Gerald Hawting came to SOAS in 1963 to study for an undergraduate degree in History, “with special reference to the Near and Middle East”. When he retired as Professor in the History of the Near and Middle East in 2009, he had spent almost half a century at SOAS, studying, teaching researching, and writing about the origins and early History of Islam. On Friday, April 10th, 2015, colleagues and students came together for a special workshop, “Early Islamic History in Review: A Workshop in Honour of Professor Hawting”. The workshop was organised by Dr Teresa Bernheimer (History Department, SOAS) and Professor Andrew Rippin (University of Victoria, Canada), who also co-edited a Festschrift for Professor Hawting, published as a special issue of the Bulletin of SOAS (volume 78, issue 1, 2015).

The workshop was broadly divided into two parts: “Qur-an and sira” (biography of the Prophet Muhammad) in the morning, and “History and Historiography” after lunch. All together ten papers were read, all relating in some way to Hawting’s work (click here for the full workshop programme).

The day was a great success, with many fruitful discussion on the state of the field and on the importance of Hawting’s work to the study of early Islam. it also provided valuable context to the special issue of the Bulletin of SOAS.

A selection of articles from the special issue are available to read for free until the end of August (Click here for direct access to the articles).

Some pictures from the day are included below. Dr Bernheimer and Professor Rippin would like to thank the contributors to the special issue and everyone involved in making the workshop a success.