Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations in the Middle Ages

The distinctively Shiʿi conception of non-Muslims as bearers of a contagious form of impurity emerges gradually, reaching its classical form only in the 5th/11th century. Contrary to common scholarly presumptions, Q. 9.28 does not constitute the point of origin for this conception but rather serves as retroactive justification for its validity. This essay utilizes ḥadīth collections and works of law from the 2nd/8th through 5th/11th centuries to trace the emergence of Shiʿi notions regarding the impurity of non-Muslims and the parallel emergence of distinctively Shiʿi norms regarding the meat of animals slaughtered by non-Muslims. It concludes by suggesting that the differences between Sunni and Shiʿi notions regarding the food and impurity of non-Muslims reflect the different ways in which Sunnis and Shiʿi conceive of the Islamic community itself.

When the Muslim statement "A Common Word between us and you" appeared on the internet in October 2007, I found it to be dissonant to what I had read in early Muslim commentary on Q 3.64. I decided to investigate the interpretation of this "common word" verse across a wide range of commentaries on the Quran. Though interpretations vary, none of the commentaries understands Q 3.64 to refer to a theological concept held "in common" with non-Muslims.

This is a study of two examples from the Abbasid age on a debate on the crucifixion of Jesus in the early dialogues between Christians and Muslims. It focuses specifically on how Timothy I and Theodore Abū Qurrah understand the Christian theology of the cross in the light of the Qurʼān’s denial of the crucifixion of the Messiah in sūrat an-Nisāʼ 4:157-158. Many others have reflected on how early Christian mutakallims tried to deal with the Qurʼān’s denial of the crucifixion. Yet the interpretation of sūrah 4:157-158 in the text of al-Muĝādalah in al-Maʼmūn’s court and in Timothy’s conversation with the caliph al-Mahdī are two very interesting demonstrations of some of the hermeneutical and (theo)logical strategies Christians opted for to make the Christian belief in the crucifixion understandable for Muslims.

As Ordenações Afonsinas constituem a primeira compilação de direito pátrio. Destinavam-se essencialmente a carrear para o seu articulado as leis régias dispersas na Chancelaria Real. Relativamente ao povo hebraico esta compilação legislativa não contém nenhuma norma inovadora. Na sua maioria as normas recolhidas são provenientes de diversas fontes legislativas, nomeadamente do direito anónico e do direito romano. A presente exposição tem como objectivo dar a conhecer a legislação pátria contida nas Ordenações Afonsinas,
relativamente à comunidade judaica, sobretudo os seus privilégios e limitações de direitos.

The “Ordenações Afonsinas”, the first compilation of Portuguese Law,
was intended essentially to compile the scattered royal laws, in the Royal
Chancellery. For the Hebrew people, this legislative compilation does not
contain any innovative norms regarding them. Most of the rules collected
are from various legislative sources, in particular from Canon and Roman
Law. This small article aims to make known the legislation contained in the “Ordenações Afonsinas” regarding the Jewish community, namely its privileges and limitations of rights.

Daniel Pachurka (Ruhr-University Bochum) edited, translated and commented the polemic treatise of the dominican Ricoldus de Monte Crucis (1243[?] - 1320). Though this theologian of the Middle Ages seems to have only an apologetic interest nevertheless there are important insights in the use of original references of Arabic texts in Latin translation: Qur'an and Hadith-literature. Christian prejudices are "verified" by citing relating suras and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad or commenting events of his life. Ricoldus uses apologetic structures to show that Islam is a false religion. These polemic structures have influenced the debates between Christianity and islam till today. Therefore this book has also present importance.

