Islam and Judiasm
Influences Contrasts and Parallels
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1.
Israelite-Jewish Relations with the Arabs
2.
Judaism and Islam – Influences and parallels
3.
Theological Idiom – Toward the Future
1. Israelite-Jewish Relations with the Arabs
From
the earliest times, Israelite relations with the Arabs have been extensive but
mainly limited to commerce and not generally acrimonious. Typical is the first recorded interaction
when Ishmaelites traders purchased Joseph from his brothers (Gen.
37:25-28). These Ishmaelites were
playing an unwitting part in God’s grand design to send the Israelites to
Nehemiah,
the 5th century BCE rebuilder of
Most
of the boundaries of the Maccabean state were with the Iturean
and Nabatean Arab kingdoms. Points of
Physical contiguity:
a) The
Nabatean Arab kingdom formed the southern and eastern borders of Perea (i.e.
Jewish areas east of the
b) The
Iturean Arab kingdom, based on the Beqa’ Valley (south-east
It
is possible that Jewish trading colonies existed in
2. Judaism and Islam – Influences and parallels
In
the
As Islam developed
it became, by far, the major religion closest to Judaism[5].
The most obvious common feature is the statement of the absolute unity
of God which Muslims repeat five times each day, and Jews at least twice. Judaism and Islam are unique in having
systems of religious law based on oral tradition which can over-ride the
written laws and which does not distinguish between holy and secular
spheres. In each, similar logical
systems are used for deriving religious law[6], and in
both cases a similar responsa literature developed in
The fundamental
similarity of Judaism and Islam, both based on religious laws in principles,
methods, and legislation, caused parallel developments in later centuries.
Probably
the only major Islamic belief that Judaism would find unpalatable would be the
recognition of Muhammad as the last and greatest of the prophets.
|
Jews
Under Islam The
Theological Dimension “If we compare the Muslim attitude to
Jews and treatment of Jews in medieval times with the position of Jews among
their Christian neighbors in medieval |
How Islam
and Traditional Judaism are structured very similarly –
|
Structural and Methodological Parallels Between |
||
|
|
Jewish Law (halakha) |
Islamic Law (sharia) |
|
Written
Law Traditionally Considered to be Perfect and Authored by God |
Written Torah
(Pentateuch - Genesis to Deuteronomy) - considered by Orthodox Judaism
to have been written by Moses at God’s dictation. Moses is considered by Orthodox Judaism[7]
to have simultaneously received the Oral Torah
from God – i.e. the basis of the rabbinic tradition on how the law is to be
interpreted in order to meet any future needs. See
also Oral Law, Revelation
and Torah: Jewish views Conservative and
Reform Judaism accept modern critical views that the Torah
i.e. Pentateuch was authored by human
beings over a long period but attest that it reflects divine inspiration. |
Qur'an
-
Traditionally Considered to have been received by Muhammad at Archangel
Gabriel’s dictation[8]. “With the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, communication of the
divine will to man ceased so that the terms of the divine revelation were
henceforth fixed and immutable.” Encyclopedia
Britannica As with the Hebrew Bible and the New
Testament modern critical methods (see What is the Koran? by Toby Lester) would seem likely, in the
long-run, to lead non-fundamentalist Muslims to a view analogous to those of Conservative
and Reform Judaism i.e. that the Quran had a long and complex history but, in
some way, was inspired. |
|
Precedent
of Authoritative Figures |
Ma'aseh
("precedent") a factual circumstance from which a halakhic rule or
principle is derived. Talmudic tractates function
much as the Hadith does
in Islam. |
Sunnah-Hadith (Arabic: “news,” or “story”) - traditions relating to the sayings and
doings of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his companions, or Sahaba.. These
are revered and received as a major source of religious law and moral
guidance, second only to the authority of the Quran in
Islamic Law.
|
|
Exegesis |
Midrash (i.e., interpretation and construction), various
modes of which were employed to find solutions to new problems, first by interpretation
of the written law and thereafter of the Mishnah and successive
halakhic sources. In the Middle Ages the word pardes was used as a mnemonic for the four types of
biblical exegesis, an acronym of peshat ("the literal meaning"), remez ("hint," i.e., veiled allusions), derash ("homiletical interpretation"), and sod ("mystery," i.e., the esoteric interpretation),
the word being made up of the initial letters of these words. See also Bible
Exegesis; The
thirteen rules by which Jewish law was derived
|
Tafsir - the science of
explanation of the Quran or of Quranic commentary. After Muhammad’s death commentaries
were needed because the text, when it achieved written form, lacked
historical sequence in the arrangement of materials, suffered from ambiguity
of both text and meaning, showed a variety of differing readings, was
recorded in a defective script, and even contained apparent
contradictions. The tafsir literature according to its form and function is of five
types, which probably appeared in roughly the following chronological order: attempts to
supply a narrative context for passages, efforts to explain the implications
for conduct of various passages, concern with details of the text, concern
with matters of rhetoric, and allegorical interpretation. |
|
Legal
Logic |
Sevara
("legal logic") - the legal logic employed by halakhic scholars in
their reasoning. This logic is founded on observation of the characteristics
of human beings as they are disclosed in their social relations with one
another and on a study of the practical realities of daily life. Sevarah may serve both as a historical source of law—a
source which factually and indirectly leads to the creation of a particular
legal rule—and as legal source of law—a source recognized by the particular
legal system as a direct means for the acceptance of a legal rule into that
system. |
“Qiyas, in Islamic law,
analogical reasoning as applied to the deduction of juridical principles from
the Quran and the Sunnah (the normative
practice of the community). With the Quran, the Sunnah, and ijma (scholarly consensus), it constitutes the
four sources of Islamic jurisprudence… “The need for qiyas developed soon after the death of Muhammad, when the expanding
Islamic state came in contact with societies and situations beyond the scope
of the Quran and the Sunnah. In some cases ijma legitimized a solution or resolved a problem. Very often, however, qiyas was used to deduce new beliefs and practices on the basis of analogy
with past practices and beliefs. “Muslim scholars consider qiyas a specific variant of the general concept of ijtihad, which is original interpretation and thought. “ |
|
Custom
changing Religious law |
minhag
("custom") -
customs which, having been accepted in practice, became binding and assume
the force of halakhah in
all areas of Jewish law and practice |
al-urf is the custom of a given society, leading to change in the fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). |
|
Ability
to Annul Laws and Establish New Norms |
Takkanah and Gezerah[9] - enactment by authority of the rabbis having
the force of law. This is used when
interpretation offered no means of a solution, or the proffered solution
provided no answer to contemporary requirements. |
There does not seem to be an Islamic parallel to the rabbinic powers
of Takkanah
and Gezerah.
