Seeing Islam as Others Saw It

Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam from the Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam series is a book by scholar of the Middle East Robert G. Hoyland.

Seeing Islam as Others Saw It
Book cover and spine
AuthorRobert G. Hoyland
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SeriesStudies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam
SubjectIslamic Empire--History--622-661--Historiography.
Islamic Empire--History--661-750--Historiography.
Middle East--Civilization--To 622--Historiography.
PublisherDarwin Press
Publication date
1997
Media typeHardcover
Pages872
ISBN0-87850-125-8
OCLC36884186
939.4 21
LC ClassDS38.1 .H69 1997

The book contains an extensive collection of Greek, Syrian, Coptic, Armenian, Latin, Jewish, Persian, and Chinese primary sources written between 620 and 780 AD in the Middle East, which provides a survey of eyewitness accounts of historical events during the formative period of Islam.

The book presents the evidentiary text of over 120 seventh century manuscripts, one of which (the manuscript of Thomas the Presbyter) contains what Hoyland believes is the "first explicit reference to Muhammad in a non-Muslim source:"[1]

In the year 945, indiction 7, on Friday 7 February (634) at the ninth hour, there was a battle between the Romans and the Arabs of Muhammad (tayyaye d-Mhmt) in Palestine twelve miles [19 km] east of Gaza. The Romans fled, leaving behind the patrician Bryrdn,[2] whom the Arabs killed. Some 4000 poor villagers of Palestine were killed there, Christians, Jews and Samaritans. The Arabs ravaged the whole region.

According to Michael G. Morony, Hoyland emphasizes the parallels between Muslim and non-Muslim accounts of history emphasizing that non-Muslim texts often explain the same history as the Muslim ones even though they were recorded earlier. He concludes "Hoyland's treatment of the materials is judicious, honest, complex, and extremely useful."[3]

Sources

Greek sources

West Syrian, Coptic and Armenian sources

East Syrian sources

Latin sources

Chinese sources

Apocalypses and visions

Syriac texts
  • Ps.-Ephraem
  • Ps.-Methodius
  • Edessene Pseudo-Methodius and John the Little
  • Bahira
  • Pseudo-Ezra
  • Copto-Arabic texts
  • Pseudo-Shenoute
  • Pseudo-Athanasius
  • Samuel of Qalamoun and Pisentius of Qift
  • Coptic Apocalypse of Daniel
  • Book of the Rolls

Greek texts

Hebrew texts

Persian texts

Muslim Arabic texts
  • Signs of the Hour
  • `Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr and the Mahdi
  • Tiberius, Son of Justinian
  • An Apocalyptic Chronicle

Martyrologies

Greek texts
  • Sixty Martyrs of Gaza
  • George the Black
  • A Christian Arab of Sinai
  • Peter of Capitolias
  • Sixty Pilgrims in Jerusalem
  • Elias of Damascus
  • Romanus the Neomartyr
  • Copto-Arabic texts
  • Menas the Monk
  • Thomas, Bishop of Damascus

Armenian texts
  • David of Dwin

Syriac texts
  • Michael the Sabaite
  • `Abd al-Masih al-Najrani al-Ghassani
  • A Muslim at Diospolis

Chronicles and histories

Syriac texts

Latin texts

Greek texts

Apologies and disputations

Syriac texts

Christian Arabic texts
  • Fi tathlith Allah al-wahid
  • Papyrus Schott Reinhard no. 438
  • Masa'il wa-ajwiba `aqliya wa-ilahiya

Jewish texts

Persian texts

Latin texts
  • Istoria de Mahomet
  • Tultusceptru de libro domni Metobii
  • John the Stylite
  • Abjuration
  • MS Mingana 184
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See also

References and notes
  1. Hoyland, Seeing Islam As Others Saw It, p. 120
  2. The name "Bryrdn" is unclear; see, e.g., "Biblical and Near Eastern essays: studies in honour of Kevin J. Cathcart", ISBN 0-8264-6690-7, p. 283
  3. Michael G. Morony. International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 31, No. 3. (Aug., 1999), pp. 452-453

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