- Reuven Firestone is the Regenstein Professor in medieval Judaism and Islam at HUC-JIR, and affiliate professor at the... moreReuven Firestone is the Regenstein Professor in medieval Judaism and Islam at HUC-JIR, and affiliate professor at the USC School of Religion. He served as Vice President of the Association for Jewish Studies and President of the International Qur’anic Studies Association.edit
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This essay appears in a collection that treats antisemitism as it originated and developed in the West – meaning the Greco-Roman world until its mantle passed to Europe. There has never been agreement over the meaning of antisemitism,... more
This essay appears in a collection that treats antisemitism as it originated and developed in the West – meaning the Greco-Roman world until its mantle passed to Europe. There has never been agreement over the meaning of antisemitism, even among scholars of antisemitism let alone the public at large, and it often serves in the popular press as a vehicle for particular political or religious positions that tend to be reductive and essentializing. While it is true that Jews suffered as a minority community in the Muslim world just as they did elsewhere, it is not clear how that suffering relates to something that could be called “antisemitism.” It is not particularly useful to use the term in relation to the medieval Muslim world, though it is relevant in the modern period when antisemitism enters Muslim discourse with the rise of Western colonial power and influence
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Research Interests: Philosophy and Din Bilimi
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This chapter consists of two parts. The first examines the historical-phenomenological relationship between the Qur’an and Judaism (the Qur’an and Judaism), while the second examines perspectives expressed by the Qur’an toward Judaism... more
This chapter consists of two parts. The first examines the historical-phenomenological relationship between the Qur’an and Judaism (the Qur’an and Judaism), while the second examines perspectives expressed by the Qur’an toward Judaism (the Qur’an on Judaism). The former includes perspectives offered by pre-modern and contemporary non-Muslim researchers regarding the Qur’an and its relationship to the religion and culture of Judaism; the latter considers how the Qur’an itself appears to evaluate Judaism. Both are considered within an explicit evaluative framework of assessment that reflects on the problematic of tension inherent in the relationship between established religion and emergent religion
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A history and development of Islamic religious leadership
Research Interests: Philosophy and Islam
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The Qur'an contains a number of enigmatic references to Jews. One such reference in 4:46 accuses the Jews of twisting the well-known biblical declaration of Israel, "We hear and obey" to "We hear and disobey."... more
The Qur'an contains a number of enigmatic references to Jews. One such reference in 4:46 accuses the Jews of twisting the well-known biblical declaration of Israel, "We hear and obey" to "We hear and disobey." This, along with a number of other citations of alleged Jewish statements directed to Muhammad and the early Muslim community of Medina, clearly derive from a polemical context. While many such references have been considered by Western scholars to be exaggerations or distortions of the historical record, taking them as possibly accurate statements allows for a new assessment of the brief but extremely important period of the early 620s in Medina when, according to the Islamic record, Muhammad first courted the local Jews and then competed with them over the religious authority of the city. Some of the difficult citations from the Qur'an and Hadith, including 4:46, suggest that the Jews employed bilingual Hebrew-Arabic punning and other forms of dou...
Research Interests: Philosophy, Humanities, Art, Ethnology, Islam, and 7 moreJudaism, Muhammad, Dhimma, Dhimmi, Banu Qurayza, Pact of Medina, and Banu Nadir
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... the meaning of chosenness in Judaism, Christianity and Islam / Reuven Firestone. ... If we lived entirely within our religious commu-nities and with no interaction with people of other faith traditions, we would most likely not give... more
... the meaning of chosenness in Judaism, Christianity and Islam / Reuven Firestone. ... If we lived entirely within our religious commu-nities and with no interaction with people of other faith traditions, we would most likely not give the notion of being chosen a second thought. ...
