ERC Consolidator Grant · 2025
Geo-Poetic Analysis of Pre-Islamic Arabia
What was the world into which Muhammad spread Islam, and have we missed the richest source of evidence? Scholars have naturally expended great effort to understand Islam’s formative milieu in central Arabia c.600 CE, but the specifics of its society and political structures elude our grasp since the sources used to date lack the breadth of insight we need. There is, however, a vast and data-rich corpus that details the major tribes, their social structures, beliefs, territories, trade and much else besides, but it lies neglected because circumstances have not enabled scholars to profit from it. The source is pre-Islamic poetry, a corpus of tens of thousands of verses composed by central…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.