Jews and Christians in Medieval Castile examines the changes in Jewish-Christian relations in the Iberian kingdom of Castile during the pivotal period of the reconquest and the hundred years that followed the end of its most active phase (eleventh to mid-fourteenth century). The study's focus on the Christian heartland north of the Duero River, known as Old Castile, allows for a detailed investigation of the Jews' changing relations with the area's main power players―the monarchy, the church, and the towns. In a departure from previous assessments, Soifer Irish shows that the institutional and legal norms of toleration for the Jewish minority were forged not along the military frontier with Islam, but in the north of Castile. She argues that the Jews' relationship with the Castilian monarchy was by far the most significant factor that influenced their situation in the kingdom, but also demonstrates that this relationship was inherently problematic. Although during the early centuries of Christian expansion the Jewish communities benefited from a strong royal power, after about 1250 helping maintain it proved to be costly to the Jewish communities in economic and human terms. Soifer Irish demonstrates that while some Castilian clergymen were vehemently anti-Jewish, the Castilian Church as a whole never developed a coordinated strategy on the Jews, or even showed much interest in the issue. The opposite is true about the townsmen, whose relations with their Jewish neighbors vacillated between cooperation and conflict. In the late thirteenth century, the Crown's heavy-handed tactics in enforcing the collection of outstanding debts to Jewish moneylenders led to the breakdown in the negotiations between the Jewish and Christian communities, creating a fertile ground for the formation of an anti-Jewish discourse in Castilian towns. Soifer Irish also examines the Jews' attitudes toward the various powers in the Christian society and shows that they were active players in the kingdom's politics. Jews and Christians in Medieval Castile breaks new ground in helping us understand more fully the tensions, and commonalities, between groups of different faiths in the late medieval period.

Borrowed from a psychological theory, the principle of ‘separation-individuation’ refers to a developmental phase in which a subject develops sense of differentiation from her past or present origins and sense of autonomous selfhood and independency. The article suggests viewing the typology of anomist and legalist religions not as a consistent phenomenology but rather in relation to the above principle and the need to differentiate and create a religious self-identification.

این مقاله به بررسی روایات تشبیه اوصیای پیامبر اکرم ص به نقبای بنی‌اسرائیل، اسباط بنی‌اسرائیل، حواریون حضرت مسیح و ماه‌های سال و همچنین امکان وجود معنایی فراتر از تساوی عددی برای این روایات، پرداخته و درصدد پاسخ به این پرسش برآمده است که آیا در این تشبیهات، تنها عدد دوازده، بار شباهت را به دوش می‌کشد یا آن‌که شباهت دیگری نیز بین مشبّه و مشبّهٌ به در میان است؟ برای پاسخ به این پرسش، با بررسی جایگاه نقبا در تورات و ریشه‌شناسی واژه «نقیب» در نسخه‌های کهن تورات به زبان‌های عبری، آرامی، سریانی و یونانی، گوهر معنایی «منتخب و منصوص الهی بودن نقیب»، واکاوی شده است. از این منظر، نشان داده خواهد شد که می‌توان «انتخابی، انتجابی و منصوص بودن از سوی خداوند» را ویژگی مشترک دو سوی تشبیه مذکور در روایات دانست. در انتها، شواهد دیگری برای این ادّعا ارائه خواهد شد؛ یعنی امور دوازده‌گانه‌ای که اگرچه در روایات بیان‌کنندهٔ تعداد اوصیای پیامبر خاتم ص به کار نرفته‌اند، ولی دارای ویژگی منتجب بودن از جانب خداوندند.
حاصل این پژوهش، به فهم عمیق‌تر روایات تشبیه عددی انجامیده و جایگاه الهی ائمه و منصوص بودن آن‌ها را در منظومه فکری شیعه تقویت می‌کند. همچنین بر این واقعیت تأکید می‌ورزد که روایات دوازده وصی پیامبر اکرم، فقط بر امامان شیعه تطبیق می‌کند.

