Glen Warren Bowersock:
The Crucible of Islam
Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press
2017, 240 pp., illustr.
— ISBN 978-0674057760 —
Verlagsinformation >>>
Deutsche Ausgabe:
Glen W. Bowersock: Die Wiege des Islam. Mohammed, der Koran und die antiken Kulturen.
Aus dem Englischen von Rita Seuss.
München: C. H. Beck, München 2019. 160 S.,
Glen W. Bowersock: Die Wiege des Islam. Mohammed, der Koran und die antiken Kulturen.
Aus dem Englischen von Rita Seuss.
München: C. H. Beck, München 2019. 160 S.,
- Verlagsinformation,
Inhaltsverzeichnis, Leseprobe >>> - Rezension in der NZZ , 27.07.2019 von Philipp Hufschmid >>>
Table of Contents
- Map of Southwest Arabia, prepared by Fabrice Delrieux
- Map of the Ḥijāz, prepared by Fabrice Delrieux
- Prologue
- 1. The Arabian Kingdom of Abraha
- 2. Arab Paganism in Late Antiquity
- 3. Late Antique Mecca
- 4. Ethiopia and Arabia
- 5. The Persians in Jerusalem
- 6. Muḥammad and Medina
- 7. Interregnum of the Four Caliphs
- 8. A New Dispensation
- 9. The Dome of the Rock
- Notes — Select Bibliography — Acknowledgments — Index
Der Schmelztiegel des Islam – Review by Robert F. Shedinger
In The Crucible of Islam, noted historian G. W. Bowersock provides a
very brief (about 32,000 words) overview of what we know about the geopolitics of
the world out of which the Islamic tradition emerged. This is not a history of
the emergence of the Islamic tradition itself, but as the title indicates, an
attempt to understand the context that produced this tradition.
Bowersock thus
provides a concise overview of the interactions occurring between the Byzantine
Empire, the Persian Sassanid Empire, the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia, and
Jewish communities as these interactions influenced the geopolitics of Arabia
and the larger Middle East on the eve of Islam’s emergence.
Given the book’s
brevity, The Crucible of Islam should not be read as a comprehensive
treatment of this historical period, but rather as an attempt to look to the
larger political environment of Arabia for clues to Islam’s rise.
Bowersock
views the rise of Islam as something of an enigma about which the historical
sources are seriously limited. Though he does not follow the more radical
revisionist historiographies of Patricia Crone or Michael Cook, Bowersock
nevertheless understands the critical problems attendant on simply accepting the
standard Muslim confessional history. While not totally rejecting that history,
he is trying to nuance it in the way similar to Fred Donner’s approach in
Muhammad and the Believers (Harvard University Press, 2010).
Chapter 6, titled “Muhammad and Medina,” may contain the most noteworthy
insights. Here Bowersock tries to untangle the mystery of the hijra,
the emigration of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Yathrib (Medina) in
the year 622. How is it that these immigrant Believers were able to fit in so
well with a population made up of Jewish tribes allied with Arab pagan tribes?
To answer this, Bowersock observes that the hijra happens to have
occurred in the same year that the Byzantine emperor Heraclius launched a
military assault on Persia. Is this just coincidence or is there a connection
between what seem to be two unrelated events? Bowersock sees a connection. He
argues that Heraclius may have made use of Byzantine clients in Medina (the
Ghassanids) to influence pagan and Jewish tribes to get along with each other
and the newly arrived immigrants to prevent Persia from stirring up discord in
Medina as they had done earlier in Palestine. Thus, the flowering of the early
Islamic community in Medina may have been fostered by the influence of
Byzantine-Persian geopolitics.
Other important insights include discussion of evidence suggesting that
Muslim conquests of Middle Eastern lands were mostly nonviolent, a point that
has also been argued by Donner. Bowersock writes: “The landscape, both economic
and physical, was barely altered in these early years of conquest. No new
coinage was introduced. Churches, synagogues, and pagan shrines were left
exactly as they were, together with the visible relics of their cults—mosaics,
paintings, sculpture, and architecture” (118). New churches were even being
built with dated mosaic floors.
This supports the view that early Muslims did
not understand themselves as spreading a new religion as a replacement for
Judaism, Christianity, or Zoroastrianism. Donner sees this as evidence for the
“ecumenical” nature of the Believers’ movement. Given this, in his discussion of
the apparent melding of Christianity and Islam in the Dome of the Rock
inscriptions, it is surprising that Bowersock fails to mention the intriguing
documentary evidence cited by Donner indicating the originality of a shortened
form of the shahadah (There is no God but The God) that occurs on
coins, inscriptions, and papyri from before the late seventh century. The full
shahadah affirming the messengership of Muhammad does not appear in the
documentary record until Umayyad times (when the messengership of Jesus was
still being affirmed in the Dome of the Rock inscriptions!). This is just
another aspect of the mystery surrounding the emergence of what became Islam as
we know it.
Given the status of Bowersock as an historian of the ancient world, it is
surprising that The Crucible of Islam contains one egregious historical
error that should have been caught in the peer review or editorial stage. On
page 142, in a discussion of the location of the Dome of the Rock, Bowersock
writes, “This mount is believed to have served as the site of Solomon’s Temple,
which was destroyed in 587–586 BC when the Assyrians took the Jews of Jerusalem
into captivity in Babylon.” Of course, Babylon was never a part of the Assyrian
Empire but of the Babylonian Empire that conquered Assyria in 612 BCE. It is the
Babylonians, not the Assyrians, who took a portion of the population of Judah
into exile in Babylon. This is just standard biblical history. Another small
point of criticism concerns the two maps of Arabia reproduced in grayscale in
the front of the book. They are virtually unreadable. While they would be
helpful in locating the various regions and cities mentioned in the book, the
type is so small and lacking in contrast with the background that they are
really of little practical use.
