Fred Donner

Last updated
Fred McGraw Donner
Born1945 (age 78–79)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Citizenship American
Alma mater Princeton University
Known for Islamic Studies; Quranic (Islamic) studies; scriptural exegesis; scholarship on Islamic origins
Awards Guggenheim Fellow (2007)
Member of the Tunisian Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts
Scientific career
Fields Islamic Studies
Institutions University of Chicago;
Yale University;
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

Fred McGraw Donner (born 1945) is a scholar of Islam and Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Near Eastern History at the University of Chicago. [1] [2] He has published several books about early Islamic history.

Contents

Biography

Early life and studies

Donner was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, where he attended public schools.[ citation needed ] In 1968 he completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in Oriental Studies at Princeton University, having interrupted his studies from 1966 to 1967 to pursue the study of Arabic at the Middle East Centre for Arab Studies (MECAS) in the village of Shimlan, Lebanon.[ citation needed ] From 1968 to 1970 he served with the U. S. Army, seeing duty with U. S. Army Security Agency in Herzogenaurach, Germany in 1969-1970. He then studied oriental philology for a year (1970–1971) at the Friedrich-Alexander Universität in Erlangen, Germany, before returning to Princeton for doctoral work.[ citation needed ] Donner received his PhD in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton in 1975.[ citation needed ]

Career

Donner taught Middle Eastern history in the History Department at Yale University from 1975-1982 before taking his position at the University of Chicago in 1982 (The Oriental Institute and Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations). He served as chairman of his Department (1997–2002) and as Director of the University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies (2009–present).[ citation needed ]

In 2007, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship [3] to examine Arabic papyri from the first Islamic century (seventh century CE) at collections in Paris, Vienna, Oxford, and Heidelberg.[ citation needed ]

Positions held

Donner was President of Middle East Medievalists (MEM; homepage here) from 1992 until 1994 and served as editor of the journal Al-Usur al-Wusta: The Bulletin of Middle East Medievalists from 1992 until 2011. [4]

Donner was President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA). [5] He has been a member of MESA since 1975, served an earlier term on MESA's Board of Directors (1992-1994) and was awarded MESA's Jere L. Bacharach Service Award in 2008. [6]

Apart of the MEM and MESA, Donner has also been a long-term member of The American Oriental Society.[ citation needed ]

Research

Donner's book The Early Islamic Conquests was published in 1981 by Princeton University Press. [7] He has also published a translation of a volume of the history of al-Tabari in 1993. [1]

In Narratives of Islamic Origins (1998), Donner argues for an early date for the Quranic text. He responds in particular to the theory of late canonization of the Qur'an proposed by John Wansbrough and Yehuda D. Nevo. [8] The book attempts to explain how concerns for legitimation in the developing Islamic community shaped the themes that are the focus of Islamic historical writing, particularly the themes of prophecy, community, hegemony, and leadership.

Donner's book Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam, an account of the early years of the spiritual movement that would come to be known as Islam, was published by Harvard University Press in May 2010. Donner's main argument is that what came to be called Islam began as a monotheistic "Believers' movement" inaugurated by Muhammad, which included righteous Christians and Jews as well as those monotheists who followed the teachings of the Qur'an. Only under the rule of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (685-705) did Islam begin to separate from Christians and Jews. [9] This argument was first presented at the Late Antiquity and Early Islam workshop in London in 1993, and published in an article. [10]

Reception

Donner's book The Early Islamic Conquests (1981) has been described as "magisterial" [7] and "a major contribution to the understanding of early Islamic history" ( International Journal of Middle East Studies ). [11] It is used as a set text for several university courses. [12]

Donner's Muhammad and the Believers has been described as "learned and brilliantly original" in a New York Times review. [13]

On the other hand, orientalist Patricia Crone was critical of the book: she wrote on Tablet that the only direct evidence for Donner's central thesis of an ecumenical early Islam comes from several Quranic verses, while the rest is based on conjecture. According to Crone, The New York Times review of Donner's book indicates that his account of a "nice, tolerant, and open" Islam appeals to American liberals, and it may perform a useful role in educating the broader public, but as a scholarly work "it leaves something to be desired". [14] Other academic reviews have characterized the book as "provocative and largely convincing" [15] and as "a plausible and compelling, if necessarily somewhat speculative, alternate account of the emergence of Islam". [16]

