Research
In Hagarism:The Making of the Islamic World (1977),Cook and his associate Patricia Crone provided a new analysis of early Islamic history by studying the only surviving contemporary accounts of the rise of Islam. They fundamentally questioned the historicity of the Islamic traditions about the beginnings of Islam. Thus they tried to produce the picture of Islam's beginnings only from non-Arabic sources. By studying the only surviving contemporary accounts of the rise of Islam,which were written in Armenian,Greek,Aramaic and Syriac by witnesses,they reconstructed a significantly different story of Islam's beginnings,compared with the story known from the Islamic traditions. Cook and Crone claimed to be able to explain exactly how Islam came into being by the fusion of various near eastern civilizations under Arabic leadership. Later,Michael Cook refrained from this attempt of a detailed reconstruction of Islam's beginnings,and concentrated on Islamic ethics and law. [2] Patricia Crone later suggested that the book was “a graduate essay" and "a hypothesis," not "a conclusive finding.” [3]
In his work Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought (Cambridge,2000),Michael Cook,in the chapter on the doctrine of al-Amr bi'l-Maʿrūf wa'l-Nahy ʿan il-Munkar among the Ibāḍīs,makes a comparison between western and eastern Ibāḍism and with the doctrines of the other Islamic sects and schools. The eastern and western Ibāḍīs represent two distinct historical communities with largely separate literary heritages,at least until,roughly,the beginning of the twentieth century. There are occasional links between them:one shared literary borrowing (Māwardī,Ghazālī),the unusual doctrine that the verbal obligation does not lapse when the offender will not listen,the equally unusual interest in women as performers of the duty. Differences are likely to reflect the very different political histories of the two wings of the sect. In Oman,the resilience of the Imamate down the centuries finds obvious and direct expression in the frequency with which the Omani sources link forbidding wrong with this institution. In the West,where the vacuum left by the disappearance of the Imamate was filled in part by clerical organisation and authority,the scholars seem to have become less cautious about the role of the individual performer. Comparing the Ibāḍīdoctrine of forbidding wrong with the doctrines of other Islamic sects and schools,the significant point is that,left aside the close association of forbidding wrong with righteous rebellion and state-formation which the Ibāḍīs share with the Zaydīs,Ibāḍīviews do not in any systematic way diverge from those of the Islamic mainstream. [4]
Cook is also known for synthetic works for a general audience,including The Koran:A Very Short Introduction (Oxford,2000) and A Brief History of the Human Race (Norton,2003). Cook served as general editor of The New Cambridge History of Islam,which covers fourteen centuries of Muslim history. This six-volume project was selected as winner of the 2011 Waldo G. Leland Prize for the “most outstanding reference tool in the field of history”published between 1 May 2006,and 30 April 2011.
Criticism
R. B. Serjeant described Hagarism as "bitterly anti-Islamic" and "anti-Arabian" in 1978. [5] Cook's most recent work,Ancient Religions,Modern Politics (2014),has been criticized by Duke Religion scholar,Bruce Lawrence,as an "anti-Islam manifesto." [6]
Cook addresses his approach to navigating the politics of scholarship on Islam in a video for the Nicholas D. Chabraja Center for Historical Studies. In his words,he claims that "I personally see my academic role not as being anybody's advocate for or against. I hold onto a kind of ideal of objectivity,which I am sure I don't fully realize...I didn't like the philo-Islamic pull and I don't like the anti-Islamic pull. They are kind of a distraction from scholarship." [7]
In Islam, the ulama, also spelled ulema, are scholars of Islamic doctrine and law. They are considered the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious knowledge in Islam.
A madhhab, is a school of thought within Islamic jurisprudence.
