Topic
How scholars date and test the sources for Islam’s beginnings: the Quran, the biographies, the hadith, and outside witnesses.
What it means
Muslims trace the sources by chains of narrators, as in the entries on isnad and sira. Non-Muslim historians also use inscriptions, coins, papyri and writers of the time. Christian texts from the 630s–660s mention an Arab prophet and the conquests, among them the Doctrina Jacobi (c. 634), Thomas the Presbyter (c. 640) and Sebeos (660s). Early Islamic coins and the Dome of the Rock inscriptions date from the 690s.
What the sources say
Key dates in Muslim tradition: Muhammad’s birth about 570; the first revelation about 610; the hijra 622; Badr 624; the Trench 627; Hudaybiyya 628; the conquest of Mecca 630; his death 632; the four rightly guided caliphs to 661; the Umayyads to 750; the Abbasids to 1258. Historians differ on how far the later biographies can be trusted for detail, some holding them reliable in outline and others sceptical, and Muslim scholars apply their own tests.