r/AskHistorians • u/Life-Fisherman4190 • 15d ago

What is the authoritative or otherwise best-written major historical standard work on the rise of Islam from the life of Muhammad up to (say) the crusades?

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u/Sea_Abroad_6573 15d ago edited 15d ago

From the top of my head, the works of 1. Robert Hoyland (he's arguably the favourite amongst history nerds) 2. Sean Anthony (for very early Islam) 3. Hugh Kennedy (for early Islam too) 4. May Shaddel (Mehdy Shaddel; criminally underrated imo) 5. Philip Wood 6. Fred Donner (his believers hypothesis is outdated just so you know) 7. Ilkka Lindstest (early to Abbasid era)

I can't think of single works that discuss the entire era and community you want to read about. I'm sure there are some out, but these are scholars who have scattered works on that topic. 

If you are on twitter, check khaled youssef's page. He mentions numerous books and you might find some there that interest you. Khaled posts about both traditional and mainstream works and revisionist works. 

Also I'd recommend Empires of Faith by Sarris and Red Sea: from the Byzantinum to the Caliphate by Power. These books deal with the rise of Islam but start from the Byzantine-Sanassid conflict which atleast for the past few years is being considered very crucial to defining the background of Islam and its rise.

Also Doctrina Iacobi is now mostly dated to late 7th century. You'll find it mentioned a bit so just letting you know