‘History of Islam’ by A. E. Krymsky, on the words of the author, initially was designed as a manual for exams; the first publication was only 100 copies. It included Russian translation of Dutch specialist in Islamic studies R. Dozy (Essai sur l'histoire de l'islamisme / par R. Dozy. Trad. du hollandais par Victor Chauvin. Leyde: Brill; Paris: Maisonneuve, 1879), made by V. I. Kamensky, and one chapter from the book of Hungarian specialist I. Golziher ‘Muhammedanische Studien’ with author’s comments. The second publication was reworked; particularly, the author made explanations, notes, references, and even objections to each chapter by Dozy. There were also new chapters prepared by K.; so, the first and the second parts of the book became half-original. Besides, there were two chapters from Goldziher, not one. The author used the work by Doze as a fundament for his own manual, because it was obviously one of the best studies on the spiritual history of Islam both in the literary, and scholarly senses, in spite it was in some aspects obsolete. Although K. described Muhammad without special respect, he was sincerely longing for objectivity, and he had no antipathy or skepticism to Muhammad or Islam.
The book is divided into two parts. The first part consists of five chapters. The first chapter is on the pre-Islamic beliefs of Arabs. The second and the third ones are about the life of Muhammad before his moving from Mecca to Medina and after it. They were texts from Dozy with vast notes and comments by K. In the second and third chapters the author also cited one of the main sources for the biography of Muhammad – ‘The Life of the Envoy of Allah’ by Ibn Ishaq/Ibn Hisham. The fourth chapter, completely written by the author, provides a review of sources and studies on the life of Muhammad. The fifth chapter was also built on Dozy; it was about the history of the Quran and Sunnah. A part of it (on the Quran) was completed with a list of studies by leading European orientalists, explanation of complicated places in some verses of the Quran, characteristic of tafsirs (commentaries) to the Quran, concordances (G. Flugel and A. K. Kazem-bek), and dictionaries, as well as descriptions of publications and translations of the Quran. A fragment on Sunnah included the history of the texts and a list of works on the topic. The central part of that fragment of the chapter is a vast citation from Dozy.
The second part of the book consists of three chapters. The first one I s about the doctrine of Islam and its rituals; it is supplied with the author’s text ‘On the manuals for studying the Moslem law’. The second chapter includes the introduction by Goldziher to his book ‘Muhammedanische Studien’, on the Old Arabic and Islamic ideals of valour and faith. The third chapter is a translation of an article by Goldziher ‘Arabic tribal relations and Islam’ from the same ‘Muhammedanische Studien’.
The book is closed with a detailed description of its content.