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The large number of references to Jews and their ancestors, the Israelites, demonstrates the important status Jews held in the region from which the Qur’an emerged in late antiquity. It also attests to the literary complexity of the use... more
The large number of references to Jews and their ancestors, the Israelites, demonstrates the important status Jews held in the region from which the Qur’an emerged in late antiquity. It also attests to the literary complexity of the use of these references, for it is likely that the different ways of referring to Jews carry different cultural meanings that might be recovered with further in-depth research. The Qur’an cannot avoid the Jews, nor does it wish to, yet it nevertheless expresses a clear ambivalence. In some contexts it expresses admiration and esteem: “Surely We sent down the Torah, containing guidance and light. By means of it the prophets who had submitted (al-nabīyūn al-ladhīna aslamū) rendered judgment for the Jews, and [so did] the rabbis and the teachers (wal-rabbāniyyūn wal-aḥbār), with what they were entrusted of the Book of God, and they were witnesses to it” (5:44). More often, however, the Qur’an is highly critical of Jews. This essay teases out the complexity of the Qur'anic polemic toward Jews.
Reflections on the second commandment prohibiting idolatry.
Because seminaries are designed to further the goals of the religious communities that fund and support them, interreligious learning may not be generally accepted as fulfill¬ing their institutional needs. This perspective derives from... more
Because seminaries are designed to further the goals of the religious communities that fund and support them, interreligious learning may not be generally accepted as fulfill¬ing their institutional needs. This perspective derives from the history of interreligious polemic and competition between and within monotheist traditions, based on the as¬sumption that God represents a single Truth that cannot be compromised, and that our expression of religion represents that Truth. This essay interrogates these assump¬tions and argues that true understanding must transcend the limits of religious institu¬tion and offers an instructive way to understand the distinctiveness of one’s particular spiritual tradition in relation to other attempts to understand the Infinite.
This chapter consists of two parts. The first examines the historical-phenomenological re lationship between the Qur'an and Judaism (the Qur'an and Judaism), while the second examines perspectives expressed by the Qur'an toward Judaism... more
This chapter consists of two parts. The first examines the historical-phenomenological re lationship between the Qur'an and Judaism (the Qur'an and Judaism), while the second examines perspectives expressed by the Qur'an toward Judaism (the Qur'an on Judaism). The former includes perspectives offered by pre-modern and contemporary non-Muslim researchers regarding the Qur'an and its relationship to the religion and culture of Ju daism; the latter considers how the Qur'an itself appears to evaluate Judaism. Both are considered within an explicit evaluative framework of assessment that reflects on the problematic of tension inherent in the relationship between established religion and emergent religion
The Qur’an expresses significant antipathy toward Jews. Jews (or Israelites) are portrayed as disobeying God (2:93), rejecting their own covenant (2:100), failing to follow their own Torah (5:66) and distorting or twisting the meaning of... more
The Qur’an expresses significant antipathy toward Jews. Jews (or Israelites) are portrayed as disobeying God (2:93), rejecting their own covenant (2:100), failing to follow their own Torah (5:66) and distorting or twisting the meaning of the divine revelation they received (2:101, 174). Jews are even cursed by God in the Qur’an (2:88; 4:51-52), and it calls on occasion to fight them (or more accurately, some of them: 9:29). For some observers, that is enough to condemn the Qur’an as “antisemitic.” But this reaction is reductive. The Qur’an, like the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, directs resentment, anger and even occasional rage toward its detractors. These emotions are elemental in scripture, as I demonstrate. To consider such sentiments whenever directed against Jews to be antisemitism is erroneous, for there exists a vital and unsubtle difference between the resentment and anger expressed in scriptures against parties considered threatening, and the preaching of racialized hatred that lies at the core of antisemitism.
The period of jahiliyya (الجاهِلِيّة) “time of ignorance,” was a time when loyalty to tribe made a mockery of justice and dignity toward humanity in general. Finally, an attempt was made to find a solution for the problem of tribal... more
The period of jahiliyya (الجاهِلِيّة) “time of ignorance,” was a time when loyalty to tribe made a mockery of justice and dignity toward humanity in general. Finally, an attempt was made to find a solution for the problem of tribal solidarity above ethics and morals by creating a multi-tribal federation. The agreement was intended to transcend the narrow-mindedness of simple tribal allegiance and extend loyalty to a federation of tribes. It was called ḥilf al-fuḑūl (حِلف الفُضُول) – “the league (or federation) of the virtuous.”