Despite these issues, The Crucible of Islam provides a useful
concise overview of the world into which Islam was born, and highlights some of
the tantalizing questions that continue to hang over the origin of what was to
become the second largest religious tradition in the
world.
very brief (about 32,000 words) overview of what we know about the geopolitics of
the world out of which the Islamic tradition emerged. This is not a history of
the emergence of the Islamic tradition itself, but as the title indicates, an
attempt to understand the context that produced this tradition.
Bowersock thus
provides a concise overview of the interactions occurring between the Byzantine
Empire, the Persian Sassanid Empire, the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia, and
Jewish communities as these interactions influenced the geopolitics of Arabia
and the larger Middle East on the eve of Islam’s emergence.
Given the book’s
brevity, The Crucible of Islam should not be read as a comprehensive
treatment of this historical period, but rather as an attempt to look to the
larger political environment of Arabia for clues to Islam’s rise.
Bowersock
views the rise of Islam as something of an enigma about which the historical
sources are seriously limited. Though he does not follow the more radical
revisionist historiographies of Patricia Crone or Michael Cook, Bowersock
nevertheless understands the critical problems attendant on simply accepting the
standard Muslim confessional history. While not totally rejecting that history,
he is trying to nuance it in the way similar to Fred Donner’s approach in
Muhammad and the Believers (Harvard University Press, 2010).
Chapter 6, titled “Muhammad and Medina,” may contain the most noteworthy
insights. Here Bowersock tries to untangle the mystery of the hijra,
the emigration of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Yathrib (Medina) in
the year 622. How is it that these immigrant Believers were able to fit in so
well with a population made up of Jewish tribes allied with Arab pagan tribes?
To answer this, Bowersock observes that the hijra happens to have
occurred in the same year that the Byzantine emperor Heraclius launched a
military assault on Persia. Is this just coincidence or is there a connection
between what seem to be two unrelated events? Bowersock sees a connection. He
argues that Heraclius may have made use of Byzantine clients in Medina (the
Ghassanids) to influence pagan and Jewish tribes to get along with each other
and the newly arrived immigrants to prevent Persia from stirring up discord in
Medina as they had done earlier in Palestine. Thus, the flowering of the early
Islamic community in Medina may have been fostered by the influence of
Byzantine-Persian geopolitics.
Other important insights include discussion of evidence suggesting that
Muslim conquests of Middle Eastern lands were mostly nonviolent, a point that
has also been argued by Donner. Bowersock writes: “The landscape, both economic
and physical, was barely altered in these early years of conquest. No new
coinage was introduced. Churches, synagogues, and pagan shrines were left
exactly as they were, together with the visible relics of their cults—mosaics,
paintings, sculpture, and architecture” (118). New churches were even being
built with dated mosaic floors.
This supports the view that early Muslims did
not understand themselves as spreading a new religion as a replacement for
Judaism, Christianity, or Zoroastrianism. Donner sees this as evidence for the
“ecumenical” nature of the Believers’ movement. Given this, in his discussion of
the apparent melding of Christianity and Islam in the Dome of the Rock
inscriptions, it is surprising that Bowersock fails to mention the intriguing
documentary evidence cited by Donner indicating the originality of a shortened
form of the shahadah (There is no God but The God) that occurs on
coins, inscriptions, and papyri from before the late seventh century. The full
shahadah affirming the messengership of Muhammad does not appear in the
documentary record until Umayyad times (when the messengership of Jesus was
still being affirmed in the Dome of the Rock inscriptions!). This is just
another aspect of the mystery surrounding the emergence of what became Islam as
we know it.
Given the status of Bowersock as an historian of the ancient world, it is
surprising that The Crucible of Islam contains one egregious historical
error that should have been caught in the peer review or editorial stage. On
page 142, in a discussion of the location of the Dome of the Rock, Bowersock
writes, “This mount is believed to have served as the site of Solomon’s Temple,
which was destroyed in 587–586 BC when the Assyrians took the Jews of Jerusalem
into captivity in Babylon.” Of course, Babylon was never a part of the Assyrian
Empire but of the Babylonian Empire that conquered Assyria in 612 BCE. It is the
Babylonians, not the Assyrians, who took a portion of the population of Judah
into exile in Babylon. This is just standard biblical history. Another small
point of criticism concerns the two maps of Arabia reproduced in grayscale in
the front of the book. They are virtually unreadable. While they would be
helpful in locating the various regions and cities mentioned in the book, the
type is so small and lacking in contrast with the background that they are
really of little practical use.
Despite these issues, The Crucible of Islam provides a useful
concise overview of the world into which Islam was born, and highlights some of
the tantalizing questions that continue to hang over the origin of what was to
become the second largest religious tradition in the
world.
About the Reviewer: Robert F. Shedinger is Professor of Religion at Luther
College, Decorah, Iowa (USA)
— Date of Review: February 21, 2018
College, Decorah, Iowa (USA)
— Date of Review: February 21, 2018
About the Author: Glen Warren Bowersock
is professor emeritus of ancient
history at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.
— via Dolmen-list, University of Marburg —
is professor emeritus of ancient
history at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.
— via Dolmen-list, University of Marburg —
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— Verlagsinformation und Inhaltsverzeichnis >>>
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Mark Beaumont (ed.): Arab Christians and the Qur’an
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Leiden: Brill 2022, XIV, 274 pp., index
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Bibliothèque historique des pays d’Islam, vol 10 – Paris:
Éditions de la Sorbonne 2017, 704 pp.
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Digitalisiert durch die Universität von Michigan:
Full text -PDF >>>
Reprint – Bad Griesbach: Classic Library 2018
Inhaltsverzeichnis und Leseprobe (bis S. 96) >>>
