Abstract This study investigates the onomastic evidence surrounding the Prophet’s name, “Muhammad,” through a multidisciplinary approach encompassing pre-Islamic Arabian epigraphy, biblical and para-biblical literature, early Arab genealogical traditions, and Greco-Syriac documentary sources. The findings reveal that this name, while conspicuously rare within early Arabian genealogies, mainly appears among individuals with notable Jewish connections. The research posits that the prophetic name Mḥmd , imbued with connotations of “the one desired by heaven” and “the beloved by earthly dwellers,” was likely predisposed to messianic interpretations within the Jewish milieu of Late Antique Arabia. Notably, philological analysis suggests an original pronunciation of Maḥmid or Mḥammid for the name, indicating a striking phonological correspondence with the biblical term maḥmad ( מחמד ), as attested in Hosea 9:6.

Abstract This article examines the question of whether women could attain the status of prophet within classical Islamic thought, with a focus on the exegetical ( tafsīr ) tradition. While this topic, and particularly Marian prophethood, has attracted significant scholarly attention in recent years, earlier investigations were limited to a small selection of authors and only a few verses on which they commented. By contrast, I follow the issue across the wide sweep of exegesis, incorporating a broader range of commentators and the views they express on a variety of verses and figures in the Qurʾān and Islamic tradition (including not just Mary but also Āsiyah, the wife of Pharaoh; Moses’ mother; Sarah; and others). This survey questions the widespread idea that the exegetes of al-Andalus argued in favor of Marian prophethood, showing that some opposed it and that their treatment of the issue was often contradictory. Lastly, I turn to parallel discussions within works of kalām and ḥadīth commentaries, which contextualize developments within tafsīr .

Abstract This article offers the first critical edition and English translation of an eighth/fourteenth-century treatise by al-Sharīf Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Tilimsānī (d. 771/1370), composed in reply to theological and philosophical questions from his colleague – and fellow student of the Maghribī philosopher Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ābilī al-Ābilī (d. 757/1356) – Sharaf al-Dīn Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Rahūnī (d. ca. 773-775/1372-1374). Preserved in later biographical, hagiographical, and legal compilations, the text captures the intellectual vibrancy of fourteenth-century Tlemcen, where legal theory, kalām , and philosophy intersected. Structured around four “problems,” it clarifies when a subject’s existence is required in affirmative versus negative propositions; distinguishes the “possibility of eternity” from the “eternity of possibility” in debates on the world’s duration; asks whether an infinite aggregate of possibles can ground its own causality; and probes whether internal speech is merely a mental relation or an eternal divine attribute. Drawing on a broad rationalist lineage – from al-Fārābī (d. 339/950) through Ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037) to the post-Avicennian elaborations of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210), Ibn al-Ḥājib (d. 646/1249), and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) – the treatise showcases the sophistication of late Maghribī kalām , the fluid circulation of rationalist ideas, and the catalytic role of al-Ābilī’s circle in the post-classical intellectual renewal of the Islamic West.