لقد أسفر الولاء القبلي خلال عصر الجاهلية عن الاستهانة بالعدالة والكرامة الإنسانية بشكل عام، الشيء الذي تمخضت عنه محاولة إيجاد حل لمسألة تقديم التضامن القبلي على حساب الأخلاق والقيم، فكان ذلك من خلال إنشاء اتحاد يضم العديد من القبائل، وكان... more
لقد أسفر الولاء القبلي خلال عصر الجاهلية عن الاستهانة بالعدالة
والكرامة الإنسانية بشكل عام، الشيء الذي تمخضت عنه محاولة
إيجاد حل لمسألة تقديم التضامن القبلي على حساب الأخلاق
والقيم، فكان ذلك من خلال إنشاء اتحاد يضم العديد من القبائل،
وكان الهدف من وراء هذا الاتفاق هو تجاوز محدودية التفكير
المرتبط بالولاء القبلي البسيط، وتوسيع مفهوم الولاء ليضم نصرة
اتحاد القبائل، فأُطلق على هذا التحالف اسم حِلف الفُضُول )رابطة
أو اتحاد الفضلاء(.
والكرامة الإنسانية بشكل عام، الشيء الذي تمخضت عنه محاولة
إيجاد حل لمسألة تقديم التضامن القبلي على حساب الأخلاق
والقيم، فكان ذلك من خلال إنشاء اتحاد يضم العديد من القبائل،
وكان الهدف من وراء هذا الاتفاق هو تجاوز محدودية التفكير
المرتبط بالولاء القبلي البسيط، وتوسيع مفهوم الولاء ليضم نصرة
اتحاد القبائل، فأُطلق على هذا التحالف اسم حِلف الفُضُول )رابطة
أو اتحاد الفضلاء(.
A corollary exists between individual and communal violence that has been taken up in the past decades by psychologists. I am thinking particularly of Vamik Volkan, a psychiatrist who has applied psychoanalytic theory to mass violence... more
A corollary exists between individual and communal violence that has been taken up in the past decades by psychologists. I am thinking particularly of Vamik Volkan, a psychiatrist who has applied psychoanalytic theory to mass violence undertaken by large groups. I am going to use Volkan’s term, “large group violence” rather than “mass violence,” because I am concerned with issues of large group identity and communal perceptions of grievance, victimization and humiliation that are often at the core of groups’ recourse to mass violence.
The Jewish refusal to accept Muhammad as prophet was a normative response among established scriptural religious communities. Once prophetic scripture is set through canonization, new prophet-like figures become threatening to the... more
The Jewish refusal to accept Muhammad as prophet was a normative response among established scriptural religious communities. Once prophetic scripture is set through canonization, new prophet-like figures become threatening to the religious status quo and cannot therefore be accepted as authentic by believers in established religions. This fact does not discount the historical reality that Jewish individuals, and in some cases significant groups, followed religious founders they felt were truly sent by God as prophets or messiahs, but the exception proves the rule that most did not.
This essay appears in a collection that treats antisemitism as it originated and developed in the West – meaning the Greco-Roman world until its mantle passed to Europe. There has never been agreement over the meaning of antisemitism,... more
This essay appears in a collection that treats antisemitism as it originated and developed in the West – meaning the Greco-Roman world until its mantle passed to Europe. There has never been agreement over the meaning of antisemitism, even among scholars of antisemitism let alone the public at large, and it often serves in the popular press as a vehicle for particular political or religious positions that tend to be reductive and essentializing. While it is true that Jews suffered as a minority community in the Muslim world just as they did elsewhere, it is not clear how that suffering relates to something that could be called “antisemitism.” It is not particularly useful to use the term in relation to the medieval Muslim world, though it is relevant in the modern period when antisemitism enters Muslim discourse with the rise of Western colonial power and influence.
