Van Ess on the beginnings of Islamic theology
LATER ISLAMIC SOURCES considered the sects that appeared in distant and scattered cities as deviant or heretical. But when they…
Van Ess and the great battle over Orientalism
FROM THE OUTSET, Claude Gilliot gets straight to the point: Some are complaining about the deteriorating situation of Oriental studies…
Sources of Islam
WHEN MUHAMMAD BEGAN his call, he began with short suras of the Qur’an, consisting of saj‘ rhymes that imitated the rhymes of…
The ‘Islamic narrative’
IN THE FIRST CENTURY and at the beginning of the second century AH, stimulating reports and narrations multiplied and accumulated.…
The reality of the Arab invasions – from non-Islamic sources – 2
THIS WAS THE CONJUNCTION between the Byzantine succession crisis in Constantinople that erupted in 638 AD, and the outbreak of…
The reality of the Arab invasions – from non-Islamic sources – 1
THE FAMOUS IRAQI HISTORIAN Jawād ‘Alī in his book Al-Mufaṣṣal fī Tārīkh al-‘Arab says: “It may be that Muslim historians…
Josef van Ess and the diagnosis of the Islamic problem – 2
THIS CURRENT PREVAILING image, however, should not deceive us, as we labour under the illusion that the entire history of…
Josef van Ess and the diagnosis of the Islamic problem – 1
THERE IS A DIFFERENCE between two disciplines: the ‘ilm al-kalām, and the ‘ilm al-fiqh. They are not the same thing,…
The Islamic triumphalist approach to history
THE SUBJECT OF ISLAM and how to handle the Qur’ān has remained the preserve of traditional jurists and scholars (the…
Opening up ijtihād – opening up the mind – 2
FUNDAMENTALIST REVIVALISTS have been exaggerating and emphasizing their claims to the point that you now see and hear people who…