Awards

Donner received a 1994 Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. [2] From 2007 to 2008, Donner held a Guggenheim Fellowship. [2] Donner was appointed a life member of the Scientific Committee of the Tunisian Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts in 2012. [2]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

The Constitution of Medina, or also known as the Umma Document, is a set of documents dealing with tribal affairs during the Islamic prophet Muhammad's time in Medina. The term "Constitution of Medina" is generally considered imprecise because the text neither established a state nor enacted Qur'anic statutes. The original documents have been lost, but their contents are believed to have been preserved, first by Ibn Ishaq in his Biography of Muhammad, and later by Abu 'Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam in his Kitab al-Amwal. No evidence was provided by Ibn Ishaq to establish the authenticity of the documents, such as the chain of transmission, nor did he disclose the details of their discovery or how and when exactly these documents came into effect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jund Filastin</span> One of the districts of the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphate province of Bilad al-Sham

Jund Filasṭīn was one of the military districts of the Umayyad and Abbasid province of Bilad al-Sham (Levant), organized soon after the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 630s. Jund Filastin, which encompassed most of Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Tertia, included the newly established city of Ramla as its capital and eleven administrative districts (kura), each ruled from a central town.

The historiography of early Islam is the secular scholarly literature on the early history of Islam during the 7th century, from Muhammad's first purported revelations in 610 until the disintegration of the Rashidun Caliphate in 661, and arguably throughout the 8th century and the duration of the Umayyad Caliphate, terminating in the incipient Islamic Golden Age around the beginning of the 9th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patricia Crone</span> Danish Orientalist and historian (1945–2015)

Patricia Crone was a Danish historian specialising in early Islamic history. Crone was a member of the Revisionist school of Islamic studies and questioned the historicity of the Islamic traditions about the beginnings of Islam.

<i>The Quest for the Historical Muhammad</i> 2000 book edited by Ibn Warraq

The Quest for the Historical Muhammad (2000), edited by Ibn Warraq, the pen name of an anonymous author critical of Islam, is an anthology of 15 studies examining the origins of Islam and the Quran. The contributors argue that traditional Islamic accounts of its history and the origins of the Quran are fictitious and based on historical revisionism aimed at forging a religious Arab identity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">W. Montgomery Watt</span> Scottish historian and orientalist (1909–2006)

William Montgomery Watt was a Scottish Orientalist, historian, academic, and Anglican priest. From 1964 to 1979, he was Professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Edinburgh.

<i>Hagarism</i> 1977 book by Patricia Crone and Michael Cook

Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World is a 1977 book about the early history of Islam by the historians Patricia Crone and Michael Cook. Drawing on archaeological evidence and contemporary documents in Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin and Syriac, Crone and Cook depict an early Islam very different from the traditionally-accepted version derived from Muslim historical accounts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oriental studies</span> Study of Asian history and culture

Oriental studies is the academic field that studies Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology. In recent years, the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Middle Eastern studies and Asian studies. Traditional Oriental studies in Europe is today generally focused on the discipline of Islamic studies; the study of China, especially traditional China, is often called Sinology. The study of East Asia in general, especially in the United States, is often called East Asian studies.

<i>Crossroads to Islam</i> Book by Yehuda D. Nevo

Crossroads to Islam: The Origins of the Arab Religion and the Arab State is a book by archaeologist Yehuda D. Nevo and researcher Judith Koren. The book presents a radical theory of the origins and development of the Islamic state and religion based on archeological, epigraphical and historiographical research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Cook (historian)</span> British historian (born 1940)

Michael Allan Cook FBA is a British historian and scholar of Islamic history. Cook is the general editor of The New Cambridge History of Islam.

<i>Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam</i> Book by Patricia Crone

Meccan Trade And The Rise Of Islam is a 1987 book written by scholar and historiographer of early Islam Patricia Crone. The book argues that Islam did not originate in Mecca, located in western Saudi Arabia, but in northern Arabia. Her views are hugely different from those of historians and orientalist scholars like W. Montgomery Watt and Fred Donner, who have publications detailing trade activities and the struggles between competing Meccan tribes for control over trade routes.

