The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam
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The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam is a 1999 book in the field of Quranic studies published by G. R. Hawting.
Hawting explores and compares how the Quran and later Islamic tradition portray ideas of paganism and idolatry in the milieu of Pre-Islamic Arabia. In doing so, Hawting pioneered a new approach that sees the opponents of Muhammad in Mecca, the mušrikīn, as imperfect monotheists as opposed to polytheists, an idea that Hawting argues is an embellishment of later Islamic historiography, including the biographies of Muhammad (sirah), the exegetical tradition on the Quran (tafsir), and dedicated works such as the Book of Idols of Hisham ibn al-Kalbi.[1][2]
Hawting argues that the Islamic perspective on monotheism emerged from a formative period of inter-monotheistic competition/debate, which he sometimes likens to the disputes about monotheism between 16th-century Protestants and Catholics. This, Hawting argues, is in opposition to the traditional view of the emergence of Islamic monotheism against a polytheistic background. The associators ("mushrikūn") described in the Quran are not polytheists, per Hawting, but fellow monotheists who believed in the supremacy of Allah but made the mistake of associating with him the veneration of lower, angelic beings. Finally, he geographically situates this competition among Middle Eastern confessional communities in the eighth or ninth centuries (following John Wansbrough's position in Quranic Studies (1977)) instead of the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh-century.[3]