Western academic training rejects providential explanations for historical events

Evidence

This kind of devotional approach to the history of Islam taken by Faruqi and Abed-Rabbo is never likely to be adopted by Western Orientalists. It reminds me of a Muslim friend of mine who, in Oxford back in the 1960s, was set an essay by Professor Beeston in which he was asked to explain the victory of Muhammad and the Medinans over the polytheistic Quraysh tribe. He produced an essay in which he argued that Muhammad had won because, according to earliest sources, a thousand angels fought on his side. The eighth Sura of the Qur’an referred to this incident. My friend’s essay received no marks. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 592

Categorization

• SEED: The anecdote of the angel-warfare essay zeroed out is a vivid entry point for an essay on what counts as explanation across epistemic cultures — mirroring the earlier Deep Listening material on divergent ways of knowing.