Bashear's historiography of early Islam considered not only the development of religious customs and beliefs, but also traced how later generations recast the past in order to meet the needs of their own era. Like the work of Patricia Crone, Michael Cook, John Wansbrough, Yehuda D. Nevo, Martin Hinds, Gerald Hawting, Christoph Luxenberg, Gerd R. Puin, Andrew Rippin, Günter Lüling, and other historiographers of early Islam, Bashear's research challenged what he considered to be the myth of a unified beginning Islam.