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Humanities at Stanford
BY GUADALUPE CARRILLO
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Courtesy Oriental Institute, University of Chicago
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http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/march/early-days-islam-030315.html
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Stanford fellow delves into archival materials that shed new light on the early days of Islam
3/4/15, 10:38 AM
According to Donner, both the script in which it is written and the names of people mentioned in
the letter point strongly to an early seventh-century date. "As far as I can tell, it may be the earliest
Arabic letter we have," he said.
The stained and tattered papyrus is written in Arabic script and is mostly complete, except for a
small part missing in the middle.
"As you can see, it's a complete letter," Donner said, as he excitedly pulled up a digital image of the
document on his laptop. "For the seventh century, you usually only find a little piece."
Since arriving at Stanford last fall, Donner has been analyzing the letter along with other such
original documents. "When you work on a papyrus like this, it's usually several years for a single
page," he said. The letterforms can be puzzling, the documents smudged, faded and folded. He's
been known to keep a copy of a di!icult document posted on his refrigerator for years.
An understanding of archival materials from the seventh century, Donner said, will "not only
provide more insight into this broadly defined religious community, but also bring us closer to an
updated account of Muhammad's time."
The documents at the center of Donner's current work help to bolster theories he established in his
most recent book, Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origin of Islam (2010). In the text, he
argued that Muhammad's movement was originally composed of "Believers," people from di!erent
religions who all believed in one God and in living a pious and righteous life for fear of the last
judgment. "It wasn't exactly a new religion in the beginning," Donner said. "It was a monotheistic
revival movement."
No evidence of forgery
Donner was looking through digital scans of papyri at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute
when the letter caught his eye. It had been cataloged as an unremarkable commercial document,
but Donner noticed a letterform in it that, he said, "was never used a"er the late seventh century."
A striking aspect of the letter is that it features language that is monotheistic but not confessional
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/march/early-days-islam-030315.html
Page 2 of 3
Stanford fellow delves into archival materials that shed new light on the early days of Islam
3/4/15, 10:38 AM
that is, it doesn't reflect any particular theologically defined monotheistic community. As Donner
pointed out, it opens with the phrase "I praise to you God, other than whom there is no God," and
closes with "Peace and God's blessing upon you," which would be acceptable to any monotheist
Jew, Christian or otherwise.
While the letter does mention God, it o!ers no signs that this seventh-century worldview is
"distinctly Islamic," he said. "No mention of Islam, or of Muhammad, or of the Quran; or, for that
matter, of distinctively Christian or Jewish features, either."
Donner has deciphered enough of the letter to see that it mentions a number of people who have
the same names as several people who were close associates of Muhammad, though the prophet
himself is never mentioned in the letter.
"The constellation of names is very suggestive, and these are people who died in the first half of the
seventh century," Donner said.
He pointed to the mention of a seventh-century caliph, the supreme religious and political leader of
an Islamic state, as significant. The mention of this caliph is especially noteworthy because there is
no other secure documentation of his existence, only references from later texts, Donner said.
While the document does not prove Donner's theories, it doesn't disprove them, either, which is an
important point, he said.
Because the letter is missing a piece, it is di!icult to extract a full story from it. Donner is still
figuring out particular Arabic words, but is nonetheless working to "get a reading su!iciently
convincing that there is no other alternative," and publish it.
What he can say with certainty so far is that the letter shows "no evidence of being a later forgery."
It o!ers no claims to property, or to religious or political authority, and doesn't advance any
confessional religious claims Muslim, Jewish or Christian. So no later person would have had
reason to forge such a letter.
The question of forgery is important for Donner since forgery would show that later generations
were trying to hide the non-confessional element, or the "believerish" character, in Muhammad's
religious movement.
"The traditional origins narrative is a nice story; it reads like a good novel," he said. "But when I
read it as a historian it just doesn't compute. The idea of the Believers movement rings truer to
me."
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