Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Introduction: Narratives of Fred McGraw Donner, Paul M. Cobb
Bibliography of the Works of Fred McGraw Donner

PART ONE: HISTORY AND SOCIETY
Who was the Shepherd of Damascus? The Enigma of Jewish and Messianist Responses to the Islamic Conquests in Marwānid Syria and Mesopotomia, Sean W. Anthony
Political Anarchism, Dissent, and Marginal Groups in the Early Ninth Century: The Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila Revisited, Hayrettin Yücesoy
Scholars and Charlatans on the Baghdad-Khurasan Circuit from the Ninth to the Eleventh Centuries, Jonathan A. C. Brown
Were the Ismāʿīlī Assassins the First Suicide Attackers? An Examination of Their Recorded Assassinations, David Cook

PART TWO: HISTORIOGRAPHY
The Identity Crisis of Abū Bakra: Mawlā of the Prophet, or Polemical Tool? , Elizabeth Urban
Writing the History of the futūḥ: The futūḥ-works by al-Azdī, Ibn ʿAtham, and al-Wāqidī, Jens Scheiner
In Defense of Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān: Treatises and Monographs on Muʿāwiya from the Eighth to the Sixteenth Centuries, Aram A. Shahin
The Umayyads and ʿAbbāsids in Mujīr al-Dīn’s Fifteenth-Century History of Jerusalem and Hebron, Robert Schick

PART THREE: QURʾĀN, LAW, AND NARRATIVE
Reproducing Power: Qurʾānic Anthropogonies in Comparison, Kathryn Kueny
Narratives of Villainy: Titus, Nebuchadnezzar, and Nimrod in the ḥadith and midrash aggadah, Shari L. Lowin
Qurʾānic Rhetoric in Ninth-Century Muslim-Byzantine Diplomacy: Al-Maʾmūn’s Letter to Theophilus in 833 CE, Vanessa De Gifis
Ibāḍī Fiqh Scholarship in Context, Brannon Wheeler
The ḥadd Penalty for zinā: Symbol or Deterrent? Texts from the Early Sixteenth Century, Marion Holmes Katz

PART FOUR: TEXTS AND ARTIFACTS
The Revolt of al-Ḥārith b. Surayj and the Countermarking of Umayyad Dirhams in Early Eighth Century CE Khurāsān, Stuart D. Sears
The Riddle of Early Islamic Ascalon: Where is it and What does Coptic Glazed Ware Tell Us About it? Tracy Hoffman
Ḥiṣn, Ribāṭ, Thaghr or Qaṣr? Semantics and Systems of Frontier Fortifications in the Early Islamic Period, Asa Eger
Descriptions of the Pharos of Alexandria in Islamic and Chinese Sources: Collective Memory and Textual Transmission, Tasha Vorderstrasse

Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Paul M. Cobb, Ph.D. (1997), University of Chicago, is Professor of Islamic History in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania. He has published numerous books, translations, and articles dealing with medieval Islam, including his translation of Usama ibn Munqidh's Book of Contemplation (Penguin Classics, 2008).

Reviews

"What emerges from the contributions in this book is Donner's ability to establish among his students his own high standards of scholarship, including his careful approach to medieval and modern sources."
Jere L. Bacharach in Review of Middle East Studies (MESA) 48.1-2 (2014) p. 73-75.

“In conclusion, this collection makes a great contribution to the study of early Islamic religion and history and gives the reader a useful overview of the complex nature of Islamic history and scholarship.”
Saud al-Sarhan in Ilahiyat Studies, Vol. 6, 2, Summer/Fall (2015).