Muslim-Jewish polemics

One of the most frequent arguments in Islamic polemical writings is that allusions to Muḥammad exist in the Bible but were obliterated by the Jews in what Muslim polemicists call taḥrīf—falsification. One verse in particular, Deut. 33:2, is so commonly treated by these polemicists as to occur literally or in paraphrase in almost every anti-Jewish Islamic tract. The last of three place names that appear in this verse, Paran, Muslim polemicists claim, refers to Muḥammad and to Mecca and Islam. In this article, a review of the treatment of Deut. 33:2 in four Midrashic and two Targumic sources raises the possibility that the Paran–Muḥammad/Mecca/Islam nexus owes its origins to the Muslim polemicists’ appropriation of Jewish sources that either predate Islam or, perhaps, coincided with the dawn of Islam.

Jewish sources commonly refer to Muslims as “Ishmaelites” and to Islamdom as “the Kingdom of Ishmael” due to an alleged biblical genealogy that both Jews and Muslims accept. Other classic Jewish sources, however, associate pre-Islamic Arabs as well as Muslims with two other biblical nations, Ammon and Moab, even when, and even though, the “standard” appellations are at hand. The Ammon and Moab nexus is mentioned in academic literature but without much elaboration. This article investigates several Jewish mentions of the nexus – most of Hispano-Jewish provenance – and proposes five explanations for its use.

Résumé
Les sources juives qualifient généralement les musulmans d’Ismaélites et le domaine de l’Islam en tant que “royaume d’Ismaël”, et ce au nom de généalogies bibliques reconnues autant par les juifs que les musulmans. D’autres sources juives classiques, cependant, rattachent les Arabes préislamiques ainsi que les musulmans à deux autres nations mentionnées dans la Bible, Ammon et Moab, et ce indépendamment de leur traditionnelle appellation d’Ismaélites. Jusqu’à présent, le lien avec Ammon et Moab n’a été que sommairement évoqué dans la littérature scientifique. La présente étude examine plusieurs sources juives, pour la plupart d’origine hispanique, évoquant un pareil lien.

This bibliographic essay explores the works of scholars who have used ḥadīth collections in their research on early Muslim-Jewish interactions. One of the main issues of this field has been the question of Jewish influence on ḥadīths, either by way of discussions between Jews and Muḥammad and his companions or through early Jewish converts to Islam. Even within the Islamic tradition itself, it is acknowledged that discrete Jewish traditions have been embedded within the ḥadīth, traditions which are sometimes referred to as Isrāʾīlīyāt. In addition to these, there are also ḥadīths which describe Jews and Jewish practices, usually in a polemical context. The more controversial question among scholars has been that of whether the structure of Jewish oral law influenced the formation of the ḥadīth, and I provide a survey of developments in scholarly thinking on that issue. I then turn to the impact of the ḥadīth on medieval Jews themselves and discuss the views of scholars who have argued that the medieval Islamic science of ḥadīth study had an impact on how Jews viewed their own religious tradition. Finally, I look at contemporary Islamic writings on Jews and ḥadīths.

This study explores the previously unstudied anti-Jewish Persian polemic Anbāʾ al-anbiyāʾ by the Jewish convert to Twelver Šīʿī Islam, Ismāʿīl Qazvīnī, the father of Ḥāǧǧī Bābā Qazvīnī Yazdī. It examines Ismāʿīl Qazvīnī’s discussion of a medieval Jewish controversy concerning the four-kingdom schema in the book of Daniel and Ibn Ezra’s interpretation of the dream-vision in favor of Islam as the fourth kingdom. The study shows that Ismāʿīl Qazvīnī, besides his reference to Muslim works in Persian, relied on different (partly printed) Jewish textual sources in the original Hebrew and Aramaic (Miqraʾot Gedolot, Neḇuʾat ha-yeled, Sefer haš-šorašim, Sefer Josippon), from which he quoted in his own Persian translation/adaptation. He thus made internal Jewish debates accessible to native Muslim scholars, such as Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī, who borrowed from Anbāʾ al-anbiyāʾ. Ismāʿīl Qazvīnī was a cross-cultural intermediary and go-between who expanded the traditional range of Šīʿī polemical arguments against Judaism in pre-modern Iran.

The Jewish-Muslim polemics is as old as Islam. Many quranic verses challenge the Jews and Jewish ideas. From the ninth century onward, adherents of both faiths in the Near East (but not only) produced polemical and apologetic literature—though much more was produced from the Islamic perspective than from the Jewish. Interreligious debates continued throughout the medieval era and up to modern times—though my discussion here extends only from the rise of Islam to the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492.

