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Revision as of 11:24, 10 April 2006 by JoanneB (talk | contribs) (rv to more balanced and referenced version)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World, 1977, is a book by scholars of the Middle East Patricia Crone and Michael Cook.
The book presents a study of the roots of the Islamic religion and culture in Judeo-Christian ideas, Greek philosophy, Roman law and Persian statehood.
Historian Daniel Pipes states " Hagarism, a 1977 study by Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, the authors completely exclude the Arabic literary sources and reconstruct the early history of Islam only from the information to be found in Arabic papyri, coins, and inscriptions as well as non-Arabic literary sources in a wide array of languages (Aramaic, Armenian, Coptic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Syriac). This approach leads Crone and Cook in wild new directions. In their account, Mecca's role is replaced by a city in northwestern Arabia and Muhammad was elevated "to the role of a scriptural prophet" only about a.d. 700, or seventy years after his death. As for the Qur'an, it was compiled in Iraq at about that same late date."
Intentionally avoiding orthodox Muslim sources, Hagarism draws principally on Christian and Jewish accounts. The early chapters of the book argue that Muhammad preached a form of Messianic Judaism, whose aim was to conquer the Holy Land from the Byzantines with an army composed of Jews and Arabs. The term 'hagarism' refers to the way Muhammad justified the inclusion of the Arabs by emphasizing the common ancestry of the Jews and Arabs from Abraham, through Sarah for the Jews and Hagar for the Arabs. Eventually the Jews were betrayed, and Hagarism continued to develop into what is now Islam, a blend of Judaism, Samaritanism and Christianity.
The book contends that the traditional stories of the Qu'ran's origin propounded by Muslims are later inventions, not historically accurate, and inconsistent with archaeological and other physical evidence.
These theories are rejected by Muslims as blasphemous. Western scholars have generally applauded Crone and Cook's willingness to re-open questions of the origins of Islam, but few have accepted their conclusions.
Bibliography
- Oleg Grabar, review, Speculum 53:4 (Oct., 1978), pp. 795-799. JSTOR, by subscription: "...brilliant, fascinating, original, arrogant, highly debatable..."; "...the whole construction proposed by the authors lacks entirely in truly historical foundations."
- Eric I. Manheimer, review, The American Historical Review 83:1 (Feb., 1978), pp. 240-241. JSTOR, by subscription: "...the conclusions drawn lack balance. The weights on the scales tip too easily toward the hypercritical side, tending to distract what might have been an excellent study in comparative religion."
- Michael G. Morony, review, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 41:2 (Apr., 1982), pp. 157-159. JSTOR, by subscription: "...this is a thin piece of Kulturgeschichte full of glib generalizations, facile assumptions, and tiresome jargon. More argument than evidence...."
- Leon Nemoy, review, The Jewish Quarterly Review New Ser. 68:3 (Jan., 1978), pp. 179-181. JSTOR, by subscription: "Many of the question-marks posed by the authors deserve examination and, if possible, a reasonable answer."
- J. Wansbrough, review, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 41:1 (1978), pp. 155-156. JSTOR, by subscription
See also
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