In late 2017, Peter von Sivers, professor of history at the University of Utah, gave an incredibly insightful talk on the background context of the origins of Islam at Brigham Young University.
Professor von Sivers presented a lot of historical information, much of which was tangential to the main topic, necessitating that he could not go into detail on those points; or for which he had taken the historical grounding of his audience as a given.
I have compiled a full transcript of his talk, with hyperlinks to the references and/or allusions he made on certain points to provide any supplementary background that fans of this talk may require. Additionally, I have [inserted] the corrected wording/references on the two points where the professor misspoke, which, given the huge amount of information he conveyed is easy to understand that a couple slips of the tongue would arise.
