Bismika Alllahuma

中东学习协会公报，容量35，第1，夏天2001年，剑桥大学出版社， ISSN 0026-3184， p。 75

研究回教的起源，包括Muhammad生活，是臭名远扬地引起争论的事业。 学者以令人敬佩的训练在他们自己之中鲜明不同关于怎样了解它。 声称提供“充足的背景投入当前辩论容量的出现，在修正主义者和传统主义者之间关于回教的起源，在他们的智力上下文” (p。 9) 因而是肯定吸引通知。

不幸地，编译器，仅确定由假名“Ibn Warraq”，也写容量的长的介绍杂文，是三倍地不够资格的担当我们的指南在这个领域。 “Ibn Warraq”象第二篇杂文的相等地神奇作者，关于来源， “Ibn Rawandi” (或许一样的个体？) 在可能单独合格他的阿拉伯研究中缺乏严谨专家训练(她？) 独立地评估解释不同的学校在这个领域。 这不适当显露，例如，不一致处理阿拉伯材料和由事实“Ibn Warraq”和“Ibn Rawandi”对这次辩论不贡献任何原始的论据。

更加严肃的平静是构成容量的大多数的编译器的专制的偏爱为约翰Wansbrough)的某些修正主义者理论(特殊那些，造成文章的一种周到地片面的选择和翻译。 这些包括工作，主要知名，由Ernest · Renan， Henri Lammens (他的专题论文“Fatima和Muhammad的女儿的包括一个完全翻译”)， C。 H. 贝克尔，亚瑟Jeffery，约瑟夫Schacht，劳伦斯i。 康列得，安德鲁Rippin， J。 Koren和Y。 D. Nevo， F。 E. Peters、赫伯特冰山和G。 R. Hawting。 多数这些是对长的辩论的地标贡献关于回教的起源，由有的学者(有)强的观点对此和拥有了主要语种(特别是阿拉伯语)和来源的充分的精通。

“Ib Warraq的”偏压，然而，造成他省去由H.形成挑战为一些修正主义者想法的美好的贡献。 Motzki， U。 Rubin和许多其他。 This lopsided character makes The Quest for the Historical Muhammad a book that is likely to mislead many an unwary general reader.

Most problematic of all, however, is the compiler’s agenda, which is not scholarship, but anti-Islam polemic. The author of an earlier book entitled Why I Am Not a Muslim (1995), “Ibn Warraq” and his co-conspirator “Ibn al-Rawandi” detest anything that, to them, smacks of apologetic; for this reason they criticize harshly several noted authors for their ‘bad faith’ or ‘moral ambiguity.’

Yet this book is itself a monument to duplicity. The compiler never has the honesty or courage to divulge his identity, even though a list of contributors (pp. 551-54) gives a biographical sketch of all the other contributors who, unlike “Ibn Warraq” and “Ibn al-Rawandi”, are already well-known.

Far more serious is the fact that this book is religious polemic attempting to masquerade as scholarship. It is a collection of basically sound articles, framed by a seriously flawed introduction, and put in the service of anti-Islamic polemic dedicated to the proposition that Islam is a sham and that honest scholarship on Islam requires gratuitous rudeness to Muslim sensibilities.

By associating these articles with “Ibn Warraq’s” polemical agenda, The Quest for the Historical Muhammad will raise suspicions among some Muslims that all revisionist scholarship is motivated by such intolerance.

This is likely to make the future progress of sound historical scholarship on Islam’s origins harder, rather than easier. The publication of The Quest for the Historical Muhammad is, therefore, a most unfortunate event.

Fred M. Donner, University of Chicago.