The Evolution of the Concept of "Islam" Based on Its Relations with Other Religions: An Analysis of Jacques Waardenburg's Theory

The origin of religions, especially Islam, is one of the important topics that orientalists have addressed during their religious studies. The study of the history of Islam at the same time as the translation of Islamic texts in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries attracted the attention of Europeans, but serious attention to this aspect of theology in the West dates back to the early nineteenth century, which coincided with historical criticism of religious texts. The present paper is a translation and analysis of the article "The Periodic Division of Early Islam Based on Its Relations with Other Religions" by Dutch theologian Jacques Waardenburg, which examines the history of early Islam and the development of a new religious movement during its ongoing interactions with existing religious minorities at the time, and concluded that Islam, in its communication process, experienced a conceptual transformation from "religious edification" to "reform movement" and ultimately changed into an independent religion.