The Struggle for Jerusalem and the Holy Land


Book Description

In recent generations, the Muslim and Arab world has been suffused with publications on the subject of the People of Israel, its Torah, and this people’s affinity to the Land of Israel. Most of these publications are tendentious, written with a hostile attitude toward Jews and Judaism; indeed, some of them are tainted with antisemitism. The Qur’an, the Holy Scripture of the Muslims, also deals with the question of the status of Eretz Israel, the Land of Israel. Many of its exegetes, following in the tracks of Islam’s holy book, have done so as well. Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, these Islamic sources express an approach asserting that this land is promised exclusively to the People of Israel. This book explores these sources and discusses them in light of the recent developments.




Struggle for Jerusalem and the Holy Land, The: A New Inquiry Into the Qur an and Classic Islamic Sources on the People of Israel, Their Torah, and Their Links to the Holy Land


Book Description

In recent generations, the Muslim and Arab world has been suffused with publications on the subject of the People of Israel, its Torah, and this people s affinity to the Land of Israel. Most of these publications are tendentious, written with a hostile attitude toward Jews and Judaism; indeed, some of them are tainted with antisemitism. The Qur an, the Holy Scripture of the Muslims, also deals with the question of the status of Eretz Israel, the Land of Israel. Many of its exegetes, following in the tracks of Islam s holy book, have done so as well. Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, these Islamic sources express an approach asserting that this land is promised exclusively to the People of Israel. This book explores these sources and discusses them in light of the recent developments."




Jewish-Muslim Relations


Book Description

This multidisciplinary volume unites research on diverse aspects of Jewish-Muslim relations, exchanges and coexistence across time including the Abrahamic tradition enigma, Jews in the Qur’an and Hadith, Ibn al-‘Arabi and the Kabala, comparative feminist theology, Jews, Christians, Muslims and the Gospel of Barnabas, harmonizing religion and philosophy in Andalusia, Jews and Muslims in medieval Christian Spain, Israeli Jews and Muslim and Christian Arabs, Jewish-Muslim coexistence on Cyprus, Muslim-Jewish dialogues in Berlin and Barcelona, Jewish-Christian-Muslim trialogues and teleology, Jewish and Muslim dietary laws, and Jewish and Muslim integration in Switzerland and Germany.




Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism


Book Description

Exceedingly well organized and extensively documented....-CHOICEThe publication of the present anthology of primary sources and secondary studies on the theme of Muslim antisemitism is a groundbreaking event of major scholarly, cultural, and political significance. Editor Andrew Bostom has mined the relevant literature to produce the fullest record on this subject in existence. After the publication of his work, all the oft-repeated, but erroneous misunderstandings of a tolerant Islam, and of a medieval Jewish-Muslim ''golden age'' will need to be permanently retired. Everyone interested in Jewish and Islamic history, as well as current events in the Middle East, should read this book - and soon.-Steven T. Katz, Director, Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies, Boston University, and author of Post-Holocaust Dialogues and The Holocaust in Historical ContextThe antisemitism of the Muslim Middle East that we hear, see, and experience daily - from the racist cartoons to the constant chorus of ''pigs and apes'' - is often attributed to European origins, as if the radical Muslim world learned this endemic hatred through the tragedy of imperialism and colonialism. In fact, a deep suspicion and frequent loathing of Jews is deeply rooted in the Middle East, antedating European rule and sometimes evidenced in passages in the Koran and early holy Islamic texts.... Andrew Bostom produces a vast literature of Middle Eastern Islamic antisemitism, and critics may be as surprised at his conclusions as they are unable to refute his carefully compiled corpus of evidence.-Victor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University, author of Carnage and Culture and A War Like No OtherThis comprehensive, meticulously documented collection of scholarly articles presents indisputable evidence that a readily discernible, uniquely Islamic antisemitism-a specific Muslim hatred of Jews-has been expressed continuously since the advent of Islam. Debunking the conventional wisdom, which continues to assert that Muslim animosity toward Jews is entirely a 20th-century phenomenon fueled mainly by the protracted Arab-Israeli conflict, leading scholars provide example after example of antisemitic motifs in Muslim documents reaching back to the beginnings of Islam.The contributors show that the Koran itself is a significant source of hostility toward Jews, as well as other foundational Muslim texts including the hadith (the words and deeds of Muhammad as recorded by pious Muslim transmitters) and the sira (the earliest Muslim biographies of Muhammad). Many other examples are adduced in the writings of influential Muslim jurists, theologians, and scholars, from the Middle Ages through the contemporary era.These primary sources, and seminal secondary analyses translated here for the first time into English-such as Hartwig Hirschfeld''s mid-1880s essays on Muhammad''s subjugation of the Jews of Medina and George Vajda''s elegant, comprehensive 1937 study of the hadith-detail the sacralized rationale for Islam''s anti-Jewish bigotry. Numerous complementary historical accounts illustrate the resulting plight of Jewish communities in the Muslim world across space and time, culminating in the genocidal threat posed to the Jews of Israel today.Scholars, educators, and interested lay readers will find this collection an invaluable resource for understanding the phenomenon of Muslim antisemitism, past and present.FURTHER PRAISE FOR THE LEGACY OF ISLAMIC ANTISEMITISM:Stimulating and informative: a fascinating and disturbing voyage of historical discovery.... It is magnificent.-Martin Gilbert, official biographer of Winston ChurchillAuthor of Never Again: A History of the Holocaustand The Jews of Arab Lands: Their History in Maps[Bostom''s] eye-opening anthology should become an essential resource.-Ilan Stavans, Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture and Five-College 40th Anniversary Professor, Amherst CollegeDr. Andrew Bostom has written a




