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Cousins: Jews and Arabs Seek Each Other Out

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.  So, it seems, is the rule governing Jews and Arabs: the farther apart they are from one another, the greater their mutual interest, while the greater their proximity, the more antagonistic they seem.  The fascination that these kindred peoples have for one another and the fractious nature of their association is not just a contemporary phenomenon born of the modern Middle East “situation”; it has been ongoing since Muhammad published his first revelation and attempted to convert others to his cause.

Relevant Links
The Persian Puzzle  Aryeh Tepper, Jewish Ideas Daily. Who represents the real Iran: King Cyrus, ancient benefactor of the Jews, or Imam Ali, the face of intolerant Shi’ism? And whose legacy will emerge triumphant?
The Last Berber Jews  Diana Muir Appelbaum, Jewish Ideas Daily. As a child, Kamal Hachkar learned the Berber language from his grandparents in Tinghir.  As an adult, he discovered that the now exclusively Muslim town once had a substantial Jewish community. 

Over the ensuing centuries, Jews and Arabs attempted to qualify and categorize one another’s religions as well as explore common features and mutual intersections.  In his classic Jews and Arabs, S.D. Goitein described the relationship as a “symbiosis”; a fitting characterization of two religions and cultures seeking to live in cooperation and mutual benefit.

Islam regarded all of its pre-history as an age of “ignorance” (jahiliyyah) and professed no interest in any of its details—save for Persia and Israel.  Why they were excepted from the rule of disdain is unclear. The reason may have been merely utilitarian: Jews were the most immediate neighbors of the early Muslims, while Persia was Islam’s first great conquest; they were therefore the likeliest source of prospective converts.  Yet it might also have been theological: Judaism and Zoroastrianism—along with Christianity—were scripture-based religions whose adherents, named the “People of the Book” by the Qur’an, were granted relative religious tolerance.

In fact, the curiosity of early Muslims over the numerous biblical personalities and events mentioned in the Qur’an led to the creation of a genre known as “Isra’iliyat” (Israelite), in which Jewish converts combined traditional legends of the Talmud and Midrash with indigenous Arabic folklore.  Later Jewish anthologies composed in Arabia, such as the Yemenite “Midrash HaGadol,” returned the favor by incorporating Muslim traditions (hadith) into their own.

Islam was not as charitable in its estimation of the Jewish Bible, which it viewed as essentially flawed if not outright counterfeit.  Convinced, as Muslims were, of the truth of their own prophet and his revelation, they sought evidence of it in the Jewish religious tradition as well.  When they failed to find it, they concluded that it had been deliberately obscured.  This ambivalence towards Judaism was reciprocated. Maimonides (1135-1204) ruled that while it was permissible for Jews to teach Torah to Christians, even though their concept of a “New Testament” effectively invalidated the Jewish tradition, it was prohibited to teach it to Muslims, despite their essential theological kinship.  Maimonides justified his ruling on the basis that Muslims would not be convinced of the truth of Judaism, since they would not be swayed by arguments drawn from what they deemed an unreliable source, whereas Christians accepted the evidence of Jewish scripture, so theoretically could be persuaded of its truth.

Perhaps the most significant and successful medium of bicultural exchange among Jews and Muslims was the Arabic language, which (in a form known as Judeo-Arabic, utilizing the Hebrew alphabet to represent Arabic characters) became the vehicle for Jewish religious and secular expression to an extent and a degree unparalleled until the late 20th century’s use of English.

Judaism and Islam operated on parallel tracks not only in linguistic form, but in content, too. Thus, in 11th century Spain, Solomon ibn Gabirol wrote an original work of philosophy that was so consistent with the prevailing neo-Platonic philosophical norms—and so indistinguishable as a singularly Jewish composition—that when the Arabic original lapsed and the work was recovered in a Latin translation (entitled Fons Vitæ), it was presumed Muslim or Christian.  It was not until the mid-19th century that Salomon Munk identified its true author.  (The book is now known primarily in a Hebrew translation as Mekor Hayim.)

Jews were among the first Westerners to take a scientific interest in Islam in the modern age. Abraham Geiger, later the founder of Reform Judaism, wrote a prize-winning university essay entitled “What did Muhammad take from Judaism?”  In the following generation, Ignacz Goldziher—who served a term as secretary to the Orthodox Jewish community of Budapest—became the world’s leading Orientalist.  At the end of the 19th Century, Solomon Schechter, Cambridge scholar and later founder of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, retrieved the Cairo Genizah, surely the most important trove ever of Judeo-Arabic literature. Today, Israeli university departments of Arabic language and literature are world-renowned for their multi-faceted coverage of both Arabic history and culture and the contemporary Middle East, while also supplying the Israeli military and government with many of its intelligence specialists.

Arab inquisitiveness over Jews and Judaism was constrained by illiteracy and the reluctance to be exposed to alien cultures, limitations that—somewhat incongruously—seem more widespread and significant today than in the Middle Ages.  Many medieval Muslims acquainted themselves with Jewish sources, some for purposes of comparative scholarship and others for purposes of polemics.

