Michael Lecker


Michael Lecker is an Israeli scholar who is Emeritus Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His work focuses on the social and political history of early Islam, with a particular emphasis on prosopography, and on the biography of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. A member of the "Jerusalem School", he was a student of Meir Jacob Kister.

Career

Lecker taught at the Hebrew University between 1978 and 2021. His 1978 Master of Arts thesis, titled "Jewish Settlements in Babylonia during the Talmudic Period", traced Talmudic placenames that survived in the geographical literature. His 1983 doctoral thesis, titled "On the Prophet Muhammad's Activity in Medina", analyzed the document that some scholars call the Constitution of Medina and several other topics relating to Muhammad's Medinan period.

Prizes and awards

Lecker's works include:
  • Studies on the Life of Muhammad and the Dawn of Islam: Idol Worshippers, Christians and Jews in Pre- and Early Islam. Routledge, 2023..
  • Al-Maqrīzī’s al-Ḫabar ʿan al-bašar: Volume IV, Section 2: The Idols of the Arabs: 8 Brill, 2022.
  • “Did Muhammad conclude Treaties with the Jewish Tribes Naḍīr, Qaynuqāʿ, and Qurayẓa,” in Uri Rubin and David Wasserstein, eds., Israel Oriental Studies, Volume 17: Dhimmis and Others: Jews and Christians and the World of Classical Islam, pp. 29–36.
  • “Glimpses of Muḥammad’s Medinan Decade,” in Jonathan E. Brockopp, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Muḥammad, pp. 61–82.
  • Jews and Arabs in Pre- and Early Islamic Arabia.
  • Muhammad ve-ha-yehudim .
  • “Muhammad at Medina: A Geographical Approach,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 6, pp. 29–62.
  • Muslims, Jews and Pagans: Studies on Early Islamic Medina.
  • “On Arabs of the Banū Kilāb Executed Together with the Jewish Banū Qurayẓa,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 19, pp. 66–72.
  • People, Tribes and Society in Arabia Around the Time of Muhammad.
  • “Sulaym,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. 9, pp. 817–818.
  • “The Assassination of the Jewish Merchant Ibn Sunayna according to an Authentic Family Account,” in Nicolet Boekhoff-van der Voort, Kees Versteegh and Joas Wagemakers, eds., The Transmission and Dynamics of the Textual Sources of Islam: Essays in Honour of Harald Motzki, pp. 181–195.
  • The Banū Sulaym: A Contribution to the Study of Early Islam The Max Schloessinger Memorial Series, Monographs IV.
  • “The Death of the Prophet Muḥammad’s Father: Did Wāqidī Invent Some of the Evidence?,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 1995, pp. 9–27.
  • “The Jews of Northern Arabia in Early Islam,” in Phillip I. Lieberman, ed., The Cambridge History of Judaism Vol. 5: Jews in the Medieval Islamic World, pp. 255–293.
  • “Ukaydir ibn ʿAbdul Malik al-Kindī,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. 10, p. 784.
  • “ʿUyayna b. Ḥiṣn,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. 10, pp. 959–960.
  • “Wādī ʾl-Ḳurā,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. 11, pp. 18–19.
  • “Wāqidī vs. Zuhrī : The Fate of the Jewish Banū Abī l-Ḥuqayq,” in C. J. Robin, ed., Le judaïsme de l'Arabie antique: Actes du Colloque de Jérusalem , pp. 495–509.
  • “Wāqidī's Account on the Status of the Jews of Medina: A Study of a Combined Report,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 54, No. 1, pp. 15–32.
  • “Were there Female Relatives of the Prophet Muḥammad among the Besieged Qurayẓa?” Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 136, No. 2, pp. 397–404.
  • “Zayd B. Thābit, ‘A Jew with Two Sidelocks’: Judaism and Literacy in Pre-Islamic Medina,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 56, No. 4, pp. 259–273.