How It Evolved

The receipts

Sources on Islam: primary texts and scholarly books

This site's premise is that no claim about the history of a religion should be made without showing what it rests on. Below are the 192 primary sources cited across the chapters and question pages (Qur'an verses, hadith, early Arabic inscriptions, coins, papyri, manuscripts, chronicles, laws and statements), followed by the 253 works of scholarship behind the interpretations.

Primary sources

In chronological order of the source itself, not of when it was written down. Every row links to the section that uses it and, where one exists, to somewhere you can read or see it: read the text goes to a free edition of the work (not a permalink to the individual verse, which rarely exists), about to a reference page on a site, artefact or law.

  1. Herodotus, Histories 3.8 Herodotus, Histories text c. 430 BCE about ↗ The Arabs call Dionysus Orotalt and the heavenly Aphrodite (Urania) Alilat. Greek cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  2. Hegra (Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ), JSNab 17 Epitaph of Raqūsh inscription 267 CE about ↗ A funerary inscription at Hegra in the Arabic language written in Nabataean letters: the oldest dated text in Arabic. Arabic in Nabataean script cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  3. Namāra inscription (Louvre, AO 4083) Epitaph of Imruʾ al-Qays son of ʿAmr inscription 7 Kaslūl 223 of Bostra = 7 December 328 CE about ↗ Funerary monument of Imruʾ al-Qays, 'king of the Arabs', listing campaigns to Najrān and the tribes who 'became phylarchs for the Romans'. Arabic in Nabataean script cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  4. Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History 6.38 Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History text c. 440s CE about ↗ Queen Mavia's war with Rome and her demand for the monk Moses as bishop; the Saracens as descendants of Ishmael and Hagar, some of whom 'inclined to the Hebrew customs and laws'. Greek cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  5. Zabad inscription (Brussels, Art & History Museum) Trilingual lintel of the martyrium of St Sergius at Zabad inscription 823 of the Seleucid era = 512 CE about ↗ Greek, Syriac and Paleo-Arabic texts at a Christian shrine near Aleppo; the Arabic names the Arab Christians associated with its building. Greek, Syriac and Arabic cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  6. Biʾr Ḥimā inscriptions of Yūsuf Asʾar Yathʾar's commanders (Ja 1028, Ry 507, Ry 508) Sabaic campaign inscriptions inscription c. 523 CE about ↗ Record Yūsuf's campaign against the Aksumites and their allies, including Najrān, with totals of the dead, prisoners and livestock. Sabaic cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  7. Letter of Simeon of Beth Arsham Simeon of Beth Arsham, Letter on the Ḥimyarite martyrs letter c. 524 CE about ↗ A Miaphysite bishop's account, written soon after the event from news received at the Lakhmid court, of the killing of the Christians of Najrān. Syriac cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  8. Jabal Usays inscription Graffito of Ruqaym son of Maʿarrif inscription 423 of Bostra = 528–529 CE about ↗ 'Al-Ḥārith the king sent me to Usays as a frontier guard': the only material evidence of Jafnid control on the ground. Paleo-Arabic cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  9. CIH 541 (the Marib dam inscription) Inscription of Abraha inscription 548 CE about ↗ Abraha records the suppression of a revolt, the repair of the Marib dam and envoys from Aksum, Rome, Persia, the Ghassanids and the Lakhmids. Sabaic cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  10. Ry 506 (Murayghān 1) Inscription of Abraha inscription 552 CE about ↗ 'With Raḥmānān's might and that of His Messiah' Abraha raids Maʿadd for the fourth time; battle with the Banū ʿĀmir. Sabaic cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  11. Murayghān 3 Inscription of Abraha inscription after 552 CE about ↗ Abraha claims to have 'seized all the Arabs of Maʿadd and Hagar and Khaṭṭ and Ṭayy and Yathrib and Guzām'. Sabaic cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  12. Ḥarrān inscription (Lejā, Syria) Dedication of the martyrium of St John by Sharaḥīl son of Ẓālim inscription 463 of Bostra = 568 CE about ↗ A phylarch's bilingual dedication of a martyr's shrine, among the earliest examples of the Arabic script. Greek and Paleo-Arabic cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  13. Birmingham Qur'an manuscript (Cadbury Research Library, Mingana Islamic Arabic 1572a) Two parchment leaves of the Qur'an, suras 18–20 manuscript parchment radiocarbon 568–645 CE about ↗ Two ḥijāzī-script leaves radiocarbon dated by the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit to 568–645 CE (95.4%); part of the same codex as Paris BnF Arabe 328(c). Arabic cited in §00 cited in §03 §00 How We Know
  14. Qurʾan 96:1–5 The Qur'an verse c. 610 CE (by tradition) read the text ↗ 'Read! In the name of your Lord who created': by tradition the first revelation; God teaches 'by the pen'. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  15. Qurʾan 30:2–4 Qurʾan, Sūrat al-Rūm verse 7th c. CE read the text ↗ 'The Romans have been defeated in the nearest land…': the Qur'an's one checkable reference to a contemporary event, the Persian conquest of 613–614. Arabic cited in §00 cited in §01 cited in §04 §00 How We Know
  16. Qur'an 105 The Qur'an scripture early 7th c. CE about ↗ Sūrat al-Fīl: God's destruction of 'the army of the elephant' with birds and stones. Arabic cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  17. Qur'an 106 The Qur'an scripture early 7th c. CE about ↗ Sūrat Quraysh: the tribe's 'winter and summer journeys' and the 'Lord of this House'. Arabic cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  18. Qur'an 85:4–8 The Qur'an scripture early 7th c. CE about ↗ 'Damned were the makers of the trench', who burned believers for their faith; traditionally linked with Najrān. Arabic cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  19. Qur'an 50:16 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE read the text ↗ 'We are closer to him than his jugular vein': God's nearness to the self, a favourite verse of the mystics. Arabic cited in §07 §07 The Mystics: Sufism
  20. Qur'an 29:61 The Qur'an scripture early 7th c. CE about ↗ The disbelievers, asked who created the heavens and earth, 'are sure to say, God'. Arabic cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  21. Qurʾan 75:16–19 The Qur'an verse c. 610–632 CE read the text ↗ The prophet is told not to hurry his tongue: God will see to the text's 'collection and recitation'. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  22. Qurʾan 25:32 The Qur'an verse c. 610–632 CE read the text ↗ Critics ask why the Qur'an was not sent down all at once; it was given 'in gradual revelation'. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  23. Qurʾan 15:9 The Qur'an verse c. 610–632 CE read the text ↗ God has sent down the 'Reminder' and will guard it: the basis of the doctrine of the text's preservation. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  24. Qurʾan 85:21–22 The Qur'an verse c. 610–632 CE read the text ↗ 'A glorious Qur'an [written] on a preserved Tablet': the Qur'an's heavenly original. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  25. Qurʾan 2:106 The Qur'an verse c. 610–632 CE read the text ↗ Revelations 'superseded or forgotten' are replaced with something better or similar: the basis of the theory of abrogation. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  26. Qurʾan 87:6–7 The Qur'an verse c. 610–632 CE read the text ↗ The prophet will be taught and will not forget, 'unless God wishes'. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  27. Qurʾan 29:48 The Qur'an verse c. 610–632 CE read the text ↗ The prophet never recited a scripture before this one nor wrote one with his hand. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  28. Qurʾan 16:103 The Qur'an verse c. 610–632 CE read the text ↗ Answering the charge that a man teaches Muhammad: that man's language is foreign, this revelation 'clear Arabic'. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  29. Qurʾan 2:23 The Qur'an verse c. 610–632 CE read the text ↗ The challenge to doubters to produce a single sura like the Qur'an. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  30. Qurʾan 19:16–17 The Qur'an verse c. 610–632 CE read the text ↗ Mary withdraws to a place to the east, and God's Spirit appears to her as a man: the annunciation. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  31. Qurʾan 4:157 The Qur'an verse c. 610–632 CE read the text ↗ 'They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, though it was made to appear like that to them.' Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  32. Qurʾan 18:9–26 The Qur'an verse c. 610–632 CE read the text ↗ The Companions of the Cave: the Christian legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, retold without names or place. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  33. Qurʾan 18:83–98 The Qur'an verse c. 610–632 CE read the text ↗ Dhū l-Qarnayn travels to the setting and rising sun and builds a barrier against Gog and Magog; widely identified with Alexander. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  34. Qurʾan 53:19–23 The Qur'an verse c. 610–632 CE read the text ↗ The goddesses al-Lāt, al-ʿUzzā and Manāt dismissed as 'names you have invented': the setting of the Satanic verses reports. Arabic cited in §01 cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  35. Qurʾan 22:52 The Qur'an verse c. 610–632 CE read the text ↗ Satan insinuated into the wishes of every prophet, 'but God removes what Satan insinuates'. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  36. Qur'an 33:40 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE (recited); standard text c. 650 read the text ↗ Muhammad is 'God's Messenger and the seal of the prophets'; one of the four places the Qur'an names him. Arabic cited in §02 cited in §10 §02 Muhammad
  37. Qur'an 48:29 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE (recited); standard text c. 650 read the text ↗ 'Muhammad is the Messenger of God': the Qur'an names him and describes his followers. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  38. Qur'an 7:157 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE (recited); standard text c. 650 read the text ↗ 'The unlettered prophet' (al-nabī al-ummī), described in the Torah and the Gospel. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  39. Qur'an 106:1-4 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE (recited); standard text c. 650 read the text ↗ The Qur'an names Quraysh and ties their security and journeys to 'the Lord of this House'. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  40. Qur'an 3:123 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE (recited); standard text c. 650 read the text ↗ 'God helped you at Badr': the only battle of Muhammad's lifetime the Qur'an names. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  41. Qur'an 33:26-27 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE (recited); standard text c. 650 read the text ↗ People of the Book who supported the besiegers are brought down from their strongholds; some killed, some taken captive; their land and goods passed on. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  42. Qur'an 59:2 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE (recited); standard text c. 650 read the text ↗ Those of the People of the Book who broke faith are driven from their homes 'at the first gathering of forces'; traditionally the Naḍīr. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  43. Qur'an 48:1 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE (recited); standard text c. 650 read the text ↗ 'We have opened up a path to clear triumph for you', traditionally read as referring to the truce of al-Ḥudaybiyya, 628. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  44. Qur'an 93:6-8 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE (recited); standard text c. 650 read the text ↗ 'Did He not find you an orphan and shelter you?' Consistent with the tradition's account of Muhammad's childhood. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  45. Qur'an 105:1 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE (recited); standard text c. 650 read the text ↗ 'How your Lord dealt with the army of the elephant': the event the tradition links with Muhammad's birth year. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  46. Qur'an 61:6 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE (recited); standard text c. 650 read the text ↗ Jesus announces 'a messenger to follow me whose name will be Aḥmad'. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  47. Qur'an 33:37 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE (recited); standard text c. 650 read the text ↗ The marriage of the prophet to the former wife of his adopted son Zayd (Zaynab bint Jaḥsh). Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  48. Qur'an 74:1-2 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE (recited); standard text c. 650 read the text ↗ 'You, wrapped in your cloak, arise and give warning!', placed by the tradition among the first revelations. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  49. Qur'an 96:1 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE (recited); standard text c. 650 read the text ↗ 'Read! In the name of your Lord who created', traditionally the first revelation. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  50. Qur'an 25:7 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE (recited); standard text c. 650 read the text ↗ Opponents ask: 'What sort of messenger is this? He eats food and walks about in the marketplaces!' Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  51. Qurʾan 45:18 The Qur'an verse c. 610–632 CE read the text ↗ 'We have set you on a clear religious path (sharīʿa), so follow it': the Qur'an's one use of the noun sharīʿa. Arabic cited in §06 §06 The Abbasids: Law, Hadith and Theology
  52. Qur'an 13:28 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE read the text ↗ 'In the remembrance of God hearts find peace': the Qur'anic root of dhikr, the central Sufi practice. Arabic cited in §07 §07 The Mystics: Sufism
  53. The 'Constitution of Medina' (Ibn Isḥāq via Ibn Hishām; Abū ʿUbayd, Kitāb al-Amwāl) Pacts between Muhammad, the believers of Quraysh and Yathrib, and their Jewish allies text c. 622–627 CE (preserved in 8th–9th c. works) about ↗ Declares the believers 'one community to the exclusion of other people', regulates blood-money by clan, and makes the Jews of Banū ʿAwf 'a community along with the believers; to the Jews their religion and to the Muslims theirs'. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  54. Qurʾan 3:144 Qurʾan, Sūrat Āl ʿImrān verse 7th c. CE read the text ↗ 'Muhammad is only a messenger; messengers have passed away before him': one of four places the Qur'an names Muhammad. Arabic cited in §00 cited in §02 §00 How We Know