This article traces the idea of a binary between one religious truth and another religious falsehood. The cycle of true versus false religion began with the birth of biblical monotheism. While monotheism of Christianity was neither the... more
This article traces the idea of a binary between one religious truth and another religious falsehood. The cycle of true versus false religion began with the birth of biblical monotheism. While monotheism of Christianity was neither the first nor the last to fall into this typology, the author argues that its particular location in the historical unfolding of monotheist communities compelled it to become the most exclusive. Thus, Christianity tends toward totalitarianism, whereas Judaism and Islam, although both equally as elitist as Christianity, do not. The article examines the argument between established religion and new religion in the way that Jewish adherents of monotheism opposed the claims of the new Christian monotheists, so did the established Jewish and Christian adherents of their notions of monotheism opposed the claims of the new Muslim monotheists. The author notices that by the seventh century, there were not only two expressions of monotheism, but many, for Jews and Christians had each split into several distinct communities based on differences in theology and praxis. The new divine dispensation of Islam, therefore, did not couch its argument in relation to an established monotheism but to several. Perhaps because of this, Islam does not claim an exclusive truth in relation to prior monotheisms, but rather a more accurate truth. In conclusion, the author wonders if we monotheists cannot begin diffusing the tension built up through our respective collective traumas by emphasizing one aspect of our shared values in monotheism: the attribute of humility. Our greatest religious role-models – Moses for Jews, Jesus for Christians, Muhammad for Muslims – characterized and exemplified the divine attribute of ultimate humility throughout their lives. They all suffered. They all triumphed. Throughout, they remained remarkably modest.
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The sharing of similar traditions between Judaism and Islam has long Tbeen recognized, but there has been little agreement about the historical and textual nature of the relationship between Jewish and Islamic tradition. By focusing on... more
The sharing of similar traditions between Judaism and Islam has long Tbeen recognized, but there has been little agreement about the historical and textual nature of the relationship between Jewish and Islamic tradition. By focusing on the contextual meanings of a legend found repeatedly in Jewish and Islamic sources, this study offers a reconstruction of its textual and historical relationship to Judaism and Islam. This, in turn, reveals another facet of the social history of the earliest Jewish-Muslim relations. The legend' examined here depicts a hero protecting his wife's virtue or himself from harm in a foreign land by hiding his true marital status and claiming his wife as his sister. A classic story occurring three times in the Hebrew Bible, the Genesis 12:10-20 rendition describes Abram hiding his relationship with Sarai from Pharaoh, while in Genesis 20:1-18 Abraham hides his relationship with Sarah from Abimelekh of Gerar.2 The third rendition of the theme in Genes...
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Established experts and new voices debate the current situation and future research directions in the Theology of Religions. Perspectives from a range of religious traditions and theological backgrounds are offered as contributions to... more
Established experts and new voices debate the current situation and future research directions in the Theology of Religions. Perspectives from a range of religious traditions and theological backgrounds are offered as contributions to this expanding research field.
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In the winter of 2009, two organizations in Los Angeles partnered to establish a novel program using Islamic and Judaic religious texts to foster intergroup dialogue and intentional conversations with the aim of enhancing and bridging... more
In the winter of 2009, two organizations in Los Angeles partnered to establish a novel program using Islamic and Judaic religious texts to foster intergroup dialogue and intentional conversations with the aim of enhancing and bridging relationships between the two communities. The “Muslim-Jewish Text Study Program” was initiated by the Center for Jewish Muslim Engagement,1 a partnership project of Hebrew Union College,2 the Omar Ibn Al Khattab Foundation,3 and the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture.4 Collaboration on the project was formed from the beginning with NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change.5 This essay, which describes our experience with this pilot program, integrates a series of oral and written evaluative instruments with the aim to provide guidance for those who are interested in considering intergroup dialogue through text study. Elsewhere in this essay we provide links to some of the documents involved with this program, including text samples and evaluative instruments.
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The story of Abraham hiding his marital relationship with Sarah from a threatening authority in a foreign land occurs twice in Genesis and is treated in some detail in both Jewish and Islamic exegetical literature. The biblical renditions... more
The story of Abraham hiding his marital relationship with Sarah from a threatening authority in a foreign land occurs twice in Genesis and is treated in some detail in both Jewish and Islamic exegetical literature. The biblical renditions of the story raise questions about the character of the patriarch when they portray him as either lying about his relationship with Sarah, or as having engaged in a forbidden (incestuous) marital union. Both Jewish and Islamic exegesis respond to these problems. Although it has often been suggested that Islamic tradition is dependent upon Jewish tradition, the nature of the exegetical responses to the problem of Abraham and Sarah's kinship suggests that Muslim religious scholars evolved a uniquely Islamic exegesis within a shared realm of religious and literary discourse during the early Islamic period
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... (3) The late Fazlur Rahman served as a powerful counterweight to the natural biases of many scholars of Islam. ... Two report that a supernatural being called the Sakina acted as his guide, (22) while the third describes essentially... more
... (3) The late Fazlur Rahman served as a powerful counterweight to the natural biases of many scholars of Islam. ... Two report that a supernatural being called the Sakina acted as his guide, (22) while the third describes essentially the same being without referring to it as such. ...
