Abstract

CASTANEDA REYES, José Carlos. About the Whims of the Primary Sources for the Study of the History of Classical Islam: The Case of the Battle of Hunayn and its Historical Implications. Estud. Asia Áfr. [online]. 2018, vol.53, n.1, pp.237-250. ISSN 2448-654X.  https://doi.org/10.24201/eaa.v0i0.2335.

This paper is a critical review of the recent book by Roberto Marín Guzmán and Manuel Enrique López Brenes, La batalla de Hunayn y las interrogantes que suscita. Reflexiones en torno al problema de la tradición musulmana y las fuentes árabes (The Battle of Hunayn and the questions it raises. Reflections on the problem of Muslim tradition and Arab sources). The authors offer a re-thinking of this episode, analyzing the primary sources for the historical account, consisting of testimonies full with contradictions and apparent inaccuracies, which, however, being linked to the life of the Prophet of Islam, are not easy to question. The paper argues for the relevance of Marín Guzmán and López Brenes’ contribution, a much-needed analytical perspective that allows a more accurate view of the history of classical Islam, above and beyond Muslim dogma.

Keywords : life of Muhammad; magâzî; Islamic historiography; military history of Islam; Judeo-Christian and Muslim tradition.