First Muslims History and Memory Book

Preface     x
Introduction     xii
The Rise of Islam and Life of the Prophet Muhammad     1
The Constitution of Medina     4
War and peace     7
The Treaty of al-Hudaybiyya     10
The fall of Mecca     12
Farewell pilgrimage     13
Remembering the Prophet, the Beloved of God     16
The Issue of Succession to the Prophet     19
Early tension between kinship and individual moral excellence     22
Why did the Prophet not indicate a successor?     26
The Age of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs     27
Abu Bakr, the first caliph     27
'Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second caliph     30
The End of Rightly-Guided Leadership     47
Political administration     47
The collection of the Qur'an     48
Toward fragmentation of the community     50
The caliphate of 'Ali ibn Abi Talib     51
The first civil war     52
The legacy of the era of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs     54
The Age of the Companions     59
Ibn 'Abbas: the sage of the Muslim community     61
Ibn Mas'ud: interpreter of the Word of God     63
'A'isha bint AbiBakr: the beloved of Muhammad     66
Umm 'Umara: valiant defender of the Prophet     70
Bilal ibn Rabah: the voice of Islam     71
Conclusion     73
The Age of the Successors     76
The historical milieu     76
The politics of piety and the second civil war     81
The third civil war     85
The 'Abbasid revolution     87
Prominent successors     90
The consolidation of Shi'i thought     95
The rise of law and jurisprudence among the early Sunnis     98
The Successors to the Successors I: Administration, Leadership, and Jihad     106
The founding of Baghdad     106
Statecraft, administration, and leadership: acquiring a Persian flavor     107
The concept of jihad: Qur'anic antecedents and the classical juridical doctrine     108
Reading the Qur'an in context     109
Later understandings of jihad     115
Negotiating the polyvalence of the term jihad     116
Many paths to martyrdom     120
Changes in conceptions of leadership     123
The Successors to the Successors II: Humanism, Law, and Mystical Spirituality     129
The rise of humanism     129
The flourishing of law and jurisprudence     137
The rise of tasawwuf (Sufism)     142
Constructing the Pious Forbears I: Historical Memory and the Present     148
The Islamist construction     148
Implications and relevance of studying the lives of the first Muslims today     152
The Salaf al-Salih in the Islamist imagination     155
Constructing the Pious Forbears II: Historical Memory and the Present     168
The significance of the Salaf al-Salih for the modernists     168
Assessment of Islamist and Modernist Views     183
The "Islamic State"     183
The pervasiveness of the religious law and its scope     187
Status of women     190
The nature of jihad     192
Conclusion     196
Endnotes     200
Select Bibliography     231
Glossary     239
General Index     243