Stanford fellow delves into archival materials that shed new light on the early days of Islam

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Stanford Report, March 3, 2015

Stanford fellow delves into archival

materials that shed new light on the early
days of Islam
Humanities Center fellow and historian of Islam Fred Donner builds on his
theories about the diverse religious origins of Islam through an intensive
study and translation of previously neglected or unknown documents from
the seventh century.

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Historian Fred Donner has dedicated his career to

investigating the contested origins of Islam, the
world's fastest growing religion.

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Courtesy Oriental Institute, University of Chicago

Donner, currently a Marta Sutton Weeks Fellow at

the Stanford Humanities Center, has studied
what is typically called the "Islamic conquest" of
the seventh century, the period when a newly
founded state in Arabia took over much of the
Near East and Muslims' narratives about the
origins of Islam surfaced.

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"We can only gain an accurate picture of how

Islam began by examining documentation from
the seventh century," Donner said. But that's not
easy.

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"The seventh century is a di!icult period because

we don't have many documentary sources," he
said.

Donner did not find the letter on one of his

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Stanford fellow delves into archival

materials that shed new light on the
early days of Islam

According to the traditional origin story, the

prophet Muhammad (d. 632) started Islam as a
new religion, distinct from Judaism and
Christianity. But confirmation of that story is
di!icult, because it is based not on documents
from that time there are very few of them but
from eighth- and ninth-century literary sources,
well past Muhammad's lifetime.

But Donner has a key piece of evidence: a letter

that he believes was written in that crucial early
seventh-century period.

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This fragment of papyrus dating from the seventh

century gives clues to the early community that
became Islam, according to historian Fred Donner, a

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/march/early-days-islam-030315.html

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Stanford fellow delves into archival materials that shed new light on the early days of Islam

3/4/15, 10:38 AM

fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center.

numerous trips to archives in Europe, the United
States or the Middle East, but came across it
inadvertently while preparing to teach a course
at the University of Chicago, where he is a professor of Near Eastern history.

According to Donner, both the script in which it is written and the names of people mentioned in
the letter point strongly to an early seventh-century date. "As far as I can tell, it may be the earliest
Arabic letter we have," he said.
The stained and tattered papyrus is written in Arabic script and is mostly complete, except for a
small part missing in the middle.
"As you can see, it's a complete letter," Donner said, as he excitedly pulled up a digital image of the
document on his laptop. "For the seventh century, you usually only find a little piece."
Since arriving at Stanford last fall, Donner has been analyzing the letter along with other such
original documents. "When you work on a papyrus like this, it's usually several years for a single
page," he said. The letterforms can be puzzling, the documents smudged, faded and folded. He's
been known to keep a copy of a di!icult document posted on his refrigerator for years.
An understanding of archival materials from the seventh century, Donner said, will "not only
provide more insight into this broadly defined religious community, but also bring us closer to an
updated account of Muhammad's time."
The documents at the center of Donner's current work help to bolster theories he established in his
most recent book, Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origin of Islam (2010). In the text, he
argued that Muhammad's movement was originally composed of "Believers," people from di!erent
religions who all believed in one God and in living a pious and righteous life for fear of the last
judgment. "It wasn't exactly a new religion in the beginning," Donner said. "It was a monotheistic
revival movement."

Who were the Believers?

Donner's scholarship was the first to call Muhammad's following a "community of Believers" or a
"Believers' movement," rather than simply "Islam."
The term Believers comes from the Quran itself, a text that is regarded by Muslims as the word of
God as it was revealed to Muhammad. In the Quran, the word "believer," or mu'minum, appears in
hundreds of passages, especially in the phrase used when addressing its original audience, "O you
who believe."
However, the part of Donner's argument that has received the most attention is the claim that this
community of Believers included some Jews and Christians. A few passages in the Quran state
explicitly that among the "peoples of the book" its general term for Christians and Jews are
some who are Believers. According to Donner, it would not have been di!icult for Jews and
Christians to join since Muhammad's movement could appeal to anyone who believed in one God
and in living a righteous life.
Being part of the Believer community did not necessarily mean one had to give up one's
membership in another confessional group, Donner said: "You could be a Believer and be a Jew;
you could be a Believer and be a Christian. It's not like you had to convert."
According to Donner, eighth- and ninth-century Islamic law, which granted "peoples of the book"
protected status and allowed them to live in relative autonomy because "they were earlier
recipients of the revelation," may o!er vestigial evidence of the earlier phase of peaceful
coexistence among the di!erent religious groups.

No evidence of forgery
Donner was looking through digital scans of papyri at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute
when the letter caught his eye. It had been cataloged as an unremarkable commercial document,
but Donner noticed a letterform in it that, he said, "was never used a"er the late seventh century."
A striking aspect of the letter is that it features language that is monotheistic but not confessional
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Stanford fellow delves into archival materials that shed new light on the early days of Islam

3/4/15, 10:38 AM

that is, it doesn't reflect any particular theologically defined monotheistic community. As Donner
pointed out, it opens with the phrase "I praise to you God, other than whom there is no God," and
closes with "Peace and God's blessing upon you," which would be acceptable to any monotheist
Jew, Christian or otherwise.
While the letter does mention God, it o!ers no signs that this seventh-century worldview is
"distinctly Islamic," he said. "No mention of Islam, or of Muhammad, or of the Quran; or, for that
matter, of distinctively Christian or Jewish features, either."
Donner has deciphered enough of the letter to see that it mentions a number of people who have
the same names as several people who were close associates of Muhammad, though the prophet
himself is never mentioned in the letter.
"The constellation of names is very suggestive, and these are people who died in the first half of the
seventh century," Donner said.
He pointed to the mention of a seventh-century caliph, the supreme religious and political leader of
an Islamic state, as significant. The mention of this caliph is especially noteworthy because there is
no other secure documentation of his existence, only references from later texts, Donner said.
While the document does not prove Donner's theories, it doesn't disprove them, either, which is an
important point, he said.
Because the letter is missing a piece, it is di!icult to extract a full story from it. Donner is still
figuring out particular Arabic words, but is nonetheless working to "get a reading su!iciently
convincing that there is no other alternative," and publish it.
What he can say with certainty so far is that the letter shows "no evidence of being a later forgery."
It o!ers no claims to property, or to religious or political authority, and doesn't advance any
confessional religious claims Muslim, Jewish or Christian. So no later person would have had
reason to forge such a letter.
The question of forgery is important for Donner since forgery would show that later generations
were trying to hide the non-confessional element, or the "believerish" character, in Muhammad's
religious movement.
"The traditional origins narrative is a nice story; it reads like a good novel," he said. "But when I
read it as a historian it just doesn't compute. The idea of the Believers movement rings truer to
me."
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