Elements of flexibility useful to the same ends include: renunciation of Taqlid; the doctrine of siyasah, or “government,” which allows the political authority
to make administrative regulations; reviving the use of ijtihad[10]. See Islamic
reform. |
|
Consensus |
“MAJORITY RULE, deciding a
matter according to the majority opinion. In the field of the halakhah this rule is applied in three principal
instances: (a) determination of the
binding law according to (the view of) the majority of halakhic scholars; (b) adjudication of dispute by
the majority decision of the courts' judges; and (c) imposition by majority
decision of the community, or its representatives, of a communal enactment
(see Takkanot ha-Kahal), binding on all members of
the community. The basis for the majority rule is to be found in the exegesis
of the scriptural phrase, aharei rabbim
lehattot (to
"follow a multitude..." Ex. 23:2).” Quoted from Encyclopedia Judaica Electronic Edition |
Ijmā[11]
refers to the consensus of the ummah, the
community of Muslims,
those practicing Islam,
or of the ulema,
those learned in the relevant topic. Islamic
law prescribes specific means of consensus decision making which Muslims
are to follow in making and enforcing law. The hadith
"My community will never agree upon an error" is often cited as
support for the validity of ijma. Sunni Muslims regard ijma as the fourth fundamental source of
law, after Qur'an,
Sunnah,
and qiyas
(analogy) |
|
Historic
Norms Not Clearly Based in Scripture |
Halakhah
Given to Moses at Sinai This designation is given to
ancient halakhot for
which there is no scriptural support (or at the most very faint support). Even the heads
of the Babylonian academies, after the close of the Talmud (c. 600 CE) were obliged to follow the authority of their predecessors |
Taqlid[12] - ‘Arabic “covering with authority”, in Islamic law, the unquestioning
acceptance of the legal decisions of another without knowing the basis of
those decisions. There is a wide range of opinion about taqlid among different groups or schools of Muslims…. Those Sunnites who
affirm taqlid believe that the legal scholars of the early period were uniquely
qualified to derive authoritative legal opinions, binding upon the whole
Muslim community, from the source materials of Islamic law, the Quran and the
sunna of the Prophet. In the early period, a series of great legal scholars
exercised independent interpretation (ijtihad) of the sources, carrying
out their efforts through the use of such legal tools as analogical reasoning
(qiyas). In the third Islamic century (9th century AD) and subsequent
centuries, with the emergence of legal schools formed around some of the most
significant scholars, it came to be widely believed that all important
questions of law had been dealt with and that the right of independent
interpretation had been withdrawn for future generations. Henceforward, all
were to accept the decisions of the early authorities—i.e., to exercise
taqlid toward them.’ Encyclopedia Britannica |
|
Earliest
Authorative Code[13] |
The first post-Talmudic
authorative codes are Halakhot Pesukot written in the eighth century Iraq; Halakhot
Gedolot ninth century Iraq. For
details see Codification
of the Law. |
“The historical process of the discovery of Allah's law (see below)
was regarded as completed by the end of the 9th century when the law had
achieved a definitive formulation in a number of legal manuals written by
different jurists.” Encyclopedia Britannica |
|
Responsa
Literature |
She'elot u' Teshuvot – flourished
in |
Fatwa literature – flourished
in |
|
Theology
and Philosophy |
In this area there was considerable influence of Islamic thinkers (e.g.
Kalam,
Neo-Platonist and Aristotelian philosophers and Mutazila[14]
theologians) on their Jewish counterparts such as Saadia
Gaon and Maimonides. |
|
Why Islam
and Traditional Judaism developed so differently -
|
Content and Historical Differences Between |
||
|
|
Jewish Law (halakha) |
Islamic Law (sharia) |
|
Written
Law |
Written Torah
(Pentateuch - Genesis to Deuteronomy) and Qur'an
very different in literary form, content and attitudes. Exodus-Deuteronomy, unlike the Quran,
include a great deal of legal material. |
|
|
Precedent
of Authoritative Figures |
Talmudic
literature covers many centuries and two countries while Hadith covers Muhammad’s
lifetime. Muhammad had total authority unlike any rabbi. The Talmudic
literature includes a vast amount of legal material; far more than do the
Hadith.
|
|
|
Cultural
Background |
The Talmudic tradition
was developed in Roman Palestine (see Mishnah) under the strong
influence of Greek
Culture. It further developed at
the Babylonian
Academies in Sassanian
Babylonia ( |
Mecca at the time of Muhammad was a center of pagan pilgrimage, highly
involved in camel-based commerce and was highly tribalized. Pagan, Jewish and Christian tribes lived in
close proximity. The society had a very low level of literacy. “It has been part of the
Muslim’s belief, based on traditions, that Prophet Muhammad was illiterate.” |
|
History
of the legal system |
§
Jewish
law is based first upon the Written Torah – mainly Exodus-Deuteronomy. Much of this law is
similar to that contained in Mesopotamian legal ‘codes’ such as that of Hammurabi (1728 BCE -1686 BCE)[15]. §
The
first Rabbinic collection of laws is the Mishnah published in Hellenized Roman Galilee about 200
CE. Most of these laws date to the
first, and even more to the second century CE. Some of these laws can be traced back to
the Written Torah as is done in the Halakhic Midrashim. (Mekilta
to Exodus, Sifra
to Leviticus, Sifre
to
Numbers and Deuteronomy.
Other laws have no definable basis in the Written Torah. §
The
Mishnah forms the basis for the two
Talmuds each of which contains
extensive halakhic (legal) and Agadic (non-legal) material. o
The Palestinian
Talmud – This reflects mainly the views and discussions of the Galilean
academies during the period from the publication of Mishnah until the mid 4th
century. This period more or less
starts with the great third century crisis of the o
The
Babylonian Talmud - This reflects mainly
the views and discussions of the Babylonian ( |
“For the
first Muslim community established under the leadership of the Prophet at “During his lifetime Muhammad … resolved
legal problems as they arose by interpreting and expanding the general
provisions of the Quran, and the same ad hoc
activity was carried on after his death by the caliphs (temporal and
spiritual rulers) of “The historical process of the discovery of
Allah's law was regarded as completed by the end of the 9th century when the
law had achieved a definitive formulation in a number of legal manuals
written by different jurists. “Throughout the medieval period this basic
doctrine was elaborated and systematized in a large number of commentaries,
and the voluminous literature thus produced constitutes the traditional
textual authority of Shariah law.” Encyclopedia Britannica |
|
Political
Factors |
During the formative period of rabbinic tradition Jews lived by tolerance within
the great Roman and Sassanian empires.
Jewish courts usually lacked jurisdiction over major civil and
criminal cases. |
Islam, from its beginning was a conquering religion[16]. Islamic courts maintained jurisdiction over
a very wide range of issues. |
|
National
Factors |
Traditionally the
Jewish nation and religion have been coextensive. |
Over 80% of Muslims are not Arab |
Jewish
influence on Islam in its formative period was great[1]. It is of interest to note that there are
cases of Jewish ideas or practices entering Islam, being changed and then
returned to Judaism. Thus the Talmudic
idea of kavannah (praying or doing a ritual act with conscious intent)
entered Islam which invented ritual kavannah formulations and these in
turn, in Hebrew garb, were reintroduced into Judaism by Jewish mystics[17].
When the Arabs conquered the
a.
