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Was an Islamic identity, shared by the in-group members and distinct from other religious categorisations, operative already during the time of the Prophet Muḥammad (d. 632)? This article looks at surah 5 of the Qurʾān, titled al-Māʾida, as a locus where the discourse of 'the parting of the ways' might be found. If a reified group of Muslims, with their religion Islam, distinct from Jews and Christians, can be supposed to have existed during the time of the Prophet, it is in al-Māʾida where this should be the easiest to perceive, but, I argue, this is not the case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is an irony of history that since texts transcend the intentions and purposes of their authors, their meaning and significance are often contested anew as they enter new historical contexts; even historical texts are thus subject to reading and criticism over time. This article discusses the posthumous fate of Henry Stubbe's own text on Islamic history, The Rise and Progress of Mahometanism—seen by some to represent a Copernican revolution in the study of Islam. The fate of this work is a clear example of the critical contingencies and fluctuating fortunes experienced by a corpus of texts. The continuing existence of a text as an object open to reconfiguration and re-evaluation is termed its after-history (Nachgeschichte) or afterlife (Nachleben). This notion of the afterlife of an object as a period of critical appreciation and political appropriation aptly defines the fate and fame of The Rise and Progress of Mahometanism. The present study seeks to explore the narrative surrounding a publication authored by Stubbe in the 17th century and finally published by Hafiz Mahmud Khan Shairani, with the critical support of Ottoman intellectual Halil Halid Bey, nearly two centuries later. Its objective is to investigate how the life and contributions of a figure whose work has transcended generations was resurrected within the political backdrop of the 20th century, as evidenced in the columns of Ottoman newspapers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An accurate understanding of the concept of the Sunnah is required to obtain accurate conclusions from assessments, discussions, and studies within the context of the Sunnah. This understanding is possible through comprehensive examination of the awareness of the Sunnah among the Companions (ṣaḥābah), who witnessed the age of the Prophet in every aspect. Indeed, current discussions and studies of the Sunnah highlight a single aspect of the problem. On some occasions, the concept "Sunnah" is presented within a reductive approach as narratives (riwāyah) that offer jurisprudential solutions for secondary problems. Other times, behavior-centered definitions transform the Sunnah into a domain that can be experienced only at the imitative level. Consequently, the multidimensional structure of the concept is restricted, and it becomes nonfunctional in terms of providing a way of thinking and a perception of the world. In this paper, due to the vastness of subject, this problem is examined on the basis of a single example, namely, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd (d. 32/652), a prominent Companion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much like religious objects produced and consumed elsewhere in the Islamic world, images of Muhammad are often associated with acts of play and worship, their power to cultivate joy and direct religious feelings in various faith communities strengthened in large part by their remove from the commodity situation. As scholars of visual and material culture have highlighted, a product is never merely an object to be acquired and used, stripped of symbolic import and application. On the contrary, it is a thoroughly socialized commodity central to cultural practices of exchange—of sending and receiving social messages—that take place in regimes of value. Within postrevolutionary Iran in particular, images and objects depicting the Prophet Muhammad have been manufactured en masse over the past three decades, catering to official regime ideology and popular devotional practices alike. This study explores how these types of prophetic products serve to visually reinforce and materially reify narratives about the ascendancy of the Shi’i faith, the legitimacy of Islamic governance, and the value of martyrdom within the larger religious and political landscape of contemporary Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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First, I argue for historical contextualization of the Qur'an as a given historical collection of discourses propagated by Muhammad as divine inspiration. Secondly, I argue for a distinction between the Qur'an and Islam, since the latter is the outcome of human efforts to construct their lives in accordance with what they understood to be the teachings of the Qur'an. The last point is to show how the role of Muhammad in his interaction with the communities of his time in Hijaz shaped the Qur'an. So, the article is organized as (1) introduction; (2) the Qur'an and lslam; (3) the Qur'an and history: open hermeneutics; (4) Muhammad and the Qur'an; (5) the divine-human communication; (6) Muhammad: the first recipient; (7) Muhammad in the Qur'an; and (8) the community of believers and the need for legal regulations; followed by (9) conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]