Critical Analysis of Early Islamic Sources

Last updated: May 30th, 2025 at 2:45 pm · Est. Reading Time: 3 minutes

Historians are divided on how to critically analyse the traditions noted down by Early Islamic Sources to reconstruct history.

Total Rejection and Its Implications

A school of thought among modern historians, like Koren and Nevo, outright rejects early Islamic sources.   They believe that the discrepancies in early Muslim resources, both noted by early Muslim historians and observed by modern historians, are so extensive that they can only be believed if they match with a non-Islamic source.¹  Patricia Crone joins the chorus. She is of the view that one can either adopt early Islamic traditions in total without criticism or reject them in total after critical analysis, but one can’t work with them.²  Problem is, there are no contemporary non-Islamic historical sources or any archaeological sources available to cross-check the reports of early Islamic sources about the Prophetic times.  If we strictly follow Koren and Nevo’s advice, we have to declare that nothing is known about the advent of Islam.  Wansbrough adopts exactly this position.³  Haleem is at the same viewpoint when he declares, “We can never know exactly what historic Muhammad was.”⁴

Alternate Approach

Shoemaker, who himself holds this extreme position of total rejection of early Islamic traditions, laments, “Yet despite this widely held recognition (that Sirah and Hadith literature is not a trustworthy historical source), it is peculiar that so many modern scholars have continued to write as if nothing has changed.”⁵  Shoemaker is right in his observation.  Many researchers, students, producers, and consumers of the history of early Islam are not convinced that all early Islamic traditions have absolutely no historical value.  Gorke, for example, declares, “Nevertheless, some literary sources, such as the traditions on the life of the Prophet, have been demonstrated to be consistent and ‘have an authentic kernel’ ”.⁶  Such historians are not convinced that after writing events of pre-Islam, a historian should leave a few pages blank under the heading of ‘advent of Islam’ and then proceed to what happened after the advent.  All modern historians of the advent of Islam acknowledge the limitations of early Islamic traditions but still use them to create a history of that period.⁷  In doing so, modern historians tacitly admit that despite flaws, there is substance in early Islamic sources.  They can’t be taken at face value, but the truth can be dug out of them.  Hypotheses can be extracted from them after cautious scrutiny.  Watt was the pioneer of this approach.⁸  Others followed suit.  Before we proceed to what techniques can be used to extract truth from early Islamic sources, let’s first acquaint ourselves with what is available.

Further Reading

https://historyofislam.org/sources-of-advent-of-islam

https://islamichistory.com/advent-of-islam/historical-methodology-of-early-islam

Endnotes

1. Judith Koren and Yahuda D. Nevo, “Methodological approaches to Islamic Studies,” Der Islam 68 (1991): 92-3.
2. Patricia Crone, Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 4.
3. John E. Wansbrough, “Review of Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 41(1978): 155–156.John E. Wansbrough, The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978).
4. M. A. S. Abdel 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), xvi.
5. Stephen J. Shoemaker, “Muḥammad and the Qur’ān” in The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity, ed. Scott Fitzgerald Johnson, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 1079.
6. Andreas Görke, “Prospects and Limits in the Study of the Historical Muḥammad,” in Transmission and Dynamics of the Textual Sources of Islam, eds. Nicolet Boekho-van der Voort, Kees Versteegh and Joas Wagemakers (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 141.
7. For some modern histories of advent of Islam, and how their creators use early Islamic sources see: Marshal G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilisation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974).; F. E. Peters, Muhammad and the Origins of Islam (Abany: State University of New York Press, 1994). Karen Armstrong Muhammad: A Prophet of Our Time (New York: HarperCollins, 2006).; Joel Hayward, The Leadership of Muhammad: A Historical Reconstruction (Swansea, UK: Claritas, 2021).; Lesley Hazleton, The First Muslim: The Story of Muhammad (London: Atlantic Books, 2013).
8. Montgomery Watt utilizes this approach in constructing a history of the advent of Islam.  See: Montgomery W. Watt, Muhammad at Mecca, London: Oxford University Press, 1953.; Montgomery W. Watt, Muhammad at Medina, London; Oxford University Press, 1956.