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Drawing on [[archaeological]] evidence and contemporary documents in [[Arabic language|Arabic]], [[Armenian language|Armenian]], [[Coptic language|Coptic]], [[Greek language|Greek]], [[Hebrew]], [[Aramaic]], [[Latin]] and [[Syriac language|Syriac]], ''Hagarism'' depicts an early Islam very different from the traditionally-accepted version derived from Muslim historical accounts.<ref>[[Daniel Pipes]]. "[http://www.meforum.org/article/480 Lessons from the Prophet Muhammad's Diplomacy]". ''The Middle East Quarterly''. September 1999. Volume VI: Number 3. ''Hagarism, a 1977 study by Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, the authors completely exclude the Arabic literary sources and reconstruct the early history of Islam only from the information to be found in Arabic papyri, coins, and inscriptions as well as non-Arabic literary sources in a wide array of languages (Aramaic, Armenian, Coptic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Syriac).''</ref><ref>[[Oleg Grabar]]. Speculum, Vol. 53, No. 4. (Oct., 1978), pp. 795-799. ''What we know as Islam, the authors claim, was a Jewish messianic movement known, primarily in Syriac (but also reflected in Armenian and Hebrew) sources, as Hagarism, which moved into the Fertile Crescent, was heavily influenced by the Samaritans and by Babylonian Judaism, and at a certain point (presumably at the time of Abd al-Malik, ca. 690) shed its Judaicizing identity to become Arab Islam. This first change required the recasting of whatever memories or records existed of the movement’s birth into a more or less coherent form, a process which occupied much of the following century.''</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thedailystar.net/2006/04/28/d60428020635.htm|title=Hagarism: The Story of a Book Written by Infidels for Infidels|accessdate=2006-06-12|author=Liaquat Ali Khan}}''The book titled "Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World," questions just about everything Muslims believe as historical truths. It challenges the common belief that the Quran was revealed to Prophet Muhammad over a period of 22 years (610-632) in Mecca and Medina. Instead, the book contends that the Quran was composed, possibly in Syria or Iraq, more than fifty years after the Prophet's death, projected back in time, and attributed to the Prophet. ''</ref>

Drawing on [[archaeological]] evidence and contemporary documents in [[Arabic language|Arabic]], [[Armenian language|Armenian]], [[Coptic language|Coptic]], [[Greek language|Greek]], [[Hebrew]], [[Aramaic]], [[Latin]] and [[Syriac language|Syriac]], ''Hagarism'' depicts an early Islam very different from the traditionally-accepted version derived from Muslim historical accounts.<ref>[[Daniel Pipes]]. "[http://www.meforum.org/article/480 Lessons from the Prophet Muhammad's Diplomacy]". ''The Middle East Quarterly''. September 1999. Volume VI: Number 3. ''Hagarism, a 1977 study by Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, the authors completely exclude the Arabic literary sources and reconstruct the early history of Islam only from the information to be found in Arabic papyri, coins, and inscriptions as well as non-Arabic literary sources in a wide array of languages (Aramaic, Armenian, Coptic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Syriac).''</ref><ref>[[Oleg Grabar]]. Speculum, Vol. 53, No. 4. (Oct., 1978), pp. 795-799. ''What we know as Islam, the authors claim, was a Jewish messianic movement known, primarily in Syriac (but also reflected in Armenian and Hebrew) sources, as Hagarism, which moved into the Fertile Crescent, was heavily influenced by the Samaritans and by Babylonian Judaism, and at a certain point (presumably at the time of Abd al-Malik, ca. 690) shed its Judaicizing identity to become Arab Islam. This first change required the recasting of whatever memories or records existed of the movement’s birth into a more or less coherent form, a process which occupied much of the following century.''</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thedailystar.net/2006/04/28/d60428020635.htm|title=Hagarism: The Story of a Book Written by Infidels for Infidels|accessdate=2006-06-12|author=Liaquat Ali Khan}}''The book titled "Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World," questions just about everything Muslims believe as historical truths. It challenges the common belief that the Quran was revealed to Prophet Muhammad over a period of 22 years (610-632) in Mecca and Medina. Instead, the book contends that the Quran was composed, possibly in Syria or Iraq, more than fifty years after the Prophet's death, projected back in time, and attributed to the Prophet. ''</ref>

According to ''Hagarism'', the [[Arab]] conquests and the formation of the [[caliphate]] were a peninsular Arab movement inspired by [[Jewish]] [[messianism]], which, in alliance with [[Jews]], attempted to reclaim the [[Promised Land]] from the [[Byzantine Empire]]. The [[Qur'an]] would then be the product of 8th-century edits of various materials drawn from a variety of [[Judeo-Christian]] and [[Middle East|Middle-Eastern]] sources, and [[Muhammad]] the herald of [[Umar]] "the redeemer", a [[Jew|Judaic]] messiah.<ref>The Origins of The Koran: Classic Essays on Islam’s Holy Book, 1998 [[Ibn Warraq]] ''A group of scholars influenced by Wansbrough took an even more radical approach; they rejected wholesale the entire Islamic version of early Islamic history. Michael Cook, Patricia Crone, and Martin Hinds writing between 1977 and 1987 regard the whole established version of Islamic history down at least to the time of Abd al-Malik (685-705) as a later fabrication, and reconstruct the Arab Conquests and the formation of the Caliphate as a movement of peninsular Arabs who had been inspired by Jewish messianism to try to reclaim the Promised Land. In this interpretation, Islam emerged as an autonomous religion and culture only within the process of a long struggle for identity among the disparate peoples yoked together by the Conquests: Jacobite Syrians, Nestorian Aramaeans in Iraq, Copts, Jews, and (finally) peninsular Arabs.''</ref>

According to ''Hagarism'', the [[Arab]] conquests and the formation of the [[caliphate]] were a peninsular Arab movement inspired by [[Jewish]] [[messianism]], which, in alliance with [[Jews]], attempted to reclaim the [[Promised Land]] from the [[Byzantine Empire]]. The [[Qur'an]] would then be the product of 8th century edits of various materials drawn from a variety of [[Judeo-Christian]] and [[Middle East|Middle-Eastern]] sources, and [[Muhammad]] the herald of [[Umar]] "the redeemer", a [[Jew|Judaic]] messiah.<ref>The Origins of The Koran: Classic Essays on Islam’s Holy Book, 1998 [[Ibn Warraq]] ''A group of scholars influenced by Wansbrough took an even more radical approach; they rejected wholesale the entire Islamic version of early Islamic history. Michael Cook, Patricia Crone, and Martin Hinds writing between 1977 and 1987 regard the whole established version of Islamic history down at least to the time of Abd al-Malik (685-705) as a later fabrication, and reconstruct the Arab Conquests and the formation of the Caliphate as a movement of peninsular Arabs who had been inspired by Jewish messianism to try to reclaim the Promised Land. In this interpretation, Islam emerged as an autonomous religion and culture only within the process of a long struggle for identity among the disparate peoples yoked together by the Conquests: Jacobite Syrians, Nestorian Aramaeans in Iraq, Copts, Jews, and (finally) peninsular Arabs.''</ref>

== Synopsis ==

== Synopsis ==