Philosophy
v Mainstream Jewish philosophy developed as a subdivision of
Islamic philosophy[18].
This is true whether one is talking of Saadia Gaon, who was influenced
by the Muslim-Kalam theological school or of the Jewish Neoplatonists or
Aristotelians that followed him.
v Greek philosophy, science, medicine and mathematics was
absorbed by Jewish thinkers in the Arab world via Arabic translations[19]
and, to some extent, via Arab Muslim commentators[20].
In science and philosophy, Jewish scholars absorbed the data and, more
importantly, method, world view and pre-suppositions of the Greek masters. Also
absorbed were more dubious works e.g. Hermetica, astrology.
v “In their philosophy of nature…
Hellenistic and medieval Jewish thinkers… for the most part… adopted the view
that the universe is governed by immutable laws…. However, the philosophical
view of nature posed problems for the traditional Jewish (and Muslim and
Christian) view as expressed in the Bible and Talmud.
For traditional Judaism the universe did not run according to set
immutable laws. Rather God directly
regulated the workings of the universe that he had created, insuring that
events would lead to the specific goal He had in mind. The medieval Jewish philosopher, unable to
give up this view of nature completely, sought in his philosophies of nature to
reconcile the biblical and Talmudic concepts of creation and miracles with the
theories of secular philosophy.”[21]
v
Of
special note are:
o
Moses Maimonides was a follower of Greek-Islamic Aristotelianism and
a practitioner of Greek-Islamic medicine. Mishneh
Torah was the main conduit for entry of Greek science and philosophy into
rabbinic legal tradition[22]. Goitein said that the Guide of the Perplexed is a great monument of Jewish-Arab
symbiosis, not merely because it was written in Arabic by an original Jewish
thinker and was studied by Arabs, but because it developed and conveyed to
large sections of the Jewish intellectual elite ideas which had so long
occupied the Arab mind;
o
Neo-Platonism[23]
fusing with older Jewish Mystic tradition to form Kabbalah[24]
o
Bahya ibn Paquda’s Neo-Platonic and
Islamic Sufi influenced Hovot ha-Levavot (Duties of the Heart) was the founding work of
Jewish ethical or pietistic literature[25]
and has strongly influenced subsequent works and the lives of pietistic groups
such as the Musar Movement. Hovot
ha-Levavot is clearly in the Sufi (Islamic mystical) tradition and, in
fact, is very similar to Christian and Muslim books of the same school.[26]
o
Judah
Halevi’s Neo-Platonic influenced Kuzari and Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed have an ongoing influence on traditional
Jews.
b.
Secular Poetry
Muslims consider the Koran to be the perfect divine book and the Arabic
of the Koran to be the ideal language. Thus, when Muslim poets in
c. Grammar
Linguistic Tradition and Lexicography
The
Arabs developed vowel pointing to ensure that preservation of the ancient
reading tradition of the Koran was perpetuated.
Also in support of maintaining and increasing the understanding of the
Koran they developed the sciences of Arabic and lexicography. The Masorites developed the system
of vowels used in Hebrew during the period of the Arabic Caliphate probably
stimulated by concurrent developments for Arabic and Syriac. Medieval Hebrew study of grammar and
lexicography were inspired and informed by the development of those branches of
knowledge for Arabic.
3. Theological Idiom –
Toward the Future
Judaism
and Islam being very similar religious systems (see Goitein), face very similar
intellectual and practical problems in confronting western culture. Many of these problems are quite different
from those faced by Christianity. There
may be much to gain by opening a dialogue between Jewish and Muslim religious
thinkers. Of course, any such dialogue
requires that each group study the other’s religion and literature, as they did
at the height of the Arab-Jewish symbiosis.
I’d
like to end with a hope for the future –
“Behold,
how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!”
Psalm
133:1
Select Bibliography
Blau,
Joseph L., The story of Jewish philosophy, Random House [1966, c1962]
Ephal,
J, The Ancient Arabs, Magnes Brill 1982
Frank,
Daniel H. and Leaman, Oliver (eds.), History of Jewish philosophy,
Routledge, 1997.
Geiger, Abraham, JUDAISM AND ISLAM, translated by F.M.
Young, 1896
Goitein, S D, Jews and Arabs: Their Contact Through the
Ages, Schoken 1955, 1964
Goldstein, B. R, Maimonides, article
Encyclopedia Judaica vol. 11 cols. 754-782, Keter 1972
Huff, Toby E., The Rise of Early Modern
Science:
Hyman,
A, Philosophy, Jewish, article in Encyclopedia Judaica vol. 13
cols. 421-465, Keter 1972 see also article Platonism article in
Encyclopedia Judaica vol. 13 cols. 628-630, Keter 1972
Jackson, Bernard S.(ed.), The Interplay of Jewish
and Islamic Laws in Jewish Law in Legal
History and the Modern World,
Kasher, Aryeh, Jews,
Idumaeans and Ancient Arabs, J CB Mohr (Paul Siebeck)
Lewis,
Bernard, The Jews
of Islam,
Neusner, Jaob and Sonn, Tamara Sonn, Comparing
Religions Through Law: Judaism and Islam, Routledge 1999
Neusner, Jaob and Sonn, Tamara Sonn, Brockopp, Jonathan E., Judaism and Islam in Practice: A Sourcebook, Routledge 2000
Pagis, D., article Poetry
– Medieval Hebrew Secular Poetry in Encyclopedia Judaica vol. 13 cols.
681-690, Keter 1972
Viorst,
Milton In the Shadow of the Prophet: The Struggle for the Soul of Islam, Anchor
Doubleday 1998
Wegner,
Judith Romney, “You
can get there from here!” Exegetical Excursions from Judaism to Islam
JEWISH INFLUENCES IN
THE QUR'AN
On the Hadith
[1] “GESHEM,
GASHMU, an “Arab,” one of the chief opponents of Nehemiah, who, together with
Sanballat and Tobiah, opposed the rebuilding of the walls of
“Some scholars claim that Geshem is to be identified with a “king” of the
same name mentioned in a Lihyanite Arabian votive inscription on a silver bowl
… belonging to the fifth century B.C.E. This inscription reads in translation: “What
Quaynu son of Geshem, King of Kedar, brought (as offering) to (the goddess)
Han'Illat.” On this basis, it has been suggested that Geshem King of Kedar is
identical with Nehemiah's enemy, but the data for this identification are
inconclusive.” From Encyclopedia
Judaica Electronic Edition
[2] Aharoni, Y and
Avi-Yonah, M, The Macmillan Bible Atlas, third edition revised by A F Rainey
and Z Safrai, MacMillan 1993 map 217
[3] The Macmillan Bible Atlas
map 213
[4] “While the Jewish origins of some Islamic ideas were originally adduced
by Jewish, mostly rabbinic, scholars, in a kind of pride of ancestry, the same
argument has been used by anti-Islamic polemicists, mainly Roman Catholic,
whose purpose was not to glorify Judaism but to discredit Islam…. The whole problem of Jewish, or for that
matter of Christian or other extraneous influences on Islam is of course a
problem for Jewish and other non-Muslim scholars. It is not a problem for
Muslim scholars, for whom such a question simply cannot arise. As Muslims see it,
Muhammad is the Prophet of God, and the Qur'an is divine in a sense both more
literal and more precise than in the Jewish or Christian perception of the Old
and New Testaments. According to what has become the accepted Sunni doctrine,
the Qur'an is eternal and uncreated, coexistent with God from eternity to
eternity.
