Lassner, J: Islam in the Middle Ages

JACOB LASSNER is Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Professor of Jewish Civilization at Northwestern University. He specializes in medieval Near Eastern History with an emphasis on urban structures, political culture, and the background to Jewish-Muslim relations.Michael Bonner is professor of medieval Islamic history in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. He received his PhD in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, in 1987. His recent publications include Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practices (2006) and Poverty and Charity in Middle Eastern Contexts, co-edited with Amy Singer and Mine Ener (2003). He has been a Helmut S. Stern fellow at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities and professeur invité at the Institut d'Etudes de l'Islam et des Sociétés du Monde Musulman, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France and of Chaire de l'Institut du Monde Arabe, also in Paris. He was director of the University of Michigan Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies in 1997-2000 and 2001-2003, and acting chair of the Department of Near Eastern Studies in 2007-08.

In the Middle Ages, a varied and vibrant Islamic culture flourished in all its aspects, from religious institutions to legal and scientific endeavors. Lassner, Reisman, and Bonner detail how all three montheist traditions are linked to the same sacred history. They trace the most current scholarship on the Arabian background to Islam, the prophet's early religious message and its appeal. They the Qur'an and how it would have been understood by the earliest generations of Muslims. How much does historical memory come into play in current depictions of this early era? Beyond religious institutions, Muslim scholars and scientists were vital to both the transmission of knowledge from the Greek civilization and to the uninterrupted progress of science. The authors explore the role that non-Muslim minorities played within this culture and they detail the splits within the Muslim world that continue to this day.

Lassner and Bonner paint a vivid portrait of the rich and varied medieval Islamic community, its beliefs, and its institutions.