The genesis of this book lies in a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Inaugural Lecture of William Montgomery Watt as the first Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies in Scotland in October 1965. This was held at the University of Edinburgh on Friday, 23 October 2015 in the august surroundings of the Playfair Library, and was entitled ‘Islamic Studies in Scotland: Retrospect and Prospect’.

Professor Watt was based at the University of Edinburgh's Department of Arabic, which he led until his retirement in 1979, and over the years he became a towering global figure in the scholarly field of Islamic studies. Yet much has of course changed since Professor Watt's day, and this special event therefore sought both to look back on his contribution to his chosen field and also to assess scholarly developments in Islamic studies since his own seminal publications.

Professor Carole Hillenbrand, Professor Fred Donner and Bishop Richard Holloway were invited by the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and the organisation now known as the Alwaleed Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World to deliver public lectures on Professor Watt as a man and as a scholar, on his religious life and on the development of Islamic studies over the past half-century. The event was introduced by the Senior Vice-Principal of the University of Edinburgh, Professor Charles Jeffery, and by the Head of the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Edinburgh, Dr Tony Gorman. The following day, 24 October, the Playfair Library was again the venue for an international colloquium convened by Dr Andrew Marsham under the title ‘Representations of Muhammad’. The following speakers took part: Dr Andreas Goerke, Professor Christiane Gruber, Professor Wilferd Madelung, Dr Nacim Pak-Shiraz, Dr Nicolai Sinai and Dr John Tolan. This event served to assess both the state of the field since Professor Watt's pioneering work and the latest scholarship on the subject. It also underlined the continuing importance of Islamic studies at the University of Edinburgh.

In the immediate aftermath of both these events two significant steps were taken. Firstly, as the former Head of the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, I volunteered to edit a book about Professor Watt that would include contributions by those who spoke on 23 October as well as other relevant material.