Robert G. Hoyland is a historian, specializing in the medieval history of the Middle East. He was a student of historian Patricia Crone and was a Leverhulme Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford. He is currently Professor of Late Antique and Early Islamic Middle Eastern History at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, having previously been Professor of Islamic history at the University of Oxford's Faculty of Oriental Studies and a professor of history at the University of St. Andrews and UCLA.

The historicity of Muhammad refers to the study of Muhammad as a historical figure and critical examination of sources upon which traditional accounts are based.

<i>Narratives of Islamic Origins</i> Book by Fred Donner

Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing is a 1998 book by historiographer of early Islam Fred Donner. The work was first published in January 1998 through Darwin Press as the fourteenth volume in the Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam series and has since gone through three editions.

The Najdat were the sub-sect of the Kharijite movement that followed Najda ibn 'Amir al-Hanafi, and in 682 launched a revolt against the Umayyad Caliphate in the historical provinces of Yamama and Bahrain, in central and eastern Arabia.

The Judham was a large Arab tribe that inhabited the southern Levant and northwestern Arabia during the late antique and early Islamic eras. Under the Byzantine Empire, the tribe was nominally Christian and fought against the Muslim armies between 629 and 636, until the Byzantines and their Arab allies were defeated at the Battle of Yarmouk. Afterward, the Judham converted to Islam and became the largest tribal faction of Jund Filastin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kaaba</span> Building at the center of Islams most important mosque, the Masjid al-Haram

The Kaaba, sometimes referred to as al-Ka'ba al-Musharrafa is a stone building at the center of Islam's most important mosque and holiest site, the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is considered by Muslims to be the Bayt Allah and is the qibla for Muslims around the world. The current structure was built after the original building was damaged by fire during the siege of Mecca by Umayyads in 683.

<i>In the Shadow of the Sword</i> (book) Book by Tom Holland

In the Shadow of the Sword is a history book charting the origins of Islam by Tom Holland.

The revisionist school of Islamic studies is a movement in Islamic studies that questions traditional Muslim narratives of Islam's origins.

Qur'anic studies is the academic application of a diverse set of disciplines to study the Quran, drawing on methods including but not limited to ancient history, philology, textual criticism, lexicography, codicology, literary criticism, comparative religion, and historical criticism.

References

  1. 1 2 NELC Department Faculty list at University of Chicago
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Faculty members receive named, distinguished service professorships". University of Chicago . December 27, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2020.
  3. ↑ "University of Chicago article on Guggenheim Fellowship awards". Chronicle.uchicago.edu. 2007-04-12. Retrieved 2013-09-12.
  4. ↑ Middle East Medievalists. "Al-Usur al-Wusta: The Bulletin of Middle East Medievalists". Middleeastmedievalists.org. Retrieved 2013-09-12.
  5. ↑ "Letters from MESA Presidents". Middle East Studies Association. Retrieved 2016-10-01.
  6. ↑ "Jere L. Bacharach Service Award". Middle East Studies Association. Retrieved 2016-10-01.
  7. 1 2 Elton H in Bryn Mawr Medieval Review (accessed 2 October 2007)
  8. ↑ Narratives of Islamic Origins p. 62
  9. ↑ Crone, Patricia (August 10, 2010). "Among the Believers: A new look at the origins of Islam describes a tolerant world that may not have existed". Tablet Magazine.
  10. ↑ Antoine Borrut; Fred Donner (15 May 2005). "From Believers to Muslims : Confessional Self-Identity in the Early Islamic Community". Abstracta Iranica. 26. doi: 10.4000/abstractairanica.2410 .
  11. ↑ Review of The Early Islamic Conquests in the International Journal of Middle East Studies
  12. ↑ e.g. refer University of Oklahoma (accessed 2 October 2007)
  13. ↑ New York Times, The Muslim Past, Sunday Book Review by Max Rodenbeck 25 June 2010
  14. ↑ Patricia Crone: Among the Believers Tablet Magazine 10. August 2010
  15. ↑ Steven C. Judd (Sep 2011). "Review of Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam by Fred M. Donner". Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 79 (3): 762–765. doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfr024. JSTOR   23020418.
  16. ↑ Paul R. Powers (February 2013). "Review of Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam by Fred M. Donner". History of Religions. 52 (3): 306–308. JSTOR   10.1086/66866.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.