This article studies the hadiths analogizing the successors of the Holy Prophet to the naqībs (chieftains) of the Children of Israel, apostles of Christ, months, and eventually aims to highlight the possibility of a wider meaning beyond the mere numerical equality. The study is going to find an answer to the inquiry whether Number 12 bears the burden of Simile or there is another Simile between the Vehicle and the Tenor?
To reply to this question, the position of Chiefs described in Torah and the etymology of the terms (indicating ‘naqīb’) in the Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, and Greek manuscripts have been studied. It is proposed that the semantic concept of naqīb appertains to "divinely chosen".  In this way, it is shown that “being divinely chosen and appointed by God” can be regarded as the common characteristic of the two parallel groups. 
Due to this study, deeper understanding of numerical analogizing Hadiths is culminated and the concept of Imam as “being divinely chosen” in Shiite Thought is greatly strengthened. Furthermore, the fact underlines that the Hadith of twelve successors after Prophet Muḥammad (PBUH) is perfectly  matched Shiite Imams.

ABSTRACT: Since Gómez Moreno, historians have identified the Arab Baths of Baza (11th century) as Jewish Baths. This mistake led them to consider that the surrounding area was the Jewish Quarter. The reality is very different. There were at least two baths in Baza: the oldest in Marzuela arrabal (conserved at present in the Santiago Quarter) and the other, built ca. 1520 for the Moorish community, on the other side of the city. This Bath, situated in calle de la Judería (today calle del Cáliz, in the San Juan Quarter), has been destroyed. The little Jewish community of Baza never use this bath because of the Expulsion of the Spanish Jews thirty years before. RESUMEN: La historiografia tradicional, con Gómez Moreno a la cabeza, ha identificado los baños árabes de la ciudad de Baza (s. XI) como pertenecientes a la minoría judía. Este error de base ha hecho que en el entorno circundante se haya situado la supuesta judería. La realidad es bien distinta. En Baza existieron, al menos, dos baños: el antiguo del arrabal de Marzuela- que es el que se conserva actualmente, en el barrio de Santiago- y otro construido en tomo a 1520 para el uso de la comunidad morisca local en el otro extremo de la ciudad, situado en la antigua calle de la Judería -hoy calle del Cáliz, en el barrio de San Juan- y actualmente desaparecido. La pequeña comunidad judía de Baza nunca pudo utilizar estas termas puesto que había sido expulsada, junto al resto de hebreos españoles, casi treinta años antes.

The Yemen, is the birth place and hub for a number of monotheistic religious convictions . In its North West region, just 243 kilometers away from San'aa, the official capital of the Republic of Yemen , lies a spiritual center, a holy metropolis known as Saa'da  .
It is to Zaidi Islam as Qum is to Shia Islam and Mecca is to Sunni Islam. It is where the scholars dwell, to read, learn and teach their disciples to carry on the doctrine and preserve the faith throughout history.
It is here that the Houthi phenomenon first appeared.
This study focuses on the very beginnings of Houthism as a phenomenon, it's source and affiliations. It is but the first part of a series of papers that will delve into the movement as it expands over time.

[With U. Cecini:] «Nicholas Donin’s Thirty-Five Articles Against the Talmud: A Case of Collaborative Translation in Jewish-Christian Polemic», in Charles Burnett and Pedro Mantas-España (eds.), ‘Ex Oriente Lux’. Translating Words, Scripts and Styles in Medieval Mediterranean Society. Selected Papers, Córdoba/London: CNERU/The Warburg Institute, 2016, pp. 187-199.

Panel
Mercoledì 22 gennaio 2020, ore 14.15, Università La Sapienza
Aula A, Dipartimento SARAS, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia

Il panel ha come oggetto il martirio come forma estrema di comunicazione della fede. L’insieme dei contributi presentati presuppone la constatazione della centralità e transculturalità del corpo nelle dialettiche religiose, nonché la forza espressiva del corpo passionato. Ha come focus le interrelazioni fra religione, violenza e testimonianza in ambito mediterraneo e mediorientale fra Tarda Antichità e Medioevo.
Mette in evidenza differenze e interrelazioni delle valenze del martirio in ambito cristiano, ebraico ed islamico.
Considera le narrazioni martiriali come elementi attivi sia nelle dinamiche interne ai gruppi religiosi, sia nelle relazioni esterne fra gruppi religiosi diversi. Esamina pertanto le trasformazioni, le forme e gli adattamenti delle narrazioni stesse in differenti contesti e momenti storici.

