Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam.

• Author: Varisco, Daniel Martin
• Position: Book review

Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam. By FRED M. DONNER. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010. Pp. xviii + 280. $25.95.

There are many scholarly books on Islam, but few that discuss the origin of Islam from a historical perspective for the general reader. Fred Donner provides a fresh analysis of Islam at the beginning, primarily as represented in the Qur'an, in an attempt to sort through the contradictions and clear bias of early Islamic texts on Muhammad and at the same time avoid the tendency to reject all the narratives as fictional. Unlike scholars who have sought to reduce the creation of Islam to an economic or political rationale, Donner takes seriously the moral thrust of the Qur'an. "It is my conviction," he suggests, "that Islam began as a religious movement--not as a social, economic, or 'national' one; in particular, it embodied an intense concern for attaining personal salvation through righteous behavior" (p. xii). For Donner, the Quranic emphasis on piety should not be dismissed simply because one does not accept Islam as a unique divine revelation or Muhammad as the seal of the prophets. The life of Muhammad is retold and the struggles of the early community of believers described, but with a twist. Donner's main point, a novel interpretation, is that Muhammad's followers were a wide group that included believing Jews and Christians rather than the distinctively separate community that came to define Islam a century after the Prophet's death.

Context comes first. Donner lays out the religious and political framework of the Near East just before the period of Muhammad. The focus of this introductory chapter is on the shift from the pagan Greco-Roman public focus in late antiquity to an emphasis on personal religious experience, especially in Christianity. Two far-reaching empires vied for control of the broad region stretching from the central Mediterranean to Afghanistan. By the start of the seventh century the Byzantine Christian empire was beset with a host of problems, from the deflating incessant warfare with the Sasanians to natural disasters of earthquakes and plagues. In addition, a doctrinal split over the nature of Christ had branded many of the sects in the Near East as heretical monophysites. The Sasanian empire, also struggling against enemies and internal strife, was decidedly more tolerant of the monophysite Nestorians and Jewish communities than the Byzantines. Neither the Byzantines nor the Sasanians were able to maintain control of Arabia with troops, but relied on alliances with local tribes, many of whom would soon be swept up in the emerging Islamic empire.

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