Aziz Al-Azmeh. The Emergence of Islam in Late
Antiquity: Allah and His People. Cambridge
University Press (2014). 654 pages.
Based on epigraphic and other material evidence as
well as more traditional literary sources and critical review of the extensive
relevant scholarship, this book presents a comprehensive and innovative
reconstruction of the rise of Islam as a religion and imperial polity. It
reassesses the development of the imperial monotheism of the New Rome, and considers the history of the Arabs as an integral part of
Late Antiquity, including Arab ethnogenesis and the emergence of what was to
become Muslim monotheism, comparable with the emergence of other monotheisms
from polytheistic systems. Topics discussed include the emergence and development
of the Muhammadan polity and its new cultic deity and associated ritual, the
constitution of the Muslim canon, and the development of early Islam as an
imperial religion. Intended principally for scholars of Late Antiquity, Islamic
studies and the history of religions, the book opens up many novel directions
for future research.
Table of Contents
1. Late antiquity and Islam: historiography and history
2. Gods, divine economies, and emperors
3. Arabia and Arab ethnogenesis in late antiquity
4. Preface to Allah
5. Allah
6. Paleo-Islam, 1: charismatic polity
7. Paleo-Islam, 2: the Paleo-Muslim canon
8. Retrospective and prospective: Islam in late antiquity and beyond.
