Robert G. Hoyland
Encyclopedia
Robert G. Hoyland is a scholar and historian, specializing in the medieval history of the Middle East
. He is a former student of historian Patricia Crone
and was a Leverhulme Fellow
at Pembroke College, Oxford
. He is currently Professor of Islamic History at the Oriental Institute at the University of Oxford
, having previously been a Professor at the University of St. Andrews.
His research interests include: relations between Muslims, Jews and Christians in the pre-modern Midde East; the links between identity, religion and ethnicity (in particular, the forging of an Arab identity) in the pre-Islamic and early Islamic period; the transmission of knowledge from the Ancient world to the Islamic world and the reforging of that knowledge by Muslim scholars; the change in material culture from the Ancient world to the Islamic world and the emergence of an Islamic style of art and architecture; and the use of Arabic inscriptions for understanding Islamic history and culture.
Hoyland's best-known work Seeing Islam As Others Saw It
is a contribution to early Islamic historiography
, being a survey of non-Muslim eye witness accounts of that period.
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
. He is a former student of historian Patricia Crone
Patricia Crone
Patricia Crone, Ph.D., is a scholar, author, Orientalist, and historian of early Islamic history working at the Institute for Advanced Study. She established herself as a major challenger to the established narrative of the early history of Islam.- Career :Patricia Crone completed her...
and was a Leverhulme Fellow
Fellow
A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...
at Pembroke College, Oxford
Pembroke College, Oxford
Pembroke College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, located in Pembroke Square. As of 2009, Pembroke had an estimated financial endowment of £44.9 million.-History:...
. He is currently Professor of Islamic History at the Oriental Institute at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
, having previously been a Professor at the University of St. Andrews.
His research interests include: relations between Muslims, Jews and Christians in the pre-modern Midde East; the links between identity, religion and ethnicity (in particular, the forging of an Arab identity) in the pre-Islamic and early Islamic period; the transmission of knowledge from the Ancient world to the Islamic world and the reforging of that knowledge by Muslim scholars; the change in material culture from the Ancient world to the Islamic world and the emergence of an Islamic style of art and architecture; and the use of Arabic inscriptions for understanding Islamic history and culture.
Hoyland's best-known work Seeing Islam As Others Saw It
Seeing Islam as Others Saw It
Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam from the Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam series is a book by scholar of the Middle East Robert G...
is a contribution to early Islamic historiography
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
, being a survey of non-Muslim eye witness accounts of that period.
Books
- Seeing Islam as Others Saw it. A survey and analysis of the Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian writings on Islam (Darwin; Princeton, 1997).
- Arabia and the Arabs from the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam (Routledge; London, 2001).
- Muslims and Others in early Islamic society (Ashgate; Aldershot, 2004).
- ed. with Dr. Philip Kennedy, Islamic Reflections and Arabic Musings (Oxbow; Oxford, 2004).
- with Brian Gilmour: Swords and Swordmakers in Medieval Islam (Oxbow; Oxford, 2004).
- with Simon Swain et al., Seeing the face, seeing the soul. The art of physiognomy in the Classical and Islamic Worlds (Oxford University Press, 2007).
Selected chapters and articles
- ‘The content and context of early Arabic inscriptions', Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 21 (1997).
- 'The earliest christian writings on Muhammad: an appraisal' in H. Motzki ed., The Biography of Muhammad (Leiden, 2000).
- 'Epigraphy', 10,000-word entry in Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an (Leiden, 2002).
- ‘Language and Identity: the twin histories of Arabic and Aramaic', Scripta Israelica Classica 23 (2003).
- "History, Fiction and Authorship in the first centuries of Islam"; Writing and Representation in Medieval Islam; Julia Bray (ed); Routledge; 16-46 (2006)
- "New Documentary Texts and the Early Islamic State"; Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies; 69(3):395-416 (2006)