Historical Methodology of Early Islam

Last updated: May 30th, 2025 at 2:41 pm · Est. Reading Time: 2 minutes

Historians have been working hard to develop a generic methodology of history. ¹ Nowadays, historical methodology for developing the history of early Islam is fairly well developed.

Pick earlier over later sources.

As we know, the longer the temporal distance between a source from the event, the higher the chances of it being distorted; historians pick earlier secondary sources over later ones. Haleem considers anything written within two hundred years of the death of the Prophet Muhammad to be an early Islamic source.² Actually, nobody has composed a satisfactory history of the advent of Islam without using sources that late. Historical traditions written down within two hundred years of the death of the Prophet Muhammad can be considered Early Islamic Sources. Historical traditions written after that would be considered Late Islamic Sources. Late Islamic Sources will simply fall under the category of a tertiary historical source.

Pick Sirah Literature Over Hadith Literature

Those historians who don’t mind using early Islamic sources hold a general belief that the historical material that is blended with legal material might have been distorted by later theologians to fit it into their views. On the other hand, the material that contained purely historical events was less prone to distortion.³ Further, it is known that Sirah literature was present in written form earlier than Hadith literature.⁴ So Sirah gets precedence over Hadith for the reconstruction of the political developments of early Islam.

Use Triangulation

Social scientists have developed a reasonable tool to overcome the observer’s bias in social science research. It is ‘Triangulation.’⁵ It simply means if two or more observers examine the same object from different points of view and come to the same conclusion, the conclusion is valid. If two or more historians from entirely different backgrounds, for example, Islamist and Western, use a historical tradition and draw hypotheses from it, the historical value of that tradition is valid. Only a discovery of a contradicting primary source would invalidate that tradition.

Use the Jigsaw Puzzle Method

Establish the events before and after a particular period. If a tradition for this particular period fits very well with the events before and after, its validity is the least doubtful.

Survey All Available Material Before Committing

Avoiding some pieces of historical material, without any valid reason, just for the sake of convenience, will be biased in historical research.

Critically Analyse the Historical Sources

Any tradition that has an internal contradiction in it or where ‘tendential shaping’ is suspected is not valid for developing a historical narrative.⁶

Avoid Researcher’s Bias

Never enter into the venture of writing history with pre-formed opinions. The result will be invalid.

Endnotes

For a generic discussion on historical logic and selection of sources, see: Gilbert J. Garraghan, A Guide to Historical Method, ed. Jean Delanglez (New York: Fordham University Press, 1946), 143-317.Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001).
M. A. S. Abdal Haleem, introduction to The Expeditions by Rāshid ibn Ma‘mar, ed. Joseph E. Lowry, trans. Sean W. Anthony (New York: New York University Press, 2015), xv.
Montgomery W. Watt, Muhammad at Medina (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), 337.
Andreas Görke, “The Relationship Between Maghāzi and Ḥadīth in Early Islamic Scholarship,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 74, no. 2 (2011): 171–85.
Uwe Flick, “Triangulation in qualitative research,” in A Companion to Qualitative Research, eds. Uwe Flick, Ernst von Kardoff and Ines Steinke, tans. Bryan Jenner, (London: SAGE, 2004), 178–183.
Montgomery W. Watt, Muhammad at Medina (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), 336.