The conversions of ʿAbdallāh ibn Salām (d. 43/633): A legendary moment in the biography of Muḥammad's Jewish companion

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Samuel A. Stafford
Keyword(s):  
Seventh Century ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Early Islam ◽  
Jewish Scholar ◽  
Jewish Scriptures ◽  
Anti Jewish ◽  
Diverse Groups ◽  
D 43

Abstract The Jewish scholar ʿAbdallāh b. Salām is a legendary figure from early Islam who is regarded in Islamic tradition as the archetypal Jewish convert to Islam during the Prophet's career, the pre-eminent authority on Jewish scriptures in seventh-century Arabia, and a renowned Companion. This study examines the traditions on Ibn Salām's conversion that were recorded in the biographical literature and Quranic commentaries of classical Islam and identifies the literary tropes from Muḥammad's biography featured in these traditions. Scrutiny of the evidence shows that the reports on the date and circumstances of Ibn Salām's conversion were shaped by a number of factors, including, the biases of his descendants, Quranic exegesis, and anti-Jewish polemics. Ibn Salām's legendary conversion served as a vehicle for diverse groups of Muslims to promote their doctrines and supply the Prophet with Biblical legitimacy.

scholarly journals The conquest of Khu¯zista¯n: a historiographical reassessment

2004 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHASE F. ROBINSON
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
Local Source ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Early Islam

The ‘appendix’ to a mid- to late seventh-century East Syriac history includes a detailed account of the conquest of Khu¯zista¯n by Muslim armies between c. 635 and 642. This article translates this section of the ‘appendix’ (along with another dealing with the conquest of Egypt), subjects it to detailed analysis and criticism, and compares it with Arabic accounts of the conquest of Khu¯zista¯n that survive in the much later historical and legal traditions. The results of this exercise—using an early and local source to control the Islamic tradition—is in some measure mixed, but some striking agreement suggests that the transmission of conquest history in early Islam was not as discontinuous as has been previously argued.

scholarly journals Islam and Buddhism: The Arabian Prequel?

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Anna Akasoy
Keyword(s):  
Seventh Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Critical Survey ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Eastern Iran ◽  
Arab Muslim ◽  
Early Islam ◽  
Islamic Empire ◽  
Indian Physician

Conventionally, the first Muslim-Buddhist encounters are thought to have taken place in the context of the Arab-Muslim expansions into eastern Iran in the mid-seventh century, the conquest of Sind in 711 and the rise of the Islamic empire. However, several theories promoted in academic and popular circles claim that Buddhists or other Indians were present in western Arabia at the eve of Islam and thus shaped the religious environment in which Muhammad’s movement emerged. This article offers a critical survey of the most prominent arguments adduced to support this view and discusses the underlying attitudes to the Islamic tradition, understood as a body of ideas and practices, and Islamic Tradition, understood as a body of texts. Such theories appear to be radical challenges of the Islamic tradition insofar as they seek to reinscribe the presence of religious communities in conventional narratives of Islamic origins that do not acknowledge them. On the other hand, they often operate with an unreconstructed reliance upon the sources of the Islamic Tradition. The assessment focuses ondescriptions of the Ka’ba and objects associated with it as well as on a story about an Indian physician who diagnosed an illness of Muhammad’s wife Aisha. While Indian or Buddhist connections with western Arabia and early Islam do not appear to be entirely impossible, the evidence does not amount to a persuasive case for the early seventh century.

The Qur’an and Christianity

2020 ◽  
pp. 151-164
Author(s):  
Neal Robinson
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Lord's Prayer ◽  
Gospel Of Thomas ◽  
Last Supper ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Q 61 ◽  
Death Of Jesus ◽  
Early Islam ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Face

This chapter advocates a critical stance towards both normative Christianity and normative Islamic tradition but highlights the inadequacies of revisionist histories of early Islam. It suggests that the fātiḥa was intended to replace the Lord’s Prayer and that sura 112 was a response to the Christology of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. It finds a precedent for the 114 suras of the Qur’an in the 114 logia of the Gospel of Thomas. It argues that Q. 7:157 was revealed in Medina but concedes that Q. 61:6b may be a later editorial addition. However, it stresses that regardless of whether these two passages are authentic the biblical teaching about the prophet like Moses and the Paraclete is the key to understanding the dynamics of the Qur’anic discourse. It maintains that the Qur’an is not concerned with the death of Jesus as such. Rather Q. 4:156–7 rebuts Jewish anti-Christian polemic and Q. 3:55 serves to strengthen the believers in the face of death and defeat. Q. 5:112–5 differs from the biblical accounts of the last supper because the crucifixion is not viewed as an act of atonement. The three elements in Jesus’ name, al-Masīḥ ʿĪsā Ibn Maryam, are examined in the light of the Qur’anic chronology, philology, and the New Testament. The background to the designation of Christians as naṣārā is explored with reference to the New Testament and other pre-Islamic sources.

