Customer Reviews

Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam (Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam)

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Two of the reviews posted here suggest that the we might title them "Seeing 'Seeing Islam. . .' as Others Saw it." The New York reader's propoganda for Hagarism and other far-fetched perspectives is explicitly taken on and refuted in Hoyland's Chapter 13. Chapter 14 begins, saying "... it is a strong argument in favor of [Muslim witnesses] that they do frequently coincide with what is said by [non-Muslim witnesses]."
This book is mostly a sober, almost 19th-century style translated collection of all the sources refering to Muslims and Islam in the first (roughly) two centuries of Islam. These sources are organized (a bit frustratingly for this reader) by the language of their origin (rather than chronologically). Execurses collect early Muslim sources, and various chapters meticulously discuss the sources, how they can be used, and other methodological issues. The author then carefully, soberly, and very persuasively draws conclusions about the original Muslim self-identity, the cultus, the nature of the early community's religiosity (or religiosities) etc. It is a tour de force work, invaluable for those interested in Early Islam and it puts paid to speculative, thinly evidenced, and frankly hostile works like that of Nevo and Koren. It's a pity that it is so difficult to find, however.

Hoyland provides an invaluable resource for student of early islam. Cataloguing and summarising all the early non-Muslim sources referring to Islam, he has created a text that not only lists hard-to-find references, but lucidly summarises them as well.

I started reading this book in hopes I can get better understanding of 7th-8th century AD from sources other than Muslim sources. Prof. Hoyland did not disappoint with this treasure book.

His unbiased analytics of the scriptures, cross referencing every material with numerous other sources as to establish the validity of the source is a great task that he had undertaken eagerly. I can't imagine the amount of research that went into this book, quite astonushing.

The book is close to 800 pages, but only 600 pages deal discuss the work and 200 pages of references. It is clear the author took keen care of examining all materials available including architectural designs relating to that period.

The book in my opinion explains why you simply shouldn't take scriptures of Muslim/non-Muslim sources alike for being true. Many of the old scriptures include apologetic works, polemical stories and sometimes right out exaggerations.

This book serves to correct what Crone and others assumed by taking scriptures of non-Muslim and claiming it to be the only explanation for how was Islam in 7th century. The book is packed with scripture quotations from the Greeks to the Chinese on issues related to the rise of Islam.

The book showed that Muslim sources of 9th/10th AD describe closely in the same way the events that non-Muslims had written in 7th/8th AD.

I'll be keeping this book in my library and pass it on to my children. It is a treasure of historical magnificance. The sad part though, the same issues arose during that period between Christians, Jews and Muslims still exist until today. It is clear no siding is winning, and no Messaiah is coming.

Kudos to the author, he and all those took part in producing this work deserve our gratitute.

When Patricia Crone wrote her outstanding book ( and sad enough it is out of print at present): "Hagarism", she was able to challenge the Islamic tradition's monopoly on our understanding of Islam and its early history. She followed the path set by John Wansbrough who convinced us that the whole Islamic tradition ( the sira, the Hadith, the Maghazi etc..) was late and tendentious; it was nothing but salvation history and much of it is pious fiction; that Islam is a complex phenomenon; and that religions do not spring out of the heads of prophets just like that.

Crone did the unthinkable, she used the tetimony of, as the late Suliman Bashear called them: The others!, the Syriac sources, the Coptic sources etc...that have been long neglected by historians who felt more at ease by believing the Islamic tradition's view of its own history. Everyone rushed to check her references, including reading the writings available by "infidels", AKA non-Muslims that witnessed the invasion by al-Muhajirun, later to be known as, yes you guessed it: Arabs/Mulims, of their homelands in the Middle East. Some of these references are very hard to find. This book provides us with access to these writings, and this is indeed a great task. As much as Patricia Crone follows a long and distinguished line of scholars of Islam that radically changed our understanding of Islam and its history, and this list includes: Ignaz Goldziher, Joseph Schacht, Henri Lammens, the great John Wansbrough, Micheal Cook, Yehuda Nevo..I'm sure I missed a few names. One should not be naive enough, as John Wansbrough have noted in his review of her book, and blindely believe the sources of the "others", because they can be just as tainted as Muslim sources. Therefore, these sources can help us in understanding "what really happened" only to a certain degree.

The reader will be surprised that : 1. Those invaders called themselves: Al-Muhajirun, and not Arabs or Muslims for this matter, and continued to be called so until the first quarter of the 8th. century. 2. The name of Muhhamad does not appear until 72 A.H. 3. The Quran does not appear until appear until the turn of the 8th. century, and only as logia and pericopes, and not the whole text. Which makes one wonder that the whole story about the 'Uthmanic recension of the Quran is nothing but late pious fraud. 4. The "infidels" seemed to be aware that a significant event took place in 622 C.E, but no one seemed to be aware of what it was, and not even the early Muslim sources themselves. But wait a minute...do not assume that it is the year of Muhammad's so called hijra. So what is it? Well, read this book. This is the great fun about reading this book. It will shatter some of your believes.

If you like this book, I would urge you to read the late Suliman Bashear's book: " Introduction to the other history."

While there might be a little analysis, the most valuable task the author has engaged in is collecting a number of non-Arab and non-Muslim sources regarding Islam. This is one of very few books that endeavors to do so and is a massive tool for any scholar seeking to explore Islam via non-Islamic sources.

The sources range from a plethora of Greek sources to a few from the Syriac and even a few Persian ones. This is clearly no easy task and the reader profusely thanks the author for his dedication to the subject. This analysis is easily skipped over in the rush to get to the actual sources. As one such person, the commentary and analysis is not a subject I can comment on but the sources themselves are a pleasure to have.

Reading those sources (the footnotes can also be very revealing) whets the appetite for more and there are certainly more documents out there (many a Syriac Christian library still exists in Turkey and Syria) to be translated and put to use by scholars.

The sole reason why the book has not received a full five stars is that several sources that do discuss Islam

This book is worth its weight in gold-pressed latinum.

In structure it is a catalogue of non-Muslim witness to Islam with copious footnotes as to the current (1998) state of scholarship on each. It is organised first by genre (incidental notices, chronologies, apologetics and such) and then by region / language, and finally by date.

It was compiled / written in the mid 1990s, and its author was only about thirty years old at the time, which makes its continued relevance a near-miracle. Compare with Patricia Crone's early stuff (she got better) and you'll see what I mean.

The summary of Theophilus's Syriac Common Source is alone worth the price of admission.

There have of course been followups to the literature herein; the Zuqnin Chronicle comes immediately to mind. And there were a few omissions - especially the History of the Caucasian Albanians (which he knew about), and perhaps also the remainder of the Jewish Geniza "Signes du Messie" (which was in Hebrew, so he might not have known about it). I personally would not have included quite as much on Islamic apocalyptic on account that it's not as others [non-Muslims] saw Islam. I mention all that here not to take away from this achievement, so much as to show where you can go look them up and provide your own supplement.

The book is quick on conclusions. It avoids any analysis of archeological finds that do not accord with such conclusions. The fact of the matter is that much evidence support the 'traditional' story of Islam, in particular in the Fertile Crescent where archeological finds have not contradicted the 'traditional' story.

The fact that no such digs where ever conducted in the birthplace of the entire movement is regrettable. Incidently, Mecca should prove a veritabley exciting site, given the fact that it had been on a trade route for probably hundred of years before Mohammed's time.

The search for answers to these questions, without theological or (much worse) political motives seems hard to expect in the present time. As usual, "Truth is the first victim" of the current tragic events.