Muslims, Jews, Christians and Pagans: Studies on Pre- and Early Islamic History

Muslims, Jews, Christians and Pagans: Studies on Pre- and Early Islamic History brings together eleven studies published between 2009 and 2024, arranged in three sections: Pre-Islamic idols, Muḥammad at Medina, and Jews and Christians in early Islam. Based on a wide range of primary sources that are now more accessible than ever, the volume offers a rigorously critical and finely textured exploration of early Islamic history. Rather than relying on grand narratives, Lecker illuminates the subject through background details, genealogies, geographical information, and other fragmentary evidence, assembling a mosaic that at times draws us closer to the turbulent formative centuries of Islam. This volume will appeal to readers interested in the history of Jews, Christians, and pagans in late antiquity and early Islam, the Arabian Peninsula on the eve of Islam and in its earliest period, and the political, social, and economic history of the early Islamic world.

About the Author

Michael Lecker retired from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, in 2019. He has published extensively on pre- and early Islamic history, the biography of the Prophet Muḥammad and the Jews of the Arabian Peninsula. He is interested in prosopography. In his work, he also examines the potential contributions of cartographic representations and genealogical data to the scholarly investigation of early Islamic historiography. His previous Variorum volumes were published in 1998, 2005 and 2024