“he Qur'anic text thus has a literal divine sanctity that has no parallel
in the normal forms of Judaism or Christianity. To suggest borrowing or
influence is therefore, from a Muslim point of view, a blasphemous absurdity.
Does God borrow? Is God influenced? For a Muslim, Judaism, like Christianity,
is a superseded predecessor of Islam. The Jewish and Christian scriptures were
authentic divine revelations given to prophets sent by God. But they were
neglected and corrupted by the Jews and Christians, and have been replaced by
God's final and perfect revelation, which is the Qur'an. If there are common
elements or resemblances between the Bible and other Jewish and Christian
writings and the Islamic dispensation, this is due to the common divine source.
Where they differ the Jewish or Christian texts have been distorted by their
unworthy custodians.
“ome Jewish influence is mentioned by the early jurists and theologians
of Islam, but where it is seen and recognized as such, it is perceived as a
debasement or a dilution of the authentic message-as something like what in
Christian history was called a Judaizing heresy. There is a whole body of early
Islamic religious material that is neither part of the Qur'an nor part of the
accepted and authenticated hadith, but that is used to supplement them. It
consists of stories concerning the Prophets, narratives of various other kinds,
and interpretations of these stories, many of them of midrashic origin,
probably introduced and circulated by Jewish converts to Islam. This material
is collectively known in Muslim literature as Isra'iliyyat, Israelite stuff or Israelitish
fables. To begin with, this term, in Arabic usage, was purely descriptive.
Never in any sense a term of praise, it was at first neutral and then came to
have a distinctly negative connotation….
“n general, when a Jewish influence or element is identified as such, it
is for that reason rejected. If it is accepted as part of authentic Islam, then
by definition it is not Jewish but divine in origin. If the Jews have something
similar, then it is because they too were formerly the recipients of divine
revelations….
“e have already noted some of the problems of the interrelation between
Judaism and Islam, and the influences either may have exerted on the other. It
is often difficult and sometimes impossible to say of one or another practice
or idea, which is the earlier and which is the later, and which therefore
inspired or influenced the other. It is safer for the time being to use a
neutral formulation, and to speak of a series of remarkable resemblances
between developments in Judaism and parallel developments in Islam. In some
matters, the simple facts of chronology indicate beyond reasonable doubt which
is the source, which is the recipient of influence. In others the line of
development is more difficult to determine.” Lewis 1984
“The next example belongs to an entirely different sphere. Judaism and
Islam both possess a special class of literature which, to a large extent,
fulfills the part that is taken in other cultures by the written law, the
responsa literature. This literature consists of legal decisions given in
answer to questions by individuals. These responsa (fatwa pl. fatawa in Arabic) have the force of decisions of law, and have been collected
in tens of books which, both in Judaism and Islam, serve as textbooks of legal precedents
and as the basis of subsequent decisions. It is true that Roman law also knew
this genre of legal literature (jus respondendi), and the assumption that the
Jewish and Muslim responsa literature was derived from the Roman practice
cannot be rejected offhand.
“However, with regard to Judaism and Islam, it is difficult to
establish with certainty what preceded what. In general, one can state,
however, that a great part of Muslim religious law developed in
“However this may be, the fact remains that the two religions, Judaism
and Islam, seem to be the only halakhic religions in the world (the Muslim name
for halakhah is Shari'a," meaning the main road; and the various halakhic schools are called "Madhahib, " a root also related
to "going" and expressing—just like the Hebrew term halakhah—the idea of a "way of life"). As mentioned above, both
possess a sacred oral law alongside the written law; and both created a huge
literature of religious law, chiefly by means of rational analogy. In both,
this was the work of independent religious scholars (fuqaha, ulama—in Arabic) and in both, different schools of law are all considered
equally orthodox. In both, religious preoccupation with the religious law is
considered a Divine precept, and both even believe that God Himself engages in
the same activity together with His heavenly companions; both have similar
basic principles (cf., for instance, the idea of "The power of permission
is preferable," in the Babylonian Talmud, Ber. 60a to the end of Sura II in the Qur'an), and similar categories to
classify all human deeds and scores of identical legal details. It is, however,
impossible to determine with certainty when the literary genre of Responsa
first appeared, or whether it was the result of the influence of one religion
on another. There are hardly any Jewish responsa from the time preceding R.
Yehuda Gaon (middle of the 8th century), and in Islam there were, up to the
same time, only a few "private" responsa from such individuals as
Ibrahim al-Nakh'i of al-Kufa, who lived in the first century of the Hegira.
According to those scholars who believe that this literary genre already occurs
in the Talmud, and that the geonim only continued the work of earlier
Jewish Sages, the responsa literature would have been taken over by Islam from
Judaism, but the question still requires thorough research.22 I. Goldziher, on
the other hand, showed that, in some details at least, the influence of Islamic
responsa literature on Judaism can be asserted with some certainty. Much of the
Jewish responsa literature in Islamic countries was written in Arabic, and the
questions addressed to the Sage from all over the world, sometimes open with
this formula: "Let our master teach us, and may the Lord give him a double
reward." But why a double reward? Goldziher showed that this formula is
based on a popular hadith saying, ascribed to the Prophet, which
says: "If a judge rules with deliberation and his decision is right, he
shall receive a double reward from the Lord."23
“One more example of responsa literature illustrates Islamic influence
on Judaism, even though this whole literary religious genre may have first
started in Islam under Jewish influence. Jewish religious literature proscribes
the playing of any musical instrument on Sabbath and holidays as a token of
mourning over the destruction of the
Quoted from Encyclopedia Judaica Electronic Edition
[6] In Islam - usul al-fiqh
The four major sources from which law is derived: the Quran; the sunna (practice
of the Prophet as transmitted through his sayings); ijmac
(consensus of scholars); and qiyas (analogical deductions from these
three).
In Rabbinic Judaism the sources of authority are: logical interpretation
of the Written Law I.e. the Pentateuch; statements handed down by tradition
(Kabbalah); sayings of the Sages; changes to the law made on the authority of
the Sages; and custom.
[7] “Reform
thinkers, accepting the historical (or "critical") approach to the
biblical text, have asserted, along with Buber, that God meets each person
individually and that Jewish law, therefore, is not binding. Each of us must do
what his or her conscience dictates in response to our encounters with
God…. This emphasis on individual
autonomy inevitably weakens one's sense of tradition and community….