The Druze in the Middle East


Book Description

A general discussion of the Druze in the Middle East, with a particular focus on the Druze relationship with the State of Israel.




The Invention of the Jewish People


Book Description

A historical tour de force, The Invention of the Jewish People offers a groundbreaking account of Jewish and Israeli history. Exploding the myth that there was a forced Jewish exile in the first century at the hands of the Romans, Israeli historian Shlomo Sand argues that most modern Jews descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. In this iconoclastic work, which spent nineteen weeks on the Israeli bestseller list and won the coveted Aujourd'hui Award in France, Sand provides the intellectual foundations for a new vision of Israel's future.




What The Koran Really Says


Book Description

Islam Has Worldwide Influence, And Even In The United States Is Experiencing A Period Of Unprecedented Growth. Islam And Its Sacred Book, The Koran, Have Been The Subject Of Voluminous Commentary And, Recently, Great Popular Interest; Yet It Has Rarely Received The Kind Of Objective Critical Scrutiny That Has Been Applied To The Texts Of The Bible For More Than A Century.Though Some Scholars Of Note Have Raised Crucial Questions About The Authenticity And Reliability Of The Koran And Muslim Tradition, Koranic Studies By And Large Have Failed To Take Advantage Of Critical Skeptical Methodologies. Today The Majority Of Interpreters Of Islam S Sacred Text Appear Content To Lie In The Procrustean Bed Prepared By Muslim Tradition More Than A Thousand Years Ago.




The Invention of the Land of Israel


Book Description

What is a homeland and when does it become a national territory? Why have so many people been willing to die for such places throughout the twentieth century? What is the essence of the Promised Land? Following the acclaimed and controversial The Invention of the Jewish People, Shlomo Sand examines the mysterious sacred land that has become the site of the longest-running national struggle of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Invention of the Land of Israel deconstructs the age-old legends surrounding the Holy Land and the prejudices that continue to suffocate it. Sand’s account dissects the concept of “historical right” and tracks the creation of the modern concept of the “Land of Israel” by nineteenth-century Evangelical Protestants and Jewish Zionists. This invention, he argues, not only facilitated the colonization of the Middle East and the establishment of the State of Israel; it is also threatening the existence of the Jewish state today.




The Bible, the Qur'an & Science


Book Description




Zohar, the Book of Enlightenment


Book Description

This is the first translation with commentary of selections from The Zohar, the major text of the Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. This work was written in 13th-century Spain by Moses de Leon, a Spanish scholar.