Henry Stubbe & The Prophet MUHAMMAD Challenging Misrepresentation The history of medieval and early modern European writings about the Prophet Muhammad oe shows a consistent pattern of misunderstanding. Until the nineteenth century, only one writer challenged that history: the English physician Henry Stubbe (1632–1676), author of “Originall & Progress of Mahometanism.” Neither an Orientalist nor a theologian, Henry Stubbe approached Islam as a historian of religion, perhaps the first in early modern Europe, arguing that the study of another religion should rely on historical evidence derived from indigenous documents, and not on foreign accounts. The result of his new historiographical approach was a “Copernican revolution” in the study of the figure of Muhammad, the Qur’an, and Islam. It shifted the focus from faith to scholarship. Had his treatise been published, the course of Western understanding of Islam might have been different. Published by AMSS UK. Nabil Matar Professor Matar was born in Beirut, Lebanon to Palestinian parents and studied at the American University of Beirut. In 1976 he completed his Ph.D. at Cambridge University and went on to teach at Jordan University, the American University of Beirut, Florida Institute of Technology, and the University of Minnesota where he is currently Presidential Professor in the English Department. Professor Matar’s research in the past two decades has focused on relations between early modern Britain, the West, and the Islamic Mediterranean. He is author of numerous articles, chapters in books, and encyclopedia entries, and Islam in Britain, 1558–1685 (Cambridge UP, 1998), Turks, Moors and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery (Columbia UP, 1999), and Britain and Barbary, 1589–1689 (UP of Florida, 2005). His most recent publication is with Professor Gerald MacLean, Britain and the Islamic World, 1558–1713 (Oxford UP, 2011). He is currently editing and introducing Henry Stubbe’s e Originall & Progress of Mahometanism (forthcoming, Columbia UP, 2012/2013)

Paperback: 978-1-56564-586-8 eBook: 978-1-94588-608-9 Size: 6x9 inches Pages: 31 Year of Publication: 2012 Published by AMSS UK