Jews and the Qur'an

Meir M. Bar-Asher, Ethan Rundell

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780691264790, 9780691211350
• eBook ISBN: 9780691232584
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology

A compelling book that casts the Qur'anic encounter with Jews in an entirely new light

In this panoramic and multifaceted book, Meir Bar-Asher examines how Jews and Judaism are depicted in the Qur'an and later Islamic literature, providing needed context to those passages critical of Jews that are most often invoked to divide Muslims and Jews or to promote Islamophobia. He traces the Qur'anic origins of the protection of Jews and other minorities living under the rule of Islam, and shows how attitudes toward Jews in Shi'i Islam are substantially different from those in Sunni Islam. Bar-Asher sheds light on the extraordinary contribution of Jewish tradition to the Muslim exegesis of the Qur'an, and draws important parallels between Jewish religious law, or halakha, and shari'a law.

An illuminating work on a topic of vital relevance today, Jews and the Qur'an offers a nuanced understanding of Islam's engagement with Judaism in the time of Muhammad and his followers, and serves as a needed corrective to common misperceptions about Islam.

INDEX

• ‘Abd Allah, 131, 148n42
• ‘Abd al-Rahman b. Ghanm, 113, 115
• Abitbol, Michel, Le Passé d’une discorde, 119
• Abraham: and adoption of monotheism, 67–69; hajj and, 98; and the Ka‘ba in Mecca, 69–70; in the Qur’an, 2, 30, 60, 61, 65–70
• Abu Bakr, 135
• Abu Rayḥan al-Biruni, 107
• al-Aḥbar, Ka‘b, 21, 138
• Akil al-murar, Ḥujr, 10
• ‘Ali b. Abi Talib, as successor to the Prophet, 135
• ‘Ali b. Ibrahim al-Qummi, 35
• almsgiving, obligation of, 88
• Amir-Moezzi, Mohammad Ali, 136
• antisemitism, xiii, xv
• Arabic, geo-linguistic sources of, 23
• Arab Jewish poets, 20–22
• Arberry, Arthur, 111
• ‘Ashura, fast of, 98–99
• ‘Aṣma’ (poet), 21
• al-‘Ayyashi, Muhammad b. Mas‘ud, 134

• Babylonian Talmud and Talmudic literature: comparisons between the red cow and the heifer, 85; completion of Talmud, 143n14; on David’s innocence, 79; on dietary prohibitions, 103; influence on the Qur’an, 61; influences on Babylonian Talmud, 128–29; and interpretation of the law, 91; in the interpretation of the Qur’an, 19; Joseph in, 72, 73; parallels with Qur’anic verses, 36–37; racism in, 144n3; on substitution Passover, 101
• banu Isra’il. See children of Israel
• al-Baqir, Muhammad, 124, 130–31
• Bat Ye’or, 119
• Becker, Carl Heinrich, 93
• Benjamin of Tudela, 17–18, 26
• Ben-Shammai, Haggai, 33–34; “Jew- Hatred in the Islamic Tradition and the Koranic Exegesis,” 55
• Bernard, Dominique, Les disciples juifs de Jésus du 1er siècle à Mahomet, xvi
• Bible: and killing of the prophets, 51; Qur’an’s complex attitude toward, 4; Qur’an’s references to, 29; rebuke of the Jews in, 56–57; and terminology in the Qur’an, 59–60
• biblical accounts and post-biblical literature: Abraham, 2, 29, 30, 65–70, 98; Cain and Abel, 62, 63–65; characteristics of Qur’an’s inclusion of, 58, 60–62, 78, 85; David, 2, 75–79, 80, 82, 83; Genesis, 60–63, 70; Joseph, 62, 70–75, 87; the red heifer, 83–85; Saul/Talut, 60, 80–83
• Blachère, Régis, 44, 81
• Book of Jubilees, 68
• Boyce, Mary, 130
• Brunschvig, Robert, “Herméneutique normative dans le judaïsme et dans l’islam,” 90...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Mustafa Akyol
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• I. The Historical Context
• II. The Representation of Judaism and Jews in the Qur’an
• III. Biblical Accounts and Their Transformations in the Qur’an
• IV. Qur’anic Law and Jewish Law
• V. The Qur’anic Sources of the Dhimma
• VI. The Place of Judaism and the Jews in Twelver Shi‘ism
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index