New Publication: A Prophet Has Appeared (UC Press, 2021)

New Publication: A Prophet Has Appeared (UC Press, 2021)

University of California Press recently published a new sourcebook edited by Dr. Stephen Shoemaker: A Prophet Has Appeared: The Rise of Islam Through Jewish and Christian Eyes.

prophetPublisher’s Description: Early Islam has emerged as a lively site of historical investigation, and scholars have challenged the traditional accounts of Islamic origins by drawing attention to the wealth of non-Islamic sources that describe the rise of Islam. A Prophet Has Appeared brings this approach to the classroom. This collection provides students and scholars with carefully selected, introduced, and annotated materials from non-Islamic sources dating to the early years of Islam. These can be read alone or alongside the Qur’an and later Islamic materials. Applying historical-critical analysis, the volume moves these invaluable sources to more equal footing with later Islamic narratives about Muhammad and the formation of his new religious movement.

Included are new English translations of sources by twenty authors, originally written in not only Greek and Latin but also Syriac, Georgian, Armenian, Hebrew, and Arabic and spanning a geographic range from England to Egypt and Iran. Ideal for the classroom and personal library, this sourcebook provides readers with the tools to meaningfully approach a new, burgeoning area of Islamic studies.

About the Editor: Stephen J. Shoemaker is Professor of Religious Studies and Ira E. Gaston Fellow in Christian Studies at the University of Oregon. He is a specialist on early Christian apocrypha, devotion to the Virgin Mary, and the rise of Islam. He is the author of The Death of a Prophet, The Apocalypse of Empire, and Mary in Early Christian Faith and Devotion, among many other publications.

© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2021. All rights reserved.

Review of Qur’anic Research, Vol. 6 no. 7 (2020)

pageHeaderLogoImage_en_US In the latest installment of the Review of Qur’anic Research (Vol. 6, no.7), Michael E. Pregill (University of California, Los Angeles) reviews Stephen Shoemaker’s The Apocalypse of Empire: Imperial Eschatology in Late Antiquity and Early Islam (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018).

rqrV6n7In his review, Pregill writes “Stephen Shoemaker’s The Apocalypse of Empire builds upon the methodology, and some of the most provocative conclusions, of the author’s earlier monograph The Death of a Prophet.[1] In that book, Shoemaker subjects the extant evidence concerning Muḥammad’s death to close scrutiny, concluding that the Prophet died after the invasion of Palestine commenced in 634 CE and not before, as most accounts hold. Even more shockingly, Shoemaker asserts that Muḥammad preached a fervently eschatological message and led his followers in a campaign to conquer Jerusalem as the focal point of an imminent apocalyptic culmination of history. One of the most compelling features of The Death of a Prophet is Shoemaker’s deployment of a methodology and framework drawn from the study of early Christianity in order to show how the overtly eschatological message of the original movement that followed Muḥammad was radically rewritten in the course of just a few decades, forever altering the meaning and thrust of Islam in its formative period…”

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© International Qur’anic Studies Association, 2020. All rights reserved.