  55. Qurʾan 3:18–19 Qurʾan, Sūrat Āl ʿImrān verse 7th c. CE read the text ↗ 'The religion with God is islām': quoted on the Dome of the Rock in 691–692. Arabic cited in §00 cited in §05 §00 How We Know
  56. Qur'an 3:67 The Qur'an scripture early 7th c. CE about ↗ Abraham 'was neither a Jew nor a Christian' but ḥanīf, 'upright', never an idolater. Arabic cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  57. Qur'an 3:96 The Qur'an scripture early 7th c. CE about ↗ 'The first House established for people' is the one at Bakka, identified with Mecca. Arabic cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  58. Qur'an 2:256 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE read the text ↗ 'There is no compulsion in religion: true guidance has become distinct from error.' Arabic cited in §04 cited in §13 §04 The Conquests and the First Caliphs
  59. Qur'an 5:54 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE read the text ↗ God will bring a people 'He loves and who love Him': the Qur'anic basis Sufis cited for mutual love between God and believers. Arabic cited in §07 §07 The Mystics: Sufism
  60. Qur'an 2:127 The Qur'an scripture early 7th c. CE about ↗ Abraham and Ishmael raise the foundations of the House and pray for it to be accepted. Arabic §01 Late Antique Arabia
  61. Qur'an 22:26 The Qur'an scripture early 7th c. CE about ↗ God shows Abraham the site of the House and tells him to purify it for worshippers. Arabic §01 Late Antique Arabia
  62. Qur'an 24:31 The Qur'an scripture early 7th c. CE about ↗ Believing women should guard their modesty and draw their head-coverings (khumur) over their necklines. Arabic §11 The Twentieth Century
  63. Qur'an 33:59 The Qur'an scripture early 7th c. CE about ↗ The Prophet's wives, daughters and believing women should draw their outer garments (jalābīb) close, to be recognised and not insulted. Arabic §11 The Twentieth Century
  64. Qur'an 33:53 The Qur'an scripture early 7th c. CE about ↗ Visitors should ask the Prophet's wives for things from behind a screen (ḥijāb). Arabic §11 The Twentieth Century
  65. Qur'an 17:1 The Qur'an scripture early 7th c. CE about ↗ God takes his servant by night from the sacred place of worship to the furthest place of worship (al-masjid al-aqṣā). Arabic §05 The Umayyads
  66. Qurʾan 4:171 Qurʾan, Sūrat al-Nisāʾ verse 7th c. CE read the text ↗ 'Do not say "Three"… God is only one God': the verse on Jesus quoted on the Dome of the Rock. Arabic cited in §00 cited in §05 §00 How We Know
  67. Qurʾan 4:59 The Qur'an verse c. 622–632 CE read the text ↗ 'Obey God and the Messenger, and those in authority among you'; disputes are to be referred to God and the Messenger. Arabic cited in §06 §06 The Abbasids: Law, Hadith and Theology
  68. Qurʾan 59:7 The Qur'an verse c. 622–632 CE read the text ↗ 'Accept whatever the Messenger gives you, and abstain from whatever he forbids you', in a verse on the division of gains. Arabic cited in §06 §06 The Abbasids: Law, Hadith and Theology
  69. Qur'an 9:29 The Qur'an scripture 610–632 CE read the text ↗ Fight the People of the Book who do not believe 'until they pay the tax (jizya) and agree to submit'. Arabic cited in §04 cited in §09 §04 The Conquests and the First Caliphs
  70. Doctrina Jacobi nuper baptizati V.16 Teaching of Jacob, Newly Baptised prose set in 634 CE; written c. 634 about ↗ A Jew reports that 'a prophet has appeared, coming with the Saracens', who claims the keys of paradise; the earliest reference to the prophet of the conquerors. Greek cited in §00 §00 How We Know
  71. Sophronius of Jerusalem, Christmas sermon (ed. H. Usener, Rheinisches Museum NF 41, 1886, pp. 500–16) Sophronius, Sermon on the Nativity sermon 25 December 634 about ↗ The patriarch of Jerusalem laments that Christians cannot go to Bethlehem for Christmas, 'bound by fear of the Saracens'. Greek cited in §04 §04 The Conquests and the First Caliphs
  72. al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, year 15 AH (trans. Y. Friedmann, The History of al-Ṭabarī XII, 1992) The guarantee (amān) of ʿUmar to the people of Aelia (Jerusalem) treaty 637 or 638 CE, as given in a text of the early 10th c. about ↗ ʿUmar's guarantee of safety to Jerusalem's inhabitants, their property, churches and crosses, as preserved by al-Ṭabarī with later additions. Arabic cited in §04 §04 The Conquests and the First Caliphs
  73. Thomas the Presbyter, Chronicle (British Library Add. MS 14,643) Syriac Chronicle of 640 prose c. 640 CE (manuscript copied 724) about ↗ Records a battle on 4 February 634 between the Romans and 'the Arabs of Muhammad' twelve miles east of Gaza: the earliest datable text to name Muhammad. Syriac cited in §00 cited in §02 cited in §04 §00 How We Know
  74. PERF 558 (Austrian National Library, Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer) Greek–Arabic receipt from Herakleopolis text Jumādā I 22 AH / 25 April 643 CE about ↗ Receipt by the commander ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jābir for 65 sheep; the earliest dated Arabic papyrus, dated by the Hijri era, with dotted letters; the Greek calls the Arabs magaritai. Arabic and Greek cited in §00 cited in §02 cited in §03 cited in §04 §00 How We Know
  75. Inscription of Zuhayr, Qāʿ al-Muʿtadil near al-ʿUlā Rock graffito inscription 24 AH / 644–645 CE about ↗ 'I, Zuhayr, wrote [this] at the time ʿUmar died in the year four and twenty': the earliest dated Islamic inscription, with dotted letters. Arabic cited in §00 cited in §04 §00 How We Know
  76. Ṣanʿāʾ 1 palimpsest (Dār al-Makhṭūṭāt, DAM 01-27.1) Qur'an palimpsest from the Great Mosque of Ṣanʿāʾ manuscript 7th c. CE (lower text) about ↗ Found in 1972; the erased lower text is a non-ʿUthmānic Qur'an with variant wording and sura order, overwritten with the standard text. Arabic cited in §00 cited in §03 §00 How We Know
  77. Tübingen University Library, Ma VI 165 Kufic Qur'an fragment manuscript parchment radiocarbon 649–675 CE about ↗ Fragment acquired from the Wetzstein collection in 1864, radiocarbon dated in Zürich to 649–675 CE (above 95%), announced 2014. Arabic cited in §00 cited in §03 §00 How We Know
  78. Khuzistan Chronicle (Guidi Chronicle), ed. I. Guidi, 1903 Anonymous Syriac chronicle from Khuzistan chronicle no later than the 660s about ↗ Covers c. 590–660, including the Arab conquest of Susa and Shushtar, and names Muhammad as leader of the sons of Ishmael. Syriac cited in §04 §04 The Conquests and the First Caliphs
  79. History attributed to Sebeos (trans. R. W. Thomson and J. Howard-Johnston, 1999) Armenian History prose soon after 661 CE about ↗ Describes Mahmet, a merchant of the sons of Ishmael, who taught the Arabs the God of Abraham, followed by an account of the conquests. Armenian cited in §00 cited in §02 §00 How We Know
  80. Greek inscription in the baths of Hammat Gader Building inscription of the governor ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Hāshim inscription 5 December 662 CE (42 AH) read the text ↗ Dates a restoration 'in the days of the servant of God Muʿāwiya, the commander of the faithful' and 'according to the Arabs, the 42nd year'; carved with a cross. Greek cited in §05 §05 The Umayyads
  81. Maronite Chronicle, on Muʿāwiya's accession Maronite Chronicle (Syriac) chronicle c. 660s CE about ↗ The Arab chiefs give allegiance to Muʿāwiya in Jerusalem; he prays at Christian holy places and 'did not wear a crown like other kings'. Syriac cited in §05 §05 The Umayyads
  82. Paris, BnF Arabe 328a–b; St Petersburg, NLR Marcel 18; Vatican, Vat. Ar. 1605/1; Khalili KFQ 60 Codex Parisino-petropolitanus manuscript c. 650–700 CE (palaeography) about ↗ 118 surviving leaves, about 45% of the text, copied by five scribes; dated by Déroche to the third quarter of the seventh century. Arabic (ḥijāzī script) cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  83. Dam inscription of Muʿāwiya near al-Ṭāʾif Building inscription inscription 58 AH / 677–678 CE about ↗ Records the dam built for 'the servant of God Muʿāwiya, commander of the believers' in the year fifty-eight; names God and the caliph, not Muhammad. Arabic cited in §00 cited in §04 cited in §05 §00 How We Know
  84. Arab-Sasanian drachm of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿAbd Allāh, Bīshāpūr (British Museum) Silver coin coin 66 AH / 685–686 CE about ↗ Margin legend 'bism Allāh Muḥammad rasūl Allāh': the earliest dated Muslim text to name Muhammad, struck for a Zubayrid governor. Arabic and Middle Persian cited in §00 cited in §02 cited in §05 §00 How We Know
  85. John of Nikiu, Chronicle, chs. CXI–CXXI (trans. R. H. Charles, 1916) John of Nikiu, Chronicle chronicle c. 690 CE (Ethiopic version 1602) read the text ↗ A Coptic bishop's account of the Arab conquest of Egypt: the treaty for Alexandria, ʿAmr's taxes, his protection of churches, and early converts to Islam. Ethiopic (Geʿez), from Arabic, from Greek or Coptic cited in §04 §04 The Conquests and the First Caliphs
  86. Dome of the Rock, inner arcade inscription Foundation inscription of ʿAbd al-Malik inscription 72 AH / 691–692 CE about ↗ Monumental kufic band of Qur'anic passages on God's oneness and Jesus as messenger (4:171, 3:18–19, 19:33–36), dated 72; the founder's name was later replaced by al-Maʾmūn's. Arabic cited in §00 cited in §03 cited in §05 §00 How We Know
  87. Road inscription of ʿAbd al-Malik near Fīq (ʿAqabat Fīq), Golan Arabic road-building inscription inscription Muḥarram 73 AH / May–June 692 CE read the text ↗ ʿAbd al-Malik, commander of the believers, orders a difficult pass levelled; the work done by Yaḥyā ibn al-Ḥakam. The oldest Islamic inscription on road building. Arabic cited in §05 §05 The Umayyads
  88. 'Standing caliph' dinar of ʿAbd al-Malik, Damascus Arab-Byzantine gold dinar coin 76 AH / 695–696 CE read the text ↗ A standing caliph with sword; 'In the name of God. There is no god but God alone. Muhammad is the messenger of God'; 'this dinar was struck in the year 76'. Arabic cited in §05 §05 The Umayyads
  89. Reformed gold dinar of ʿAbd al-Malik Aniconic Umayyad coinage coin 77 AH / 696–697 CE about ↗ The first purely epigraphic coins: the shahāda and Qur'an 9:33 on the obverse, sura 112 on the reverse, the date and no images. Arabic cited in §00 cited in §05 §00 How We Know
  90. John of Damascus, On Heresies 100 Fount of Knowledge, part 2 prose c. 740s CE about ↗ The chapter on 'the heresy of the Ishmaelites', an early Christian polemic against Islam. Greek cited in §05 §05 The Umayyads
  91. Ibn Isḥāq, Sīrat Rasūl Allāh The Life of Muhammad (recension of Ibn Hishām) prose mid-8th c. CE (Ibn Hishām's recension, early 9th c.) about ↗ The earliest surviving Muslim biography of Muhammad; source for his alliance and conflicts with the Jewish tribes of Medina (Qaynuqāʿ, Naḍīr, Qurayẓa) and the conquest of Khaybar. Arabic cited in §00 cited in §01 cited in §02 cited in §04 §00 How We Know
  92. Mālik ibn Anas, al-Muwaṭṭaʾ Mālik ibn Anas, al-Muwaṭṭaʾ (recension of Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā al-Laythī) prose before 795 CE read the text ↗ The oldest surviving book of Islamic law: reports of the Prophet, companions and successors set beside the practice of Medina. Arabic cited in §06 §06 The Abbasids: Law, Hadith and Theology
  93. Timothy I, Dialogue with the caliph al-Mahdi Apology of Timothy the Patriarch before the caliph Mahdi prose c. 782 CE about ↗ The patriarch's written account of his debate with the caliph on the Trinity and on Muhammad. Syriac (and Arabic) cited in §06 §06 The Abbasids: Law, Hadith and Theology
  94. Tashkent, Muslim Board of Uzbekistan: the Samarkand Kufic Qur'an Samarkand Kufic Qur'an manuscript 8th–9th c. CE about ↗ Venerated as ʿUthmān's own copy; palaeography and radiocarbon place it in the eighth or ninth century. Arabic (Kufic script) cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  95. Hishām ibn al-Kalbī, Kitāb al-Aṣnām The Book of Idols text early 9th c. CE about ↗ The fullest Muslim account of pre-Islamic Arabian gods: al-Lāt at Ṭāʾif, al-ʿUzzā at Nakhla, Manāt, Hubal in the Kaʿba, ʿAmr ibn Luḥayy. Arabic cited in §01 §01 Late Antique Arabia
  96. al-Shāfiʿī, al-Risāla Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī, The Epistle on Legal Theory prose before 820 CE about ↗ The first surviving work of Islamic legal theory: the Prophet's sunna, known by soundly transmitted reports, is binding alongside the Qur'an; consensus and analogy follow. Arabic cited in §06 §06 The Abbasids: Law, Hadith and Theology
  97. al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, the letters of al-Maʾmūn on the miḥna (year 218 AH) al-Ṭabarī, The History of al-Ṭabarī, vol. 32, trans. C. E. Bosworth prose 833 CE (letters); early 10th c. (history) about ↗ al-Maʾmūn orders his governor in Baghdad to test judges and scholars on the createdness of the Qur'an and to dismiss those who refuse. Arabic cited in §06 §06 The Abbasids: Law, Hadith and Theology
  98. Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt al-kabīr, vol. 1 (the gharānīq report) al-Ṭabaqāt al-kabīr prose before 845 CE about ↗ Reports that Muhammad recited words praising the three goddesses before Gabriel corrected him. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  99. Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt al-kabīr Ibn Saʿd, The Great Book of Generations book before 845 CE about ↗ The earliest large biographical dictionary of the Prophet, his family and companions; vol. 1 on Muhammad, vol. 8 on the women, including his wives. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  100. Pact of Umar (al-Ṭurṭūshī, Sirāj al-Mulūk) Pact of Umar (Shurūṭ ʿUmar) prose 9th c. CE (form); attributed to Umar I, 634–644 about ↗ Conditions on non-Muslim subjects, framed as a letter from Christians to the caliph Umar: no new churches or synagogues, distinctive dress, no riding on saddles or bearing arms. Surviving versions are later than Umar; a legal ideal, enforced unevenly. Arabic cited in §04 cited in §05 cited in §06 §04 The Conquests and the First Caliphs
