Muhammad and his followers in context: The Religious Map of Late Antique Arabia (open access) (2024)

Muḥammad and His Followers in Context: The Religious Map of Late Antique Arabia (TOC)

Brill

This is the TOC of my book (https://brill.com/display/title/69380) For a preview, visit https://books.google.fi/books?id=GNP7EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1&dq=mu%E1%B8%A5ammad+and+his+followers+in+context:+the+religious+map+of+late+antique+arabia+ilkka+lindstedt&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiqsdi74e-IAxWTK3cKHZELB6UQuwV6BAgJEAc#v=onepage&q=mu%E1%B8%A5ammad%20and%20his%20followers%20in%20context%3A%20the%20religious%20map%20of%20late%20antique%20arabia%20ilkka%20lindstedt&f=false

Abū Qays Ṣirma ibn abī Anas: A Christian Follower of Muḥammad from Medina [this article will not be published in this form in any outlet, so reach out to me if you want to cite]

This article presents and discusses the biography and poetry of Abū Qays Ṣirma ibn abī Anas, a Medinan contemporary to the Prophet Muḥammad. Interestingly and importantly, he appears to have been Christian, a fact which his poetry and the narratives about his life reflect. In one poem, he praises the Prophet, though in a rather moderate fashion, characterizing him as a preacher and exhorter. Though Ṣirma's poems survive in narrative sources such as Ibn Hishām's (d. ca. 218/833) al-Sīra al-nabawiyya rather than in specialized poetry collections, I argue that two out of the three (or, sometimes, four) poems ascribed to him in the sources are probably authentic (though there is some debate about the attribution of some verses in the poems). Ṣirma's life and verses have been overlooked in modern academic literature on early Islam. However, they speak to a number of important topics and debates in the field. First, his verses represent new (or, rather, rediscovered) instances of pre-and early Islamic Christian poetry in Arabic. Second, Ṣirma serves as an example of a Medinan Christian; this is significant since while many Qur'anic passages seem to indicate-or indeed evidence-the existence of Christians in Medina, Arabic sources offer very few reports on them. Finally, I will argue that Ṣirma's biography and poetry aligns well with the so-called Believers' community thesis put forward by Fred Donner: namely, that the Prophet's followers encompassed some Jews and Christians who joined the community of Believers without jettisoning their religious identities.

Signs of Identity in the Quran: Rituals, Practices, and Core Values

2021

WHO IS IN, WHO IS OUT? EARLY MUSLIM IDENTITY THROUGH EPIGRAPHY AND THEORY

2019

This article discusses early Islamic identity based on Arabic inscriptions and other contemporary evidence, which is analyzed with the help of the social identity theory. It will be argued that this evidence tallies with Fred Donner’s hypothesis of the somewhat late articulation of markedly Islamic identity. Circa one hundred published Arabic inscriptions dated to the 640s–740s CE are collected in the Appendix and form the main set of evidence used in the article. The epigraphic material is compared with other material evidence as well as the Qurʾān. It is argued that Arabic inscriptions form an important, but still underused, corpus for the study of early Islamic history. This is because people who were outside the scholarly and political elite produced much of the epigraphic corpus; Arabic inscriptions, then, proffer information for researching aspects of social history. According to the epigraphic corpus, distinctly Islamic identity began to be articulated in the first decades of the eighth century CE, with an emphasis on specific rituals and the Prophet, as well as with the appearance of the words “Muslims” and “Islam” as references to the religious group.

Religious Warfare and Martyrdom in Arabic Graffiti (70s–110s AH/690s–730s CE)

Scripts and Scripture: Writing and Religion in Arabia circa 500–700 CE, 2022

The Seed of Abraham: Gentile Ethnicity in Early Christian Texts and The Quran

AABNER, 2023

In this article, I discuss the reception and espousal of Gentile ethnicity in late antique Arabia and the Quran. I suggest that the Prophet Muhammad and many of his followers identified as Gentile (ummī or ḥanīf) believers, which they portrayed as carrying positive significations. I discuss various ancient and late ancient Christian texts that appear to be in the background of this development. I argue that the Quran recategorizes Jewish, Christian, and Gentile believers (here: those who believed in the Prophet Muhammad’s mission and accepted it) as belonging to the same community of believers. The figure of Abraham is of utmost importance in the ethnic reasoning of the Quran.

Reconsidering Islām and Dīn in the Medinan Qurʾan

Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā, 2023

This article deals with the words islām, muslimūn, and dīn in the late layers of the Qurʾan and in the post-Qurʾanic evidence. I argue that in the Qurʾan, the word al-islām never specifies or names the religion of the believers and that the Qurʾanic word (al-)dīn is most naturally to be understood as "law" or "judgment," depending on the context, rather than "religion." Surveying the dated post-Qurʾanic documentary record, I suggest that the appearance of the reified sense of a distinct religion called Islam and its followers, called Muslims, should be dated no earlier than the early second/eighth century. Moreover, scholars have recently taken up the possibility of postprophetic additions in the Qurʾan, suggesting that verses such as 3:19 and 5:3 might contain such interpolations. However, my interpretation of the verses calls this suggestion into question.

Prophecies Fulfilled: The Qur'anic Arabs in the Early 600s

The Study of Islamic Origins: New Perspectives and Contexts, 2021

Script or Scripture: The Earliest Arabic Tombstones in the Light of Jewish and Christian Epitaphs

Scripts and Scripture: Writing and Religion in Arabia circa 500-700 CE, 2022

Apocalypse, Empire, and Universal Mission at the End of Antiquity: World Religions at the Crossroads

Leiden University, 2024