The Formative Period and the Study of Ancient Islam

This field focuses on the textual sources at the disposal of the researcher of the ancient Islamic period and the formation of the Islamic world (between the seventh and tenth centuries) and deals mainly with the time of the Prophet Muhammad and literary (narrative) Islamic sources of the time, emphasizing the biases and problems of using these literary sources as historical ones. The primary relevant sources are the Koran, the Sirah (the prophetic biography), Koran’s interpretation, and the historical literature.