8 /10 1 Votes
4/5 The Telegraph Subject Islam Publication date 2012 ISBN 978-1408700075 Preceded by Millennium | 3.9/5 Goodreads Language English Publisher Little, Brown Pages 544 Originally published 2012 Page count 544 Country United Kingdom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Similar Tom Holland books, Islam books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In the Shadow of the Sword is a history book charting the origins of Islam. The author, Tom Holland, had previously written two works on ancient history: Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic, which charted the fall of the Roman Republic, and Persian Fire, which is an account of the Greco-Persian Wars during the 5th century BC. According to Holland, "To understand the origins of Islam, and why it evolved in the way that it did, we must explore the empires and religions of late antiquity".
In this book, following the research by scholars of Oriental studies such as John Wansbrough and Fred Donner, Holland suggests that Islam, rather than originating in the arid deserts of Arabia, was born further north, "in the borders of Syria-Palestine, a region that had long been devastated by plagues and wars — the usual precursors of apocalyptic scenarios and millennial hopes."
While researching the book, Holland found that the oldest biography of Mohammed in our possession was written nearly two hundred years after he had died, and that scholars were unsure on how much early Islamic history could be considered accurate. "The challenge with adopting this [historical] approach", says the author, "by looking at Qur'an in its historical context – which in any other field of history would be wholly uncontroversial – is that Muslim accounts of its composition, all of them written long after the lifetime of Muhammad, and often in direct contradiction of the Qur'an itself, are the only accounts we possess."
Reception
The book received mixed reviews, with one critic saying it was "a work of impressive sensitivity and scholarship" whilst another called it "revisionist ideology masquerading as popular history" and said, "His message is tailor-made for a time when Islamophobia is a global fashion, and everything that is labelled 'Islamic' or 'Muslim' is looked upon with suspicion." Another critic, Sarah Annes Brown, believes it is impossible to find any Islamophobic content in the book, while the historian Glen Bowersock criticized it for lack of historical accuracy, saying he has "not seen a book about Arabia that is so irresponsible and unreliable since Kamal Salibi's The Bible Came from Arabia (1985)."
Dan Jones, writing for the Telegraph, gave the book a favourable review calling it a "complex story" which Holland "made his own". He describes Holland as "one of the most distinctive prose stylists writing history today, and he drags his tale by the ears, conjuring the half-vanished past with such gusto that characters and places fairly bound from the page." Jones goes on to finish his review by asking, "Is this Satanic Verses territory?" Holland quotes Salman Rushdie at the very beginning of the book, acknowledging, wryly, another British author who ventured onto the sticky wicket of Islam’s origin myths."
Ziauddin Sardar, writing for the New Statesman, was highly critical of the book. He says "the real aim of the book is to examine the validity of 'Muslim sources' and to assess the extent of Muslim scholarship down the centuries. Holland raises a number of legitimate questions." He says that the book is "revisionist history based almost exclusively on the work of a largely discredited group of orientalists. In the process, he pours scorn on Muslim scholarship, which is declared unsound, if not totally worthless, and lays into classical Muslim biographers and historians. Innocent readers will no doubt conclude that Muslims know nothing about Muhammad or the Quran. Apparently, our historians knew little about objectivity or criticism, which is the sole preserve of Holland and his orientalist friends!" He finishes his critique with, "I find Holland’s total dismissal of Muslim scholarship arrogant (which I know he is not), insulting (which I know he does not mean to be) and based on spurious scholarship (though his scholarship is usually sound)."
Anthony Sattin, writing in The Guardian, gave a favorable review calling Holland a "skilful and energetic narrator" and saying that "The Qur'an anticipated the day of Holland's coming (or someone very like him)" in that Sura 25 instructs Muslims to counter the claim that "these are fables of the ancients which he has got someone to write down for him" with the insistence that it was "revealed by Him Who knows every secret". Sattin finishes his critique with: "The lives of some people who have dared to question the historicity of the prophet Muhammad and the Qur'an have been ruined, even ended. We must hope that Holland is spared their wrath and that his excellent book will be lauded, as it should be, for doing what the best sort of books can do – examining holy cows."
Historian Glen Bowersock, also writing in The Guardian, gave a highly critical review of the book, calling it "irresponsible and unreliable" and saying that Holland's "cavalier treatment of his sources, ignorance of current research and lack of linguistic and historical acumen serve to undermine his provocative narrative. In the Shadow of the Sword seems like an attempt by author, agent and publisher to create a very different account of early Islam, but fortunately the quality of the book stands in the way." He criticizes the work for ignoring "many of the most important recent discoveries," such as "the large number of inscriptions from late antique south Arabia" and "early Qur'an manuscripts" dated to the 7th century. Holland responded to this review by saying, "Bowersock is a formidable scholar for whom I have great admiration – and his most recent work on ancient Ethiopia shows him to be as on the ball as ever. But this review, which is targeted not just at me but at an entire efflorescence in contemporary scholarship, is unworthy of him. Far from it being inappropriate to place the rise of Islam in the context of 'languages and ideas floating around in the Near East', the truly inappropriate thing, I would suggest, is to veil an important trend in scholarship from the gaze of the general public, and to scold those who would seek to lift it."
Barnaby Rogerson, writing for The Independent, said that though the book had a few "slight flaws" it remained "a spell-bindingly brilliant multiple portrait of the triumph of monotheism in the ancient world."