In his al-Khiṭaṭ, al-Maqrīzī devotes a full chapter to the Jews’ falsification of canon writings, as alleged in Islamic sources. His account, focusing on the development of the Jewish Oral Law, is unique among Muslim scholars in its length and complexity. In this article, al-Maqrīzī’s presentation is deconstructed into ten stages, their sources of inspiration are suggested, and an attempt to understand the entire passage, its purpose, and its tendencies is made. The inquiry shows that al-Maqrīzī called on an eclectic range of sources from the Torah to Moses Maimonides and including Rabbinic and Karaite ideas and Qurʾānic verses. Al-Maqrīzī does not claim that the Torah was falsified, recognizes a pre-falsification version of the Mishnah as being of divine origin, but depicts the Talmud as men’s opinions placed in Allāh’s mouth. Thus he takes an in-between position on the Oral Law, with Rabbanites and Karaites on the opposing flanks.

Résumé
Dans son ouvrage al-Khiṭaṭ, al-Maqrīzī consacre un chapitre entier à la falsification des écrits canoniques par les juifs, autrement développée dans les écrits islamiques. Centrée sur le développement de la loi orale juive, sa contribution est unique tant par sa longueur que par sa complexité. Le présent article décompose l’argumentation d’al-Maqrīzī en dix points, s’interroge sur ses sources d’information, et tente de la comprendre dans son ensemble et d’élucider les objectifs de l’auteur. L’étude montre qu’ al-Maqrīzī  s’appuie sur un vaste ensemble de sources, de la Torah à Moïse Maimonide, et qu’il intègre nombre de notions propres au monde Rabbinique, Karaïte ainsi que certains versets coraniques. Il en ressort qu’al-Maqrīzī ne prétend pas que la Torah est une source falsifiée, et qu’il reconnait l’existence d’une version originelle, et non-falsifiée, de la Mishnah comme étant d’origine divine. Cependant, il considère le Talmud comme étant tout au plus un recueil d'opinions énoncées au nom d’Allāh. En cela, il adopte une position intermédiaire sur la loi orale entre les tenants de l’approche Rabbinique et Karaïte.

Key words: al-Maqrīzī, al-Khiṭaṭ, Mishnah, Talmud, Jewish Oral Law

The Islamic polemical tract Kitāb Masālik al-Naẓar reveals much about its author, the Jewish apostate Sa‘īd b. Ḥasan. Sa‘īd plunges into diverse polemic themes, including some with which he is poorly acquainted, and uses sources from all three Abrahamic faiths, showing greater familiarity with Jewish sources than with the Qur’ān. The discussion explores Sa‘īd’s treatment of various issues in Muslim–Jewish polemics through the prism of his important polemical tract, Masālik al-Naẓar, and takes one of the first steps toward lifting Sa‘īd out of his undeserved obscurity in scholarship.

This article discusses a debated issue in Jewish–Muslim polemics: Did Lot have intercourse with his daughters, as told in Genesis 19:33–35? The treatment of this question by three scholars of Jewish origin who lived in different parts of the Islamic world at different times is examined in this article. Two of these scholars converted to Islam and wrote an anti-Jewish tract; the third was a rabbi who embroiled himself with the authorities in his area of residence because he claimed that Lot indeed had intercourse with his daughters.

מאמר זה דן באחת מהסוגיות שעמדו במוקד פולמוס בין יהודים ומוסלמים: האם לוט בא על בנותיו, כאמור בבראשית יט: 33–35. במאמר תבחן התייחסותם של שלושה מלומדים ממוצא יהודי שחיו בעולם האסלאם בתקופות ובאזורים שונים לסוגיה זו. שניים מהם המירו את דתם לאסלאם ואף חיברו קונטרס כנגד הדת היהודית והשלישי הוא רב שהסתבך עם הרשויות במקום מגוריו משום שטען כי לוט בא על בנותיו.

According to Muslim sources, the ninth century heresiarch Ibn al-Rawand! wrote his Kitab al-Ddmigh against Islam at the instigation of a Jew. Only fragments of this book have survived, scattered in polemics against it. The present paper tries to show that a refutation of the Qur'an, attributed by the eleventh century Ibn Hazm to his contemporary, the Jewish dignitary Shmt'el Ha-Nagid, was in fact a collection of quotations from the Kitdb al-Ddmigh; that Ibn Hazm himself drew these quotations from a previous refutation of Ibn al-Rawandy; and that Shmi'el Ha-Nagid never wrote a book against the Qur'an. I. In medieval Muslim heresiographical tradition, Abti al-Husayn Ahmad b. Yahya Ibn al-Rawand! (third/ ninth century) is painted in the darkest colours. The picture that emerges from the many texts is that of an almost Satanic figure, an Iblbs redivivus,2 whose primal sin was arrogance. For Ibn al-Rawandi is one of the most notorious heresiarchs of early Islam. For reasons which are no longer clear, this brilliant scholar, originally a highly respected Mu'tazilite, was subsequently ostracized by the Mu'tazila. The wound to his pride became the cause of his final fall. Turning his back on his former colleagues, he used his sharp tongue and his familiarity with the subtleties of Mu'tazilite argumentation in order to distort and ridicule Mu'tazilite Kalam. But his fury was not satisfied with exposing "the disgrace of the Mu'tazilia."3 The list of his writings shows that his heresy touched on topics which are of the very essence of Islam: theodicy, prophetology and the Qur'an. For Muslim theologians and historians, he became "the pillar of heresy" (mu'tamid al-maldhida wa ' zana-diqa).4 There are, of course, others who shared with him the title of heresiarchs. But what sets Ibn al-Rawand! apart from them all is the evasive nature of his real heresy. Ibn al-Rawandi's colleague and mentor, Abti 'Isa al-Warraq, was a notorious Manichaean.5 Ibn al-Muqaffa' was a dualist,6 and AbU Bakr al-Razi was a philosopher.7 But what was Ibn al-Rawandi?

