Boldly Applying Historical Ways of Knowing to the Study of Nascent Islam in RE

Smalley, Paul (2025) Boldly Applying Historical Ways of Knowing to the Study of Nascent Islam in RE. Journal of Religious Education. ISSN 1442-018X

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Abstract

An examination of Religious Education (RE) textbooks reveals that when pupils are taught about the history of Makkah, the life of Muhammad, the Quran, and the emergence of Islam, the content is often presented as a straightforward narrative based on Islamic tradition. This approach typically lacks critical engagement and overlooks alternative scholarly perspectives. Notably, historians such as Patricia Crone and Michael Cook in the 1970s, and more recently Tom Holland, have raised significant questions about the historical reliability of these traditional accounts. Their work suggests that the origins of Islam are more complex and contested than commonly portrayed.
This paper argues that a Religion and Worldviews approach to RE should encourage the use of historical ways of knowing—including critical historical methods, tools of analysis, and engagement with diverse scholarly viewpoints. It contends that pupils should be equipped to interrogate sources, assess evidence, and understand the nature of historical inquiry as applied to religious narratives.
Through an analysis of current RE textbooks and a review of critical scholarship, this paper highlights the lack of criticality in existing materials. It proposes that educators can and should boldly introduce pupils to these historical methods, fostering a more informed, nuanced, and academically rigorous understanding of the early development of Islam.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information and Comments:	© The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.
Faculty / Department:	Faculty of Education and Social Sciences > School of Education
Depositing User:	Paul Smalley
Date Deposited:	15 Oct 2025 14:13
Last Modified:	15 Oct 2025 14:13
URI:	https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/4766

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