Songs of Sacrifice

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Maloy
Keyword(s):  
Seventh Century ◽  
Liturgical Music ◽  
Biblical Exegesis ◽  
Textual Production ◽  
Cultural Renewal ◽  
Musical Rhetoric ◽  
Medieval Iberia ◽  
Isidore Of Seville ◽  
Christian Worship ◽  
Anti Jewish

Songs of Sacrifice argues that liturgical music—both texts and melodies—played a central role in the cultural renewal of early Medieval Iberia. Between the seventh and eleventh centuries, Christian worship on the Iberian Peninsula was structured by rituals of great theological and musical richness, known as the Old Hispanic (or Mozarabic) rite. Much of this liturgy was produced during the seventh century, as part of a cultural and educational program led by Isidore of Seville and other bishops. After the conversion of the Visigothic rulers from Arian to Nicene Christianity at the end of the sixth century, the bishops aimed to create a society unified in the Nicene faith, built on twin pillars of church and kingdom. They initiated a project of clerical education, facilitated through a distinctive culture of textual production. The chant repertory was carefully designed to promote these aims. The creators of the chant texts reworked scripture in ways designed to teach biblical exegesis, linking both to the theological works of Isidore and others, and to Visigothic anti-Jewish discourse. The notation reveals an intricate melodic grammar that is closely tied to textual syntax and sound. Through musical rhetoric, the melodies shaped the delivery of the texts to underline words and phrases of particular liturgical or doctrinal import. The chants thus worked toward the formation of individual Christian souls and a communal, Nicene identity. The final chapters turn to questions about the intersection between orality and writing and the relationships of the Old Hispanic chant to other Western plainsong traditions.

When did the consonantal skeleton of the Quran reach closure? Part II

2014 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolai Sinai
Keyword(s):  
Seventh Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Islamic Tradition

AbstractThe Islamic tradition credits the promulgation of a uniform consonantal skeleton (rasm) of the Quran to the third caliph ʿUthmān (r. 644–656). However, in recent years various scholars have espoused a conjectural dating of the Quran's codification to the time of ʿAbd al-Malik, or have at least taken the view that the Islamic scripture was open to significant revision up untilc. 700ce. The second instalment of this two-part article surveys arguments against this hypothesis. It concludes that as long as no Quranic passages with a distinct stylistic and terminological profile have been compellingly placed in a late seventh-century context, the traditional dating of the standardrasm(excepting certain orthographical features) to 650 or earlier ought to be our default view.

Slavery, Indenture, and Freedom: Exegesis of the ‘mukātabaVerse’ (Q. 24:33) in Early Islam

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-107
Author(s):  
Ramon Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Economic Change ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
Economic Actor ◽  
Legal Questions ◽  
Early Islam ◽  
The Way

Slavery was a significant part of society within the seventh-century Arabian context of the Qur'an. In this context, Q. 24:33, which has been universally interpreted by Muslim exegetes as the basis for a contract of mukātaba (‘indenture’) that allows slaves to work to pay for their freedom, is a particularly intriguing verse. This article examines the exegesis of Q. 24:33 against the background of the first two centuries of Islam, examining the way that its ambiguous language was interpreted in the light of socio-economic change and diverse theologico-political circles of scholarship. It is argued that an initially dominant emancipatory reading of the verse as an obligation within early Medina is preserved for over a century in Mecca, finding a home in Basran Ibāḍī scholarship of the late second/eighth century. In contrast, the dominant proto-Sunnī approach (and related proto-Zaydī tradition), centred in Iraq, adopts the formerly minority opinion that the mukātaba contract is merely permissible. By examining related legal questions, it is concluded that this shift in commentary on Q. 24:33 from the first/seventh to the second/eighth centuries reflects a broader change in the conception of the slave: from a valid economic actor on a continuum of servitude, to an item of property.

scholarly journals Tradisi Integrasi Ilmu dalam Institusi Pendidikan Islam

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zainal Abidin
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Method ◽  
Islamic Education ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Early Islam ◽  
The World ◽  
Islamic Countries

The Integration of secience in Islamic tradition is importance aspect. In the Islamic historical contect indicated that Islamic education was supported to integration of secience, because more of islamic educa- tion institution can be important playing in developing aspect especially to built the civiulization araound the world. From early Islam period, many institution of Islamic education was produced several Islamic intellectuals heritage and more Islamic scholars, so its developed sciences of Islamic perspectives. This tradition is a branch of muslim identity who has influenced for many ages. After Islam be came the ones of gread religion in the world,its tradition was established and until now the influence of Islamic tradition in scientific method must be developed and be come to the great interests between Islamic scholars in many Islamic countries.

Iranian Expanse

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew P. Canepa
Keyword(s):  
Seventh Century ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Built Environments ◽  
Achaemenid Empire ◽  
Sasanian Empire ◽  
Early Islam ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ritual Activity ◽  
Art And Architecture ◽  
Rich History

The product of a decade of research, The Iranian Expanse is a study of the natural and built environments of power in Persia and the ancient Iranian world from the consolidation of the Achaemenid Empire in the sixth century BCE to the fall of the Sasanian Empire in the seventh century CE. It analyzes the formation and development of some of the most enduring expressions of power in Persia and the ancient Iranian world: palaces, paradise gardens and hunting enclosures, royal cities, sanctuaries and landscapes marked with a rich history of rock art and ritual activity. It explores how these structures, landscapes and urban spaces constructed and transformed Iranian imperial cosmologies, royal identities, and understandings of the past. While previous studies have often noted startling continuities between the traditions of the Achaemenids and the art and architecture of medieval or Early Modern Islam, they have routinely downplayed or ignored the tumultuous millennium between Alexander and Islam. The first study of its kind, the Iranian Expanse shows how the Seleucids, Arsacids and Sasanians played a transformative role in the development of a new Iranian royal culture that impacted early Islam and the wider Persianate world of such dynasties as the Il-Khans, Safavids, Timurids and Mughals.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document