Violence in Early Islam: Religious Narratives, the Arab Conquests and the Canonization of Jihad

Description

The concept of jihad holds a prominent place in Islamic thought and history. Beyond its spiritual meanings, the term has historically been associated with the sweeping Arab-Believers conquests of the 7-8th century BCE. But given advances in our understanding of the historicity and chronology of the Qur'an and early Islamic texts, is it correct to identify jihad and Islam with violent conquest? In this book, Marco Demichelis explores the history of the concept of jihad in the early proto-Islamic centuries (7-8th). Deploying an interdisciplinary approach which combines the hermeneutical study of the famous 'Verses of the Sword' within the Qur'an itself, with historical writing by Islamic chroniclers as well as non-Islamic sources, numismatics, epigraphical and architectural evidence, the book questions the relationship between the religious concept of jihad and the conquests. The book argues that Christian Byzantine Foederati forices who previously fought against the Persians may have had a formative effect on the later emergence of more bellicose rhetoric. In so doing, it calls into question assumptions about warlike attitudes inherent within Islamic doctrine, and reveals a more nuanced and complicated history of religious violence in the pre, proto and early Islamic period.

Marco Demichelis is Senior Research Fellow in Islamic Studies and the History of the Middle East at the Institute for Culture and Society, University of Navarra, Spain. His previous books include Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought (Bloomsbury, 2018), L'Islam contemporaneo (2016) and Etica Islamica (2016).

A welcome addition to the historiographical literature on early Islam, its evolution and the development of Islamic thought on violence, conflict and war. * Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations * "Using historical sources to underscore the importance of Arab Christian foederati while offering a contextualized reading of Qur'anic verses relating to religious violence, Demichelis offers a provocative, insightful interpretation of the interplay between the slow emergence of Islam among the "Believers and the eventual articulation of a doctrine of jihad." -- Steven C. Judd, Professor of Middle East History, Southern Connecticut State University, USA "Displaying extensive research and interdisciplinary methodological approach, Marco Demichelis convincingly recontextualizes the late process of sacralization of violence in early Islam. One of the many merits of this book is to put an end to the outdated representations of a Prophet's life inextricably rooted in a form of religious violence. A much needed and timely work which breaks a number of cliches on a contentious issue." -- Mehdi Azaiez, Professor of Islamic Studies, UC Louvain, Belgium