In 2001, the American Jewish Committee published a two-volume set entitled Children of Abraham, consisting of “An Introduction to Islam for Jews” by Khalid Durán, and “An Introduction to Judaism for Muslims” by Reuven Firestone.  It would have been more revealing had each author sought to introduce the other’s religion rather than his own.  One also gets the impression that the term “Abrahamic Religions,” which has gained currency largely since 9/11, was chosen, apologetically, to incorporate Islam within the orbit of what had theretofore been exclusively the “Judeo-Christian” tradition.

Fundamentalism distorts religion, and militant fundamentalism makes the proposition of ecclesiastical recognition—let alone rapprochement—seem ever more distant and unattainable. We should be grateful to all those who sought and seek to overcome initial prejudices and contribute to mutual understanding.

Moshe Sokolow, professor of Jewish education at the Azrieli Graduate School of Yeshiva University, is the author of Studies in the Weekly Parashah Based on the Lessons of Nehama Leibowitz (2008).

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COMMENTS

Ken Besig on October 18, 2012 at 6:22 am (Reply)
You are entirely wrong, mistaken, or deliberately and maliciously ignorant concerning the supposedly mutually antagonistic relations between Jews and Arabs. There is simply no "mutual" antagonism. There is however an almost religious hatred and certainly a murderous hostility in the Arab world towards the Jewish People, whether those Jews are in Israel or the Diaspora. There is nothing even remotely similar to those feelings in the Jewish world, except where Arab terrorism, pogroms, or other similar Arab attempts at genocide for the Jews have occurred. Your attempt to create an historical picture of Arab tolerance towards Jews would be hysterical if it weren't so tragically and murderously inaccurate. We used to say that the Poles imbibed their anti Semitism with their mother's milk implying that Polish hatred of the Jews was so widespread and so profound that it was second nature to them. Arab hatred of Jews is not their second nature like it was with the Poles, for the Arabs it is their first nature, it defines who they are, what they eat and drink, what they go to sleep with and what they wake up for, what they believe and what they stand for. Your clear attempt to whitewash Arab hatred of the Jews is wrong, dangerous, and counterproductive. It is political correctness gone mad. You should be ashamed.
charles hoffman on October 19, 2012 at 3:11 am (Reply)
1. to the above comments by a Ken Besig - you are so off base as to belong on another planet. The history of Jewish-Muslim interchange of ideas and knowledge are at issue here, not the current antagonism born of recent political and military developments.

2. Sokolow is right on point with his acknowledgement of the strong cultural ties; unfortunately, far too few of his peers in Jewish (and in particular, in Orthodox Jewish) academia are willing to accept and build on these basic historical truths
Jerry Blaz on October 19, 2012 at 4:11 am (Reply)
For the past year, I've been engaged in attempting to know more about the historic Muslim/Jewish relationship, particularly in the medieval period when most Jews lived in Muslim societies. This is a period from the Gaonic period to the Andelusian period (Nineth to fifteenth centuries CE). I've accumulated about 15 books which I am slowly going through to learn about this period. There are at least several more which are probably vital to someone trying to become literate about this period of our history, a period that for political reasons, makes Jews reach a fallacious conclusion that it isn't worth learning because of our current "situation" with our Muslim fellow "Abrahamics."

Unfortunately, much of the literature of that time is in Judeo-Arabic or Arabic. It can be written in Arabic or Hebrew alphabet. I do not read Arabic; I have learned to read at least five times, and I have forgotten how at least six times. I failed to pursue my study at the time when I lived in Israel, and the need seemed to me to be more immediate than it is now, living in Los Angeles.

I was pleased to find this article written by a teacher at Yeshiva University. Here he was, writing about the commonalities of the two faiths and peoples, which is precisely something that I felt as my initial reason to learn about this precise phenomenon. And I find, after starting out believing I was getting into some kind of terra non cognita, that many scholars have invested good parts of their careers learning about this very phenomenon. My precise intuition was that Judaism and Islam were more alike than Judaism and Christianity, in spite of the Christians' dependence (and exploitation) of the Hebrew scriptures to create the groundwork for establishing Jesus' messiahship.

While the Hadith is very different from the Talmud, both form bases for legal codes, and both have well-established legal traditions. In fact the difference among legal codes used by different groups of Muslims actually creates an internal differentiation between the various groups. While they all fall under the rubric of Sharia, which is based on the Qur'an and the Sunnah (the exemplary stories about the life of Mohammed), there are four principle legal schools among the Sunni, and they are the Sahfii, the Hanbali, the Maliki and the Hanafi.

The Shi'ah is much more diverse. At any rate, this emphasis on legality in both the Sunni and Shi'ah is similar to the Jewish emphasis on Halaxah.

And like Judaism, Islam is now going through a great tumult based on the confrontation it must make with science and modernity. The Jews of Europe are in a better position because it has already had several hundred years of tumult and change since the Reformation took place in Europe, which set off a chain of events that led to liberal democracy. The question is whether Islam will be able to make those changes, and, if so, how long and how many permutations must it make to make its adjustment to join the world in the new and increasingly rapid strides now being made into the future.
viv on October 20, 2012 at 8:04 am (Reply)
From your article it could be assumed that there is more of a connection between Judaism and Christianity since Jews are allowed to teach Christians the torah. I think, however, you should mention that Maimonides allows Jews to enter mosques, which are regarded as places of worship of one God, but prohibits them from entering churches, which are regarded as places of idolatory.

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