MARC Record from harvard_bibliographic_metadata

LEADER: 02736pam a22003014a 4500
001 010095133-3
005 20061016105027.0
008 051123r20061978nyu b 000 0 eng
010 $a 2005056643
020 $a1591023785 (alk. paper)
020 $a9781591023784
035 0 $aocm62421317
040 $aDLC$cDLC$dBAKER$dC#P$dDLC
042 $apcc
050 00 $aBP166.1$b.W26 2006
082 00 $a297.209/021$222
100 1 $aWansbrough, John E.
245 14 $aThe sectarian milieu :$bcontent and composition of Islamic salvation history /$cJohn Wansbrough ; foreword, translations, and expanded notes by Gerald Hawting.
260 $aAmherst, N.Y. :$bPrometheus Books,$c2006.
300 $axxii, 200 p. ;$c24 cm.
500 $aOriginally published: Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1978.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. [xiii]-xxii).
505 0 $aI. Historiography -- II. Authority -- III. Identity -- IV. Epistemology -- Res Ipsa Loquitur : history and mimesis.
520 1 $a"In this work, originally published in 1978, John Wansbrough, one of the most innovative thinkers in the field of Islamic studies, analyzes "early Islamic historiography - or rather the interpretive myths underlying this historiography - as a late manifestation of Old Testament 'salvation history.' " Continuing themes that he treated in a previous work, Quranic Studies, Wansbrough argues that the traditional biographies of Muhammad (Arabic sira and maghazi) are best understood, not as historical documents that attest to "what really happened," but as literary texts written more than one hundred years after the facts and heavily influenced by Jewish, and to a lesser extent Christian, interconfessional polemics. Thus, Islamic "history" is almost completely a later literary reconstruction, which evolved out of an environment of competing Jewish and Christian sects. As such, Wansbrough felt that the most fruitful means of analyzing such texts was literary analysis. Furthermore, he maintained that it was next to impossible to extract the kernel of historical truth from works that were created principally to serve later religious agendas." "Although his work remains controversial to this day, his insights and approaches to the study of Islam continue to inspire scholars. This new edition contains an assessment of Wansbrough's contributions and many useful textual notes and translations by Gerald Hawting (professor of the history of the Near and Middle East, University of London), plus the author's 1986 Albert Einstein Memorial Lecture, "Res Ipsa Loquitur.""--BOOK JACKET.
650 0 $aIslam$xDoctrines$xHistory.
700 1 $aHawting, G. R.$q(Gerald R.),$d1944-
988 $a20060914
906 $0DLC