The Jewish-born Muslim polemicist ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Islāmī, in his anti-Jewish polemic al-Sayf al-Mamdūd fīʾl-radd ʿalā Aḥbār al-Yahūd, presents arguments that may appear to have been inspired by, or absorbed from, those of previous polemicists of Jewish extraction. The article tests this view by comparing several statements in al-Sayf al-Mamdūd with references to similar issues by two possible sources of inspiration: Samawʾal al-Maghribī in Ifḥām al-Yahūd and Saʿīd b. Ḥasan al-Iskandarī in Masālik al-Naẓar fī Nubuwwat Sayyid al-Bashar. Although some of ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq’s arguments resemble those of his predecessors, the former do not seem to have been inspired by the latter. Instead, it is argued that ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq’s thinking was highly original and independent.

In the seventh maqāmah of his Sefer Ha-Mūsar, R. Zachariah al-Ḍāhirī (ca. 1519–1585) presents a debate (probably a pseudo-debate) between a Muslim and a Jew in Egypt. Reinvestigation of this maqāmah reveals that it has polemical and apologetic aspects that have not been discussed in the academic literature thus far and that al-Ḍāhirī was inspired by Jewish and Islamic sources, including the interreligious polemical literature, and responded to several arguments in the Islamic literature. The article presents the main arguments of the Muslim and the Jew in the seventh maqāmah of Sefer Ha-Mūsar and suggest possible sources of inspiration of the author.

Al-Risāla al-Sabīʿiyya fī Ibtāl al-Diyāna al-Yahūdiyya is an anti-Jewish polemic written in the late nineteenth century by Israel b. Shemuel of Jerusalem, a Jewish-born convert to Islam. The academic treatment of this work is scanty and sometimes mistaken. In the article, the misunderstanding of the Risāla is discussed and Conrad’s argument that the author was Christian is challenged.

'אלרִסַאלַה אלסַבִּיעִיַּה בִּאִבְּטַאל אלדִיַאנַה אליַהוּדִיַּה' הוא חיבור פולמוסי כנגד היהדות שנכתב בשלהי המאה הי"ט. מחברו הוא ישראל בן שמואל הירושלמי, מומר יהודי לאסלאם. ההתייחסות ל'רִסַאלה' בספרות האקדמית מועטה מאוד ולעתים אף שגויה. להלן אדון באופן השגוי שבו הוצגה עבודה זו וכן אצא כנגד הטענה של לורנס קונרד כי מוצאו של מחברה הוא נוצרי.

Saʿīd b. Ḥasan’s Kitāb Masālik al-Naẓar, which claims that the Old Testament alludes to Muḥammad’s future advent, has been researched in its polemics but not in its sources. This article investigates the possibility that Saʿīd relied on Rabbinic and Midrashic sources that he was able to consult in the original Hebrew and Aramaic.

A topic that has eluded academic treatment so far is discussed in this article: references to polemical Islamic contestation with Jews and Judaism in the second and third stanzas of the poem Yivasheʿūn qehaleikha ha-ʿōmedīm ba-leilōt. The poet refers to three themes that surface repeatedly in Islamic polemics against Jews and Judaism— taḥrīf, naskh, and khātam al-nabiyyīn—and that apparently recurred in the Jewish-Muslim polemical discourse in his milieu. The poet’s responses to them, however, avoid counter-polemics; instead, they express his pain and his resort to God for salvation. They further our knowledge and yield additional evidence that may build a broader picture of the interreligious discourse in medieval Spain.

Ismāʿīl Qazvīnī was an 18th-century Jew who, at an unspecified age, relinquished Judaism and became a Twelver Shīʿī Muslim. After he converted to Islam, he composed in Yazd a Persian refutation of Judaism, Anbāʾ al-anbiyāʾ (‘Tidings of the prophets’). (...)

Research into Jewish polemics with Islam tends to focus mainly on purely polemical works and to overlook polemical references in other literary texts. This article attempts to correct this tendency by investigating apologetic as well as polemical allusions in Yerībūnī ʿalei ʿozbī berīt El, a twelfth-century CE poem by a Jew of unknown identity who converted to Islam and later recanted. The stanzas of this work alternate between apologetics toward Jews in the poet’s surroundings and polemics against Islam. The inquiry sheds some light on Jewish-Muslim relations in that era and demonstrates the potential benefits of similar investigation of additional literary texts.