Table of Contents

Preface Introduction Part 1 1. The Arabs outside Arabia before Islam 2. Ghazawat and Futuh: From rurality to urbanisation. 3. The religious factor: when did an Islamic identity emerge? 4. Can we still consider the Futuh Islamic? Part 2 5. Qur’an, Otherness and Jihad 6. Qur’an and militant violence in Chronology 7. The process of Belligerency and the canonisation of Jihad in early Islam Conclusion Index Bibliography

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A history of the emergence and meaning of jihad in Early Islam

About the Author

Marco Demichelis is Senior Research Fellow in Islamic Studies and the History of the Middle East at the Institute for Culture and Society, University of Navarra, Spain. His previous books include Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought (Bloomsbury, 2018), L’Islam contemporaneo (2016) and Etica Islamica (2016).

Reviews

A welcome addition to the historiographical literature on early Islam, its evolution and the development of Islamic thought on violence, conflict and war.
*Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations*

"Using historical sources to underscore the importance of Arab Christian foederati while offering a contextualized reading of Qur’anic verses relating to religious violence, Demichelis offers a provocative, insightful interpretation of the interplay between the slow emergence of Islam among the "Believers and the eventual articulation of a doctrine of jihad.”
*Steven C. Judd, Professor of Middle East History, Southern Connecticut State University, USA*

“Displaying extensive research and interdisciplinary methodological approach, Marco Demichelis convincingly recontextualizes the late process of sacralization of violence in early Islam. One of the many merits of this book is to put an end to the outdated representations of a Prophet’s life inextricably rooted in a form of religious violence. A much needed and timely work which breaks a number of cliches on a contentious issue.”
*Mehdi Azaiez, Professor of Islamic Studies, UC Louvain, Belgium*

The academic vigour and evidence-based treatment of the subject by the author of the book under review is highly commendable.
*The Muslim World Book Review*