The Kharijites, also called al-Shurat, were an Islamic sect which emerged during the First Fitna (656–661). The first Kharijites were supporters of Ali who rebelled against his acceptance of arbitration talks to settle the conflict with his challenger, Mu'awiya, at the Battle of Siffin in 657. They asserted that "judgment belongs to God alone", which became their motto, and that rebels such as Mu'awiya had to be fought and overcome according to Qur'anic injunctions. Ali defeated the Kharijites at the Battle of Nahrawan in 658, but their insurrection continued. Ali was assassinated in 661 by a Kharijite dissident seeking revenge for the defeat at Nahrawan.
The Ibadi movement or Ibadism is a school of Islam. It has been called by some the third branch of Islam, along with Sunni Islam and Shia Islam. The followers of Ibadism are known as the Ibadis.
The Rustamid dynasty was an Ibadi Persian dynasty centered in present-day Algeria. The dynasty governed as a Muslim theocracy for a century and a half from its capital Tahert until the Ismaili Fatimid Caliphate defeated it. Rustamid authority extended over what is now central and western Algeria, parts of southern Tunisia, and the Jebel Nafusa and Fezzan regions in Libya as far as Zawila.
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.
Islamic schools and branches have different understandings of Islam. There are many different sects or denominations, schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and schools of Islamic theology, or ʿaqīdah (creed). Within Islamic groups themselves there may be differences, such as different orders (tariqa) within Sufism, and within Sunnī Islam different schools of theology and jurisprudence. Groups in Islam may be numerous, or relatively small in size. Differences between the groups may not be well known to Muslims outside of scholarly circles or may have induced enough passion to have resulted in political and religious violence. There are informal movements driven by ideas as well as organized groups with a governing body. Some of the Islamic sects and groups regard certain others as deviant or accuse them of not being truly Muslim. Some Islamic sects and groups date back to the early history of Islam between the 7th and 9th centuries CE, whereas others have arisen much more recently or even in the 20th century. Still others were influential in their time but are no longer in existence. Muslims who do not belong to, do not self-identify with, or cannot be readily classified under one of the identifiable Islamic schools and branches are known as non-denominational Muslims.
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.
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.
Enjoining good and forbidding wrong are two important duties imposed by God in Islam, as revealed in the Quran and Hadith.
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.
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.
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.
Al-Ḥasan ibn ʻAlī al-Barbahārī was a Muslim theologian and populist religious leader from Iraq. He was a scholar and jurist who is famous for his role in suppressing S̲h̲īʿa missionaries and Mu'tazilism in the Abbasid Caliphate during his lifetime. His books include creedal and methodological refutations against certain sects including the Shias, Qadaris, and the Mu'tazilites.
Saïd Amir Arjomand is an Iranian-American scholar and Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University, Long Island, and Director of the Stony Brook Institute for Global Studies. He received his Ph.D. in 1980 from the University of Chicago.
Muḥakkima and al-Haruriyya refer to the Muslims who rejected arbitration between Ali and Mu'awiya I at the Battle of Siffin in 657 CE. The name Muḥakkima derives from their slogan lā ḥukma illā li-llāh, meaning "no judgment (hukm) except God's". The name al-Haruriyya refers to their withdrawal from Ali's army to the village of Harura' near Kufa. This episode marked the start of the Kharijite movement, and the term muḥakkima is often also applied by extension to later Kharijites.
The revisionist school of Islamic studies is a movement in Islamic studies that questions traditional Muslim narratives of Islam's origins.
Several Omani/Ibadi manuscripts discovered over the past four decades, particularly in the Sultanate of Oman and North Africa, contain the texts of what is commonly termed “sirah” (“history”) or “jam’ al siyar”. They belong to a familiar type of literature, a genre used when addressing the general public in mosques in the early Islamic era centuries.
Adam Russell Gaiser is a scholar of Islamic studies specialising on the development of early Kharijites and Ibadiyya.
Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought is a 2000 non-fiction book by Michael Cook. It discusses the evolution of the Islamic concept of enjoining good and forbidding wrong. The book is a winner of Albert Hourani Book Award and Farabi Award.