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... or anecdotes referring to the acts of the pre-Islamic prophets as well as the prophet Muhammad. ... when she is engaged in what appears to be the 'Umra pilgrimage to the Ka'ba. ... is Musa b. Harun + 'Amr b.... more
... or anecdotes referring to the acts of the pre-Islamic prophets as well as the prophet Muhammad. ... when she is engaged in what appears to be the 'Umra pilgrimage to the Ka'ba. ... is Musa b. Harun + 'Amr b. Hammad -I-Asbat + Suddi + Abu Malik and Abu Salih + Ibn 'Abbas and ...
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L'A. analyse neuf versets du Coran en rapport avec le theme du combat et de la guerre pour la religion. Ces versets suggerent une evolution historique. Au cours d'une premiere periode qui suit la revelation, le combat contre les... more
L'A. analyse neuf versets du Coran en rapport avec le theme du combat et de la guerre pour la religion. Ces versets suggerent une evolution historique. Au cours d'une premiere periode qui suit la revelation, le combat contre les ennemis de l'islam est prohibe. Dans une periode plus tardive, ce meme combat est activement encourage. Les versets coraniques qui prohibent la guerre sainte pendant les mois sacres representent une conception conservatrice de l'islam. Ces mois sacres forment une institution strategique pendant laquelle aucune tribu ne peut prendre l'ascendant sur les autres
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In addition to its coverage of general themes, this volume provides a wealth of information about the programs and hardware of the major space powers. Asif Siddiqi covered Soviet military and space systems in his paper, while Dean Cheng... more
In addition to its coverage of general themes, this volume provides a wealth of information about the programs and hardware of the major space powers. Asif Siddiqi covered Soviet military and space systems in his paper, while Dean Cheng discussed the development and evolution of major Chinese space systems. Finally, Rick Sturdevant traced the emergence and evolution of American communications satellites. While Harnessing the Heavens is a major contribution to military space history, as is always the case, one can find points to criticize. Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) served as interim manager of America’s space program from February 1958 to October 1958 when the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics became the National Air and Space Administration. Yet, ARPA’s role is essentially unnoted. Additionally, the ABM Treaty was not terminated in 2003 as stated on page fifteen. In December 2001, the Bush administration gave the six months notification of America’s intent to withdraw from the treaty as required by the treaty itself. The formal ending of the treaty came in June 2002. But these are minor problems. Overall, the papers in Harnessing the Heavens constitute a thorough review of the major developments of the first half century of the space age.
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F. E. (Francis Edward) Peters, a scholar best known as a historian of religion, died on April 30, 2020 in New York at the age of 93.
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Muslim-Jewish relations began with the emergence of Islam in 7th-century Arabia, but contacts between pre-Jewish Israelites and pre-Muslim Arabs had been common for nearly two millennia previously. These interactions inform the earliest... more
Muslim-Jewish relations began with the emergence of Islam in 7th-century Arabia, but contacts between pre-Jewish Israelites and pre-Muslim Arabs had been common for nearly two millennia previously. These interactions inform the earliest relations between Muslims and Jews and serve as precursors to the social, cultural, religious, political, and institutional relations between Muslims and Jews from the 7th century to the present. Areas and periods of particular importance are 7th-century Arabia with first contacts between Jews and the earliest Muslims, 8th–9th-century Middle East with the establishment of legal and social status of Jews in Islam, the 9th to 14th centuries in many parts of the Muslim world with the development of great Jewish intellectual advances under Islamic influence, the subsequent decline of the Muslim world and its negative impact on Jews and other minorities, the period under colonial powers with the rise of national movements and the subsequent transition to ...