Wikipedia's first sentence called it “movement in islamic studies questioning much of "what the muslim historical tradition can tell us about the ori”. Today it says “scientific movement in islamic studies that questions traditional muslim narratives of islam's origins”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2025 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2025
Movement in Islamic studies The revisionist school of Islamic studies (also critical school of Islamic studies and critical historians of Islam ) is a movement in Islamic studies that questions traditional Muslim narratives of Islam's origins. Until the early 1970s, non-Muslim Islamic scholars—while not accepting accounts of divine intervention—did accept Islam 's origin story "in most of its details", and accepted the reliability of its traditional literary sources – tafsir (commentaries on the Quran ), hadith (accounts of what the Islamic prophet Muhammad approved or disapproved of), and sira (biographies of Muhammad). Revisionists instead use a " source-critical " approach to this literature, as well as studying relevant archaeology , epigraphy , numismatics and contemporary non-Arabic literature. They believe these methodologies provide "hard facts" and an ability to crosscheck, whereas traditional Islamic accounts—written 150 to 250 years after Muhammad—are/were subject to biases of and embellishments by the authors and transmitters. Sasanid style coins of early Islamic period, ( Pahlavi scripts , crescent-star , fire altar , depictions of Khosrow II , bismillāh in margin). Unlike known historical figures such as Ibn Zubayr and Mu'awiya I , there are no coins minted in the names of caliphs titled rashidun that could be evidence of official dominancy. The school is thought to have originated in the 1970s and includes (or included) scholars such as John Wansbrough and his students Andrew Rippin , Norman Calder , G. Hawting , Patricia Crone and Michael Cook , as well as Günter Lüling , Yehuda D. Nevo , Tom Holland , and Christoph Luxenberg . It is "by no means monolithic" and while its proponents share "methodological premises", they have offered "conflicting accounts of the Arab conquests and the rise of Islam". It is sometimes contrasted with "traditionist" historians of Islam who do accept the traditional origin story, though adherence to the two approaches is "usually implicit" rather than "stated openly". In the Shadow of the Sword . Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam .
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 1297481566.
The opening as it stood in 2020
The Revisionist school of Islamic studies , (also Historical-Critical school of Islamic studies and skeptic/revisionist Islamic historians ) is a movement in Islamic Studies questioning much of "what the Muslim historical tradition can tell us about the origins of Islam". Until the early 1970s, non-Muslim Islamic scholars — while not accepting accounts of divine intervention — did accept its origin story "in most of its details", and accepted the reliability of tafsir (commentaries on the Quran ), hadith (accounts of what the Islamic prophet Muhammad approved or disapproved of), and sira (biography of the prophet). Revisionists instead use a " source-critical " approach to this literature, as well as studying relevant archaeology , epigraphy , numismatics and contemporary non-Arabic literature. They believe these methodologies provide "hard facts" and an ability to crosscheck, whereas traditional Islamic accounts — written 150 to 200 years after Muhammad — are/were subject to biases of and embellishments by the authors and transmitters. The school is thought to have originated in the 1970s and includes (or included) scholars such as John Wansbrough and his students Andrew Rippin , Norman Calder , G. Hawting , Patricia Crone and Michael Cook , as well as Günter Lüling , Yehuda D. Nevo and Christoph Luxenberg ). It is "by no means monolithic" and while its proponents share "methodological premises", they have offered "conflicting accounts of the Arab conquests and the rise of Islam". It is sometimes contrasted with "traditionist" historians of Islam who do accept the traditional origin story, though the two approaches "usually implicit" rather than "stated openly". In the Shadow of the Sword . Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 962592667.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023
Movement in Islamic studies The Revisionist school of Islamic studies , (also Historical-Critical school of Islamic studies and skeptic/revisionist Islamic historians ) is a movement in Islamic studies that questions traditional Muslim narratives of Islam's origins. Until the early 1970s, non-Muslim Islamic scholars—while not accepting accounts of divine intervention—did accept its origin story "in most of its details", and accepted the reliability of tafsir (commentaries on the Quran ), hadith (accounts of what the Islamic prophet Muhammad approved or disapproved of), and sira (biography of the prophet). Revisionists instead use a " source-critical " approach to this literature, as well as studying relevant archaeology , epigraphy , numismatics and contemporary non-Arabic literature. They believe these methodologies provide "hard facts" and an ability to crosscheck, whereas traditional Islamic accounts—written 150 to 250 years after Muhammad—are/were subject to biases of and embellishments by the authors and transmitters. The school is thought to have originated in the 1970s and includes (or included) scholars such as John Wansbrough and his students Andrew Rippin , Norman Calder , G. Hawting , Patricia Crone and Michael Cook , as well as Günter Lüling , Yehuda D. Nevo and Christoph Luxenberg . It is "by no means monolithic" and while its proponents share "methodological premises", they have offered "conflicting accounts of the Arab conquests and the rise of Islam". It is sometimes contrasted with "traditionist" historians of Islam who do accept the traditional origin story, though adherence to the two approaches is "usually implicit" rather than "stated openly". In the Shadow of the Sword . Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1164391320.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “movement in islamic studies questioning much of "what the muslim historical tradition can tell us about the ori”. Today it says “scientific movement in islamic studies that questions traditional muslim narratives of islam's origins”. Read the current article and compare.
2020
Oct '23
2025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2020, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
movement in islamic studies questioning much of "what the muslim historical tradition can tell us about the ori
Now
scientific movement in islamic studies that questions traditional muslim narratives of islam's origins
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.
