Early Islam has emerged as a lively site of historical investigation, and scholars have challenged the traditional accounts of Islamic origins by drawing attention to the wealth of non-Islamic sources that describe the rise of Islam. A Prophet Has Appeared brings this approach to the classroom. This collection provides students and scholars with carefully selected, introduced, and annotated materials from non-Islamic sources dating to the early years of Islam. These can be read alone or alongside the Qur'an and later Islamic materials. Applying historical-critical analysis, the volume moves these invaluable sources to more equal footing with later Islamic narratives about Muhammad and the formation of his new religious movement.

This book is a ‘curated’ anthology of what the curator considers to be witnesses to the momentous events associated with the early, Paleo-Muslim phase of the emergence of a new world religion, Islam, associated with the dominion of Arab imperial dynasties. It consists of translations of works by twenty authors thought by the editor and commentator, Steven Shoemaker, to be contemporary or near-contemporary with the events narrated. Each text or group of textual fragments is preceded by an introduction speaking of author, authorship, composition of texts presented and some salient matters of content, and followed by a copious commentary.

The anthology, as the compiler suggests, is meant to fill in a gap. In the most immediate sense, this gap is one of linguistic register; an already existing anthology of texts in languages other than Arabic has texts translated from Syriac, whereas this one includes text from Syriac, Georgian, Armenian, Greek, Hebrew and Latin. Shoemaker informs the reader that his choice of material was driven by testimonial quality, this being determined by dating to the first century of the Hijra, and by conveying testimonials about the beliefs and practices of Paleo-Muslims. The texts come from very wide afield in the region, and little speaks for actual witness. Interestingly, first-hand witnesses from close quarters such as Sophronius are long on jeremiads and the prolix use of standard motifs and commonplaces found in this type of writing, but short on content.

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A Prophet Has Appeared - Stephen J. Shoemaker

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