Lecker, Michael, 2023. "Medina [ancient Yathrib]". Thematic Dictionary of Ancient Arabia. Online edition 2023. Available at https://ancientarabia.huma-num.fr/public/dictionary/definition/medina (accessed on 02 March 2024), DOI: https://doi.org/10.60667/tdaa-0082, 2024
An ancient oasis settlement in western central Arabia along the Incense Road, between Tabāla in t... more An ancient oasis settlement in western central Arabia along the Incense Road, between Tabāla in the south and Dadān in the north. From an economic perspective, it was perhaps more significant than Mecca. Medina (Arabic: al-Madīna) is Islam's holy city, second only to Mecca, and is the site of the "visitation to the Prophet", i.e., the visit of his sepulchre located in the central mosque, the mosque of the Prophet Muḥammad. The oasis holds a unique place in world history because Muḥammad spent the last decade of his life there (622-632 CE), laying the foundations for the first Islamic state. However, advances in scientific research are slow. No adequate maps of the oasis have been drawn up and no archaeological excavations have been conducted as of yet.
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BOOKS by Michael Lecker
The focus on one tribe makes it possible to collect a large amount of data from a variety of sources: biographical dictionaries, genealogical literature, geographical literature, sīra and adab compilations, poetry Dīwāns and Qurʾān exegesis.
Muslim historians and jurists have been familiar with this important document for centuries, and aware of its legal and theological implications for Islamic law. It was first brought to the attention of scholars in the West at the end of the 19th century by Wellhausen, who accepted it as an authentic document from the time of the Prophet. Since then, such leading orientalists as Goldziher, Gil, Serjeant, Goto, U. Rubin and J. B. Simonsen have studied various aspects of it.
This monograph offers an edited translation and interpretation of the earliest and most important document from the time of Muḥammad. Lecker’s focus is on the Jewish tribes, the Treaty of the Mu’minun and the Treaty of the Jews.
"Lecker has written a very good and useful book. Not that it is an easy read; you have to invest time and energy. But you are rewarded by precise and reflective philology; it is the last word on the subject for the time being“ (Josef van Ess).
Formerly published by Darwin Press (Princeton NJ) under ISBN 9780878501489.
Papers by Michael Lecker
(https://www.academia.edu/34520342/The_%E1%B8%A4udaybiyya_treaty_and_the_expedition_against_Khaybar_Jerusalem_Studies_in_Arabic_and_Islam_5_1984_1_11)
originated as a chapter of my doctoral dissertation and constituted my very first published scholarly study. I identified the pivotal passage in al-Sarakhsī’s al-Mabsūṭ that elucidates the underlying dynamics of the Ḥudaybiyya treaty. At that time, I was unaware that Muḥammad Ḥamīdullāh had discussed this very passage several decades earlier. I recall with particular clarity the moment I encountered Ḥamīdullāh’s citation of it in The Muslim Conduct of State, while working at the Central Library of Tel Aviv University.
(This abstract was rewritten by ChatGPT.)