Description
Book SynopsisWhat motivated the early Islamic conquests? Did the Arabs fight for Allah, or for wealth and dominance? Were the conquerors principally Arabs, or specifically Muslims? Were the Muslim believers motivated by religious zeal to proclaim Islam to the non-Muslims? Consequently, was Islam spread by the sword? This is a question that has crucial implications today.
The Stated Motivations for the Early Islamic Expansion (622641) extensively analyzes the earliest Arabic Muslim sources to answer these and other questions. It relies on over 400 works, including primary sources written by more than 90 medieval Muslim authors, Sunni, Shiite, Sufi, and Mu'tazilite. It explores how medieval Muslim writers represented the early Arab leaders, and how much we can trust their reports. It concludes with an examination of the Qur'an's commands regarding fighting and armed jihad, and questions what later commentators suggest about fighting the non-Muslims, specifically how radical Muslim int
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«I certainly hope that Muslim scholars and apologists will carefully engage with this book.»
(Duane Alexander Miller, Southeastern Theological Review 9/2 2018)
“The Stated Motivations for the Early Islamic Expansion (622–641) demonstrates an impressive knowledge of the Muslim medieval and modern literature and came to convincing groundbreaking conclusions in research of early Islam.”—Yaron Friedman, University of Haifa, Author of The Nuṣayrī-ᶜAlawīs
“The Stated Motivations for the Early Islamic Expansion (622–641) is a careful study which sheds new light on the earliest Islamic conquests and the development of an Islamic ideology of conquest in the days of the Prophet and the first caliphs.”—Gabriel Said Reynolds, University of Notre Dame, Author of The Qur’ān and Its Biblical Subtext
“Ayman S. Ibrahim’s reasonable questioning of the traditional Muslim hypothesis about the Arab conquests is welcome for many reasons, not least among them that the hypothesis falsely claims that the conquests were self-defense operations for the sake of faith proclamation. He shows convincingly that this claim does not line up with the earliest Muslim narrative sources. Ibrahim’s investigation goes even beyond this, however, to query the reliability and historicity of the Muslim narrative sources themselves.”—Gordon Nickel, University of Calgary, Author of Narratives of Tampering in the Earliest Commentaries on the Qur’ān
Table of Contents
System of Transliteration – Notes on the Text – Notes on the Text – Introduction – Review of Precedent Literature – Muhammad’s Maghāzī and Their Stated Motivations: A Critical Revision of Sīrat Rasūl Allāh – The Stated Motivations for the Early Futūḥ: From Maghāzī to Futūḥ Through the Ridda Wars: A Critical Revision – Jihad and Qitāl as the Qur’ān Sees Them: Exegeting Islam’s Scripture – Conclusion.