  101. al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ 4986 Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān prose compiled before 870 CE read the text ↗ Zayd ibn Thābit's account of collecting the Qur'an for Abū Bakr after al-Yamāma, 'from palm stalks, thin white stones' and men's memories. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  102. al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ 4987 Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān prose compiled before 870 CE read the text ↗ ʿUthmān has Zayd and three Qurashīs copy Ḥafṣa's sheets, sends a copy to every province and orders other copies burned. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  103. al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ 4992 Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān prose compiled before 870 CE read the text ↗ ʿUmar and Hishām ibn Ḥakīm recite sura 25 differently; the prophet approves both: the Qur'an was revealed in 'seven aḥruf'. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  104. al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ 5133 al-Bukhārī, al-Jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ, Book of Marriage book compiled before 870 CE read the text ↗ ʿĀʾisha reports (via Hishām ibn ʿUrwa from his father) that the Prophet married her at six and consummated the marriage at nine, and that she was with him nine years. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  105. al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ 3894 al-Bukhārī, al-Jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ, Merits of the Anṣār book compiled before 870 CE read the text ↗ ʿĀʾisha's longer account, via Hishām ibn ʿUrwa: engaged at six, playing on a swing when her mother prepared her for the marriage in Medina. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  106. al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ 3896 al-Bukhārī, al-Jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ, Merits of the Anṣār book compiled before 870 CE read the text ↗ ʿUrwa (via Hishām) dates Khadīja's death three years before the hijra and the contract with ʿĀʾisha after it. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  107. al-Bukhārī, al-Jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī book compiled before 870 CE read the text ↗ The most authoritative Sunni hadith collection, made with the classical tools of isnād criticism. Arabic cited in §00 cited in §06 §00 How We Know
  108. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ 1422 (four reports) Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj, al-Musnad al-ṣaḥīḥ, Book of Marriage book compiled before 875 CE read the text ↗ Four versions of ʿĀʾisha's age: two via Hishām ibn ʿUrwa; one via al-Zuhrī from ʿUrwa (seven at the contract, nine with her dolls, eighteen at his death); one via al-Aʿmash, Ibrāhīm and al-Aswad. Arabic cited in §02 §02 Muhammad
  109. al-Bukhārī 3942 Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Book of the Merits of the Helpers text compiled before 870 CE read the text ↗ On arriving in Medina the Prophet found the Jews fasting on the tenth of Muḥarram and fasted on it too; the origin of the Sunni fast of ʿĀshūrāʾ. Arabic §05 The Umayyads
  110. al-Yaʿqūbī, Taʾrīkh, on the building of the Dome of the Rock al-Yaʿqūbī, History (trans. Guy Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, 1890) chronicle late 9th c. CE about ↗ ʿAbd al-Malik forbids Syrians the pilgrimage while Ibn al-Zubayr holds Mecca and declares the Rock 'in the place of the Kaʿba'. Arabic cited in §05 §05 The Umayyads
  111. al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk and Jāmiʿ al-bayān, on Q 22:52 (the gharānīq report) History of the Prophets and Kings; Commentary prose early 10th c. CE about ↗ Al-Ṭabarī's versions of the Satanic verses story, citing Ibn Isḥāq and other early authorities. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  112. al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk al-Ṭabarī, The History of Prophets and Kings book early 10th c. CE about ↗ The great annalistic history, preserving extracts of Ibn Isḥāq and other early narrators on Muhammad's life and death. Arabic cited in §02 cited in §04 §02 Muhammad
  113. al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, on Karbalāʾ (after Abū Mikhnaf) al-Ṭabarī, History of the Prophets and Kings chronicle early 10th c. CE, from Abū Mikhnaf (d. 774) about ↗ The fullest account of al-Ḥusayn's journey and death at Karbalāʾ on 10 Muḥarram 61 AH, preserved from the Kufan historian Abū Mikhnaf. Arabic cited in §05 §05 The Umayyads
  114. al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn Abū l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn prose before 936 CE about ↗ A survey of the opinions of Muslim sects and theologians by the founder of Ashʿarī theology, a former Muʿtazilī. Arabic cited in §06 §06 The Abbasids: Law, Hadith and Theology
  115. Ibn Mujāhid, Kitāb al-Sabʿa fī l-qirāʾāt Kitāb al-Sabʿa book before 936 CE about ↗ Selects seven readers of Mecca, Medina, Damascus, Basra and Kufa as the authoritative readings of the Qur'an. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  116. Saadia Gaon, Book of Beliefs and Opinions Kitāb al-Amānāt wa-l-Iʿtiqādāt (Hebrew: Emunot ve-Deʿot) prose 933 CE read the text ↗ The first systematic Jewish theology, using the methods of Muslim kalām. III.7: "our nation is a nation only by virtue of its laws", against the claim that the Torah had been abrogated. Judeo-Arabic cited in §06 §06 The Abbasids: Law, Hadith and Theology
  117. Ibn Bābawayh, Kamāl al-dīn wa-tamām al-niʿma, the final letter to al-Samarrī Ibn Bābawayh (al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq), Kamāl al-dīn prose 941 CE (letter); late 10th c. (compilation) about ↗ The hidden imam's last letter to his fourth agent: he will die in six days, appoint no successor, and 'the complete occultation has occurred'. Arabic cited in §06 §06 The Abbasids: Law, Hadith and Theology
  118. al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī prose completed c. 941 CE about ↗ The first of the four canonical Twelver hadith books, with more than 16,000 reports transmitted through the imams. Arabic cited in §06 §06 The Abbasids: Law, Hadith and Theology
  119. Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ fī l-taṣawwuf The Book of Flashes on Sufism text before 988 CE about ↗ One of the earliest surviving Sufi manuals: stations, states and a defence of the ecstatic sayings. Arabic cited in §07 §07 The Mystics: Sufism
  120. al-Muqaddasī, Aḥsan al-taqāsīm, on the mosque of Damascus and the Dome of the Rock al-Muqaddasī, The Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions (trans. Guy Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, 1890) geography 985 CE about ↗ His uncle explains al-Walīd's mosque and ʿAbd al-Malik's Dome as answers to Syria's churches and the Holy Sepulchre, 'lest it should dazzle the minds of the Muslims'. Arabic cited in §05 §05 The Umayyads
  121. Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist (al-Maʾmūn's dream of Aristotle) Ibn al-Nadīm, al-Fihrist prose 987 CE about ↗ al-Maʾmūn dreams that Aristotle tells him the good is what reason approves, then religious law, then public opinion; given as a cause of the translations. Arabic cited in §06 §06 The Abbasids: Law, Hadith and Theology
  122. Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī, Dhikr al-niswa al-mutaʿabbidāt al-ṣūfiyyāt Remembrance of the Women Devotees and Sufis text before 1021 CE about ↗ Short notices of early women ascetics and Sufis, including more than one woman called Rābiʿa; translated by Rkia Cornell as Early Sufi Women (1999). Arabic cited in §07 §07 The Mystics: Sufism
  123. al-Bīrūnī, Kitāb al-Hind, ch. 58 Alberuni's India, tr. Edward C. Sachau (London: Trübner, 1888), vol. 2, p. 103 text c. 1030 CE read the text ↗ "The image was destroyed by the Prince Mahmūd … A.H. 416." A scholar at Maḥmūd's own court records the destruction of the Somanātha liṅga in 1026 matter-of-factly. Arabic cited in §08 §08 Turks, Crusaders and Mongols
  124. al-Bīrūnī, Taḥqīq mā li-l-Hind, preface (trans. E. C. Sachau, Alberuni's India, 1888) Taḥqīq mā li-l-Hind (Kitāb al-Hind) book c. 1030 CE about ↗ 'I shall place before the reader the theories of the Hindus exactly as they are': a scholar of Maḥmūd of Ghazni's court sets out to describe Indian religion from its own texts. Arabic cited in §08 §08 Turks, Crusaders and Mongols
  125. al-Qushayrī, al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya fī ʿilm al-taṣawwuf al-Qushayrī's Epistle on Sufism text 437 AH / 1045–1046 CE about ↗ The most widely read Sufi handbook, written in Nishapur to show that the early masters held Ashʿarī Sunni beliefs; records al-Junayd's definition of Sufism and discusses the word ṣūfī. Arabic cited in §07 §07 The Mystics: Sufism
  126. ʿAlī al-Hujwīrī, Kashf al-maḥjūb The Unveiling of the Veiled text c. 1070s CE about ↗ The first treatise on Sufism in Persian, written in Lahore; the source of the classification of masters into 'sober' and 'intoxicated' schools. Persian cited in §07 §07 The Mystics: Sufism
  127. al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn The Revival of the Religious Sciences text c. 1096–1106 CE about ↗ Forty books in four quarters — worship, daily life, the vices that destroy, the virtues that save — placing Sufi discipline inside Sunni practice. Arabic cited in §07 §07 The Mystics: Sufism
  128. ʿAlī ibn Ṭāhir al-Sulamī, Kitāb al-jihād Kitāb al-jihād (The Book of Jihad) prose 1105 CE about ↗ Preached in the Great Mosque of Damascus: the Franks' conquest as part of a Christian offensive that had taken Sicily and Spain, and a call to unite and fight. Survives in two incomplete Damascus manuscripts. Arabic cited in §08 §08 Turks, Crusaders and Mongols
  129. al-Ghazālī, al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl The Deliverer from Error text after 1106 CE read the text ↗ Al-Ghazālī's account of his intellectual search, his crisis of Rajab 488 / July 1095 when 'God locked my tongue', his years of retreat, and his verdict that the Sufis travel the way of God. Arabic cited in §07 §07 The Mystics: Sufism
  130. Minbar of Nūr al-Dīn (al-Aqṣā mosque, Jerusalem) Carved wooden pulpit commissioned in Aleppo inscription 1168–1169 CE about ↗ Commissioned by Nūr al-Dīn for al-Aqṣā before Jerusalem was retaken; installed by Saladin after 1187; destroyed by arson on 21 August 1969; replica installed 2007. Arabic cited in §08 §08 Turks, Crusaders and Mongols
  131. Usāma ibn Munqidh, Kitāb al-iʿtibār (trans. P. K. Hitti, 1929) Kitāb al-iʿtibār (The Book of Contemplation) prose c. 1183 CE about ↗ A Syrian emir's anecdotes of the Franks, from their medicine to their courage, written for Saladin's circle; survives in a single Escorial manuscript. Arabic cited in §08 §08 Turks, Crusaders and Mongols
  132. Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār, Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ Memorial of the Saints text c. 1200 CE about ↗ Persian lives of the early saints; the main source of the famous stories about Rābiʿa, written about four centuries after her. Persian cited in §07 §07 The Mystics: Sufism
  133. Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fī l-taʾrīkh, year 617 AH (trans. E. G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia II, 1902, pp. 427–431) al-Kāmil fī l-taʾrīkh (The Complete History) prose 1220s CE about ↗ The Mosul historian's lament on the Mongol invasion of Central Asia: 'the greatest catastrophe and the most dire calamity… which befell all men generally, and the Muslims in particular.' Arabic cited in §08 §08 Turks, Crusaders and Mongols
  134. Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam The Ringstones of Wisdom text 1229 CE about ↗ Short work on the wisdom of twenty-seven prophets, the most commented and most attacked of Ibn ʿArabī's books. Arabic cited in §07 §07 The Mystics: Sufism
  135. Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya The Meccan Openings text begun c. 1202, revised to the 1230s about ↗ Ibn ʿArabī's encyclopaedic work of some 560 chapters on the path, the divine names and the self-disclosure of God. Arabic cited in §07 §07 The Mystics: Sufism
  136. Ṭabaqāt-i Nāṣirī (Raverty, vol. 1, p. 552) Minhāj al-Sirāj Jūzjānī prose c. 1260 CE about ↗ Muhammad Bakhtiyār Khalji's troops take a fortified 'Bihar', kill its shaven-headed inhabitants and find it full of books: a Buddhist monastery, probably Odantapurī, sacked around 1200. Persian cited in §08 §08 Turks, Crusaders and Mongols
  137. Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Masnavī-yi maʿnavī, ed. R. A. Nicholson The Spiritual Couplets text c. 1260–1273 CE read the text ↗ Rūmī's six-book didactic poem, opening with the lament of the reed flute cut from its reed-bed. Persian cited in §07 §07 The Mystics: Sufism
  138. Gravestone of Sultan Malik al-Ṣāliḥ, Samudra-Pasai (Aceh) Funerary inscription inscription 696 AH / 1297 CE about ↗ The earliest dated grave of a Muslim ruler in Southeast Asia, founder of the Samudra-Pasai sultanate on the north coast of Sumatra. Arabic cited in §08 cited in §09 §08 Turks, Crusaders and Mongols
  139. Ibn Taymiyya, fatwas on the Mongols (Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, vol. 28) Fatwas on fighting the Mongols prose 1299–1303 CE about ↗ The converted Ilkhanid Mongols, who judged by the yāsā rather than sharia, are to be fought as a group refusing the law of Islam, whatever they profess. Arabic cited in §08 §08 Turks, Crusaders and Mongols
  140. Terengganu Inscription Stone (Terengganu State Museum) Malay inscription in Jawi script inscription 702–789 AH (1303–1387 CE), date damaged about ↗ Proclaims the religion of the Prophet in the land and sets out rules of sharia; the oldest known Malay text in Arabic script; found 1887 at Kuala Berang. UNESCO Memory of the World, 2009. Malay (Jawi script) cited in §08 §08 Turks, Crusaders and Mongols
  141. Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh (Edinburgh University Library, Or. MS 20) Compendium of Chronicles manuscript early 14th c. CE about ↗ Illustrated copy from Rashīd al-Dīn's scriptorium in Tabriz with a cycle of paintings of Muhammad, among the earliest surviving. Arabic cited in §00 cited in §08 cited in §09 §00 How We Know
  142. Ibn Taymiyya, treatise on travelling to visit tombs (Ziyārat al-qubūr / Shadd al-riḥāl) On visiting graves text 1310 CE about ↗ Ibn Taymiyya's argument that travelling specifically to visit the tombs of prophets and saints is a forbidden innovation; the controversy led to his final imprisonment. Arabic cited in §07 §07 The Mystics: Sufism
  143. Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-ʿUmarī, Masālik al-abṣār, on Mali (in Levtzion and Hopkins, Corpus of Early Arabic Sources, 1981) Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār prose c. 1340 CE about ↗ Mansa Mūsā's spending in Cairo in 1324 lowered gold from 25 to under 22 dirhams a mithqāl for at least twelve years; information from the Cairene official Ibn Amīr Ḥājib. Arabic cited in §08 §08 Turks, Crusaders and Mongols
  144. Shah Ismāʿīl I's decree on the call to prayer, Tabriz, 1501 Safavid proclamation of Twelver Shiism decree 1501 CE about ↗ Ismāʿīl orders the Shia call to prayer, adding the testimony 'ʿAlī is God's friend', and the public cursing of the first three caliphs. Arabic cited in §09 §09 The Great Empires: Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals
  145. The maḥżar of 1579, in ʿAbd al-Qādir Badāʾūnī, Muntakhab al-tawārīkh Declaration of the Mughal scholars on Akbar's authority decree 1579 CE about ↗ Leading scholars recognise Akbar as a just ruler entitled to choose between conflicting opinions of the jurists in the interest of the state. Persian cited in §09 §09 The Great Empires: Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals
  146. Siyer-i Nebi, Ottoman illustrated manuscript for Murad III Life of the Prophet manuscript completed 1595 CE about ↗ Six-volume illustrated life of Muhammad completed in 1595, with 814 miniatures in which the Prophet's face is veiled. Ottoman Turkish cited in §00 cited in §09 §00 How We Know
  147. Aḥmad Sirhindī, Maktūbāt-i Imām-i Rabbānī Letters of Aḥmad Sirhindī letter c. 1600–1624 CE about ↗ Letters to disciples and Mughal nobles urging strict application of the sharīʿa, opposing non-Muslims in high office and rejecting the 'unity of being'. Persian cited in §09 §09 The Great Empires: Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals
