Crossroads to Islam

The Origins of the Arab Religion and the Arab State

Yehuda D. Nevo, Judith Koren

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English

Prometheus Books
01 June 2013

Asian history; Religion & beliefs; Islamic studies

In the consensus view of early Muslim history, the Arab tribes, united and inspired by Muhammad's teachings, embarked on a military jihad that wrested Syria and Palestine from a weakened Byzantine Empire in the years after 630AD. But according to this radical revisionist treatise by the late Israeli archaeologist Nevo and Koren, an 'information specialist', every particular of this orthodoxy is wrong. Basing their arguments on a detailed examination of archaeology, contemporary texts, linguistic analyses and evidence from coins, the authors arrive at a thesis that will surely be incendiary to Islamic believers. The authors argue that Byzantium voluntarily transferred her eastern provinces to Arab client states in continuance of an imperial policy stretching back for centuries. The Arabs who took over the region after 630 AD were not Muslims, but a mixture of pagans and adherents of a Judeo-Christian 'indeterminate monotheism' from which Islam evolved over succeeding decades. Muhammad was not a historical person, they argue, but a mythical figure who became, starting in the 690s, a 'National Arab Prophet' of a new official religion for the consolidating Arab state. In addition to the Muslim ire that the authors' religious debunking will raise, specialists in the field may have objections to their treatment as well. Especially unconvincing is their rational-actor account of Byzantine policy towards the eastern provinces, where, they assert, the Byzantine government deliberately fomented and then persecuted heresies, stoked hatred of the emperor himself and left its territories open to military incursions by rival powers, all in order to reconcile the inhabitants to their long-planned abandonment by the empire.

By: Yehuda D. Nevo, Judith Koren
Imprint: Prometheus Books
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 13mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9781591020837
ISBN 10: 1591020832
Pages: 462
Publication Date: 01 June 2013
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Yehuda Nevo (1932-1992) was a practicing archaeologist who was Director of Field Research of the Negev Archaeological Project at his untimely death. His previous publications include Pagans and Herders (1991) and Ancient Arabic Inscriptions from the Negev (1993), coauthored with Zemira Cohen and Dalia Heftmann. Judith Koren (Haifa, Israel) is an information specialist who collaborated with Nevo for many years on the historical synthesis elaborated in Crossroads to Islam.