This work investigates available early Arabic ḥadīth and exegetical literature in order to determine the great complexity of how Arabs, Muslims and Arab-Muslims viewed themselves and members of other communities. In particular, it focuses on the relation between definitions of "Arabness" and "otherness" with Islamic ascriptions of believers and nonbelievers and endeavors to trace the changing of these views over time. Moreover, this is an in-depth analysis of a series of ḥadīths and isnāds that discusses when, where, why, and by whom traditions were circulated during the 8th and 9th centuries. I. Bedouins and Non-Arabs II. The Impact of the Arab Polity in Retrospect III. The Great Fusion IV. Ambivalent Attitudes V. Apocalyptic Insecurities VI. Summary Discussion and Concluding Notes

In this book the author pursues some of the ideas first set forth in his controversial Introduction to the Other History (1984, in Arabic) in a ground-breaking study of the ways in which the relations between Arabs and non-Arabs developed during the first centuries of Islam. Arabs and Others in Early Islam argues that with the rise of the Arab empire in the seventh century, paradigms of Arab or Islamic identity did not yet exist in their classical forms. In the course of arguing this thesis, Bashear also offers important insights on the social and cultural history of early Islam, including changing attitudes toward bedouins, non-Arabs, and non-Muslims, the notion of Arabia as the Arab homeland, and apocalyptic insecurities. -- Publisher description.

This book offers a new approach to the vexing question of how to write the early history of Islam. The first part discusses the nature of the Muslim and non-Muslim source material for the seventh- and eighth-century Middle East and argues that by lessening the divide between these two traditions, which has largely been erected by modern scholarship, we can come to a better appreciation of this crucial period. The second part gives a detailed survey of sources and an analysis of some 120 non-Muslim texts, all of which provide information about the first century and a half of Islam (roughly A.D. 620-780). The third part furnishes examples, according to the approach suggested in the first part and with the material presented in the second part, how one might write the history of this time. The fourth part takes the form of excurses on various topics, such as the process of Islamization, the phenomenon of conversion to Islam, the development of techniques for determining the direction of prayer, and the conquest of Egypt. Because this work views Islamic history with the aid of non-Muslim texts and assesses the latter in the light of Muslim writings, it will be essential reading for historians of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, or Zoroastrianism--indeed, for all those with an interest in cultures of the eastern Mediterranean in its traditional phase from Late Antiquity to medieval times.

Arabs and Empires before Islam collates nearly 250 translated extracts from an extensive array of ancient sources which, from a variety of different perspectives, illuminate the history of the Arabs before the emergence of Islam.

This book chronicles the dreams, illusions and aspirations of American missionaries, world travellers and national leaders, from colonial times forward, as they sought to establish "an American Israel" in the Holy Land. In their dispositions the reader can glimpse the battleground for Christian Americans and Middle Eastern Moslems in succeeding centuries. The author brings insights from his own religious roots to complement his grasp of the American phenomena which produced Orientalism. He traces the fundamentalist movements and national philosophies which influenced Americans to view themselves as the "Chosen People" and to extend their missionary resolves to the policy of "Manifest Destiny." Thus the future of American-Arab relations in the Middle East was set upon antithetical paths.

Long before Muhammed preached the religion of Islam, the inhabitants of his native Arabia had played an important role in world history as both merchants and warriors Arabia and the Arabs provides the only up-to-date, one-volume survey of the region and its peoples, from prehistory to the coming of Islam Using a wide range of sources - inscriptions, poetry, histories, and archaeological evidence - Robert Hoyland explores the main cultural areas of Arabia, from ancient Sheba in the south, to the deserts and oases of the north. He then examines the major themes of *the economy *society *religion *art, architecture and artefacts *language and literature *Arabhood and Arabisation The volume is illustrated with more than 50 photographs, drawings and maps.