  148. al-Fatāwā al-ʿĀlamgīriyya (Fatāwā-yi ʿĀlamgīrī) Ḥanafī legal compendium compiled for Aurangzeb law 1660s–1670s CE about ↗ A commission of scholars under Shaykh Niẓām Burhānpūrī compiles Ḥanafī rulings on worship, family, property, crime and the state; later used by British courts in India. Arabic cited in §09 §09 The Great Empires: Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals
  149. Maʾāsir-i ʿĀlamgīrī Sāqī Mustaʿidd Khān, tr. Jadunath Sarkar (Calcutta: Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1947), pp. 51–52, 55, 60, 108 text 1710 CE read the text ↗ The official history of Aurangzeb's reign: the April 1669 order on the 'schools and temples of the infidels', the demolition of the Vishvanath temple at Banaras (1669) and the Keshava Deva temple at Mathura (1670), and the reimposition of jizya (1679), all framed in religious language. The 1669 order's wording is disputed (Sarkar: 'to demolish'; Eaton: 'be subject to demolition'). Persian cited in §09 §09 The Great Empires: Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals
  150. Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, Kitāb al-Tawḥīd The Book of God's Oneness treatise mid-18th c. CE about ↗ Short chapters of Qur'an verses and hadith defining worship and condemning practices the author judged to be shirk. Arabic cited in §10 §10 Reform, Revival and Empire
  151. Shāh Walī Allāh, Ḥujjat Allāh al-bāligha The Conclusive Argument of God treatise before 1762 CE about ↗ Explains the purposes behind the law's rules and argues for working from hadith while respecting the schools. Arabic cited in §10 §10 Reform, Revival and Empire
  152. Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, 21 July 1774 Peace treaty between the Russian and Ottoman empires treaty 1774 CE about ↗ Declares the Crimean Tatars independent while recognising the sultan's religious authority over them as caliph, the first international recognition of the claim. Ottoman Turkish, Russian and Italian cited in §09 §09 The Great Empires: Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals
  153. Edict of Gülhane (Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane), 3 November 1839 Ottoman imperial rescript opening the Tanzimat decree 1839 CE about ↗ Promises security of life, honour and property to all subjects, whatever their religion, as the sacred law demands. Ottoman Turkish cited in §10 §10 Reform, Revival and Empire
  154. Nana Asmaʾu, poems, ed. J. Boyd and B. B. Mack, The Collected Works of Nana Asma'u (Michigan State University Press, 1997) Collected works of Nana Asmaʾu poetry 1820s–1864 CE read the text ↗ More than sixty works by Usman dan Fodio's daughter, including teaching poems for the women's network she organised. Arabic, Fulfulde, Hausa cited in §10 §10 Reform, Revival and Empire
  155. Sayyid Aḥmad Khān, Asbāb-i baghāwat-i Hind The Causes of the Indian Revolt pamphlet 1859 CE about ↗ Blames British misgovernment, not a Muslim conspiracy, for the revolt of 1857. Urdu cited in §10 §10 Reform, Revival and Empire
  156. Mecelle-i Aḥkām-ı ʿAdliyye Ottoman code of civil law law code 1869–1876 CE about ↗ The first code of Islamic (Ḥanafī) civil law issued by a state, compiled under Ahmed Cevdet Pasha. Ottoman Turkish cited in §10 §10 Reform, Revival and Empire
  157. Muḥammad ʿAbduh, Risālat al-Tawḥīd Treatise on God's Oneness treatise 1897 CE about ↗ A theology in which reason and revelation cannot conflict and blind imitation is rejected. Arabic cited in §10 §10 Reform, Revival and Empire
  158. al-Manār, ed. Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā, Cairo al-Manār (journal) periodical 1898–1935 CE about ↗ The most widely read Muslim reformist journal, carrying ʿAbduh's commentary and Riḍā's fatwas. Arabic cited in §10 §10 Reform, Revival and Empire
  159. al-Qurʾān al-karīm, Cairo (Būlāq): Amīriyya Press, 1924 (1342 AH) The Cairo (King Fuʾād) edition book 1924 CE about ↗ The standard printed Qur'an in the reading of Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim, with verse numbers and Meccan/Medinan headings; the model for most modern printings. Arabic cited in §03 §03 The Qur'an
  160. Law No. 431 of 3 March 1924 (Hilafetin İlgasına ve Hanedan-ı Osmani'nin Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Memalik-i Haricine Çıkarılmasına Dair Kanun), art. 1 Law abolishing the caliphate and expelling the Ottoman dynasty law 3 March 1924 about ↗ Article 1 declares the caliph deposed and the caliphate abolished, as an office 'essentially contained in the meaning and concept of government and republic'. Ottoman Turkish cited in §11 §11 The Twentieth Century
  161. ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Rāziq, al-Islām wa-uṣūl al-ḥukm (Cairo, 1925), concluding paragraph Islam and the Foundations of Governance text 1925 read the text ↗ Argues that the caliphate is not a religious institution and that Muslims may adopt any form of government; ends: 'nothing in religion prevents Muslims…'. Arabic cited in §11 §11 The Twentieth Century
  162. Muhammad Iqbal, Presidential Address to the All-India Muslim League, Allahabad, 29 December 1930 Allahabad Address speech 29 December 1930 about ↗ Proposes a 'consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State' of the Punjab, NWFP, Sindh and Baluchistan. English cited in §11 §11 The Twentieth Century
  163. Motto of the Society of the Muslim Brothers al-Ikhwān al-Muslimūn, motto text 20th c. about ↗ 'God is our goal, the Messenger our model, the Qur'an our constitution, jihad our way, death in God's path our highest hope.' Arabic cited in §11 §11 The Twentieth Century
  164. All-India Muslim League, Lahore Resolution, 23 March 1940 Lahore Resolution text 23 March 1940 about ↗ Calls for Muslim-majority areas to be grouped 'to constitute "independent States" in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign'. English cited in §11 §11 The Twentieth Century
  165. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Presidential Address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, 11 August 1947 Address to the Constituent Assembly speech 11 August 1947 read the text ↗ 'You are free… You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the State.' English cited in §11 §11 The Twentieth Century
  166. Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, Objectives Resolution, 12 March 1949 Objectives Resolution law 12 March 1949 about ↗ Opens: 'Sovereignty over the entire Universe belongs to Allah Almighty alone'; opposed by every non-Muslim member; Article 2A of the constitution from 1985. English cited in §11 §11 The Twentieth Century
  167. Report of the Court of Inquiry constituted under Punjab Act II of 1954 to enquire into the Punjab Disturbances of 1953 (the Munir Report), 10 April 1954 Munir Report text 10 April 1954 about ↗ Inquiry into the anti-Ahmadi riots of 1953; finds the religious scholars it questioned unable to agree on a definition of a Muslim. English cited in §11 §11 The Twentieth Century
  168. Sayyid Quṭb, Maʿālim fī l-ṭarīq (Cairo, 1964), chapter 'Islam is the civilization' Milestones text 1964 read the text ↗ Defines the jāhilī society as every society that does not devote its worship to God alone in belief, ritual and law, and places every existing society, including self-described Muslim ones, within it. Arabic cited in §11 §11 The Twentieth Century
  169. Malcolm X, letter from Mecca, April 1964 Letter from Mecca letter April 1964 read the text ↗ Describes pilgrims 'of all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans' sharing the rites of the hajj. English cited in §11 §11 The Twentieth Century
  170. Ruhollah Khomeini, Ḥokūmat-e eslāmī (Islamic Government), 1970 Lectures on the governance of the jurist, Najaf, 21 January–8 February 1970 prose 1970 CE about ↗ Nineteen lectures arguing that in the Imam's absence qualified jurists must govern, because Islamic law already contains everything a state needs. Persian cited in §12 §12 Revolution and Revival
  171. Constitution (Second Amendment) Act, 1974, Pakistan Second Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan law 7 September 1974 about ↗ Defines as non-Muslim, for constitutional and legal purposes, anyone who does not believe in the absolute finality of Muhammad's prophethood, naming the Ahmadi groups. English cited in §11 cited in §13 §11 The Twentieth Century
  172. Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1979 (amended 1989), Articles 4–5 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran prose December 1979; amended 1989 read the text ↗ Article 5 vests the leadership of the community, during the occultation of the twelfth imam, in a just and pious jurist; Article 4 requires all laws to rest on Islamic criteria. Persian cited in §12 §12 Revolution and Revival
  173. Pakistan, Hudood Ordinances, 1979 Five ordinances on theft, zina, qazf, alcohol and whipping prose 1979 CE about ↗ Zia ul-Haq's ordinances introducing Qur'anic punishments into Pakistani criminal law; the zina ordinance's evidentiary rules led to the prosecution of rape victims until the 2006 amendment. English and Urdu cited in §12 §12 Revolution and Revival
  174. Ordinance XX (26 April 1984), Pakistan Penal Code ss. 298-B and 298-C Anti-Islamic Activities of the Quadiani Group, Lahori Group and Ahmadis (Prohibition and Punishment) Ordinance law 26 April 1984 about ↗ Makes it an offence, punishable by up to three years, for Ahmadis to call themselves Muslims or their faith Islam, or to preach it. English cited in §13 §13 Islam Today
  175. Hezbollah, Open Letter, 16 February 1985 Hezbollah's founding programme prose 16 February 1985 about ↗ Hezbollah's founding manifesto, pledging allegiance to Iran's supreme leader and calling for an Islamic order in Lebanon. Arabic cited in §12 §12 Revolution and Revival
  176. Hamas, Charter (Mīthāq), August 1988 Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement prose August 1988 about ↗ Hamas's founding charter, framing Palestine as an Islamic endowment (waqf); described by its leaders in 2017 as a historical document. Arabic cited in §12 §12 Revolution and Revival
  177. Ruhollah Khomeini, statement on The Satanic Verses, 14 February 1989 Radio Tehran broadcast prose 14 February 1989 about ↗ Khomeini calls on Muslims to kill the author and publishers of The Satanic Verses. Persian cited in §12 §12 Revolution and Revival
  178. World Islamic Front, statement on jihad against Jews and Crusaders, al-Quds al-ʿArabī, 23 February 1998 Statement of the World Islamic Front prose 23 February 1998 about ↗ Signed by Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Ẓawāhirī and three others: declares killing Americans and their allies, civilian and military, an individual duty. Arabic cited in §12 cited in §13 §12 Revolution and Revival
  179. The attacks of 11 September 2001 September 11 attacks event 11 September 2001 about ↗ Al-Qaeda attacks killing 2,977 people; bin Laden killed in Abbottabad in May 2011. English cited in §13 §13 Islam Today
  180. Loi n° 2004-228 du 15 mars 2004 (Code de l'éducation, art. L141-5-1) French law on religious symbols in schools law 15 March 2004 about ↗ Bans signs or dress by which pupils conspicuously show a religious affiliation in public schools. French cited in §13 §13 Islam Today
  181. The Amman Message and its Three Points (November 2004; July 2005) Amman Message declaration 2004–2005 about ↗ Recognises followers of eight schools of law as Muslims and forbids declaring them apostates; 552 signatures from 84 countries by July 2006. Arabic and English cited in §13 §13 Islam Today
  182. Loi n° 2010-1192 du 11 octobre 2010 interdisant la dissimulation du visage dans l'espace public French face-covering law law 11 October 2010 about ↗ "No one may, in public space, wear clothing designed to conceal the face"; in force 11 April 2011. French cited in §13 §13 Islam Today
  183. Open Letter to Dr. Ibrahim Awwad Al-Badri, alias Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi (19 September 2014) Open Letter to al-Baghdadi letter 19 September 2014 about ↗ More than 120 Muslim scholars refute the Islamic State in 24 points, including the killing of innocents, forced conversion, slavery and the declaration of a caliphate without consensus. Arabic and English cited in §13 §13 Islam Today
  184. Islamic State proclamation of a caliphate (29 June 2014) and al-Baghdadi's sermon in Mosul (4 July 2014) Islamic State statements declaration 29 June – 4 July 2014 about ↗ The group renames itself the Islamic State and names al-Baghdadi caliph; he preaches at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul. Arabic cited in §13 §13 Islam Today
  185. S.A.S. v. France (ECtHR, 1 July 2014) and UN Human Rights Committee views (October 2018) Rulings on the French face-covering ban ruling 2014–2018 about ↗ The European Court upholds the ban on grounds of "living together"; the UN Human Rights Committee finds it disproportionately harmed two women's right to manifest their religion. English and French cited in §13 §13 Islam Today
  186. Saudi royal decree curtailing the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (April 2016) Saudi religious police reform law April 2016 about ↗ Removes the religious police's powers to pursue, question and detain suspects. Arabic cited in §13 §13 Islam Today
  187. Muhammad ibn Salman, remarks of 24 October 2017, reported in The Guardian "I will return Saudi Arabia to moderate Islam, says crown prince" speech 24 October 2017 about ↗ The crown prince speaks of "returning to what we were before — a country of moderate Islam that is open to all religions and to the world". English cited in §13 §13 Islam Today
  188. Lifting of the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia (24 June 2018) Saudi Arabia, women driving event 24 June 2018 about ↗ Women licensed to drive while several campaigners remained in detention. English cited in §13 §13 Islam Today
  189. The territorial collapse of the Islamic State, 2017–2019 Islamic State event 2017–2019 about ↗ Mosul retaken July 2017, Raqqa 17 October 2017, Baghuz 23 March 2019; al-Baghdadi killed 27 October 2019; about 12 million under IS rule at the end of 2015. English cited in §13 §13 Islam Today
  190. Arab Barometer, Wave V survey for BBC News Arabic (2018–19), published 23 June 2019 Arab Barometer / BBC News Arabic survey 2018–2019 about ↗ More than 25,000 interviews in ten countries and the Palestinian territories find a rise since 2013 in people calling themselves not religious. Arabic cited in §13 §13 Islam Today
  191. Joint trilateral statement of Saudi Arabia, Iran and China (10 March 2023) Iran–Saudi Arabia agreement declaration 10 March 2023 about ↗ The two states agree to restore relations broken in 2016 after the execution of Nimr al-Nimr. English cited in §13 §13 Islam Today
  192. Pew Research Center, How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020: Muslim population change (9 June 2025) Pew Research Center report report 2025 about ↗ About 2 billion Muslims in 2020, 25.6% of the world's population, the fastest-growing major religious group of 2010–2020, mainly through youth and fertility. English cited in §13 §13 Islam Today

