Comparison Of Donner's Muhammad And The Believers

Fred Donner’s Muhammad and the Believers: at the Origins of Islam presents itself as an interpretation of early Islamic history geared towards “nonspecialists” that attempts to take on a new paradigm of thought not conventionally held among his fellow historians. He prefaces his primary thesis with the context of paradigms of thought that were once held or were presently held at the time of the writing of his book. From the start, Donner asserts his belief in Islam’s beginnings taking root in a religious movement - not a “social, economic, or nativist” (pg xvii) movement. Through Donner’s lense, viewers are allowed a holistic overview of all events relevant to the Islamic movement as well as his thesis.

Donner’s thesis lies central to the idea that Muhammad and his community of followers were not “Muslim”, within the sense of him and his members being a part of a singular religion completely separate from Christians and Jews.Muhammad and his followers established an ecumenical movement of monotheists, believing in one God. As such, Donner breaks tradition of his scholarly background by referring to Muhammad and his followers as ‘Believers’. (pg 58) These Believers constituted a community on the commonality of …show more content…
Throughout the summarization he emphasizes characteristics of these accounts to query the complete authenticity of them as historical accounts. Donner points out the date of these written accounts, and how they are written centuries after the death of Muhammad. After this important factor, he notes the contradictions among the separate stories, the highly consistent numerological symbolism, and elements of traits of expectations of a prophet that were not contemporary of the time. With all of these shortcomings it seems as though the historian’s task at determining the narrative of the early movement is