William Montgomery Watts

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William Montgomery Watts

William Montgomery Watt (born March 14, 1909 in Ceres , † October 24, 2006 in Edinburgh ) was a Scottish scholar of Islam. Some of his more than thirty books have become standard works in Islamic studies .

Life

Watt studied in Edinburgh, Jena and Balliol College in Oxford . He was at the University of Edinburgh from 1934 to 1938 Assistant Lecturer in Moral Philosophy, from 1946 to 1947 Lecturer in succession in ancient philosophy and 1947-1964 Lecturer , Senior Lecturer and then Reader for Arabic. In 1964 he became a professor at the University of Edinburgh. He taught there until his retirement in 1979. Watt was a member of the Iona Community .

Patricia Crone's review

In his books on the Prophet Mohammed , Watt took the view that the rise of Mecca to an international trading center in the early 7th century was indirectly involved in the emergence of Islam. The loss of solidarity initiated by this development among the Quraish , the ruling tribe of the city, made it necessary to create a new ethical system. Mohammed gave an answer to this with his new religion. Patricia Crone devoted her book Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam to refuting this view . She tried to prove that Watt's idea of ​​Mecca as an international trading center has no solid foundation. Here they questioned among others Watts thesis that the Meccans in the so-called Fidschār wars to 590 the Lakhmids defeated and thus had the opportunity to control the caravan routes to Iraq. Crone pointed out that from the Arab sources no victory of the Meccans over these wars can be derived and thus Watt's thesis is invalid. She also emphasized that Mohammed had only been successful with his message in Medina , while in Mecca he had only met with little acceptance. In her view, a real social crisis, as she diagnosed the Mecca of the early 7th century, cannot be inferred either from the Koran or from non-Koranic texts.

Fonts

  • Muhammad at Mecca. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1953.
  • Muhammad at Medina. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1956. Digitized
  • Muhammad. Prophet and Statesman. Oxford University Press, London et al. 1961.
  • The Rāfiḍites: a preliminary study. In: Oriens. Vol. 16, 1963, pp. 110-121, doi : 10.2307 / 1580257 .
  • A History of Islamic Spain (= Islamic Surveys. 4, ZDB -ID 847318-3 ). Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1965.
  • Islamic Political Thought. The Basic Concepts. (= Islamic Surveys. 6). Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1968, ISBN 0-85224-032-5 .
  • The Influence of Islam on Medieval Europe (= Islamic Surveys. 9). Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1972, ISBN 0-85224-218-2 (In German: The Influence of Islam on the European Middle Ages (= Small Cultural Studies Library. 4). Wagenbach, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-8031-5104-X ).
  • The Formative Period of Islamic Thought. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1973, ISBN 0-85224-245-X (In German in: W. Montgomery Watt, Michael Marmura: Der Islam. II: Political developments and theological concepts (= The religions of mankind . 25, 2) Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1985, ISBN 3-17-005707-3 ).
  • A Short History of Islam. Oneworld, Oxford 1996, ISBN 1-85168-109-4 (In German: Brief history of Islam (= Wagenbach's pocket library. 454). Wagenbach, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-8031-2454-9 ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Patricia Crone : Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1987, ISBN 0-691-05480-0 .
  2. ↑ See Patricia Crone: Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1987, ISBN 0-691-05480-0 , pp. 145-148.
  3. ↑ See Patricia Crone: Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1987, ISBN 0-691-05480-0 , pp. 231-237.
personal data
SURNAME Watt, William Montgomery
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British scholar of Islam
DATE OF BIRTH March 14, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Ceres
DATE OF DEATH October 24, 2006
Place of death Edinburgh