Conversion to Islam: Competing Themes in Early Islamic Historiography.

Ayman Ibrahim's book "is concerned with the multifaceted nature of conversion as represented in Islamic historiographical accounts written during the first three centuries of Islam" (p. 2). Because Ibrahim restricts the horizon of his analysis to the early tenth-century CE, he does not capture the narratives of major chroniclers such as al-Mas'udi (d. 956 CE) and Ibn al-Nadim (d. ca. 995 CE). His critical reappraisals of the early ninth-century CE reporter al-Waqidi (pp. 111-116) and the mid eighth-century CE and early ninth-century CE hagiographers Ibn Is aq and Ibn Hisham (pp. 121-128) are particularly noteworthy. [Extracted from the article]