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Lecture

Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
History of Islam: Religion, Politics, Society, Part 1

Tuesday 9.12.2025

How to watch

This lecture starts on 9 December at 5:00pm (UK).

Summary

The first in a series on the rise and history of Islam, its polities and politics throughout history. In this presentation we cover Arabia and Arabian society before the appearance of Muhammad; Mecca as a commercial and religious center of Pre-Islamic Arabia; and the birth of Muhammad, his life and revelation.

Zvi Ben-Dor Benite

An image of Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite teaches Chinese History, Middle Eastern and Islamic history, and sometimes Jewish history, at New York University. He is author of The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of Muslims in Late Imperial China (Harvard, 2005); The Ten Lost Tribes: A World History (Oxford, 2009); co-editor of Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity, Culture, and Politics (Brandeis, 2013); The Scaffolding of Sovereignty: Global and Aesthetic Perspectives on the History of a Concept (Columbia University Press, 2017); and Time and Language: New Sinology and Chinese History (Hawaii University Press, 2023).