Islam In Late Antiquity Research Articles

From the Mishnah to Muḥammad

The copious amount of what appear to be biblical borrowings in the Qur’an has long sparked scholars’ interest in the social and religious background to formative Islam in Late Antiquity. Conventionally, this phenomenon has mainly been explained through claims of direct influence on the Prophet Muḥammad by Arabian Jews who acted as conduits of rabbinic or other types of Jewish lore—claims seemingly confirmed by numerous examples of the Qur’an’s direct address to Jews, “Israelites,” or “People of Scripture” more generally. Progress in illuminating the Jewish context of Islam in the formative period has been hampered in recent decades by two problems: a dearth of evidence corroborating the traditional sources on the Arabian Jewish community in Muḥammad’s time and a general uncertainty regarding Muḥammad’s role as the putative source of the Qur’an (or even his basic historicity). Most scholars now reject a simplistic conception of Jewish influence on Muḥammad as author of the Qur’an, but consensus on a convincing alternative model of qur’anic origins has been elusive. Here, I will evaluate a number of approaches to the authorship of the Qur’an as well as to different types of biblical-Judaic materials adapted and reinterpreted therein. I will argue that the Qur’an not only engages a variety of scriptural and parascriptural precursors from Late Antiquity—Christian as well as Jewish—but reshapes and repurposes them in diverse, even incommensurate, ways. I conclude that no single model of qur’anic reception of such precursors is adequate to account for the diversity of its modes of engagement with its late antique intertexts and suggest that a source-critical approach rooted in a concept of prophetic editorial activity is perhaps the most plausible way to conceptualize this diversity, at least provisionally.

Philosophy as a ‘Resisting Identity’?: Taha Abdurrahman, Fethi al-Meskini, and Aziz al-Azmeh in Dialogue on Modernist Arab Philosophy

This study examines the thesis of the contemporary Moroccan philosopher Taha Abdurrahman (b. 1944) concerning the formation of a modernist Arab philosophy that explicitly contrasts with contemporary Western philosophy. Abdurrahman argues that such a philosophy can be the basis for a new Arab philosophical identity that preserves the intellectual autonomy of Arab peoples and resists what he characterizes as undesirable external influences. This article is composed of three sections. It begins by offering a systematic and descriptive presentation of this thesis from Taha Abdurrahman through a close reading of his 2002 book, The Arab Right to Philosophical Difference (al-Ḥaqq al-‘Arabī fī al-Ikhtilāf al-Falsafī). It then offers a critical and dialogical deconstruction of this thesis by placing it in interlocution with similar approaches to identity and the self that appear in Fethi al-Meskini’s (b. 1961) book, Identity and Freedom: Towards New Enlightenments (al-Huwīyya w’al-Ḥurīyya: Naḥwa Anwār Jadīda, 2011), and Aziz al-Azmeh’s (b. 1947) study of Islamic thought as a historical phenomenon, specifically in his book, The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity (2014). Following the discussion of these authors’ approaches to Arab intellectual culture and identity, this article concludes by assessing the validity and plausibility of Abdurrahman’s thesis in light of the works of the other two scholars.

Quranic Christology in Late Antiquity. ‘Isa ibn Maryam and His Divine Power (Energeia) in the Islamic Revelation

Christology and monotheism have been dogmatically linked in the long history of Islam-Christian dialogue since the beginning of the 8th century. The Qur’an, in an analytical perception of religious otherness, specifically in relation to Christianity, assumed a dual discernment: on the one hand, it adopts a sceptical position because Christians are assimilationist (2: 120, 135, 145; 5: 51), sectarian and made Jesus the son of God (4: 171; 5: 14–19, 73; 9: 30; 18: 4–5; 21: 26); on the other hand, they are commended over the Jews and ‘Isa ibn Maryam has been strengthened with the Holy Spirit by God himself (2: 59, 62, 87, 253; 3: 48; 5: 47, 73, 82, 85, 110). The importance of enforcing the consciousness of a Quranic Christology, specifically where it concerned the potential influence that Christological doctrines such as adoptionism and monoenergism had on early Islam in late antiquity, where it was based on the proto- Islamic understanding of Jesus, and where it was rooted in Patristic orthodox-unorthodox debates, fell into oblivion. How was the Quranic canonization process affected by the ongoing Christological debates of the 7th century? Could Heraclius’ monoenergism have played a concrete influence on Quranic Christology? And in which way did early Kalam debates on God’s speech and will remain linked to Quranic Christology?

Review: The Golden Calf between Bible and Qur’an: Scripture, Polemic, and Exegesis from Late Antiquity to Islam, by Michael Pregill

Review: <i>The Golden Calf between Bible and Qur’an: Scripture, Polemic, and Exegesis from Late Antiquity to Islam</i>, by Michael Pregill

Al-Azmeh Aziz, The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity. Allāh and His People, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014, 634 p.

L’apparition d’un nouveau monotheisme en Arabie au VIIe siecle de notre ere demeure sans doute un des themes historiographiques les plus polemiques de notre epoque. Aziz Al-Azmeh offre sa contribution au debat en proposant de lire la genese de l’islam dans son contexte tardo-antique. Cette approche, qui n’est pas nouvelle en soi, a souvent conduit a mettre en exergue les influences des autres monotheismes sur la nouvelle religion. Les investigations de l’auteur le conduisent a des conclusions...

The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allāh and His People, by Aziz al-Azmeh

The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allāh and His People, by Aziz al-Azmeh

Conversion, Exemption, and Manipulation: Social Benefits and Conversion to Islam in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

The choice of individuals and groups to embrace Islam in the first few centuries after its emergence is rightfully considered an act that was charged with spiritual meaning. At the same time, however, the act also brought with it dramatic implications for the configuration of communities whose social and political structures were dictated by theological ideologies, scriptural traditions and memories of primordial pasts. In this essay, I wish to focus on the social aspects of conversion to Islam, particularly on how shifts in confessional affiliation were prompted by social concerns. Once they entered into the Islamic fold, the new converts were able to enjoy a variety of benefits and exemptions from burdens that had been imposed on them as non-Muslims. Yet conversion to Islam did not only offer exemption from taxes or liberation from slavery. In the final part of this essay, I attempt to show that conversion to Islam, or even its mere prospect, could be used for obtaining various favours in the course of negotiations for social improvement. An ecclesiastical authorization to divorce without legal justification, the release of a Jewish widow from her levirate bonds, and the evasion of penal sanctions are examples of some of the exemptions that were sought out or issued in response to conversion to Islam. In the period under discussion, in the context of a social setting that was founded on confessional affiliation, conversion to Islam signalled a social opportunity that was at times manipulated by individuals for the sake of improving their personal status.

The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity

A book review of The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity.

Aziz al-Azmeh.The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allāh and His People.

Aziz al-Azmeh.The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allāh and His People.