The Rise of the West is an amazing book

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Apr 13, 2015 at 07:58

Dr. Pipes

Thank you very much for a great interview and indeed "The Rise of the West" is an amazing book by a great scholar

I happen to believe that John Wansbrough's two books are the best scholarly work about the history of early Islam. And every time I reread them I discover more information about what really happened at the time of the rise of what was to become Islam. And it took me some time and after reading al-Tabari's exgesis of the Qur'an I realized that Wansbrough was very correct that the Qur'an could not have been canonized before the 3rd century or at the time when al-Tabari was writing his great exegesis of the Qur'an. . Wansbrough changed the way we view the history of early Islam and how it came about. Yes his style of writing does not make it easy to understand what he is really saying but for those fortunate enough to understand him he must be the best historian of early Islam

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