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.
A madhhab refers to any school of thought within Islamic jurisprudence. The major Sunni madhāhib are Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali. They emerged in the ninth and tenth centuries CE and by the twelfth century almost all jurists aligned themselves with a particular madhab. These four schools recognize each other's validity and they have interacted in legal debate over the centuries. Rulings of these schools are followed across the Muslim world without exclusive regional restrictions, but they each came to dominate in different parts of the world. For example, the Maliki school is predominant in North and West Africa; the Hanafi school in South and Central Asia; the Shafi'i school in East Africa and Southeast Asia; and the Hanbali school in North and Central Arabia. The first centuries of Islam also witnessed a number of short-lived Sunni madhhabs. The Zahiri school, which is considered to be endangered, continues to exert influence over legal thought. The development of Shia legal schools occurred along the lines of theological differences and resulted in the formation of the Ja'fari madhhab amongst Twelver Shias, as well as the Isma'ili and Zaidi madhhabs amongst Isma'ilis and Zaidis respectively, whose differences from Sunni legal schools are roughly of the same order as the differences among Sunni schools. The Ibadi legal school, distinct from Sunni and Shia madhhabs, is predominant in Oman. Unlike Sunnis, Shias, and Ibadis, non-denominational Muslims are not affiliated with any madhhab.
The Kharijites 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.
Zaydism is one of the three main branches of Shia Islam that emerged in the eighth century following Zayd ibn Ali's unsuccessful rebellion against the Umayyad Caliphate. Zaydism is typically considered to be a branch of Shia Islam that comes closest to the Sunni, although the "classical" form of Zaydism over the centuries had changed its posture with regard to Sunni and Shia traditions multiple times, to the point where interpretation of Zaydi as Shia is often based on just their acceptance of Ali as a rightful successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Mainstream ("twelver") Shia sometimes consider Zaydism to be a "fifth school" of Sunni Islam. Zaydis regard rationalism as more important than Quranic literalism and in the past were quite tolerant towards Sunni Shafi'ism, a religion of about half of the Yemenis.
The Ibadi movement is a Muslim denomination concentrated in Oman, established after historically breaking off from the Kharijites. The followers of the Ibadi sect are known as the Ibadis or, as they call themselves, The People of Truth and Integrity.
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.
Islam is the state religion in Oman, introduced during Muhammad's lifetime in the early 7th century. Muhammad appointed Amr ibn al-As as governor, who remained until Muhammad's death in 632 CE. Amr and Sa'id ibn Aws al-Ansari delivered Muhammad's letter to the Al-Julanda brothers; the rulers of Oman, inviting them to embrace Islam. This peaceful mission marked the beginning of Islam in Oman. Today, 95.9% of Oman's population is Muslim, with slightly over 45% following Sunni Islam, and around 45% Ibadi Islam, with the other 5% identifying as Shia Muslims.
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.
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 historian and orientalist. An Anglican priest, Watt served as Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh from 1964 to 1979 and was also a prominent contributor to the field of Quranic studies.
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.
The Ibadi revolt was an Ibadi Kharijite uprising that occurred in ca. 747–748 against the Umayyad Caliphate. It established the first Ibadi imamate, a short-lived state located in the Arabian Peninsula.
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.
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.