Bibliography

Each entry says what the work is for. Where a work is influential but contested, such as Luxenberg's Syro-Aramaic reading of the Qur'an, Shoemaker's late date for its canonical text or DeLong-Bas on Wahhabism, the note says so rather than presenting it as settled. Works shared with other series appear under that series' headings.

Titles link out wherever a working link could be verified (a DOI for articles, a free full text, the publisher's page or a library record) and are otherwise left unlinked. Small §-chips under an entry show which sections actually cite it, scanned from the markdown at build time. The rest are deliberately left unlinked: a first pass matched book titles against JSTOR book reviews, which carry the reviewed book's exact title, and a wrong citation is worse than none.

The Islamic centuries

Early Buddhism: sources, method and the Buddha

Ancient Israel and early Judaism

  • 1998 Robert Brody The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture · Yale University Press The standard account of the geonim: academies, responsa, codes and their rivals. §06
  • 1994 Mark R. Cohen Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages · Princeton University Press Compares Jewish life under Islam and Latin Christendom, between the myth of an interfaith utopia and its counter-myth. §06
  • 2004 Moshe Gil Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages · Brill Detailed survey from pre-Islamic Arabia to the eleventh century, largely from Geniza sources. §01
  • 2011 Milka Levy-Rubin Non-Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire: From Surrender to Coexistence · Cambridge University Press Traces the Pact of Umar to conquest-era surrender treaties and Byzantine and Sasanian models. §04 §05 §06 §09
  • 1948 Samuel Rosenblatt, trans. Saadia Gaon: The Book of Beliefs and Opinions · Yale University Press The complete English translation, from the Arabic. §06
  • 2008 Joel L. Kraemer Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization's Greatest Minds · Doubleday Biography drawing heavily on the Geniza; discusses the evidence that his family outwardly converted under the Almohads. §08
  • 2002 María Rosa Menocal The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain · Little, Brown The best-known modern statement of the convivencia view. §08
  • 1976 W. N. Arafat New Light on the Story of Banū Qurayẓa and the Jews of Medina · Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland 108.2, pp. 100–107 doi ↗ Argues that the traditional account of the execution of the Qurayẓa men was inflated in later tradition. §02
  • 2000 Esther Benbassa and Aron Rodrigue Sephardi Jewry: A History of the Judeo-Spanish Community, 14th–20th Centuries · University of California Press The settlement of the Iberian exiles in the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Salonica. §09

Early Christianity: sources, method and the historical Jesus

  • 1979 Richard W. Bulliet Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period: An Essay in Quantitative History · Harvard University Press The onomastic S-curve of conversion. §04 §05 §06
  • 2008 Sidney H. Griffith The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam · Princeton University Press Christian Arabic thought and life under the early caliphates. §06
  • 2013 Sidney H. Griffith The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the 'People of the Book' in the Language of Islam · Princeton University Press The earliest Arabic translations of the Bible. §01 §03
  • 2012 David W. Phillipson Foundations of an African Civilisation: Aksum and the Northern Horn, 1000 BC–AD 1300 · James Currey The archaeology and history of Aksum. §01
  • 2004 Benjamin Z. Kedar The Jerusalem Massacre of July 1099 in the Western Historiography of the Crusades · Crusades 3: 15–75 Weighs the sources for the 1099 massacre. §08

Comparative questions: other religions and prehistory

  • 2010 Fred M. Donner Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam · Belknap Press of Harvard University Press Islam's origins in the early seventh-century preaching of Muhammad. §00 §01 §02 §04 §05

