Narratives of Islamic origins : the beginnings of Islamic historical writing
Donner challenges the scholarly assumption that the earliest Muslim believers wanted to write history out of "idle curiosity" and suggests that Islamic historical tradition resulted from a variety of challenges facing the community during the seventh to tenth centuries, C.E. He identifies the intellectual context in which Muslims began to think and write historically; sketches the issues, themes, and forms of the early Islamic historiographical tradition; considers the value of some radically revisionist interpretations of early Islam that have appeared in the past 20 years; and discusses the problem of sources in studying Islamic origins
History
xv, 358 pages ; 25 cm.
9780878501274, 0878501274
37594489
The date of the Qurʼānic text
Early Islamic piety
Styles of legitimation in the early Islamic community of believers
The contours of the early Islamic historiographical tradition
Themes of prophecy
Themes of community
Themes of hegemony
Themes of leadership
Authenticity, transformation, and selection of historiographical themes
Chronology and the development of chronological schemes
Some formal and structural characteristics of early Islamic historiography