A wonderful post. I suppose the answer the other side would give is a mirror of the urgency you earlier felt — they feel that belief is causing evil and pain in the world and so not abandoning it and not calling others away is to be complicit.

Having been a student in Peters’ department while he was still there but a new generation of (much more specialized) scholars had taken the limelight, I would like to point out that the methodology of Peters’ generation was the direct ancestor of today’s cut-and-paste debate.

The fundamental building material of much of that era’s scholarship — especially the revisionist theories you mention — was cherry-picked quotes, opinions, and anecdotes from throughout Islamic history. The fact that it took years to acquire rather than milliseconds did not make it any more responsible, though the relative expense of disseminating such thought made it less poisonous.

My point in mentioning those academics was that in order to be considered an authority on Islam, it was once necessary to undertake years of study working towards a lectureship in the field. I didn’t intended to endorse their work and I am certainly no advocate of revisionist theories concerning the origins of Islam.

Dear Tim

You mention FE Peters in this article. I have just finished reading his two books on the history of Mecca and the Hajj. Can I ask what you think of his works, since you allude to him in your piece?

‘Life’s greatest tragedy is to lose God and not to miss Him’.

— F.W Norwood

May Allah guide us to what is best always.