The paradigm of “Late Antiquity” has by now become widely used in Islamic studies, from Qur’anic studies (Angelika Neuwirth and her “school” for example) to religious Islamic studies properly (Aziz al-Azmeh for example). My interest, though, is to single out those elements and characteristics which are peculiar only of Islam. For I completely agree with the necessity to put Islam and its historical, religious, philosophical birth and development in the broad framework of the “Late Antiquity” (in short terms the period of deep transformations involving Europe, the Mediterranean world and the so-called Near East, from 4th - 5th to 7th - 8th centuries), but the issue at stake is to emphasize which themes made of Islam a “new” religion in respects to Judaism and Christianity. This is the present paper’s focus, dealing with: 1) a critical survey of the literature concerning Late Antiquity; 2) the relation between the empires (Roman, Byzantine and Sasanid) of Late Antiquity and the triumph of monotheism; 3) the concepts of hanifiyya and Israiliyyat; 4) the Qur’an as a discriminating event.