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Critical Bibliography of Islamic Studies
This article will compile academic articles, chapters, and books which are both scholarly and rigorous and which present perspectives on topics in Islamic studies (history, theology, etc.) subversive of inherited and religious viewpoints on the same. It is not essential that posterity have confirmed the accuracy of the analysis presented in these publications, or that their analysis necessarily be falsifiable in all cases; instead, what will merit inclusion is anything that has succeeded in prompting scholars, students, and the literate laity to rethink what they believe about Islam as it exists today or how it existed in the past. In other words, the aim is to curate research and theory about Islam and its past which would not merely cause al-Ghazali to spin in his grave, but which would instead prompt him to climb out of it and perhaps change his mind about his most fundamental religious convictions.
Formatting
Entries are cited Chicago style with slight modifications (see below). DOIs are hyperlinked in the title of the entry. Where these are not available a link to the publisher's webpage for the publication is provided in its place Where neither exists and where the publication is out of copyright, a link may be given to an archived version of the publication hosted online. Provided beneath certain entries is either the publisher's blurb, the article's abstract, an adaption thereof, or a general summary—references for these are the respective entries themselves. Edited volumes are not included in this bibliography unless every chapter they contain deserves inclusion (this is rarely the case)—instead, relevant chapters have been identified and added individually to the relevant section/subsection.
The origins of Islam
Crone, Patricia. Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam. Princeton University Press (1987). 300pp.
Crone, Patricia and Michael Cook. Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World. Cambridge University Press (1977). 268pp.
Donner, Fred. Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam. Harvard University Press (2012). 304pp.
Hawting, G. R. The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History. Cambridge University Press (1999). 168pp.
The life of Muhammad
Ahmed, Shahab. Before Orthodoxy: The Satanic Verses in Early Islam. Harvard University Press (2017). 336pp.
Anthony, Sean W. Muhammad and the Empires of Faith: The Making of the Prophet of Islam. University of California Press (2020). 304pp.
Powers, David S. Muhammad Is Not the Father of Any of Your Men: The Making of the Last Prophet. University of Pennsylvania Press (2011). 376pp.
Shoemaker, Stephen J. The Death of a Prophet: The End of Muhammad's Life and the Beginnings of Islam. University of Pennsylvania Press (2012). 408pp.
Wansbrough, John E. The Sectarian Milieu: Content And Composition Of Islamic Salvation History. Oxford University Press (1978). 200pp.
The Qur'an
The origins of Qur'anic stories
van Bladel, Kevin. "The Alexander Legend in the Qur'ān 18:83-102." In The Qur'ān in Its Historical Context, edited by Gabriel Said Reynolds, 175-203. Routledge (2008).
Griffith, Sidney. "Christian lore and the Arabic Qur’an: the 'Companions of the Cave' in Sūrat al-Kahf and in Syriac Christian tradition." In The Qur'ān in Its Historical Context, edited by Gabriel Said Reynolds, 109-137. Routledge (2008).
Mourad, Suleiman A. "Mary in the Qur'ān: a reexamination of her presentation." In The Qur'ān in Its Historical Context, edited by Gabriel Said Reynolds, 141-162. Routledge (2008).
Reynolds, Gabriel Said. The Qurʾān and Its Biblical Subtext. Routledge (2010). 320pp.
The history of the Qur'anic text
Déroche, François. The One and the Many: The Early History of the Qur'an. Translated by Malcolm DeBevoise. Yale University Press (2021). 328pp.
Nasser, Shady. Arabic, Qurʾān, and Poetic License: Reciting the Word of God. Routledge (2025). 444pp.
Nasser, Shady. The Transmission of the Variant Readings of the Qurʾān: The Problem of Tawātur and the Emergence of Shawādhdh. Brill (2013). 252pp.
Sadeghi, Behnam and Mohsen Goudarzi. "Ṣan‘ā’ 1 and the Origins of the Qur’ān." Der Islam 87 (2012): 1-129.
The development of Islamic theology
Crone, Patricia and Martin Hinds. God's Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam. Cambridge University Press (1986). 164pp.
Osman, Amr. "ʿAdālat al-Ṣaḥāba: The Construction of a Religious Doctrine." Arabica T. 60, Fasc. 3/4 (2013): 272-305.
Stroumsa, Sarah. Freethinkers of Medieval Islam: Ibn al-Rāwandī, Abū Bakr al-Rāzī, and Their Impact on Islamic Thought. Brill, 1999). 261pp.
The development of Islamic law
Auda, Jasser. A Critique of the Theory of Abrogation. Translated and edited by Adil Salahi. Kube Publishing (2019). 160pp.
Crone, Patricia. Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law: The Origins of the Islamic Patronate. Cambridge University Press (1987). 178pp.
Sadeghi, Behnam. The Logic of Law Making in Islam: Women and Prayer in the Legal Tradition. Cambridge University Press (2013). 234pp.
Schacht, Joseph. The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Oxford University Press (1950). 348pp.
Social history of the Muslim world
Religious identity
Tannous, Jack. "A Religion with a Thousand Faces." In The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers. Princeton University Press (2018), 260-309.
Sexuality
El-Rouayheb, Khaled. Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800. University of Chicago Press (2005). 208pp.
Alcohol
Matthee, Rudi. Angels Tapping at the Wine-Shop’s Door: A History of Alcohol in the Islamic World. Oxford University Press (2023). 352pp.
Slavery
Toledano, Ehud R. As If Silent and Absent: Bonds of Enslavement in the Islamic Middle East. Yale University Press (2007). 288pp.
Toledano, Ehud R. The Ottoman Slave Trade and Its Suppression: 1840-1890. Princeton University Press (1983). 326pp.
Lewis, Bernard. Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry. Oxford University Press (1990). 224pp.
Lewis, Bernard. Race and Color in Islam. Harper & Row (1971). 103pp.