https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meccan_Trade_and_the_Rise_of_IslamReception[
edit]
Robert Bertram Serjeant, reviewing the book in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, described it as a "confused, irrational and illogical polemic, further complicated by her misunderstanding of Arabic texts, her lack of comprehension of the social structure of Arabia, and twisting of the clear sense of other writings, ancient and modern, to suit her contentions."[
2] However, critics such as Abdullah al-Andalusi of the Muslim Debate Initiative state that "If there was a proto-Islamic sect pre-dating Meccan Islam existing at Abdad or elsewhere in Nabatean borderland between Arabia and the Roman Empire, an advanced and literate society with extensive trade links with the rest of the Roman world, it is surely utterly implausible that no sect, nor text of a sect, nor witness to the sect would have survived."[
3] Fred M. Donner, on the other hand, states that "[
the] assumption that Mecca was the linchpin of international luxury trade [
has] been decisively challenged in recent years – notably in Patricia Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam."[
4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HagarismReviews[
edit]
Their work was acknowledged as raising some interesting questions and being a fresh approach in its reconstruction of early Islamic history, but it was described by Josef van Ess as an experiment.[
12] He argued that: "... a refutation is perhaps unnecessary since the authors make no effort to prove it (the hypothesis of the book) in detail ... Where they are only giving a new interpretation of well-known facts, this is not decisive. But where the accepted facts are consciously put upside down, their approach is disastrous."[
12]
Steven Humphreys criticised the authors for their "... use (or abuse) of its Greek and Syriac sources ..."[
13] The controversial thesis of Hagarism is not widely accepted.[
14]
R. B. Serjeant claimed that: "Hagarism ... is not only bitterly anti-Islamic in tone, but anti-Arabian. Its superficial fancies are so ridiculous that at first one wonders if it is just a 'leg pull', pure 'spoof'."[
15]
Eric Manheimer, reviewing the work in the American Historical Review, commented that, "The research on Hagarism is thorough, but this reviewer feels that the conclusions drawn lack balance. The weights on the scales tip too easily toward the hypercritical side, tending to distract from what might have been an excellent study in comparative religion."[
16]
David Waines, Professor of Islamic Studies Lancaster University states: "The Crone-Cook theory has been almost universally rejected. The evidence offered by the authors is far too tentative and conjectural (and possibly contradictory) to conclude that Arab-Jewish relations were as intimate as they would wish them to have been."[
17]
John Wansbrough, who had mentored the authors, reviewed the book, specifically the first part, in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. He begins by praising the book claiming, "the authors' erudition is extraordinary their industry everywhere evident, their prose ebullient." But, he says that, "... most, if not all, [of the sources] have been or can be challenged on suspicion of inauthenticity" and that "the material is upon occasion misleadingly represented ... My reservations here, and elsewhere in this first part of the book, turn upon what I take to be the authors' methodological assumptions, of which the principal must be that a vocabulary of motives can be freely extrapolated from a discrete collection of literary stereotypes composed by alien and mostly hostile observers, and thereupon employed to describe, even interpret, not merely the overt behaviour but also intellectual and spiritual development of the helpless and mostly innocent actors. Where even the sociologist fears to tread, the historian ought not with impunity be permitted to go."[
18]
Oleg Grabar described Hagarism as a "brilliant, fascinating, original, arrogant, highly debatable book" and writes that "... the authors' fascination with lapidary formulas led them to cheap statements or to statements which require unusual intellectual gymnastics to comprehend and which become useless, at best cute" and that "... the whole construction proposed by the authors lacks entirely in truly historical foundations" but also praised the authors for trying to "relate the Muslim phenomenon to broad theories of acculturation and historical change."[
19] Norman O. Brown wrote that Hagarism, "illustrates in an ominous way the politics of Orientalism", and citing Grabar's review, added that, "The Western tradition of urbane condescension has degenerated into aggressive, unscrupulous even, calumny".[
20]
Michael G. Morony remarked that "Despite a useful bibliography, this is a thin piece of Kulturgeschichte full of glib generalizations, facile assumptions, and tiresome jargon. More argument than evidence, it suffers all the problems of intellectual history, including reification and logical traps."[
21]
Fred M. Donner, writing in the Middle East Studies Association Bulletin in 2006, commented on the negative press the book initially received.[
22]
هاشم الحسن
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست