Jose Luis Dizon

Student No.: DELETED

BOOK REVIEWHAGARISM: THE MAKING OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD

Course No.: NMC 273

Instructor: Dr. Marta Simidchieva
Evaluator: Hamid Rezaei Yazdi

Cook, Michael and Patricia Crone. Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World. Cambridge
University Press, 1977. ISBN 978-0521297547.
In Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World, Michael Cook and Patricia Crone provide an alternative
interpretation of the rise of Islam and the circumstances leading to it. In doing so, they have attracted some
controversy due to their methodology, and the conclusions that flow from this. Their basic premise is that
of scepticism: The traditional Islamic sources cannot be trusted, and early Islamic history has to be
rewritten from to other sources. To this end, the authors have researched quite extensively on the topic, as
indicated by the fact that of the 268 pages comprising the book, 75 pages are dedicated to endnotes, and 22
pages are dedicated to the bibliography. The main text of the book is comprised of fourteen chapters that
are divided neatly into three main parts: Whence Islam?, Whither Antiquity? and The Collision, each
of which probing a different aspect of middle eastern history, both before and after the rise of Islam.
The first part, Whence Islam?, comprises five chapters, and concerns the topic of where Islam
originated and how it arrived at its current form. It is here that the authors present their thesis that there are
no cogent grounds for accepting the historicity of the Islamic tradition, and that because of the unreliability
of these traditions, it is necessary to step outside of them and start over with non-Islamic sources, such as
the writings of Jews and Christians living around the time of the conquests (pg. 3). In the first chapter,
Judeo-Hagarism, these outside sources are used to build a picture of how the Jews perceived the
Hagarenes who poured out of Arabia and into the Mediterranean world. What is notable here is that the
Jews and Arabs are presented as having a close kinship and are not yet regarded as having two distinct
religions. The second chapter, Hagarism without Judaism, continues the narrative and discusses how the
Hagarenes break with the Jews and begin to lean towards Christianity, accepting the belief that Jesus is the
Messiah (but not the Son of God or Saviour), and thus go through [an] exchange of a Judaic for a
Christian messianism (pgs. 11-12). However, due to danger of being assimilated into Christianity, they
attempt to create an autonomous religion of Abraham with its own scripture and prophet. The third chapter
The Prophet Like Moses, further explores this development, showing how Old testament descriptions of
a coming prophet are reinterpreted to fit the picture of the Arabian prophet. At this point, the Quran also
begins to take shape, with sources such as various seventh century Christian writings being used to show
that Uthman had compiled it from numerous earlier writings (pg. 17). Then, in the fourth chapter, The
Samaritan Calques, it is hypothesized that it is through the influence of Samaritanism that the concept of a
special sanctuary develops, and it is after some time that Mecca is settled upon as that sanctuary. Finally,
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the fifth chapter, Babylonia, details how all of these concepts are brought together to form Islamic law
and theology as it exists today.
After Whence Islam?, the second part, Whither Antiquity?, is much shorter, comprising only two
chapters. These two chapters are a survey of the near eastern world prior to the rise of Islam, including the
various cultural, philosophical religious aspects of the lands that would eventually become part of the
Islamic world. The sixth chapter, The Imperial Civilizations, surveys the Sassanian and Byzantine
empires, and includes a discussion of the intellectual climate of each nation (The Sassanians being
dominated by Zoroastrianism and the Byzantines by a combination of Christian belief, Hellenic philosophy
and Roman polity). The seventh chapter, The Near-Eastern Provinces, does a similar survey of various
lands that were under the control of these two empires prior to the rise of Islam, including Syria, Egypt and
Iraq. These two chapters serve to provide a brief background on these lands and their intellectual and
religious climates prior to the Islamic conquest. Part two is relatively straightforward and uncomplicated,
although it is not always clear how some of the ideas connect to the making of the Islamic world.
Finally, the third part, The Collision, brings together the ideas that were developed in the first two
parts, and as the title implies, discusses the coming together of the various ideas that had developed with
the rise of Islam with the ideas that were already extant, and what the results of this collision were. This is a
fascinating section of the book, as it depicts the struggles that took place (and continue to take place) within
the Muslim world over what to do with the pre-existing ideas that were present in the lands they conquered.
The eight chapter, The Preconditions for the Formation of Islamic Civilisation, discusses the conditions
under which Islam spread, as well as contrasts the spread of other ideas (especially the Christian religion)
with the spread of Islam. The authors here state that Islam is the outcome of a barbarian conquest of lands
of very ancient cultural traditions and as such, is unique in history (pg. 73). The next three chapters,
collectively titled The Fate of Antiquity, discuss the results of the Islamic contact with extant religious,
philosophical and political ideas. A wide variety of results come about, which range from an outright
rejection of certain pre-Islamic ideas to an absorption of others into Islamic thought (as seen for example in
the case of Iranian political ideas). The twelfth chapter, The Fate of Hagarism, describes the impact of
this synthesis, as well as the resulting development of conflicting schools of thought. This theme is
continued in the thirteenth chapter, Sadduccee Islam, wherein special emphasis is placed on the various
strands of Shiism, and how they were shaped by Samaritan concepts of priesthood, as well as their