The theme of the chosenness and uniqueness of the Jewish people has wielded considerable influence on Jewish history, and occupies an important place in the history of religious ideas in the Abrahamic faiths. Consequently, its omission from the Maimonidean principles of faith has aroused extensive discussion, and various aspects of this question were examined over the course of time: some thinkers maintain that the omission of this principle teaches of its negation, while others took pains to show its inclusion in the list, or to argue that its omission was due to other reasons. In several post-Maimonidean lists this notion was added as an independent principle, or was explicitly mentioned as part of one of the other listed principles.
The current research will survey the history of this discussion, shed light on a chapter in the history of the interpretation of Maimonidean thought, and examine the place of this controversial theological principle within the context of the listing of the principles in Maimonidean thought and in that of classical Jewish thinkers.

The volume "New Directions in Spiritual Kinship: Sacred Ties Across the Abrahamic Religions," edited by Todne Thomas, Asiya Malik and Rose Wellman, undertakes a comparative analysis of "spiritual kinship" (such as God-parenthood) in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. My chapter, "Kinship as Ethical Relation," starts by questioning the usefulness of spiritual kinship as a category for the understanding of Judaism and expands that critique into an alternate model that might be more useful for comparative purposes. I argue that the idea of "Spiritual Kinship" emerges precisely from an a set of Christian taxonomies that are often implicitly or explicitly anti-Jewish (kinship of the flesh vs. kinship of the spirit, the letter and the spirit of the law, etc.) which makes it unsuitable as an "Abrahamic" category. Moreover, the specific ways in which it is unsuitable for comparative purposes actually demonstrate the importance of this category for understanding of Christianity and of the anthropological kinship categories (affinal, consanguineal and fictive)  that were in large measure adapted from European Christian sources. Viewing kinship as a set of ethical relations, by contrast, does indeed allow for useful comparison across these religious divides and makes better sense of the ethnographic and textual data. Examples are brought from both modern and medieval Jewish life.