Islam: scholarship

  • 2003 Chase F. Robinson Islamic Historiography · Cambridge University Press A short guide to the Arabic historical tradition and how it was made. §00 §05
  • 1998 Fred M. Donner Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing · Darwin Press How the Muslim historical tradition formed, and a survey of the sceptical approaches. §00 §04
  • 1997 Robert G. Hoyland Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam · Darwin Press The non-Muslim sources of the first Islamic century and a half, translated and discussed. §00 §02 §04 §05
  • 2008 ʿAli Ibrahim Ghabban, trans. Robert G. Hoyland The inscription of Zuhayr, the oldest Islamic inscription (24 AH/AD 644–645) · Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 19 Edition and discussion of the earliest dated Islamic inscription. §00 §01
  • 2017 Nicolai Sinai The Qur'an: A Historical-Critical Introduction · Edinburgh University Press The Qur'an as a historical text, from the current mainstream. §00 §01 §02 §03
  • 2010 Angelika Neuwirth Der Koran als Text der Spätantike: Ein europäischer Zugang · Verlag der Weltreligionen The Qur'an read in its late antique setting. §00
  • 2009 François Déroche La transmission écrite du Coran dans les débuts de l'islam: le codex Parisino-petropolitanus · Brill The largest early Qur'an codex, studied leaf by leaf. §00 §03
  • 2014 François Déroche Qur'ans of the Umayyads: A First Overview · Brill The early manuscripts and how they are dated. §00 §03
  • 2010 Behnam Sadeghi and Uwe Bergmann The Codex of a Companion of the Prophet and the Qurʾān of the Prophet · Arabica 57 Radiocarbon date and analysis of a leaf of the Ṣanʿāʾ palimpsest. §00 §03
  • 2012 Behnam Sadeghi and Mohsen Goudarzi Ṣanʿāʾ 1 and the Origins of the Qurʾān · Der Islam 87 Transcription of the lower text and the case that it is a non-ʿUthmānic companion codex. §00 §03
  • 2017 Asma Hilali The Sanaa Palimpsest: The Transmission of the Qur'an in the First Centuries AH · Oxford University Press Edition of both layers, reading the lower text as a teaching copy. §00 §03
  • 2019 Marijn van Putten 'The Grace of God' as Evidence for a Written Uthmanic Archetype: The Importance of Shared Orthographic Idiosyncrasies · Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 82 Shared spelling quirks show the early manuscripts descend from one written copy. §00 §03
  • 1890 Ignaz Goldziher Muhammedanische Studien, vol. 2 · Max Niemeyer The founding critique of the hadith as evidence for the first century. §00 §05
  • 1950 Joseph Schacht The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence · Clarendon Press Legal hadith and the argument that isnāds 'grew backwards'. §00 §06
  • 1983 G. H. A. Juynboll Muslim Tradition: Studies in Chronology, Provenance and Authorship of Early Ḥadīth · Cambridge University Press The common-link method for dating hadith. §00
  • 2002 Harald Motzki The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence: Meccan Fiqh before the Classical Schools · Brill Isnād-cum-matn analysis tracing material in ʿAbd al-Razzāq's collection to the late seventh century (German original 1991). §00 §06
  • 2009 Jonathan A. C. Brown Hadith: Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World · Oneworld The hadith and their critics, Muslim and Western. §00 §06
  • 2011 Gregor Schoeler The Biography of Muhammad: Nature and Authenticity · Routledge How the sīra was transmitted and what can be traced early. §00 §02
  • 2008 Andreas Görke and Gregor Schoeler Die ältesten Berichte über das Leben Muḥammads: Das Korpus ʿUrwa ibn az-Zubair · Darwin Press Reconstructs the reports attributed to ʿUrwa ibn al-Zubayr. §00 §02
  • 1977 John Wansbrough Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation · Oxford University Press The form-critical case for a late, composite canon. §00 §03
  • 1977 Patricia Crone and Michael Cook Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World · Cambridge University Press Origins reconstructed from non-Muslim sources alone. §00
  • 1987 Patricia Crone Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam · Princeton University Press Questions Mecca's trade and the reliability of the sīra's detail. §00 §01 §02
  • 2012 Stephen J. Shoemaker The Death of a Prophet: The End of Muhammad's Life and the Beginnings of Islam · University of Pennsylvania Press The non-Muslim reports of the prophet alive at the conquest of Palestine. §00 §02
  • 2004 M. A. S. Abdel Haleem The Qur'an: A New Translation · Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics) The translation quoted in the Islam series unless stated. §02 §03 §04 §06 §07 §09
  • 2014 Nicolai Sinai When Did the Consonantal Skeleton of the Quran Reach Closure? Parts I and II · Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 77 Weighs the evidence for later editing, including al-Ḥajjāj; concludes the standard rasm dates to 650 or earlier as the default view. §03
  • 2019 Angelika Neuwirth The Qur'an and Late Antiquity: A Shared Heritage · Oxford University Press (trans. Samuel Wilder; German ed. 2010) Reads the Qur'an as a liturgical text in dialogue with the traditions of late antiquity. §02 §03
  • 2010 Gabriel Said Reynolds The Qur'an and Its Biblical Subtext · Routledge Reads the Qur'an alongside the Bible and its Jewish and Christian interpretations. §03
  • 2011 Gabriel Said Reynolds Le problème de la chronologie du Coran · Arabica 58 Critique of dating the suras by the traditional biography. §03
  • 2011 Behnam Sadeghi The Chronology of the Qurʾān: A Stylometric Research Program · Arabica 58 Shows that ordering passages by verse length yields smooth trends in other stylistic features. §03
  • 2000 Michael Cook The Koran: A Very Short Introduction · Oxford University Press Brief introduction, including the text's history and the readings. §03
  • 2004 Michael Cook The Stemma of the Regional Codices of the Koran · Graeco-Arabica 9–10 Reconstructs the relationships of the codices ʿUthmān sent to the provinces from their reported variants. §03
  • 2001 Harald Motzki The Collection of the Qurʾān: A Reconsideration of Western Views in Light of Recent Methodological Developments · Der Islam 78 Traces the collection reports at least to al-Zuhrī (d. 742). §03
  • 1977 John Burton The Collection of the Qur'an · Cambridge University Press Argues that Muhammad left a complete text and that the collection reports serve the theory of abrogation. §03
  • 1990 John Burton The Sources of Islamic Law: Islamic Theories of Abrogation · Edinburgh University Press History of the theories of abrogation (naskh). §03
  • 2021 Éléonore Cellard The Ṣanʿāʾ Palimpsest: Materializing the Codices · Journal of Near Eastern Studies 80 Reconstructs the lower text's leaves as a complete codex by professional scribes. §03
  • 2022 Stephen J. Shoemaker Creating the Qur'an: A Historical-Critical Study · University of California Press Argues the canonical text was produced around 700, under ʿAbd al-Malik, and questions radiocarbon precision. §03
  • 2019 Michael Josef Marx and Tobias J. Jocham Radiocarbon (14C) Dating of Qurʾān Manuscripts · in A. Kaplony and M. Marx, eds., Qurʾān Quotations Preserved on Papyrus Documents, 7th–10th Centuries (Brill) Coranica dates for Tübingen, Berlin and Leiden fragments, tested against documents of known date. §03
  • 1998 Estelle Whelan Forgotten Witness: Evidence for the Early Codification of the Qurʾān · Journal of the American Oriental Society 118 Reads the Dome of the Rock and Medina inscriptions as presupposing a codified text. §03 §05
  • 2017 Shahab Ahmed Before Orthodoxy: The Satanic Verses in Early Islam · Harvard University Press Shows the incident was widely accepted in the first two Islamic centuries and later rejected. §03
  • 2008 Kevin van Bladel The Alexander Legend in the Qur'an 18:83–102 · in G. S. Reynolds, ed., The Qur'an in Its Historical Context (Routledge) Argues the Dhū l-Qarnayn passage retells the Syriac Alexander Legend of c. 630. §03
  • 1937 Arthur Jeffery Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur'an: The Old Codices · Brill Edition of Ibn Abī Dāwūd's Kitāb al-Maṣāḥif with the reported variants of the companions' codices. §03
  • 2013 Theodor Nöldeke, Friedrich Schwally, Gotthelf Bergsträsser and Otto Pretzl The History of the Qurʾān · Brill (trans. Wolfgang H. Behn; German 1860, 2nd ed. 1909–1938) The foundational Western history of the Qur'an and its four-period chronology. §03
  • 2000 Christoph Luxenberg Die syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran · Das Arabische Buch (English 2007) Argues the Qur'an is in a mixed Syro-Aramaic and Arabic language; rejected by specialists. §03
  • 2003 François de Blois Review of Christoph Luxenberg, Die syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran · Journal of Qur'anic Studies 5 A specialist's rejection of Luxenberg's method. §03
  • 2012 Christian Julien Robin Arabia and Ethiopia · in S. F. Johnson (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity, Oxford University Press Ḥimyar's monotheism, Najrān, Aksum and Abraha, from the inscriptions. §01
  • 2001 Robert G. Hoyland Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam · Routledge The standard survey of pre-Islamic Arabia, its kingdoms, religions and languages. §01
  • 2011 Greg Fisher Between Empires: Arabs, Romans, and Sasanians in Late Antiquity · Oxford University Press The Jafnids, the Naṣrids and the empires' Arab allies. §01
  • 2015 Greg Fisher (ed.) Arabs and Empires before Islam · Oxford University Press Sources on the Arabs of late antiquity in translation, with commentary. §01
  • 1985 James A. Bellamy A New Reading of the Namārah Inscription · Journal of the American Oriental Society 105 The retracing and translation of the Namāra epitaph most often used. §01
  • 1987 Lawrence I. Conrad Abraha and Muḥammad: Some Observations apropos of Chronology and Literary Topoi in the Early Arabic Historical Tradition · Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 50 The Year of the Elephant as a chronological topos rather than a remembered date. §01 §02
  • 1952 Nabih Amin Faris (trans.) The Book of Idols, being a translation from the Arabic of the Kitāb al-Aṣnām by Hishām ibn-al-Kalbi · Princeton University Press The English translation of Ibn al-Kalbī. §01
  • 1999 G. R. Hawting The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History · Cambridge University Press Argues that the Qur'an's 'associators' were monotheists judged deficient, not idolaters. §01
  • 2010 Patricia Crone The Religion of the Qurʾānic Pagans: God and the Lesser Deities · Arabica 57 The Qur'an's opponents believed in God and worshipped lesser beings as intercessors. §01
  • 1990 R. B. Serjeant Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam: Misconceptions and Flawed Polemics · Journal of the American Oriental Society 110 A sharp review of Crone's reading of the Arabic sources. §01
  • 1994 F. E. Peters Mecca: A Literary History of the Muslim Holy Land · Princeton University Press Mecca as a sanctuary town with a modest trade. §01
  • 2003 Gene W. Heck 'Arabia without Spices': An Alternate Hypothesis · Journal of the American Oriental Society 123 Meccan wealth from the mines of western Arabia rather than spices. §01
  • 2010 Mikhail D. Bukharin Mecca on the Caravan Routes in Pre-Islamic Antiquity · in A. Neuwirth, N. Sinai and M. Marx (eds), The Qurʾān in Context, Brill A regional caravan trade in which Mecca could have taken part. §01
  • 2017 G. W. Bowersock The Crucible of Islam · Harvard University Press Arabia between the empires; reads Ptolemy's Macoraba as Mecca. §01
  • 2018 Ahmad Al-Jallad The Earliest Stages of Arabic and Its Linguistic Classification · in E. Benmamoun and R. Bassiouney (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Linguistics, Routledge Old Arabic in Safaitic, Hismaic, Nabataean and Paleo-Arabic scripts. §01
  • 2022 Ahmad Al-Jallad The Religion and Rituals of the Nomads of Pre-Islamic Arabia: A Reconstruction Based on the Safaitic Inscriptions · Brill The gods and prayers of the Safaitic inscriptions. §01
  • 2010 James Howard-Johnston Witnesses to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century · Oxford University Press The last Roman–Persian war and the sources for the seventh century. §01
  • 2008 Patricia Crone What do we actually know about Mohammed? · openDemocracy A short assessment by the leading sceptic; singles out the Constitution of Medina as unusually solid evidence. §02
  • 1978 R. B. Serjeant The Sunnah Jāmiʿah, Pacts with the Yathrib Jews, and the Taḥrīm of Yathrib: Analysis and Translation of the Documents Comprised in the So-Called 'Constitution of Medina' · Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 41.1 Argues that the Constitution combines eight documents issued over Muhammad's first seven years in Medina. §02
  • 2004 Michael Lecker The "Constitution of Medina": Muḥammad's First Legal Document · Darwin Press Edition, translation and commentary; the standard modern study. §02
  • 1953 W. Montgomery Watt Muhammad at Mecca · Clarendon Press The classic Western account of the Meccan years. §02
  • 1956 W. Montgomery Watt Muhammad at Medina · Clarendon Press The Medinan years, the Constitution, the wars and the Jewish tribes. §02
  • 1986 M. J. Kister The Massacre of the Banū Qurayẓa: A Re-examination of a Tradition · Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8 Defends the early date and consistency of the tradition of the Qurayẓa's execution against Arafat. §02
  • 2022 Joshua J. Little The Hadith of ʿĀʾišah's Marital Age: A Study in the Evolution of Early Islamic Historical Memory · DPhil thesis, University of Oxford Isnād-cum-matn study concluding that the report originated with Hishām ibn ʿUrwa in Iraq in the mid-eighth century. §02
  • 2025 Joshua J. Little Did Muhammad Exist? An Academic Response to a Popular Question · Islamic Origins (blog) Reviews the evidence and concludes there is no reasonable doubt that Muhammad existed. §02
  • 1994 Denise A. Spellberg Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of ʿAʾisha bint Abi Bakr · Columbia University Press How Sunni and Shia writers shaped ʿĀʾisha's memory, including the emphasis on her virginity. §02
  • 2014 Kecia Ali The Lives of Muhammad · Harvard University Press How Muslim and non-Muslim biographers have told Muhammad's life, including modern debates over ʿĀʾisha's age. §02
  • 2014 Jonathan A. C. Brown Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy · Oneworld Hadith interpretation in classical and modern Islam, including modernist recalculations and their rejection. §02
  • 1983 Michael Cook Muhammad · Oxford University Press A short, sceptical introduction to Muhammad and the sources. §02
  • 2020 Sean W. Anthony Muhammad and the Empires of Faith: The Making of the Prophet of Islam · University of California Press How the earliest biography of Muhammad was made, read against the late antique empires. §02
  • 1981 Fred M. Donner The Early Islamic Conquests · Princeton University Press The conquests as the work of a new state in Medina that united the tribes under one ideology. §04
  • 2007 Hugh Kennedy The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In · Weidenfeld & Nicolson Narrative history of the conquests, region by region. §04
  • 1986 Hugh Kennedy The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates · Longman Standard political history of the Near East from Muhammad to the eleventh century. §04 §05 §06
  • 2015 Robert G. Hoyland In God's Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire · Oxford University Press The conquests as empire-building, set in the frontier politics of Byzantium and Persia. §04
  • 1992 Walter E. Kaegi Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests · Cambridge University Press The Byzantine side of the loss of Syria, Palestine and Egypt. §04
  • 1997 Wilferd Madelung The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate · Cambridge University Press Argues for the strength of ʿAlī's family claim and reads the first civil war from the early sources. §04
  • 1986 Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds God's Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam · Cambridge University Press The caliph as 'God's deputy' with religious authority, later ceded to the scholars. §04 §06
  • 1973 Elias S. Shoufani Al-Riddah and the Muslim Conquest of Arabia · University of Toronto Press The 'apostasy' wars as largely a first conquest of Arabia. §04
  • 1984 Michael G. Morony Iraq after the Muslim Conquest · Princeton University Press Continuity and change in Iraq's society, religions and administration after the conquest. §04
  • 2018 Jack Tannous The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers · Princeton University Press Christian majorities for centuries after the conquests, and the blurred line between ordinary believers. §04
  • 2000 G. R. Hawting The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate AD 661–750 · Routledge, 2nd ed. The standard short history of the Umayyads and of the sources' bias against them. §05
  • 2005 Chase F. Robinson ʿAbd al-Malik · Oneworld The caliph's reign and the making of a public Islamic state in the 690s. §05
  • 1959 Oleg Grabar The Umayyad Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem · Ars Orientalis 3 Reads the building and its inscriptions as a statement of Islam's arrival in a Christian city. §05
  • 1950 S. D. Goitein The Historical Background of the Erection of the Dome of the Rock · Journal of the American Oriental Society 70 Rejects the report that the Dome was meant to replace the pilgrimage to Mecca. §05
  • 1992 Amikam Elad Why Did ʿAbd al-Malik Build the Dome of the Rock? A Re-examination of the Muslim Sources · in J. Raby and J. Johns (eds), Bayt al-Maqdis: ʿAbd al-Malik's Jerusalem, Part One, Oxford University Press Argues the pilgrimage-diversion report is not confined to al-Yaʿqūbī and cannot simply be dismissed. §05
  • 2003 Jeremy Johns Archaeology and the History of Early Islam: The First Seventy Years · Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 46 Islam as a public state religion becomes visible in the documents of the 690s. §05
  • 2010 Stefan Heidemann The Standing Caliph-Type: The Object on the Reverse · in A. Oddy (ed.), Coinage and History in the Seventh Century Near East 2, Archetype The standing caliph coinage of 74–77 AH and its place between Byzantine imagery and the epigraphic reform. §05
  • 1980 Patricia Crone Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity · Cambridge University Press The Umayyad polity, its tribal armies and the place of the mawālī. §05
  • 1955 H. A. R. Gibb The Fiscal Rescript of ʿUmar II · Arabica 2 ʿUmar II's rulings on converts and taxation. §05
  • 1997 Heinz Halm Shiʿa Islam: From Religion to Revolution · Markus Wiener The commemoration of Karbalāʾ from the first mourners to the passion plays. §05
  • 1998 Dimitri Gutas Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ʿAbbāsid Society · Routledge The translation movement as a social and political phenomenon; doubts the House of Wisdom as an academy. §06
  • 1993 Wael B. Hallaq Was al-Shafiʿi the Master Architect of Islamic Jurisprudence? · International Journal of Middle East Studies 25:4, 587–605 Argues that al-Shāfiʿī's synthesis found few followers until legal theory emerged around 900. §06
  • 2005 Wael B. Hallaq The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law · Cambridge University Press How Islamic law took shape from the late seventh to the tenth century, against Schacht's late dating. §06
  • 2009 Wael B. Hallaq An Introduction to Islamic Law · Cambridge University Press Sharia as a jurists' law rather than a state code, and its transformation in modernity. §06 §10
  • 1997 Christopher Melchert The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law, 9th–10th Centuries C.E. · Brill Dates the organized personal schools of law to c. 870–950. §06
  • 2007 Jonathan A. C. Brown The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunnī Ḥadīth Canon · Brill How the two Ṣaḥīḥs became canonical over the tenth and eleventh centuries. §06
  • 2013 Joseph E. Lowry, ed. and trans. al-Shāfiʿī, The Epistle on Legal Theory (al-Risāla) · New York University Press (Library of Arabic Literature) Arabic text and English translation of the Risāla. §06
  • 2001 Jonathan M. Bloom Paper before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World · Yale University Press Doubts the Talas story; paper in Baghdad by the 790s. §06
  • 1985 Moojan Momen An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shiʿism · Yale University Press The standard introduction to Twelver history and doctrine. §06
  • 2007 Farhad Daftary The Ismāʿīlīs: Their History and Doctrines · Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed. The standard history of the Ismāʿīlīs, including the Fatimids and Qarmaṭīs. §06
  • 1996 Heinz Halm The Empire of the Mahdi: The Rise of the Fatimids · Brill The Ismāʿīlī mission and the founding of the Fatimid caliphate in North Africa. §06
  • 1993 Hossein Modarressi Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shīʿite Islam · Darwin Press How Twelver doctrine was consolidated after the crisis of 874. §06
  • 1955 Marshall G. S. Hodgson How Did the Early Shîʿa Become Sectarian? · Journal of the American Oriental Society 75:1, 1–13 Places the Shia's emergence as a sect in the doctrine of the imamate of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq's time. §06
  • 1973 W. Montgomery Watt The Formative Period of Islamic Thought · Edinburgh University Press The sects and theological schools of the first four Islamic centuries. §06
  • 1991 Josef van Ess Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra · Walter de Gruyter, 6 vols. The monumental history of early Islamic theology; English translation from 2017. §06
  • 1994 John A. Nawas A Reexamination of Three Current Explanations for al-Maʾmun's Introduction of the Miḥna · International Journal of Middle East Studies 26:4, 615–629 Weighs the explanations for the miḥna; sees in it the caliph's claim to religious authority. §06
  • 1997 Muhammad Qasim Zaman Religion and Politics under the Early ʿAbbāsids: The Emergence of the Proto-Sunnī Elite · Brill The cooperation of early Abbasid caliphs with the scholars who became Sunni orthodoxy. §06
  • 1970 Bayard Dodge, ed. and trans. The Fihrist of al-Nadīm: A Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture · Columbia University Press, 2 vols. English translation of Ibn al-Nadīm's catalogue of books. §06
  • 2000 Alexander Knysh Islamic Mysticism: A Short History · Brill The standard survey of Sufism from the renunciants to the modern orders, and of the debate over its origins. §07
  • 2007 Ahmet T. Karamustafa Sufism: The Formative Period · Edinburgh University Press Argues that Sufism as a named movement emerged in Baghdad in the later ninth century, alongside other forms of piety. §07
