Fred M. Donner, "From Believers to Muslims: Confessional Self-Identity in the early Islamic community," forthcoming in Lawrence I. Conrad (ed.), The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East, IV: Patterns of Communal Identity.
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Fred M. Donner, "From Believers to Muslims: Confessional Self-Identity in the early Islamic community," forthcoming in Lawrence I. Conrad (ed.), The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East, IV: Patterns of Communal Identity.
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Traditional scholarship has held that Islam from its beginnings constituted a distinct and separate religion from other religions, particularly Judaism and Christianity. Based on analysis of the Quran and the Constitution of Medina, Donner argues that the Prophet and his followers conceived of themselves as a community of Believers, made up of those who believed in one God and the Last Day, independent of confessional identities. Thus, the early community of Believers might include Christians and Jews, concerned with preparing for the rapidly nearing Day of Judgement. Only later did the community assert a confessional identity of Muslim which precluded being a Christian or Jew.