Background: The mathematical idea of Jesus Christ is ­ ~ ≤ X ≤ ~ and X = Y. Other mathematical ideas are the Cartesian coordinate system, n⁰ = 1 and ~, and n⁰ = 1 (X for the Lord ‘s day) and n ^n + 2 (Y for human’s day). Mathematically, it is scholarly that Christ came from heaven to earth and the dead people, and then came back to heaven through the earth. The gospel does not introduce a new Lord. There is no other Lord in Christianity, except Christ. The mathematical idea of - ~ ≤ X1 < ~ and X1 = Y1 is for Satan and the false prophet.
Objectives: To show mathematically that Jesus Christ is Lord and journey of Jesus Christ from heaven to earth and the world of the dead, then returned to heaven through this world. This journey is scholarly.
Methods: The n⁰ (X) and 10 ^2+n is mathematical ideas of days in God and human. The n⁰ = 1 and ~ in which -~≤ n ≤ ~ is for mathematical idea for one God. The ­ ~ ≤ X ≤ ~ and X = Y is mathematical idea for the spiritual journey of Jesus Christ. For the false prophet and Satan are - ~ ≤ X1 < ~ and X1 = Y1, and Cartesian coordinate systems were described.  Searched verses in the Bible manually and via the internet. Keywords included such as Christ, and the false prophet. 
Results: God in the Old Testament is the same as God in the New Testament. In mathematics, God is the same as one and ~. Mathematics can show who is God. Christ is the same as God. There is no other Christ. God became man in Jesus Christ to preach the gospel to humans. He went to the earth of the dead to preach the gospel 3 days, returned to the earth, and then to the heaven. This is the spiritual journey. Emmanuel is God with us.  A Christian could catch up into paradise as Paul’s vision. It was from the earth. It was not from heaven. It is different with Jesus Christ’s journey. Paul’s vision shows that the man catch up from the world to heaven, returned to the earth and died. He needed to wait the advent of Christ to rise up him from the death. Christ is eternal forever. The man in Paul’s vision still needs to be rise by Christ on the day of the Lord. The - ~ ≤ X ≤ ~ and X = Y fills Quadrant 1, Quadrant 2, Quadrant 3, and Quadrant 4 in the Cartesian coordinate system. Mathematical idea of -~ ≤ X=Y ≤ ~ is first the evidence as spiritual journey of Jesus Christ as the Father, Son, and the Spirit. The Cartesian coordinate system is the second evidence of the journey. Another evidence in mathematical idea, the third evidence, of the Father, Son and the Spirit is n⁰ = 1, ~. For example, if n is 1, 2, 3, the result is 1⁰ = 2⁰ = 3⁰ = 1. It shows that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is one. The forth evidence is day in the Lord and day in human. Its mathematical idea is n⁰ = 1 (the Lord’s day) and n^n+2 (human’s day). Satan was from heaven and was thrown into the earth. It was not a spiritual journey. Satan, his angels and the false prophet have been thrown into the hell.  The mathematical model of the false prophet is - ~ ≤ X1 < ~ and X1 = Y1.
Conclusions: Jesus Christ is the Lord and scholarly. There is only one Lord Jesus Christ. The ­ ~ ≤ X ≤ ~ and X = Y shows that Jesus Christ is the Lord. Ten mathematical ideas or evidences can demonstrate the relationship between God, Jesus Christ, and the Spirit. This relationship also shows the Spiritual Journey of Jesus Christ. These include n⁰ = 1and~ , n0⁰ (X) and n^2+n, -~ ≤ X=Y ≤ ~, and the Cartesian coordinate systems. The false prophet has mathematic idea as - ~ ≤ X1 < ~ and X1 = Y1.

This article centres on the Latin translations of the Qur’an by Robert of Ketton (1142–3/537–8) and Mark of Toledo (1209/606), as viewed within the context of their earlier translations of scientific works. In previous scholarship, the Latin Qur’ans of Robert of Ketton and Mark of Toledo have been studied with respect to linguistic features and considered separately from their translations of astrological and medical texts. This paper proposes to reunite these strands of translation activity by examining the ways in which scientific discourse influenced the Latin translations of the Qur’an. The paper demonstrates that the translators incorporated their scientific expertise into their translations of the Qur’an by employing terminology specific to their respective fields of astrology and medicine. On the basis of this new evidence, it is argued that Robert of Ketton sought to promote the study of astrology and astronomy, while Mark of Toledo’s use of medical jargon formed part of a calculated polemical strategy in which he portrayed the spread of Islam as a disease to be treated by a physician.

Der aus dem ungarischen Ofen (Buda) stammende und in Franken, später in der Pfalz tätig gewesene Konvertit und Hebraist, Christoph (ursprünglich Jakob) Mandel gab mindestens sechs Schriften in den Druck, davon sind vier erhalten geblieben: Das Jesus Christus sey das ewig götlich Wort (1536), Rechnung der LXX Wochen Danielis (1552), Beweisung aus der Juden Gesatz (1557) und Ein fein tröstlichs Gebet in der Verfolgung (1558). In diesen Werken zeigt sich ein christlicher Kabbalist, der zeitlich und sachlich Johannes Reuchlin nahesteht, der aber nicht die herkömmlichen Themen der Kabbala, vielmehr die klassischen Loci der christlichen Dogmatik behandelt. Auch die zuerst von Gustav Hammann rekonstruierte Biographie Mandels (1970) wird mit neuen archivalischen Daten ergänzt.