“Most Orthodox thinkers, at the other end of
the spectrum, deny the legitimacy of using the historical method to understand
the Torah, arguing that studying the Torah in that way undermines its
authority. They insist that the revelation on
I
believe the Torah is . . . God-given.. . . By "God-given" I mean that
He willed that man abide by His commandments and that that will was
communicated in discrete words and letters. . . in as direct, unequivocal, and
unambiguous a manner as possible.
Literary
criticism of the Bible is a problem, but not a crucial one. Judaism has
successfully met greater challenges in the past … [It] is chiefly a nuisance
but not a threat to the enlightened believer (The Condition of Jewish Belief, New
York, 1966, pp. 124-125).
“Conservative thinkers accept the historical
method of Bible study but continue to affirm the legally binding character of
Jewish law. This form of Jewish faith preserves consistency in method in that
it permits us to use the same methods of analysis that we use in examining the
texts of other cultures for our study of the classics of the Jewish tradition,
and it leaves us open to what we learn from any form of both traditional and
modern scholarship. It nevertheless perpetuates a strong sense of tradition and
community. This approach, however, requires a considerable amount of good
judgment in deciding how to use the newly emerging historical evidence about
the development of the Torah and tradition in applying them to modern times.
Moreover, because the text of the Torah is no longer seen as a direct
transcription of what God said at Sinai, this method of studying and practicing
the Jewish tradition necessitates a thorough treatment of what we mean by
claiming that the Torah's laws and theories have the authority of divine
revelation. Conservative thinkers of the past and present have interpreted the
process and authority of revelation in three general ways. Some, like Joel
Roth, conceive of revelation as God communicating with us in actual words. For
such thinkers, revelation has propositional content and is normative as God's
word. Unlike Orthodox thinkers, however, these Conservative exponents
acknowledge that the Torah text that we have in hand shows evidence of
consisting of several documents edited over time. Nevertheless, Jewish law is
binding as the word of God interpreted by the rabbis over the generations.
“Others within the Conservative movement, like
Ben Zion Bokser (1907-1984) and Robert Gordis (1908-1992), believe that God,
over time, inspires specific individuals who then translate that inspiration
into human language. Revelation thus consists of both a divine and a human
component. The human element explains the historical influences on our sacred
texts. Nevertheless, Jewish law remains binding because the human beings who
formulated it were inspired by God.
“Still others within the Conservative movement
conceive of revelation as the human response to encounters with God. Some,
following the lead of Rosenzweig, think of such meetings in individualistic,
personal terms, on the model of human beings meeting each other. Louis Jacobs
and Seymour Siegel (1927-1988) do this in their writings, and so does Abraham
Joshua Heschel (1907-1972). In Heschel's striking term, the Torah itself is
then a midrash, an interpretation, of the nature and will of
God, formulated in response to ineffable encounters with God. In addition to
the existentialists and phenomenologists within this camp are rationalists like
David Lieber and Elliot Dorff; the rationalists conceive of revelation as the
ongoing human attempts to discover truths about God and the world. Rationalists
affirm the importance of our personal encounters with God, but they also call
attention to what we can learn about God from nature, history, and human
experience as a whole. Revelation, on this theory, comes not only from meeting
God but also from our outreach to God. For both approaches, Jewish law is
binding on both communal and theological grounds: It is the legal part of our
communal midrash, representing our collective aspiration to be holy in response
to our interactions with God.
“Two factors characterize revelation for all
three of these approaches within the Conservative movement. First, the
authority of revelation is based on a combination of the divine and the human.
That is, whether God spoke words at Sinai, or whether God inspired human beings
to write down specific words, or whether human beings wrote down the words of
the Torah in response to their encounter with God in an attempt to express the
nature and implications of that encounter, the authority of the Torah's
revelation is, in part, divine. On the other hand, for all three approaches, it
is human as well. Whether the divine input came through words, inspiration, or
modeling, human beings had a hand in translating that divine incursion into the
words of the written and oral Torah. Moreover, we honor and obey the Torah, at
the very least, because our ancestors have done so over the centuries and
because we continue to see it as authoritative today.
“Second, for all three approaches, revelation
is ongoing. The revelation at Sinai is critically important because that is
where our ancestors as a people first encountered God and wrote their reactions
to that event in the document that became the constitutive covenant between God
and the Jewish people. Revelation continues, however, just as the talmudic
rabbis said it does, through a continuing encounter with the tradition. Therefore,
what the liturgy has us declare when called to witness a public reading of the
Torah is not an accident: God not only "chose us from among all nations
and gave us His Torah" (in the past); God is also to be blessed now as
"giver of the Torah," or, reading the word as a verb, as "the
One who gives the Torah." Each time we read the Torah anew, nothing less
than God's revelation is taking place again, and we bless God for that continuing relationship with us.” Elliot N. Dorff in Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary by David L. Lieber (Editor), Jules Harlow
(Editor) Pp.
1403-1405
[8] “In the Muslim view, Muhammad received every word of the Quran directly
from God. The Quran describes, and indignantly rejects, accusations that the
Prophet had reproduced things that he had drawn from other sources. Western
scholars who have analyzed the contents of the various revelations have shown
that much of the narrative material concerning biblical persons and events
differs from the biblical account and seems to have come from later Christian
and, above all, from Jewish sources (e.g., Midrash). Other motifs, such as the
idea of the impending judgment and the descriptions of paradise agree with
standard topics in the missionary preaching of the contemporary Syriac church
fathers. The dependence need not, however, be of a literary kind, but might be
due to influence from oral traditions.” Quoted from Encyclopedia Britannica
[9] A takkanah is a directive enacted by
the halakhic scholars, or other competent body enjoying the force of law. It
constitutes one of the legal sources of Jewish law. A law which has its
creative source in takkanah serves as the
motivated addition of a new norm to the overall halakhic system, whereas a law
originating from the legal source of midrash (exegesis, i.e.,
from construing a biblical passage or other existing law; see Interpretation)
serves to reveal the concealed content of existing law within the
aforementioned system. The Written Torah is the constitution—the supreme
legislation—of Jewish law, and in the Torah itself power is delegated to the
halakhic scholars to enact takkanot. The
legislative activity of the halakhic scholars is sometimes termed takkanah and sometimes gezerah. The term gezerah is generally
applied to the determination of directives aimed at deterring man from the
prohibited, at making "a fence around the Torah"—i.e., directives of
a negative nature prohibiting the performance of a particular act. The term takkanah, on the other hand,
generally refers to directives aimed at imposing a duty to perform a particular
act
[10] “In the first centuries of Islam the jurists were allowed to use their
independent judgment (ijtihad) in their decisions, but had to base it on
primary sources. Later they were restricted in their freedom of independent
decision and were obliged to follow the taqlid (precedent) and to rely on former judgments.
One finds a parallel development in rabbinic Judaism, in which even the geonim were obliged to follow the authority of their predecessors. Nonetheless,
social and economic transformations sometimes demanded departure from accepted
laws and rules. Thus the geonim and the later generations of rabbis were
obliged to establish ordinances adjusted to the new situation. A similar
principle was current in the madhhab (legal school) of Malik b. Anas, i.e., the isti\lah, the adaptation (or correction) of laws, for the benefit of the
community.”