assimilation of Hellenistic philosophical concepts. And in the fourteenth and final chapter, The austerity of
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Islamic history, comparisons are made between Islam and more contemporary religious ideas (such as
Puritanism), showing the differing attitudes towards the influence of foreign concepts, as well as
highlighting the different reactions towards these concepts within Islam, ranging from Ibn Hanbals strong
resistance to Greek philosophical ideas (such as Neoplatonism and Epicureanism) in favour of ideas
developed from within the Islamic tradition, to the Muslim philosophers acceptance of the aforementioned
Greek ideas, as well as their adaptation into Islamic thought.
Of the three parts that comprise the book, it is the first part that receives the most attention and
controversy from reviewers of the book. The description of Islamic origins presented therein is completely
different from every other narrative of the same origins because of the authors premise that the Islamic
sources are, for the most part, unreliable. According to their description, Islam is actually the result of
Hagarene invaders from Arabia adopting Judeo-Messianism, which they then replace with Christian
Messianism by accepting the messiahship of Jesus, and then using Samaritan influences to come up with a
distinctly Arabian prophet and sanctuary, thus sanctifying their Ishmaelite heritage. The authors even go to
the point of using Judaic language for Islamic concepts, such as referring to the ulama as rabbis.
Certainly there is merit to the view that Islam developed into what it is today as a result of influences from
pre-existing religious ideas, especially from the earlier Abrahamic faiths. However, there is always the risk
of placing too much emphasis upon influences from earlier sources, which makes it seem that Islam is
nothing more than a mixture of old ideas, and has not contributed anything original. After all, when ideas
from different places are brought together, new doctrines and practices must necessarily be developed to
hold all of these beliefs together. Furthermore, it must be admitted that something original (whatever it may
have been) must have developed in the Arabian peninsula; something which would meld with existing
ideas to form Islam as it is known today.
Also, much could be said regarding Cook and Crones choice of primary source material from which
they build their narratives. Their rationale for rejecting the Islamic sources is that they come in during the
eight century, at a time when religious ideas are emerging in the Islamic world which required historical
sources to buttress them. Hence they are biased towards ideas that developed after the events described (cf.
pg. 3). However, this explanation does not take into account two facts: 1) That there are many basic
historical concepts that are held in common by all Muslim factions regardless of ideology, and 2) There are
also many narratives in the Islamic sources that do not fit easily with Islamic beliefs and require a certain
amount of reinterpretation in order to be harmonized with these beliefs (one can easily see this today in
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modern Muslim polemics in their attempts to explain their beliefs according to their own sources). These
are hardly the kinds of traditions that would be created in an atmosphere that required traditions that can
neatly justify existing viewpoints over and against other views.
Furthermore, it is interesting to note the kinds of sources that they do prefer. In most discussions of
early Islamic history, not much attention is given to outsiders view of the emerging events, which is why it
is refreshing to see a work that gives these sources their due. That being said, however, it must be
remembered that these are sources written by outsiders peering in, which will always inevitably introduce a
level of misapprehension of what exactly is going on. Also, while the authors may claim bias for the
Islamic sources, this is true of all documents, including the non-Muslim sources that the authors rely so
heavily upon. For this reason, it is necessary to balance out what the Jews, Christians and Pagans have to
say about early Islam with what the early Muslims have to say about themselves. True, most of these
narratives do not crystallize until at least the eighth centuries. However, the Islamic tradition has ways of
preserving what was passed on from previous generations, and whatever flaws these systems may have,
they are to a certain degree effective in ensuring that genuine traditions get passed on.
Overall, Hagarism provides an interesting (albeit somewhat skewed) interpretation of the events
surrounding the making of the Islamic world. Granted, the conclusions of this book are also totally
unacceptable to any Muslim who values their traditions and beliefs. Also, there are few historians who
would accept their thesis today, and even the authors themselves have had to revise their views in later
years as new research becomes available. Nonetheless, this book is good to read in order to get a glimpse of
this chapter in the development of Islamic historiography. Also, the authors are evidently well acquainted
with the relevant works that were available at that time, as evidenced by the extensive bibliography and
citations in the book. It is always helpful in determining what primary sources to use in studying early
Islamic history. It should just be remembered that one need not agree with Cook and Crone in their analysis
of the aforementioned primary sources. Finally, there has been much development in the area of
historiography in the three and a half decades that have elapsed since the publication of this work, and it
would be helpful to balance this work out against more recent publications that deal with the same areas, as
such publications would have more up to date research and are built upon the foundations laid by earlier
works in the field. For those who have the time and resources, it would also be helpful to look into the
sources listed in this books bibliography and analyze the sources for oneself, taking whatever statements
are written in non-Muslim primary sources with a grain of salt, rather than accepting them at face value.
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