A collection of primary sources in English translation of theological texts written by Muslims about Christianity and Christians about Islam.

Cover image: Or Ms 161 fol.140v, The Baptism of Christ, from 'The Chronology of Ancient Nations' by al-Biruni, 1307 (gouache on paper), Bridgeman Art Library

And be good to the neighbour who is your relative and to the neighbour who is not a relative . . . (Qur'an, 4:36)

Islam has great respect for the mutual rights and duties of neighbours. The Holy Prophet said:

Jibra'1 always used to advise me to be generous with neighbours, till I thought that Allah was going to include the neighbours among the heirs of a Muslim.

The rights of neighbourhood are not meant for Muslim neighbours only. of course, a Muslim neighbour has one more claim upon us - that of Islamic brotherhood.


Explaining it, the Holy Prophet said:
Neighbours are of three kinds:

(1) that one who has got one right upon you;

(2) that one who has got two rights upon you;

(3) that one who has got three rights upon you.

The neighbour having three rights upon you is the one who is also a Muslim and a relative. The neighbour having two rights is the one who is either a non-Muslim or a non-relative Muslim.

The neighbour having one right is the one who is neither a Muslim nor a relative. Still he has got all the claims of neighbourhood-rights upon you.

Here are some more traditions which show the Islamic love towards the neighbours:

The Holy Prophet said:
That man is not from me who sleeps contentedly while his neighbor sleeps hungry.

The issue of neighbours is of interest and concern to all. Disputes and feuds regularly hit the headlines. A bad neighbour is something to be dreaded, while a good neighbour is, as the saying goes, worth his or her weight in gold. Islam has plenty to say about neighbours. The Prophet’s statements quoted in Neighbour’s Rights, although over fourteen hundred years old, are as topical and relevant today as they were then. Much may have changed in the physical surroundings in which we live, but human nature is the same as ever, and we still need guidance on how we should treat one another. Islam shows us how to deal with our fellow human beings—and our own neighbourhood is a good place to start. This book Neighbour's Rights According to the Sunnah and the Example of the Salaf by Ali Hasan A. Abdul-Hamid is a good book to start.

Despite mutual taboos against exogamy, memoirs and similar materials written by Jews from Yemen contain a number of anecdotes describing love affairs and sexual encounters between Muslims and Jews prior to the mass migration of the vast majority of Yemen's Jews to Israel in 1949-50. These stories associate these liaisons with vulnerability, poverty, and marginalization. In them, sex and conversion to Islam are intrinsically connected, yet this interreligious intimacy leads not to resolution but to ongoing identity crises that persist beyond the community's realignment with a majority-Jewish society. The staging of the anecdotes in rural areas where shariʿa norms held only nominal sway, in watering places and hostels where strangers might interact, and at dusk, when identity is difficult to discern, heightened their ambiguity.

Toward 1270, a noblewoman wrote to Thomas Aquinas, John Peckham, and an anonymous jurist, seeking their counsel concerning the good government of her subjects and of Jews. Whether the correspondent was a duchess of Brabant or the countess of Flanders has long been a matter of contention, as has the dating of the three replies and the relationship between them. Comparing anew all three texts, this article argues that the correspondent was not seeking advice on how best to govern Jews already dwelling within her lands, but was instead grappling with the possibility of welcoming new Jewish settlement. This rereading firmly establishes the identity of the correspondent as Margaret of Constantinople, Countess of Flanders, and sheds new light on the politics surrounding the Jewish presence in northwestern Europe in the closing decades of the thirteenth century.

British Library Harley MS 3954’s Book of Sir John Mandeville has ninety-nine images, and another thirty-five blanks, carefully framed in thin lines of ink as part of the ruling of the manuscript. As is so often the case, the blanks appear more frequently toward the end.  On the final folio (69v) there appears a neatly framed blank space (Figure 1).  The manuscript’s final text block appears just below this space and tells us of “a bok of Latyn that conteyned al that and myche more, aff wych bok the mappa mundi was mad.” As if to tantalize the reader, “mappa mundi” is rubricated and so stands out from the black ink in which the rest of the page (and the book) is written. While I sat there, staring at the blank space, and the red name for an absent image, I caught myself dreaming of finding a new mappa mundi hidden within that empty frame, the perfect place for a map of the world according to Mandeville. What would it look like, and what would imagining it tell us about the Book’s portrayal of Jews?