Quoted from Encyclopedia Judaica Electronic Edition
[11] “Ijma (Arabic:
“agreeing upon,” or “consensus”), the universal and infallible agreement of the
Muslim community, especially of Muslim scholars on any Islamic principle, at
any time. The consensus—based on the Hadith (sayings of
Muhammad), “My people will never agree in an error”—constitutes the third of
the four sources of Islamic jurisprudence
… has been the most important factor in … formulating the doctrine and
practice of the Muslim community.
“In Muslim history ijma has always had
reference to consensuses reached in the past, near or remote, and never to
contemporaneous agreement….
“In modern Muslim usage, ijma has lost its
association with traditional authority and appears as a democratic institution
and an instrument of reform.” Quoted from Encyclopedia Britannica
[12] The struggle
of modernizing Muslims to renew Islamic law through reducing the role of taqlid and reopening the gates of ijtihad clearly
parallels the vision of those founders of Protestantism who rejected the
authority of Roman Catholic doctrines not clearly based in scripture and
claimed to have the right to derive a purer Christianity through a reasoned
analysis of scripture.
[13] “The influence
of fiqh (Islamic
jurisprudence) is clear in the systematic dealings of the geonim with halakhic materials
according to their contents, e.g., the laws of inheritance, gifts, deposits,
oaths, usury, witness and writs, loans, and obligations, as they were arranged
by Saadiah, Hai, Samuel b. Hophni, who wrote their works in Arabic. This is
especially clear in Maimonides' code, Mishneh
Torah, written in Hebrew and preceded by Sefer
ha-Mizvot (Book of Precepts), the first exposition of the 613 precepts. Maimonides'
arrangement of these works indicates knowledge of the methods and principles of
the fiqh literature and
of the Hadith collections of
al-Bukhari, Muslims, and others. Maimonides applied the ijma((consensus), one of the four u\ul al-fiqh (roots of fiqh), in his code. In his introduction to this
code he gives the chain of the teachers and rabbis who during 40 generations
transmitted the Oral Law from Moses to R. Ashi. This is a classic illustration
of how the isnad—the method of
verification of the sayings of Muhammad and his companions—was taken over by
early Islam from Judaism, which traced the chain of tradition from Moses to the
Men of the Great Synagogue (Avot 1); and in turn was used by Maimonides as a
principle to verify the halakhah” Quoted from Encyclopedia
Judaica Electronic Edition
[14] “As a consequence of translations of Greek philosophical and scientific
works into Arabic during the 8th and 9th centuries and the controversies of
Muslims with Dualists (e.g., Gnostics and Manichaeans), Buddhists, and
Christians, a more powerful movement of rational theology emerged; its
representatives are called the Mutazilah (literally “those who stand apart,” a
reference to the fact that they dissociated themselves from extreme views of
faith and infidelity). On the question of the relationship of faith to works,
the Mutazilah - who called themselves “champions of God's unity and justice” -
taught … that works were an essential part of faith …. They further defended the position, as a
central part of their doctrine, that man was free to choose and act and was,
therefore, responsible for his actions. Divine predestination of human acts,
they held, was incompatible with God's justice and human responsibility. The
Mutazilah, therefore, recognized two powers, or actors, in the universe—God in
the realm of nature and man in the domain of moral human action. The Mutazilah
explained away the apparently predeterministic verses of the Quran as being
metaphors and exhortations.
“They claimed that human reason, independent of
revelation, was capable of discovering what is good and what is evil, although
revelation corroborated the findings of reason. Man is, therefore, under moral
obligation to do the right even if there were no prophets and no divine
revelation. Revelation has to be interpreted, therefore, in conformity with the
dictates of rational ethics. Yet revelation is neither redundant nor passive.
Its function is twofold. First, its aim is to aid man in choosing the right,
because in the conflict between good and evil man often falters and makes the
wrong choice against his rational judgment. God, therefore, must send prophets,
for he must do the best for man; otherwise, the demands of divine grace and
mercy cannot be fulfilled. Secondly, revelation is also necessary to
communicate the positive obligations of religion—e.g., prayers and
fasting—which cannot be known without revelation.
“God is viewed by the Mutazilah as pure Essence,
without eternal attributes, because they hold that the assumption of eternal
attributes in conjunction with Essence will result in a belief in multiple
co-eternals and violate the pure, unadulterated unity of God. God knows, wills,
and acts by virtue of his Essence and not through attributes of knowledge,
will, and power. Nor does he have an eternal attribute of speech, of which the
Quran and other earlier revelations were effects; the Quran was, therefore,
created in time and was not eternal.
“The promises of reward that God has made in the
Quraan to righteous people and the threats of punishment he has issued to
evildoers must be carried out by him on the Day of Judgment. For promises and
threats are viewed as reports about the future, and if not fulfilled exactly
those reports will turn into lies, which are inconceivable of God. Also, if God
were to withhold punishment for evil and forgive it, this would be as unjust as
withholding reward for righteousness. There can be neither undeserved
punishment nor undeserved reward; otherwise, good may just as well turn into
evil and evil into good. From this position it follows that there can be no
intercession on behalf of sinners.
“When, in the early 9th century, the Abbasid caliph
… raised Mutazilism to the status of the state creed, the Mutazilite
rationalists showed themselves to be illiberal and persecuted their opponents….
” In the
10th century a reaction began against the Mutazilah that culminated in the
formulation and subsequent general acceptance of another set of theological
propositions, which became Sunni, or “orthodox” theology.” Quoted from Encyclopedia Britannica
[15] From a secular
point of view, one might say that the laws in the Pentateuch were an Israelite
local adaptation of the general ancient near Eastern Semitic legal tradition
while much of Sharia could be seen as an Islamization of Hejaz Arab tribal law.
[16] Re. The impact of Islam’s background as a conquering religion the
following is quoted from Islam Promotes Terrorism and Violence by
Richard D. Connerney. Appeared
originally as, "Islam: Religion of the Sword?” In www.salon.com, October 11, 2001. Reprinted in
Islam: Opposing Viewpoints, William Dudley (ed.), Thomson Gale 2004
During a recent interview on NPR, Reston (James Reston, author of "Warriors of God: Richard the
Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade."
said) "Bin Laden no more represents Islam than [Jim] Jones and David
Koresh represent Christianity….
Yet, when asked about the origin of jihad as expressed in the Quran,
Reston and the others get a bit tongue-tied. There are several reasons for
this. The Quran is a notoriously difficult text to understand in some ways. For
one thing, it lacks almost any sense of context: Verses are addressed to
mysterious Yous and Theys from an equally mysterious We. Moreover, the subject
of the verses follow no discernible pattern, moving from questions of
jurisprudence to theological and mythological concerns and back again,
sometimes without any apparent pattern…. Untangling the original meaning, or
creating a distinct context in which to interpret the verses, is a nightmarish
problem.
