In the line of John Wansbrough, Hawting concentrated on the question for the religious milieu in which Islam came into being. He analysed available sources about the religions on the
Arabian peninsula in the time before Islam in detail. According to Hawting, Islam did not develop within a world of polytheism as is reported by the traditional Islamic traditions which were written 150 to 200 years after Muhammad. Instead, Islam came into being on the basis of a conflict among various types of monotheists which considered each other to fail in living a perfect monotheism, and considering each other to practice idolatry.[citation needed]
Another theme of Hawting's research is the period of the Umayyad dynasty which was of great importance for the formation of Islam as a religion.[2] Also Hawting's works[3][4] are related with
ibadism.[5] Hawting is a representative of the
Revisionist School of Islamic Studies.[citation needed]
Works
The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate AD 661-750 (1986)
"John Wansbrough, Islam, and monotheism" (1997)
The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History (1999)
As editor and co-author:
Approaches to the Quran (1993)
The Development of Islamic Ritual (2006)
Works related to Ibadism
Hawting, G.R.: (1978) The significance of the slogan Lā Ḥukma illā li'llāh and the references to the Ḥudūd in the Traditions about the Fitna and the murder of ʿUthmān. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (London), vol. 41 (1978), 453–463
Hawting, G.R., J.A. Mojaddedi, A. Samely: (eds.) (2000) Studies in Islamic and Middle Eastern texts and traditions in memory of Norman Calder (d. 1998). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement, 12
^Hawting, G.R. (1978). "The significance of the slogan Lā Ḥukma illā li'llāh and the references to the Ḥudūd in the Traditions about the Fitna and the murder of ʿUthmān". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 41. London: 453–463.
doi:
10.1017/s0041977x00117550.
S2CID162680150.
^Hawting, G.R. (2000). Mojaddedi, J.A.; Samely, A. (eds.). "Studies in Islamic and Middle Eastern texts and traditions in memory of Norman Calder (d. 1998)". Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement. 12. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
^Custers, Martin H. (2016). Al-Ibāḍiyya: A Bibliography, Volume 3 (Second revised and enlarged ed.). Hildesheim-London-N.Y.: Olms Publishing. p. 313.
ISBN978-3-487-15354-4.