The modern study of the quranic Jesus has basically moved in a single direction, as generally scholars have approached the Jesus passages contained in the Qur’an from a thematic standpoint. Somewhat inoffensively, therefore, they tend to distinguish between the passages in which Jesus’s birth is reported, those that mention his miracles and his mission to Israel, those relative to his death, those which briefly mention him as a prophet or a righteous among others, and those that discuss his divine sonship thus denying the very basis of mainstream Christian doctrine – which, consequently, most modern scholars regard as the primary target of the Qur’an’s counter-Christology. It is this last point, moreover, that has largely overdetermined all modern interpretations of the quranic Jesus. Accordingly, most scholars take the quranic passages allusive to Jesus’s birth, life, and death as being merely illustrative of some key episodes of Jesus’s “biography” as told in the gospels; in their view, therefore, such passages convey a purely descriptive purpose, even if their narratives often draw on apocryphal sources, or else display new “data.” In contrast, the passages that criticise the notion that Jesus is God’s son are interpreted by them to contain the Qur’an’s own theological message about Jesus. Things are much more complex, though. It may well be, for example, that some if not all of the alleged descriptive Jesus passages hide more than they seem to offer at first sight; or, to put it in more forceful terms, that they serve an ideological purpose which is anything but descriptive. Also, it is not altogether clear how one ought to articulate and interpret the quranic passages that refer to Jesus as God’s messiah instead of God’s son, those which deny Jesus’s divine sonship, those that impugn the Christian trinity, and those which contend that God is childless: do they all belong to the same redactional layer?, and, more importantly, even if one agrees that they all aim at the same idea, which is their exact theological intent? Lastly, is it possible to reread the Christology of the Qur’an (i.e. the latter’s treatment of God’s Word and of Jesus’s messiahship) against the background of the Near-Eastern Christological developments of the 7th century? And if so, how should they and how should they not be linked?; that is to say, what specific type of contextual connection between them should be acknowledged in order to pay justice to their apparently complex intersection and what particular type of subordination should be avoided in turn? So far, these questions have either never been asked, or have been approached from a viewpoint that systematically takes from granted, somewhat naively to say the least, the cut-clear religious boundaries of the Islamic faith in the early-to-mid-7th century (the decades in which, presumably, the quranic corpus was put together).

In contrast, by putting forward a “symptomatic reading” (Althusser) of the relevant quranic passages – a reading that attempts at disclosing their “buried problematic” through a careful examination of their rhetoric and imagery – my book offers three hypotheses that may be summarised as follows:

• Originally, the earliest redactional layers of the Qur’an bear witness to a non-Jesus-centred Christology that was later re-shaped in light of, and subordinated to, a less-ambiguously monotheistic creed introduced at a later stage in the development of the quranic corpus together with a prophetical kerygma.

• In turn, all the Jesus passages contained in the Qur’an belong to two distinct and successive redactional layers contemporary with the Arab conquest of Syria-Palestine and Iraq and, more precisely, with Mu‘awiya’s and ‘Abd al Malik’s rules, respectively: the first of these layers presents evident and recurrent anti-Jewish overtones and upon close analysis proves to be pro-Christian, while the second one is overtly anti-Christian.

• It is therefore incorrect to read the Qur’an’s Jesus passages from the point of view of the latter anti-Christian texts. On the one hand, the Qur’an’s pro-Christian Jesus passages must be replaced in their historical context, and hence read vis-à-vis the well-documented Jewish criticism of Jesus (and Mary) current in the aftermath of the Persian invasion of the Near East. On the other hand, the early Christology of the Qur’an must be examined against the development of a peripheral religious culture in the southern- and eastern limes of the Byzantine empire (from pre-Islamic Yemen to pre-Islamic Iraq).

