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The paper is a summary of some of the ideas from a book that will be published at Edinburgh University Press in 2025. As the time for this presentation was limited, I have skipped all the dense textual analyses that make up the core of the book, and just shared the main theoretical framework and some of the main conclusions.

Studien visar hur Islamiska statens (IS) propaganda under 2010-talets mitt var fylld av föreställningar om tidens slut. Ett av IS-kalifatets främsta syften var att bereda vägen för den yttersta tiden, och den enskilda människan uppmanades att välja vilken sida hon eller han ville stå på när Guds dom faller över världen. I artikeln lyfts IS tanke om den rättrogna muslimens främlingskap i världen fram: genom att ta ställning för det sanna islam och ”migrera” till kalifatet i både mental och fysisk mening, skulle främlingskapet upphävas och människans liv bli äkta.

Frågan om hur mycket vi kan veta om den historiske Muhammed har länge sysselsatt islamhistoriker, och skapat hård debatt. Inte mycket har skrivits om forskningen och debatterna om Muhammed på svenska eller andra nordiska språk de senaste årtiondena. I denna artikel vill jag lyfta fram något av den internationella forskningen och visa på några av de källor och metoder som används för att bättre förstå islams tidigaste historia. Jag har valt att analysera traditionen om hur Muhammed skickade några av sina anhängare till Abessinien för att de skulle undkomma förföljelserna från de icke-troende i Mecka. Två typer av källor analyseras. Dels diskuterar jag några versioner av berättelsen om den Abessinska migrationen ur olika Muhammedbiografier. De äldsta versionerna av detta material kan daters till sekelskiftet 699–700, alltså 70–80 år efter den händelse som beskrivs. Under denna tid kan berättelserna om profeten och hans liv ha bearbetats mycket, och vi kan inte vara säkra på att de återger en historisk verklighet. Det materialet kompletteras i denna studie av en ḥadīth som bara antydningsvis berör migrationen till Abessinien, men som visar på en mindre smickrande sida av förhållandet mellan migranterna och de som stannade kvar i Mecka, och därför kan antas bekräfta att migrationen ägde rum.

The question about how much we can know about Muhammad as an historical person has engaged historians of Islam for a long time and created fierce debate. In Swedish or other Nordic languages not much has been written about this research and the related debates. In the present study, I want to draw attention to some of the international research and point at some of the sources and methods used to understand the earliest history of Islam. I have chosen to analyse the tradition about Muhammad’s sending of his companions to Abyssinia to help them escape from the persecution of the non-Muslims there. Two types of sources are analysed. Some versions of the Abyssinian migration from various biographies about Muhammad are discussed. The earliest of these can be dated to the turn of the eighth century CE; about 70–80 years after the events described. During this time, the stories about the Prophet would probably have been shaped by the interests of the later community, and we cannot be sure that they relate a historical reality. Therefore, this material is supplemented in the present study, by a ḥadīth which only in passing refers to the Abyssinian migration, but which manifests a less flattering side of the relationship between the migrants and those Muslims who stayed in Mecca. Thus, it can be concluded that it confirms that the migration actually took place.

According to Muslim tradition, the Prophet Muḥammad sent some of his followers to Abyssinia to escape from the persecution that he and his community experienced in Mecca. This first hijra (Arabic for “emigration”) is the first recorded instance of Muslims in Africa, and has become a story of great importance for many African Muslims, even today. The tradition relates how the Negus (the king) of Abyssinia received the Muslim emigrants well. The story is related, or alluded to, in two categories of sources that claim to describe the life of Muḥammad: the biographies of his life, and some of the ḥadīths, i.e. legal traditions said to record his sayings and doings. Modern scholars have debated to what extent these sources can be used in the study of the history of the Prophet; their positions range from total scepticism to more or less uncritical acceptance of the sources. In this study, samples of sources regarding the migration to Abyssinia are investigated, one from each of the above-mentioned categories: a letter and an oral tradition describing the early work of the Prophet, purportedly transmitted by the traditionist ‘Urwa ibn al-Zubayr (d. 713), and a ḥadīth about tensions between the migrants to Abyssinia and those who remained in Mecca. The conclusion is that there is reason to believe that the Abyssinian migration actually took place, although details, such as the dealings between the migrants and the Negus, are probably later additions to the story.

In this study the author examines some aspects of authority in the movement of theShiʿite leader al-Mukhtār (d. 67/687). The notion of religious aesthetics as developedby Birgit Meyer is used as an analytical tool. It is argued that al-Mukhtār accomplishedhis political endeavour partly by introducing and controlling three “aesthetic forms”which functioned as “media” between the people and the deceased ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib:his claim to act on behalf of ʿAlī’s son Ibn al-Ḥanafiyya, whom he called al-mahdī, “therightly guided”; his call to revenge for the killing of ʿAlī’s son Ḥusayn; and his exhibitingof a chair that he claimed had belonged to ʿAlī. The accounts of these three media,the author furthermore argues, have an historical foundation. Finally he holds thatthrough these media al-Mukhtār was able to channel the needs and aspirations ofmany of the Shiites of Kufa into political action.

The concept of al-mahdī is one of the most important theological ideas in Shiʿism. Its literary meaning is ‘the rightly guided’, and this is how it was probably used in the first decades after the Prophet Muhammad. In Twelver Shiʿism it has come to denote the hidden Imam, who will one day return to redeem his followers and restore justice on earth, and in that sense it is akin to the Christian idea of the Messiah. Among scholars of early Islam there is near consensus on the view that the transition of meaning, from its literal meaning ‘the rightly guided’ to an eschatological redeemer, occurred with the Shiʿite rebel leader al-Mukhtār b. Abī ʿUbayd (d. 686) when he applied it to Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya, the son of ʿAlī. In the present study I will contest that view. I will hold that, while it can be established from the sources that Mukhtār probably spoke of Ibn al-Hanafiyya as al-mahdī, they do not support his use of this title in a messianic sense. This eschatological meaning can only be verified soon after his death.