“Muhammad and the Beginnings of Islam: A Critical History”

Stephen J. Shoemaker, Religious Studies, and 2023–24 OHC Faculty Research Fellow. “My project will provide something that has long been needed: a book-length study of the historical figure of Muhammad, the formation of the Qur’an, and the beginnings of Islam that is both grounded in the methods of historical criticism and aimed at the general reader. Unfortunately, this important perspective has been largely absent from public discourse on Islam, and it is this significant gap that my book aims to fill.”