W. Montgomery Watt

William Montgomery Watt (14 March 1909 – 24 October 2006) was a Scottish historian and orientalist. An Anglican priest, Watt served as Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Edinburgh from 1964 to 1979 and was also a prominent contributor to the field of Quranic studies.

Watt was one of the foremost non-Muslim interpreters of Islam in the West. Watt's comprehensive biography of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, Muhammad at Mecca (1953) and Muhammad at Medina (1956), are considered to be classics in the field.

Early life and education Watt was born on 14 March 1909 in Ceres, Fife, Scotland. His father, who died when he was only 14 months old, was a minister of the Church of Scotland. He served his curacy at St Mary The Boltons, West Brompton, in the Diocese of London from 1939 to 1941. From 1960 to 1967, he was an honorary curate at St Columba's-by-the-Castle, near Edinburgh Castle.

Watt held visiting professorships at the University of Toronto, the Collège de France and Georgetown University.

Later life Watt died in Edinburgh on 24 October 2006 at the age of 97. He had four daughters and a son with his wife Jean. The family went on holidays in Crail, a Scottish village. On his death, the writer Richard Holloway wrote of Watt that "he spent his life battling against the tide of intolerance".

Assessment and legacy Watt's works are considered a classic in modern Western Islamic studies.

Carole Hillenbrand, a professor of Islamic History at the University of Edinburgh, states: However, Both Patricia Crone and Michael Cook have since said that the central thesis of the book "Hagarism" was mistaken because the evidence they had to support the thesis was not sufficient or internally consistent enough.

Pakistani academic, Zafar Ali Qureshi, in his book, Prophet Muhammad and His Western Critics: A Critique of W. Montgomery Watt and Others has criticized Watt as having incorrectly portrayed the life of Muhammad in his works. Qureshi's book was praised by Turkish academic İbrahim Kalın.

French jurist Georges-Henri Bousquet has mocked Watt's book, Muhammad at Mecca, describing it as "A Marxist interpretation of the origins of Islam by an Episcopal clergyman." Danish historian Patricia Crone took issue with Watt's approach of extracting "historical" information from mythical stories by simply excluding the miraculous elements.

Selected works The faith and practice of al-Ghazālī (1953) Muhammad at Mecca (1953) Muhammad at Medina (1956) Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman (1961) , a summary of the above two major works Islamic Philosophy and Theology (1962) Companion to the Qur'an - Based On the Arberry Translation (1967) Islamic Political Thought (1968) Islamic Surveys: The Influence of Islam on Medieval Europe (1972) The Majesty That Was Islam (1976) What Is Islam? (1980) Muhammad's Mecca (1988) Muslim-Christian Encounters: Perceptions and Misperceptions (1991) Early Islam (1991) Islamic Philosophy And Theology (1987) Islamic Creeds (1994) History of Islamic Spain (1996) Islamic Political Thought (1998) Islam and the Integration of Society (1998) Islam: A Short History (1999) A Christian Faith For Today (2002)