Henry Stubbe and the Beginnings of Islam

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.

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.

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

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

Elma Dizdar, University of Sarajevo:
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.

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

Donald R. Dickson, Texas A&M 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.

John Michael Archer, New York University:
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.

Jonathan Burton, Whittier College:
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.'