Henry Stubbe and the Beginnings of Islam

Henry Stubbe (1632–1676) was a revolutionary English scholar who understood Islam as a monotheistic revelation in continuity with Judaism and Christianity. His major work, An Account of the Rise and Progress of Mahometanism, was the first English text to positively document the Prophet Muhammad's life, celebrate the Qur'an as a divine revelation, and praise the Muslim toleration of Christians, undermining a long legacy of European prejudice and hostility.

Nabil Matar, a leading scholar of Islamic-Western relations, standardizes Stubbe's text and situates it within England's theological climate. He shows how, to draw a positive portrait of Muhammad, Stubbe embraced travelogues, early church histories, Arabic chronicles, Latin commentaries, and studies on Jewish customs and scriptures, produced in the language of Islam and in the midst of the Islamic polity.

This is a work of significant historical revisionism, dedicated to refuting popular misunderstandings and presenting, for the first time, Christian Arab writers as 'indispensable interlocutors who challenged Western historiography and the Western canon.'

(Jonathan Burton, Whittier College)

Matar is the leading literary historian of Islam's influence in Britain during the early modern period through the Enlightenment and perhaps the sole scholar competent to produce an edition of this kind. He is a textual editor who also possesses the breadth of literary, historical, and theological knowledge to introduce and explain the text.

(John Michael Archer, New York University)

The most acute literary historian of Islam in the West has now given us a valuable, critical edition of Henry Stubbe's The Originall & Progress of Mahometanism, contextualized by a well-researched introduction. Stubbe's manuscript treatise, which drew for the first time on Arabic and non-Christian sources in Latin translation, was revolutionary in its methodology and understanding of Islam. He presented the first historical biography of the Prophet and told the story of the spread of Islam, dispelling many untruths, such as conversion by the sword, while recognizing Muslim toleration for other religions. Nabil Matar's work illuminates an important moment in the late seventeenth century.

(Donald R. Dickson, Texas A&M University)

Stubbe's story deserves to be told, and Matar does so with flair, placing in front of us not a collage of isolated facts but an interesting story fluid in motion. As always, the scholarship is finely tuned, balanced, and intelligent, giving the complete picture, with crisply written force and precise historical detail. We walk away not only with a greater appreciation for Stubbe, as Matar intends, but also uncannily with the past held as a mirror.

(Anas Al-Shaikh-Ali, European Regional Director, International Institute of Islamic Thought, and Vice-President, Institute for Epistemological Studies, Belgium)

Matar takes us on a fascinating journey through time and into the depth of the human mind. As he reveals the secret of Stubbe's 'cure for the disease of ignorance,' he achieves the ultimate goal: to make the world aware of how much there is that all of us are yet to learn.

(Elma Dizdar, University of Sarajevo)

Undoubtedly, this meticulously researched book will interest an array of scholars, including those from disciplines of English literature, History, and Religious Studies.

(New Books in Islamic Studies)

Matar here presents a very learned and documented work of significant revisionism.

(Journal of Islamic Studies)

In meticulously researching and footnoting this extraordinary late-seventeenth-century text, Matar and Columbia University Press have rendered Islamic Studies, and the study of early English texts, a service of inestimable value.

(Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations)

This is an excellent edition of an important work that testifies to the benefits of scholarly translation and the ability of an Englishman writing in the late 1600s to open his mind to alternate narratives about the rise of Islam and the merits of the Prophet as a man and religious reformer.

(Renaissance Quarterly)

An essential tool for any future treatment of the man and his work.

(G.J. Toomer Erudition and the Republic of Letters)