For all too many, being a serious Muslim means doing Allah's work by any
means necessary. Of course, most Muslims will never be terrorists, The problem
is that for all its schisms, sects and multiplicity of voices, Islam's violent
elements are rooted in its central texts, It is unlikely that the voices of
moderation will ultimately silence the militants, because the militants will
always be able to make the case that they are standing for the true expression
of the faith. Liberal Muslims have not established a viable alternative
interpretation of the relevant verses in the Qur'an. "When liberal Muslims
declare that Sept. 11 was an atrocity contrary to the Koran," observes
Farrukh Dhondy, "the majority of Muslims around the world don't believe
them. They accept the interpretation of fundamentalists, whom liberal Muslims
have allowed to remain unchallenged.", . .
Violent Islam has the enemy (us) and the scriptural justification (in the
Qur'an) to keep pushing until they win-that is, until the West is Islamicized.
And moderate Islam is essentially powerless to stop it.
Robert Spencer, Islam Unveiled, 2002.
Thus the question of what the Quran has to say about jihad, or any other
subject, is exceedingly difficult. As could be expected from a document that
arises in an environment of unceasing internecine warfare, as the
Some religious texts, including parts of both the Bible and the Quran,
are the hermeneutic equivalent of a Rorschach test-their original meaning is so
obscure that any interpretation reveals more about the reader than it does
about the author….
Thus, jihad is historically and textually ambivalent. It could be
interpreted as a simple struggle with oneself, like wrestling with your
conscience. It could also, however, be interpreted as acts of physical violence
against non-Muslims. There might be rules regarding civilian noncombatants -
and then again, there might not be. The idea of jihad, like many ideas in the
Quran, is aJanus-faced idea with two or more possible interpretations, all
supported by scripture. Historically, numerous interpretations have been drawn
from the Quran in relation to jihad by different groups with different
agendas….
Muslims are not the only ones to have waged wars in the name of religion.
So have Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists. The validity of the comparison
ends there, however. It seems plain that Islam is confronted by the problem of
religious violence in ways that other religions are not. In the world today,
the locus of most religious violence is the Muslim world. And Islam is the only
religion that has spawned a wandering group of holy warriors, traveling from
conflict to conflict fighting the enemies of Islam wherever they see them-in
… Fundamentalism, as a literal and non-historic approach to religious
scripture, exists in every tradition, but only in Islam does it go hand in hand
with widespread violence. Yes, Southern preachers occasionally get carried
away, and yes, Hindu fundamentalists cause intermittent communal violence in
the
… Islam, from its inception, is a political as well as a religious
movement, and the themes of religion, politics and law are inseparable in the
Quran and in Islam as a whole. In short, Islam does not have a religious
history apart from its political history.
This is in distinction from Judaism and Christianity, in which the
religious community both predates and postdates the existence of a Jewish or
Christian political state…. This
development of the religious community outside of the halls of political power
gives both Judaism and Christianity the flexibility to adapt to the secular
concept of the separation of church and state that comes out of the
Enlightenment, and to embrace ideas of modernity and secular civil society….
… In Islam, it is not the religious message that promotes the faith into
the halls of political power as in Judaism and Christianity, it is an original
state of political and military strength that promotes the religious message.
Looked at this way, jihad is not a secondary concept in the development
of Islam-something grafted onto the original religious message-rather it is the
very origin of Islam, the sine qua non of the faith.
This furthermore explains the inability of Islamic culture to adapt and
accept ideas of modernity and secular government…. Liberal democracy of the
American variety requires the embrace of tolerance over truth, the
relinquishment of any binding central religious truth or ideology in
government…. This idea, of a government without a religious vision of absolute
truth, is contrary to the Muslim community's very conception of religious
community.
“…it is sometimes possible to trace an idea, concept
or custom that was absorbed by early Islam from Judaism, assimilated by it in a
genuine Islamic spirit and subsequently, in its Muslim guise, left its impact
on Judaism. As an example, the concept of intention (kavanah, the devotional frame of mind which has to accompany compliance with a
religious duty) was doubtless taken from Jewish—mainly Talmudic-sources by
Islamic thinkers, who turned it into a Hadith saying, allegedly of the prophet,
or into a saying of the Sufi (mystic pietists). However, Islam also transformed
this concept into a formula which may sometimes deprive it of its very spirit:
every believer must declare, before performing a commandment, that he is about
to perform it with intention, by reciting a formula: "I now intend to
perform the commandment of morning prayer (or midday prayer, etc").
Pietist Jewish circles seem (at a rather late stage) to have accepted and
translated it into Hebrew”
Quoted from Encyclopedia Judaica Electronic Edition
[18] Jews in Hellenistic times had
produced one important philosopher i.e. Philo.
However, Philo’s writings, while providing the base for Christina
theology, were lost to Jewish tradition.
[19] From Lindberg,
David C., The Beginnings of Western
Science, University of Chicago Press, 1992 p. 168-180
“The
translation of Greek and Syriac works into Arabic… became serious business
under Harun ar-Rashid (786-809)…. By the
year 1000 AD, almost the entire corpus of Greek medicine, natural philosophy
and mathematical science had been rendered into usable Arabic versions…. The
scientific movement in Islam was both distinguished and durable … by the end of
the ninth century translation activity had crested and serious scholarship was
under way. From the middle of the ninth
century until well into the thirteenth, we find impressive scientific work in
all the main branches of Greek science being carried forward throughout the
Islamic world. The period of Muslim
preeminence in science lasted for 500 years – a longer period of time than has
intervened between Copernicus and ourselves.”
[20] From http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/timeline12.html
“Various Jewish scholar wrote and translated scientific and mathematical works
from Arabic to Hebrew. These include:
Abraham ben Ezra… Maimonides… Johannes Hispalensis … Samuel ben Abbas, an
unknown Jew of England who wrote 'Mathematicum Rudimenta'”
[21] Ivry, A. L., in article Nature,
Encyclopedia Judaica vol. 12 cols. 888-889, Keter 1972
[22] Following quoted from Twersky, Isadore, Introduction
to the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah), Yale University Press, 1980;
Twersky,
Isadore, A Maimonides Reader, Behrman 1972; Goldstein, B. R, Maimonides,
article Encyclopedia Judaica vol. 11 cols. 754-782, Keter 1972
“The influence of
Maimonides on the future development of Judaism is incalculable. No spiritual leader of the Jewish people in
the post-talmudic period has exercised such an influence both in his own and
subsequent generations…. In his philosophic views Maimonides was an
Aristotelian… and it was he who put medieval Jewish philosophy on a firm
Aristotelian basis. But in line with
contemporary Aristotelianism his political philosophy was Platonic.”
“It is repeated emphatically in the Mishnah Torah, where
Maimonides extols the wise men of
… all this is part of the science of astronomy and
mathematics, about which many books have been composed by Greek sages – books
that are still available to the scholars of our time. But the books which have been composed by the
sages of
“Furthermore, Maimonides’ halakic formulation, which
grafts philosophy onto the substance of the Oral Law, dovetails perfectly with
his view on the history of philosophy.
