The Emergence of Islam: Contours and Controversies

Harvard HDS

The birth of Islam in the seventh century C.E. was a momentous historical turning point, but many aspects of this crucial process remain vigorously debated in modern scholarship. Did the Prophet Muhammad preach monotheism to a group of crude idolaters, or were his opponents already monotheists (if imperfect ones) who were also familiar with biblical ideas about God and history? Was Mecca an important center of Arabian pilgrimage and commerce before Islam, or was it a small town of local…