It is primary intended, then, for scholars working in the fields of quranic studies, emergent Islam, and early Christian-Muslim relations. Additionally, it could be of some interest for scholars of late-antique Christianity working on the extra-biblical literary traditions about Jesus.

Este libro aborda el estudio de la Arquitectura y Decoración de dos sinagogas medievales: la de Córdoba y la del Tránsito (Toledo), los dos exponentes más destacados del legado artístico hispano-judío que conserva hoy el Patrimonio Nacional.
Esta obra está dividida en dos partes: la primera, dedicada a la Sinagoga de Córdoba, y la segunda, a la del Tránsito. De ambas se aborda el análisis de la decoración y epigrafía que corre por sus muros, utilizando un tipo de interpretación que ya se ha usado para el análisis de edificios islámicos.
Esta corriente de estudio considera que la epigrafía era elegida y compuesta específicamente para cada lugar, aportando un sentido simbólico al espacio y al resto de la decoración. En el caso de la Sinagoga de Córdoba, epigrafía y decoración componen un programa simbólico que busca transmitir un discurso basado en la promesa divina de redención del pueblo de Israel y en otros elementos que forman parte de este imaginario, como la esperanza en la llegada del Mesías y en la reconstrucción del Templo en Jerusalén. En cambio, el programa simbólico de la Sinagoga del Tránsito se centra principalmente en el libro del Génesis y, en concreto, en la separación del cielo y de la tierra, representados en la sinagoga mediante el artesonado decorado con estrellas y el friso con decoración vegetal que recorre toda la sala de oración. Este programa decorativo transmite al espectador la grandeza de Dios como creador.

The introductory chapter to "Points of Contact: The Shared Intellectual History of Vocalisation in Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew", because who wants to download a whole book. You can also download the whole book here: https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0271

RESUMO: Pedro Afonso é um rabino judeu de Huesca (Aragão) que viveu entre meados do século XI (c. 1062) e a primeira metade do século XII (c. 1140). Optou por se converter ao Cristianismo e ao que tudo indica foi batizado pelo rei de Aragão, Afonso o Batalhador, de quem recebeu o nome, além do prenome de Pedro, o santo do dia. Autor de ampla obra e polemista que alterou radicalmente os termos do debate entre o Judaísmo e o Cristianismo, no século XII. Em primeiro lugar revelou o papel da lei oral judaica, o assim denominado Talmude, que a seu ver distanciava os judeus da revelação comum ás duas religiões, que seria a autoridade (auctoritas) e que era a base da polêmica até então; em segundo lugar, à sua maneira, trouxe aportes pretensamente científicos e racionalistas embasados na filosofia e nas ciências da época (ratio) para a polêmica; e num terceiro aporte refletia sobre a efetiva legalidade da presença judaica nos domínios da Cristandade, que se baseava nos termos da tolerância apregoada por Agostinho de Hipona que vislumbrava num futuro próximo uma função dos judeus na escatologia cristã, pois estes se converteriam no final dos tempos, no Milênio. Assim colocava os judeus contemporâneos como uma espécie de hereges, que se distanciaram da revelação. Pedro Afonso é um marco na agudização da condição judaica no ocidente medieval.

This is my review of Juan Cole’s ambitious book on Muhammad. Many devoted Muslims will likely find Cole’s depiction of Muhammad fanciful and unacceptable. While the book is easy-to-read and accessible, I have strong objections to Cole’s historical methodology. The book suffers from significant selectivity in treating both non-Muslim and Muslim primary sources. I think historians of religion in general, and Islamicists in particular, will indeed find his thesis reductionist, inconsistent, and contradicted by much of the evidence we do possess.