Author: Fred M. Donner

In this contribution to the ongoing debate on the nature and causes of the Islamic conquests in Syria and Iraq during the sixth and seventh centuries, Fred Donner argues for a necessary distinction b …

This is the first translation of a classic work (Bahth fi nnsh’ at ‘ilm al ta’ rikh ‘inda l-‘Arab) by the eminent Arab historian A. A. Duri. Published in Beirut in 1960, Duri’s book was the first com …

This volume presents a selection of the key studies in which leading scholars since the beginning of the 20th century attempt to explain the phenomenally rapid expansion of the early Islamic state du …

This volume presents a selection of the key studies in which leading scholars since the beginning of the 20th century attempt to explain the phenomenally rapid expansion of the early Islamic state du …

This volume reprints nineteen articles that deal with the formation of the first Islamic state under the ‘rightly-guided’ and Umayyad caliphs (632-750 CE). The articles (five of which originally appe …

This volume reprints nineteen articles that deal with the formation of the first Islamic state under the ‘rightly-guided’ and Umayyad caliphs (632-750 CE). The articles (five of which originally appe …

How did Islam’s sacred scripture, the Arabic Qur’an, emerge from western Arabia at a time when the region was religiously fragmented and lacked a clearly established tradition of writing to render th …