Seeing Islam as Others Saw It


Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam from the Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam series is a book by scholar of the Middle East Robert G. Hoyland.
The book contains an extensive collection of Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Latin, Jewish, Persian, and Chinese primary sources written between 620 and 780 AD in the Middle East, which provides a survey of eyewitness accounts of historical events during the formative period of Islam.
The book presents the evidentiary text of over 120 seventh-century sources, one of which contains what Hoyland believes is the "first explicit reference to Muhammad in a non-Muslim source:"
According to Michael G. Morony, Hoyland emphasizes the parallels between Muslim and non-Muslim accounts of history emphasizing that non-Muslim texts often explain the same history as the Muslim ones even though they were recorded earlier. He concludes "Hoyland's treatment of the materials is judicious, honest, complex, and extremely useful."

Greek sources

West Syrian, Coptic and Armenian sources

Fragment on the Arab Conquests

East Syrian sources

Latin sources

Chinese sources

Apocalypses and visions

Syriac texts

Greek texts

Hebrew texts

Persian texts

Muslim Arabic texts

  • Signs of the Hour
  • `Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr and the Mahdi
  • Tiberius, Son of Justinian
  • An Apocalyptic Chronicle

Martyrologies

Greek texts

Armenian texts

  • David of Dwin

Syriac texts

  • Michael the Sabaite
  • `Abd al-Masih al-Najrani al-Ghassani
  • A Muslim at Diospolis

Chronicles and histories

Syriac texts

Latin texts

Greek texts

Other

Apologies and disputations

Syriac texts

Christian Arabic texts

  • Fi tathlith Allah al-wahid
  • Papyrus Schott Reinhard no. 438
  • Masa'il wa-ajwiba `aqliya wa-ilahiya

Jewish texts

Latin texts

Dubia