins of takfir, declaring Muslims to be non-Muslims, are considered. Comparisons are made of moderate and traditional interpreters of the Qur’an. Historical-critical issues regarding the background provided by Muslim historical propaganda is considered in one chapter. The book concludes with a controversial issue for the interpretation of Islamic law in the 21st century based on the actual canonical practices of Muhammad.

The Challenge of Islam to Christians

Author: David Pawson
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 195

Book Description
The Challenge of Islam to Christians is David Pawson's most important and perhaps his most sobering - prophetic message to date. Moral decline and erosion of a sense of ultimate truth have created a spiritual vacuum in the United Kingdom. Pawson believes Islam is better equipped than the Church to move into that gap and it is far more likely to become the country's dominant religion in the future. This book unpacks and explains the background behind Pawson's claims. and - crucially - sets out a positive blueprint for the Church's response. Christians must rediscover and demonstrate to society the three qualities that make Christianity unique: Reality. Relationship and Righteousness. This book is essential reading for all Christians.

Muhammad Reconsidered

Author: Anna Bonta Moreland
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268107270
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 215

Book Description
Muhammad Reconsidered rectifies the failures of scholarly attempts to understand Islam in the West and to take Islamic theology seriously. Engaging Islam from deep within the Christian tradition by addressing the question of the prophethood of Muhammad, Anna Bonta Moreland calls for a retrieval of Thomistic thought on prophecy. Without either appropriating the prophet as an unwitting Christian or reducing both Christianity and Islam to a common denominator, Moreland studies Muhammad within a Christian theology of revelation. This lens leads to a more sophisticated understanding of Islam, one that honors the integrity of the Catholic tradition and argues for the possibility in principle of Muhammad as a religious prophet. Moreland sets the stage for this inquiry through an intertextual reading of the key Vatican II documents on Islam and on Christian revelation. She then uses Aquinas's treatment of prophecy to address the case of whether Muhammad is a prophet in Christian terms. Muhammad Reconsidered examines the work of several Christian theologians, including W. Montgomery Watt, Hans Küng, Kenneth Cragg, David Kerr, and Jacques Jomier, O.P., and then draws upon the practice of analogical reasoning in the theology of religious pluralism to show that a term in one religion—in this case “prophecy”—can have purchase in another religious tradition. Muhammad Reconsidered not only is a constructive contribution to Catholic theology but also has enormous potential to help scholars reframe and comprehend Christian-Muslim relations.

This is Islam

Author: Jamal J. Elias
Publisher: Berkshire Publishing Group LLC
ISBN: 9781933782812
Category : Islam
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
"This Is Islam" presents a lively introduction to a religion that has a dramatic history and plays a crucial role in the world today. Designed for people unfamiliar with Islamic beliefs, rituals, and customs, it explains the history of Islam, the importance of Islamic law, and major sects including Sunnism, Shi'ism, and Sufism. "It is vital for our schools to teach what the religion of Islam is like and how it agrees and differs from Judaism, Christianity and other world religions. 'This Is Islam' serves that purpose with calm, cool, brief and authoritative explanations of the Islamic religion and of Muslim societies with all their variations." -William McNeill, professor emeritus of history, University of Chicago; author of 'The Rise of the West' (National Book Award) and 'The Human Web.'

The Lives of Muhammad

Author: Kecia Ali
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674050606
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
Kecia Ali delves into the many ways the Prophet’s life story has been told from the earliest days of Islam to the present, by both Muslims and non-Muslims. Emphasizing the major transformations since the nineteenth century, she shows that far from being mutually opposed, these various perspectives have become increasingly interdependent.