Daniel Brown: A New Introduction to Islam

Abstract

Any convenor of first-year introductory courses on Islam faces a huge variety of textbooks to choose from. While certain introductions are more concerned about the doctrinal development of Islam, others provide historical surveys. Some introductions explicitly opt for a phenomenological approach avoiding a critical evaluation of the historical problems around the origins and early developments of Islam, while others present the main arguments of the so-called revisionist school of the Western academic study of early Islamic history which doubts the reliability of the earliest sources and develops an alternative account of the origins of Islam. History or doctrine, phenomenology or historical criticism, insider or outsider account – these are the options available in the different introductory textbooks on Islam.