Gerald R. Hawting (born 1944) is a British historian and Islamicist.

Life

Hawting's teachers were

Bernard Lewis Bernard Lewis, (31 May 1916 – 19 May 2018) was a British American historian specialized in Oriental studies. He was also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis was the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near ...

and John Wansbrough. He received his Ph.D. in 1978. He is

Emeritus Professor ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

for the History of the Near and Middle East at the

School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury ...

(SOAS) in London.

Research

In the line of John Wansbrough, Hawting concentrated on the question for the religious milieu in which Islam came into being. He analysed available sources about the religions on the

Arabian peninsula The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plat ...

in the time before Islam in detail. According to Hawting, Islam did not develop within a world of polytheism as is reported by the traditional Islamic traditions which were written 150 to 200 years after Muhammad. Instead, Islam came into being on the basis of a conflict among various types of monotheists which considered each other to fail in living a perfect monotheism, and considering each other to practice idolatry. Another theme of Hawting's research is the period of the Umayyad dynasty which was of great importance for the formation of Islam as a religion. Also Hawting's works are related with

ibadi The Ibadi movement or Ibadism ( ar, الإباضية, al-Ibāḍiyyah) is a school of Islam. The followers of Ibadism are known as the Ibadis. Ibadism emerged around 60 years after the Islamic prophet Muhammad's death in 632 AD as a moderate sc ...

sm. Hawting is a representative of the

Revisionist School of Islamic Studies The Revisionist school of Islamic studies, (also Historical-Critical school of Islamic studies and skeptic/revisionist Islamic historians) Hoyland, ''In God's Path'', 2015: p.232 is a movement in Islamic studies that questions traditional Muslim ...

Works

* ''The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate AD 661-750'' (1986) * "John Wansbrough, Islam, and monotheism" (1997) * ''The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History'' (1999) As editor and co-author: *''Approaches to the Quran'' (1993) * ''The Development of Islamic Ritual'' (2006)

Works related to Ibadism

* Hawting, G.R.: (1978) The significance of the slogan ''Lā Ḥukma illā li'llāh'' and the references to the ''Ḥudūd'' in the Traditions about the ''Fitna'' and the murder of ʿUthmān. ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' (London), vol. 41 (1978), 453–463 * Hawting, G.R., J.A. Mojaddedi, A. Samely: (eds.) (2000) ''Studies in Islamic and Middle Eastern texts and traditions in memory of Norman Calder'' (d. 1998). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement, 12

References

1944 births Living people British Islamic studies scholars Scholars of medieval Islamic history British historians Ibadi Islam Ibadi studies {{UK-writer-stub