Abstract

In an article published in 1991 F.E. Peters drew a picture of the studies on the life of Muhammad, highlighting affinities and differences with the study on Jesus and a division between skeptics and optimists. Other studies, before and even more in recent years, have addressed the methodological questions concerning the history of the life of Muhammad. In the last two decades, studies and researches have helped to bring together the various positions. Some works, including especially those by U. Rubin and H. Motzki, are the most significant in this regard. Notwithstanding these results, future research will have to address the problems of the use of the literary evidence and the contemporary political involvements of the research on Islam. In the Italian Islamic studies only a few works have addressed issues in line with these guidelines and are aware of the recent international debates on the life of Muhammad. Only two monographs by Claudio Lo Jacono can be reported in a field which has been abandoned by specialists in Italy