In common with many medieval writers, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim,
Maimonides is of the opinion that Jews in antiquity cultivated the science of
physics and metaphysics, which they later neglected for a variety of reasons,
historical and theological. He does not,
however, repeat the widespread view, as does hal-Levi, that all sciences
originated in Judaism and were borrowed or plagiarized by the ancient
philosophers…. Maimonides does not care to trace all philosophical wisdom back
to an ancient Jewish matrix. His sole
concern is to establish hokma as an original part of the Oral
Law, from which it follows that the study of the latter in its encyclopaedic
totality – that is, Gemara – includes philosophy. This position – a harmonistic position
unifying the practical, theoretical, and theological parts of the law – which
Maimonides codified in Mishneh Torah.”
“In one broad generalization, we may say that the Mishneh
Torah became a prism through which reflection and analysis of virtually all
subsequent Talmud study had to pass,
There is hardly a book in the broad field of Rabbinic literature that
does not relate in some way to the Mishneh Torah.”
[23] Neo-Platonism was also fundamental to
the development of Christian theology and Islamic Sufism and had a close
relationship to Aristotelianism. The
following is from the Encyclopedia Britannica
“Relationship to Neoplatonism. Aristotle's works were adopted by the
systematic builders of Neoplatonism in the 3rd century AD. Plotinus, the
school's chief representative, followed Aristotle wherever he found a
possibility of agreement or development, as he did in Aristotle's theory of the
intellect. And Plotinus' pupil Porphyry, the first great harmonizer of Plato
and Aristotle, provided the field of logic with a short introduction (Isagoge).
… Neoplatonism dominated the
[24] “From the beginning of
its development, the Kabbalah embraced an esoterism closely akin to the spirit
of Gnosticism, one which was not restricted to instruction in the mystical path
but also included ideas on cosmology, angelology and magic. Only later, and as a result of the contact
with medieval Jewish philosophy, the Kabbalah became a Jewish “mystical
theology,” more or less systematically elaborated. This process brought about a separation of
the mystical, speculative elements from the occult and especially the magical
elements…. The confrontation between the Gnostic tradition in the Bahir
and Neoplatonic ideas concerning God, His emanation, and man’s place in the
world, was extremely fruitful, leading to the deep penetration of these ideas
into earlier mystical theories. The
Kabbalah in its historical significance can be defined as the product of the
interpenetration of Jewish Gnosticism and neoplatonism.” From Scholem, G, Kabbalah
article in Encyclopedia Judaica vol. 10 cols. 489-653, Keter 1972
[25] From Encyclopedia
Judaica vol. 6 cols. 922-925, Keter 1972 – “There is no specific ethical
literature as such in the biblical and talmudic period insofar as a systematic
formulation of Jewish ethics is concerned.
Even the Wisdom literature of the Bible, though entirely ethical in
content, does not aim at giving a systematic exposition of this science of morals
and human duties, but confines itself to apothegms and unconnected moral
sayings. The same is true of tractate
Avot, the only wholly ethical tractate of the Mishnah…. The beginnings of
Jewish ethical literature in the Middle Ages are rooted in the development of
Jewish philosophy of that period”
[26] A very interesting case is that of Maimonides son
“This final chapter deals with the interesting topic of Rabbi Abraham,
the son of Maimonides, who succeeded his father as the head of the Jewish
community in Egypt (1204–37) and, more generally, with the influence of Muslim
Sufi pietism and mysticism on Judaism. This Muslim movement and its marvellous
religious literature had a tremendous impact on the Jews, who were attracted by
it even more than by Arab philosophy.25 That some Jews actually joined Sufi
groups is attested by Muslim sources as well as by Jewish letters from the genizah. S. D. Goitein published a heart-rending letter from a poor Jewish
woman to the Nagid David (probably the David II Maimonides who, in the middle
of the 14th century, became one of the leaders of Egyptian Jewry), in which she
implores him to help her bring her husband Basir back to her from the company
of "al-Fuqara" (the Muslim mystics; literally: the poor). Basir had
forsaken his wife and children and taken up residence in a Sufi convent on a
mountain near
“Fragments of poetical and prose works of the Muslim mystics, in their
original language but in Hebrew transcription, were found in the Cairo Genizah,
and R. Abraham Gavison of Tlemcen in Algeria (d. 1605) says in his commentary
on the Proverbs that "every educated man must be impressed by the great philosopher
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali," whose books are studied by many Jewish scholars.27
Al-Ghazali was, of course, not only one of the great Muslim thinkers, but also
an outstanding Sufi pietist. Jewish writers, however, never reached the same
degree of extreme ecstasy which the Muslim mystics sought, and which induced
them to tear down the partitions between religions, between good and evil and
even between God and man.
“The story of R. Abraham the son of Maimonides is one of the most
striking episodes in the history of this influence.28 R. Abraham (d. 1237), who
had inherited the function of Ra'is al-Yahud (leader of the Jews) from
his father, was not only a leader and a halakhic scholar (see the volume of
his Responsa published by C. Freiman and S. D. Goitein), but also an
outstanding Sufi. He wrote a great pietist Sufi compendium named Kifat al-'abidin (The Sufficient Book for the Servants of God), and tried to win his
generation over to the Sufi way of life and to prove to them, with the help of
a great many quotations from Jewish sources, that this was the true way for
God-fearing men. Although opinions differ as to his sources, there is no doubt
that he was deeply influenced by the world of Sufism, with which he had become
closely acquainted in Egypt.29 Rabbi Abraham argued that Islam, especially in
its Sufi version, preserved many elements of the practices and teachings of the
ancient Jewish Sages, which the latter had intentionally neglected with the
appearance of pietist heretic circles. Among these elements were kneeling and
prostration during prayer, ritual immersions, nightly prayers, etc. Early Islam
adopted these ceremonies, as well as the attending feelings of awe for the Day
of Judgment and disgust of this world. In the world of Islam all these elements
were developed in a special way in the Sufi movement, and that is why they are
so closely related to the ancient Jewish Sages.
“R. Abraham did not, however, content himself with theoretical study
alone. His conviction induced him to demand the return to the ancestral customs
by imitating the Muslim surroundings, for instance in the matter of prayer. In
one section of his work he suggests the removal of pillows from the synagogues
and instead to spread prayer-mats and carpets on the floor as in the mosques, and
to prostrate as the Muslims in prayer,30 and he praises the respectful silence
in the mosques, which was in flagrant contrast to the noise and lack of
devotion in the synagogues of his day. R. Abraham's suggestion, however, was
not adopted, as we learn from the genizah documents. The members of his
congregation filed a complaint against him with al-Malik al-'Adil, the ruler,
the brother and heir of Saladin, that he tried to force upon them innovations (Bid'a) forbidden by their religion. This was in contravention of the laws of
Islam, which in this respect were also applied to the non-Muslim communities
under its jurisdiction. R. Abraham was compelled to apologize to the Muslim
ruler and to announce that he did not intend to abuse his authority as leader
of the Jewish community by introducing such religious innovations.31”
Quoted from Encyclopedia Judaica Electronic Edition