Jonathan Brown – Abiding Stereotypes About the Prophet Muhammad in the Medieval and Modern West

Jonathan BrownNovember 10, 201130 min0 comments

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Hadith Islamophobia & Western Perceptions Prophet Muhammad ﷺ Comparative Religion Islamic History Seerah Academic Islam Marriage & Family

About this lecture

In this lecture, Dr. Jonathan Brown surveys 1,400 years of Western portrayals of the Prophet Muhammad, tracing the recurring themes of imposture, sexual deviance, and violence from medieval Christian polemics through to modern media and evangelical criticism. He examines specific historical figures and texts — from John of Damascus to Voltaire to Thomas Carlyle — to show how these stereotypes evolved, persisted, and occasionally gave way to more nuanced assessments. Along the way, he addresses controversial topics such as the Zaynab marriage, Aisha's age, and the historical context of pre-modern marriage norms with scholarly rigor and candor.

Jonathan AC Brown is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies in the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He received his BA in History from Georgetown University in 2000 and his doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in 2006. Dr. Brown has studied and conducted research in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Indonesia and Iran, and he is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His book publications include The Canonization of al-Bukhari and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunni Hadith Canon (Brill, 2007), Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World (Oneworld, 2009) and Muhammad: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011). He has published articles in the fields of Hadith, Islamic law, Sufism, Arabic lexical theory and Pre-Islamic poetry and is the editor in chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Islamic Law. Dr. Brown’s current research interests include the history of forgery and historical criticism in Islamic civilization, comparison with the Western tradition; and modern conflicts between Late Sunni Traditionalism and Salafism in Islamic thought.

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