Summary:

This paper expands upon earlier work published in Arab-West Report by Dutch Arabists Eildert Mulder and Thomas Milo on the contested earliest sources of Islam.1 Mulder and Milo illustrate that critical scholarship has cast doubt on the historicity of the hadīth and biographies  and  because  other  sources  are  scant,  little  is  known  for  certain  about  the paradigm of the original Muslim community in the first century AH. These doubts appear to be at odds with the wish of Islamists, and in particular Salafī Muslims, to return to the paradigm  of  the  original  Muslim  community.  Andrew  McDonnell,  despite  his weaknesses of not able to read Arabic sources, has dealt with this sensitive question in a very delicate way, full of respect for Muslim believers who believe the oral transmission in the first centuries to be reliable.