  • 1975 Annemarie Schimmel Mystical Dimensions of Islam · University of North Carolina Press Classic introduction to Sufi thought, poetry and practice; surveys the theories of foreign origin. §07
  • 2012 Nile Green Sufism: A Global History · Wiley-Blackwell Sufism as an institution and a tradition across the Muslim world, from lodges and orders to shrines. §07
  • 2019 Rkia Elaroui Cornell Rabiʿa from Narrative to Myth: The Many Faces of Islam's Most Famous Woman Saint, Rabiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya · Oneworld How little is known of the historical Rābiʿa and how her legend grew; four portraits in the sources. §07
  • 1999 Rkia Elaroui Cornell (trans.) Early Sufi Women: Dhikr an-niswa al-mutaʿabbidat as-sufiyyat by Abu ʿAbd ar-Rahman as-Sulami · Fons Vitae Edition and translation of al-Sulamī's book of women ascetics and Sufis. §07
  • 1985 Carl W. Ernst Words of Ecstasy in Sufism · State University of New York Press The ecstatic sayings (shaṭaḥāt), their interpretation, and how they were treated in law; argues al-Ḥallāj's trial turned on politics. §07
  • 1982 Louis Massignon The Passion of al-Hallāj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam, trans. Herbert Mason · Princeton University Press English translation of Massignon's monumental study (French, 1922; revised 1975) of al-Ḥallāj's life, trial and legacy. §07
  • 2003 Jawid A. Mojaddedi Getting Drunk with Abū Yazīd or Staying Sober with Junayd: The Creation of a Popular Typology of Sufism · Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 66/1 Shows that the 'sober' and 'intoxicated' schools are a classification of eleventh-century handbooks, not of the early sources. §07
  • 2009 Frank Griffel Al-Ghazālī's Philosophical Theology · Oxford University Press Reconstructs al-Ghazālī's life, including the chronology and circumstances of his departure from Baghdad in 1095. §07
  • 1989 William C. Chittick The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-ʿArabi's Metaphysics of Imagination · State University of New York Press Ibn ʿArabī's thought presented through translations from the Futūḥāt. §07
  • 1991 William C. Chittick Waḥdat al-wujūd in Islamic Thought · Bulletin of the Henry Martyn Institute of Islamic Studies 10 History of the term 'unity of existence': its use by Ibn ʿArabī's followers and its fixing as a label by Ibn Taymiyya's polemic. §07
  • 2000 Franklin D. Lewis Rumi: Past and Present, East and West · Oneworld The life, works and teachings of Rūmī from the sources, and his modern reception. §07
  • 1971 J. Spencer Trimingham The Sufi Orders in Islam · Clarendon Press Classic history of the orders, with the three-stage model of khānqāh, ṭarīqa and ṭāʾifa. §07
  • 1999 Carole Hillenbrand The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives · Edinburgh University Press The Crusades as Muslim sources saw them: the slow response, the jihad propaganda of Zengi and Nūr al-Dīn, and their marginality beside the Mongols. §08
  • 2014 Paul M. Cobb The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades · Oxford University Press The Crusades from Arabic sources, set in a Mediterranean-wide frame, with the modern memory. §08
  • 2008 Paul M. Cobb (trans.) Usama ibn Munqidh, The Book of Contemplation: Islam and the Crusades · Penguin Classics The modern translation of Usāma's memoir, with an introduction on how to read its anecdotes. §08
  • 2015 A. C. S. Peacock The Great Seljuk Empire · Edinburgh University Press The standard history of the Seljuk sultanate, its relationship with the caliph and its institutions. §08
  • 2003 Jonathan P. Berkey The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600–1800 · Cambridge University Press Questions the 'Sunni revival' and proposes a 'recentring' of religious authority around the ulama. §08
  • 2000 Daphna Ephrat A Learned Society in a Period of Transition: The Sunni ʿUlamaʾ of Eleventh-Century Baghdad · State University of New York Press How Baghdad's scholars taught and built careers in and outside the new madrasas. §08
  • 1981 George Makdisi The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West · Edinburgh University Press The madrasa as an endowed college of law founded on the waqf. §08
  • 2017 Peter Jackson The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion · Yale University Press The Mongol conquests and the Ilkhans' conversion; calls Hülegü's Baghdad death toll 'obviously inflated' (p. 172). §08
  • 1995 Reuven Amitai-Preiss Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk–Īlkhānid War, 1260–1281 · Cambridge University Press ʿAyn Jālūt and the war between the Mamluks and the Mongols of Iran. §08
  • 2019 Michal Biran Libraries, Books, and Transmission of Knowledge in Ilkhanid Baghdad · Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 62 (2–3): 464–502 Shows that large libraries reopened within two years of the 1258 conquest. §08
  • 2024 Jonathan Brack, Michal Biran and Reuven Amitai Plague and the Mongol Conquest of Baghdad (1258)? A Reevaluation of the Sources · Medical History 68 (4): 392–410 Asks how far epidemic disease after the siege lies behind the inflated death tolls. §08
  • 2010 Yossef Rapoport and Shahab Ahmed (eds) Ibn Taymiyya and His Times · Oxford University Press, Karachi Essays reading Ibn Taymiyya in his Mamluk context rather than through his modern reception. §08
  • 1996 Hugh Kennedy Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus · Longman Standard political history from the conquest of 711 to the fall of Granada. §08
  • 1973 Nehemia Levtzion Ancient Ghana and Mali · Methuen The West African empires and the coming of Islam to the Sahel. §08
  • 1981 N. Levtzion and J. F. P. Hopkins (eds and trans.) Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History · Cambridge University Press The Arabic sources on West Africa in translation, including al-ʿUmarī and Ibn Baṭṭūṭa. §08
  • 2008 M. C. Ricklefs A History of Modern Indonesia since c. 1200 · Palgrave Macmillan, 4th ed. Opens with the evidence for the Islamisation of the archipelago: gravestones, travellers and courts. §08 §09
  • 1971 Speros Vryonis Jr. The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century · University of California Press How Anatolia became Turkish-speaking and Muslim after Manzikert. §08
  • 1973 Halil İnalcık The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300–1600 · Weidenfeld & Nicolson The classic account of Ottoman institutions, including the learned hierarchy, kanun and the devşirme. §09
  • 2005 Caroline Finkel Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1923 · John Murray The standard one-volume narrative history. §09
  • 1997 Colin Imber Ebu's-suʿud: The Islamic Legal Tradition · Edinburgh University Press How the şeyhülislam Ebussuud framed Ottoman land and state law in Ḥanafī terms. §09
  • 2015 Guy Burak The Second Formation of Islamic Law: The Ḥanafī School in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire · Cambridge University Press The Ottoman state's adoption and shaping of the Ḥanafī school as its official law. §09
  • 1982 Benjamin Braude Foundation Myths of the Millet System · in B. Braude and B. Lewis, eds., Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, vol. 1 (Holmes & Meier) The argument that the millet system as usually described is a late construction projected back onto Mehmed II. §09
  • 2004 Rula Jurdi Abisaab Converting Persia: Religion and Power in the Safavid Empire · I.B. Tauris The ʿĀmilī scholars and the making of Safavid Shiism. §09
  • 2006 Andrew J. Newman Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire · I.B. Tauris A political and religious history of the dynasty; sceptical of the scale of the ʿĀmilī clerical migration. §09
  • 2002 Kathryn Babayan Mystics, Monarchs, and Messiahs: Cultural Landscapes of Early Modern Iran · Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies The Qizilbash's messianic beliefs and their suppression by the dynasty they brought to power. §09
  • 1993 John F. Richards The Mughal Empire · Cambridge University Press (New Cambridge History of India) The standard survey of the empire from Bābur to the eighteenth century. §09
  • 2004 Muzaffar Alam The Languages of Political Islam: India, 1200–1800 · University of Chicago Press Mughal political thought, ṣulḥ-i kull and the place of the sharīʿa in a mostly non-Muslim empire. §09
  • 1971 Yohanan Friedmann Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī: An Outline of His Thought and a Study of His Image in the Eyes of Posterity · McGill-Queen's University Press Argues that Sirhindī's influence on Mughal policy was much smaller than his later image. §09
  • 2011 Michael Laffan The Makings of Indonesian Islam: Orientalism and the Narration of a Sufi Past · Princeton University Press How colonial and nationalist scholarship shaped the story of Indonesia's Sufi conversion. §09
  • 2006 David Commins The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia · I.B. Tauris The history of the Najdi movement from Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb to the modern kingdom. §10 §11
  • 2014 Michael Crawford Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab · Oneworld A critical life of the founder, his doctrine and his alliance with the Saudis. §10
  • 2004 Natana J. DeLong-Bas Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad · Oxford University Press Argues the founder was a moderate reformer; criticised as apologetic. §10
  • 2009 Bernard Haykel On the Nature of Salafi Thought and Action · in R. Meijer, ed., Global Salafism (Hurst/Columbia) Salafism's doctrine and its debts to Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb. §10
  • 2016 Henri Lauzière The Making of Salafism: Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century · Columbia University Press Shows 'salafiyya' as a movement name is a twentieth-century construction projected back onto the modernists. §10
  • 1962 Albert Hourani Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939 · Oxford University Press The classic study of al-Afghānī, ʿAbduh, Riḍā and Arab reform. §10 §11
  • 1982 Barbara D. Metcalf Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900 · Princeton University Press How the Deoband seminary organised reformist learning under British rule. §10
  • 1996 Usha Sanyal Devotional Islam and Politics in British India: Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi and His Movement, 1870–1920 · Oxford University Press The Barelwī movement and its defence of devotion to the Prophet and the saints. §10
  • 1967 Murray Last The Sokoto Caliphate · Longmans The standard history of Usman dan Fodio's jihad and the state it founded. §10
  • 1995 Knut S. Vikør Sufi and Scholar on the Desert Edge: Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Sanūsī and His Brotherhood · Hurst The founder of the Sanūsiyya and his order. §10
  • 1972 Nikki R. Keddie Sayyid Jamal ad-Din "al-Afghani": A Political Biography · University of California Press Argues al-Afghānī was born in Iran and traces his political career. §10
  • 1989 Abbas Amanat Resurrection and Renewal: The Making of the Babi Movement in Iran, 1844–1850 · Cornell University Press The Bābī movement as an outgrowth of Shia messianism. §10
  • 1989 Yohanan Friedmann Prophecy Continuous: Aspects of Aḥmadī Religious Thought and Its Medieval Background · University of California Press Ahmadi doctrine of non-legislative prophethood and its Sufi antecedents. §10
  • 1974 Spencer Lavan The Ahmadiyah Movement: A History and Perspective · Manohar The movement's history to the 1970s, including the 1914 split. §10
  • 2008 M. Şükrü Hanioğlu A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire · Princeton University Press The Tanzimat, Abdülhamid II, the Young Turks and the empire's end. §10
  • 1993 Erik-Jan Zürcher Turkey: A Modern History · I.B. Tauris Standard history of modern Turkey, including the Kemalist reforms of religion. §11
  • 2002 Madawi Al-Rasheed A History of Saudi Arabia · Cambridge University Press The making of the Saudi state, the Ikhwan, and oil. §11
  • 2003 H. E. Chehabi The Banning of the Veil and Its Consequences · in Stephanie Cronin (ed.), The Making of Modern Iran (Routledge) Reza Shah's 1936 unveiling and its enforcement and legacy. §11
  • 2002 Muhammad Qasim Zaman The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change · Princeton University Press How the ulama adapted to modern states, including al-Azhar after 1961. §11 §13
  • 1969 Richard P. Mitchell The Society of the Muslim Brothers · Oxford University Press The foundational history of the Muslim Brotherhood to the 1950s. §11
  • 1996 Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism · Oxford University Press Mawdūdī's thought and the Jamāʿat-i Islāmī. §11
  • 2010 John Calvert Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism · Hurst / Columbia University Press The standard biography of Quṭb and the development of his thought. §11
  • 1985 Gilles Kepel Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh · University of California Press Radical Islamist groups in 1970s Egypt and their debt to Quṭb (French original 1984). §11
  • 1985 Ayesha Jalal The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan · Cambridge University Press Argues the Pakistan demand began as a bargaining position for Muslim power within India. §11
  • 2013 Faisal Devji Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea · Harvard University Press / Hurst Reads Pakistan as a state founded on an idea, alongside Israel. §11
  • 2015 Venkat Dhulipala Creating a New Medina: State Power, Islam, and the Quest for Pakistan in Late Colonial North India · Cambridge University Press Argues Pakistan was promoted as an Islamic state from the start. §11
  • 1982 Gail Minault The Khilafat Movement: Religious Symbolism and Political Mobilization in India · Columbia University Press The caliphate as a symbol for Indian Muslim mobilisation, 1919–1924. §11
  • 2002 Edward E. Curtis IV Islam in Black America: Identity, Liberation, and Difference in African-American Islamic Thought · SUNY Press The Nation of Islam, Malcolm X and W. D. Mohammed within the history of Islam in America. §11
  • 2010 Kambiz GhaneaBassiri A History of Islam in America · Cambridge University Press Islam in America from the Atlantic slave trade to the present. §11
  • 2011 Manning Marable Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention · Viking Biography of Malcolm X, including his break with the Nation of Islam and his hajj. §11
  • 1992 Leila Ahmed Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate · Yale University Press Women's history in the Middle East and the colonial politics of the veil. §11
  • 2011 Leila Ahmed A Quiet Revolution: The Veil's Resurgence, from the Middle East to America · Yale University Press The return of veiling from 1970s Egypt to the United States. §11
  • 1982 Ervand Abrahamian Iran Between Two Revolutions · Princeton University Press The social history of modern Iran to the revolution and its coalition. §12
  • 1988 Said Amir Arjomand The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran · Oxford University Press The revolution as a clerical revolution, and the novelty of jurist rule in Shia history. §12
  • 2003 Nikki R. Keddie Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution · Yale University Press A standard history of Iran from the Qajars to the Islamic Republic. §12
  • 1981 Hamid Algar (trans.) Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini · Mizan Press The standard English translation of Khomeini's Islamic Government and other texts. §12
  • 2007 Yaroslav Trofimov The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine · Doubleday A narrative history of the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque. §12
  • 2007 Thomas Hegghammer and Stéphane Lacroix Rejectionist Islamism in Saudi Arabia: The Story of Juhayman al-ʿUtaybi Revisited · International Journal of Middle East Studies 39.1 The religious background of Juhayman's movement, from interviews and his own writings. §12
  • 2011 Stéphane Lacroix Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia · Harvard University Press The Saudi religious field and the Ṣaḥwa movement of the 1980s and 1990s. §12
  • 2020 Thomas Hegghammer The Caravan: Abdallah Azzam and the Rise of Global Jihad · Cambridge University Press The biography of ʿAbdallāh ʿAzzām and the Arab volunteers in Afghanistan. §12
  • 2006 Quintan Wiktorowicz Anatomy of the Salafi Movement · Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 29.3, 207–239 Divides Salafis by method into purists, politicos and jihadis, who share a creed but disagree on how to apply it. §12
  • 2022 Peter Mandaville (ed.) Wahhabism and the World: Understanding Saudi Arabia's Global Influence on Islam · Oxford University Press Case studies of Saudi religious influence abroad, sceptical of the large headline spending figures. §12
  • 2002 Gilles Kepel Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam · Harvard University Press A history of Islamist movements from the 1970s to the late 1990s. §12
  • 1994 Olivier Roy The Failure of Political Islam · Harvard University Press Argues that Islamist movements failed to produce a workable Islamic state and turned towards social conservatism. §12
  • 2001 Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State Power · Oxford University Press How the states of Pakistan and Malaysia used Islamization to extend their power. §12
  • 1989 Lisa Appignanesi and Sara Maitland (eds.) The Rushdie File · Fourth Estate Documents and statements from the first year of the Rushdie affair. §12
  • 2009 Kenan Malik From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy · Atlantic Books The Rushdie affair and its effect on British Muslim politics. §12
  • 2005 Bruce Lawrence (ed.) Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden · Verso Translations of bin Laden's statements from 1994 to 2004. §12
  • 2006 Lawrence Wright The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 · Knopf A history of al-Qaeda's origins, from Qutb to 2001. §12
  • 2000 Ahmed Rashid Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia · Yale University Press The Taliban's rise from the Pakistani madrasas to the capture of Kabul. §12
  • 2007 Augustus Richard Norton Hezbollah: A Short History · Princeton University Press Hezbollah's origins in 1982 and its development as party and militia. §12
  • 2000 Khaled Hroub Hamas: Political Thought and Practice · Institute for Palestine Studies Hamas's origins in the Muslim Brotherhood and its political ideas. §12
  • 1996 Michael Willis The Islamist Challenge in Algeria: A Political History · Ithaca Press The rise of the FIS and the cancelled election of 1991–1992. §12
  • 2015 Pierre Razoux The Iran–Iraq War · Harvard University Press A full military and political history of the war of 1980–1988. §12
  • 1999 Amina Wadud Qur'an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective · Oxford University Press (first published Kuala Lumpur, 1992) A gender-inclusive reading of the Qur'an by a Muslim scholar of exegesis. §12 §13
  • 1991 Fatima Mernissi The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women's Rights in Islam · Addison-Wesley (French original 1987) Re-examines the hadith restricting women and the men who transmitted them. §12
  • 1990 Asma Jahangir and Hina Jilani The Hudood Ordinances: A Divine Sanction? · Rhotas Books Pakistani lawyers' study of how the zina ordinance was applied to women. §12
  • 2009 Pew Research Center Mapping the Global Muslim Population · Pew Research Center open library ↗ Estimates Shia Muslims at 10–13 per cent of all Muslims (154–200 million) and Sunnis at 87–90 per cent. §13
  • 2012 Pew Research Center The World's Muslims: Unity and Diversity · Pew Research Center Surveys in 39 countries; about one in five Muslims in 22 Muslim-majority countries identify as "just a Muslim". §13
  • 2015 Pew Research Center The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010–2050 · Pew Research Center open library ↗ Projects Muslims at about 29.7 per cent of the world by 2050, on current fertility and age structure. §13
  • 2017 Pew Research Center Europe's Growing Muslim Population · Pew Research Center open library ↗ Muslims 4.9 per cent of Europe (EU, Norway, Switzerland) in 2016; 7.4–14 per cent projected for 2050 depending on migration. §13
  • 2017 Pew Research Center U.S. Muslims Concerned About Their Place in Society, but Continue to Believe in the American Dream · Pew Research Center Estimates 3.45 million Muslims in the United States in 2017, about 1.1 per cent of the population. §13
  • 2023 Michael Robbins MENA Youth Lead Return to Religion · Arab Barometer open library ↗ Wave VII (2021–22) finds fewer people calling themselves not religious than in 2018–19, especially among those aged 18–29; Lebanon the exception. §13
  • 2025 Islamic Financial Services Board Islamic Financial Services Industry Stability Report 2025 · IFSB Estimates Islamic finance assets at US$3.88 trillion in 2024, just over half in the Gulf states. §13
  • 2025 ICD and LSEG Islamic Finance Development Report 2025 · Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector and LSEG Estimates US$5.98 trillion on a broader definition of the Islamic economy. §13
  • 2015 Cole Bunzel From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State · Brookings Institution Traces the Islamic State's theology and its roots in an uncompromising strand of Wahhabi doctrine. §13
  • 2004 Olivier Roy Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah · Hurst Argues that migration and globalisation produce a deterritorialised, individualised Islam. §13
  • 2009 Gary R. Bunt iMuslims: Rewiring the House of Islam · University of North Carolina Press Studies online religious authority and "cyber-Islamic environments". §13
  • 2006 Amina Wadud Inside the Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam · Oneworld Includes her account of leading a mixed Friday prayer in New York on 18 March 2005. §13
  • 2002 Asma Barlas "Believing Women" in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur'an · University of Texas Press Argues that patriarchal readings come from the Qur'an's interpreters, not its text. §13
  • 2006 Kecia Ali Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur'an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence · Oneworld Examines classical marriage law and slavery from a feminist perspective. §13
  • 2004 Lois Beck and Guity Nashat, eds. Women in Iran from 1800 to the Islamic Republic · University of Illinois Press Essays on Iranian women's history, including the imposition of compulsory veiling after 1979.
  • 2005 Reza Aslan No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam · Random House A popular history; argues that the veil spread generations after Muhammad.

Image credits

Every image is from Wikimedia Commons under a free licence: public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA. Nothing non-free is used. Author, licence and the Commons file page are recorded at download time and rendered under each image, because CC BY-SA requires attribution and that must not be something a page author can forget to add.

Public domain · 11 CC BY-SA 4.0 · 4 CC BY 2.0 · 2 CC BY-SA 2.5 · 1 CC BY 3.0 pl · 1 CC BY 4.0 · 1

  • abd al malik dinars Mike Peel CC BY-SA 4.0 · Commons
  • arab sasanian dirham Classical Numismatic Group, uploaded by Cplakidas CC BY-SA 2.5 · Commons
  • at turaif diriyah Radosław Botev CC BY 3.0 pl · Commons
  • birmingham quran leaves Unknown scribe; photograph Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham Public domain · Commons
  • caliph abdulmecid ii Jean Pascal Sébah; Library of Congress Public domain · Commons
  • codex parisino petropolitanus Unknown scribe; Bibliothèque nationale de France Public domain · Commons
  • dome of the rock Godot13 CC BY-SA 4.0 · Commons
  • istiqlal mosque P. Hughes CC BY 4.0 · Commons
  • jami al tawarikh bahira Ilkhanid court painters, Tabriz, early 14th century; Edinburgh University Library Public domain · Commons
  • kaaba sadiq bey Muhammad Sadiq Bey, c. 1880; Khalili Collections Public domain · Commons
  • mevlana tomb konya Zeynel Cebeci CC BY-SA 4.0 · Commons
  • namara inscription Marie-Lan Nguyen Public domain · Commons
  • perf 558 papyrus Unknown scribe; Austrian National Library, Papyrus Collection Public domain · Commons
  • samarra malwiya David Stanley CC BY 2.0 · Commons
  • sanaa palimpsest leaf Unknown scribe; Stanford University Public domain · Commons
  • shaykh lutf allah mosque Amirpashaei CC BY-SA 4.0 · Commons
  • siege of baghdad 1258 Unknown painter, fourteenth century; Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Diez Albums Public domain · Commons
  • tehran revolution 1979 Unknown photographer Public domain · Commons
  • umayyad mosque mosaics Jan Smith CC BY 2.0 · Commons
  • zuhayr inscription Unknown Public domain · Commons

A note on citation practice

Arabic, Persian, Syriac and Greek are given in transliteration so they can be checked against any edition. References use the standard systems: Q 30:2–4 is the Qur'an by sura and verse in the Cairo numbering; al-Bukhārī 4986 is a hadith by its number in the standard printed collection; PERF 558 is a papyrus in the Vienna collection; 72 AH is a Hijri year, given beside its Common Era equivalent. Manuscripts are cited by library and shelfmark so they can be found in any catalogue. Where a date is contested, the range and the competing positions are given rather than a single confident number.