Category Archives: Judaism

Tabsir Redux: Tancred of the New Crusade

Judaism, Literature, Orientalism


Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) was one of the most colorful and literary of British Prime Ministers in the latter half of the 19th century. Among his novels was one about a young conservative English lord named Tancred who made a spiritual quest to the “Holy Land.” This is his Tancred, of The New Crusade, originally published in 1877. In the novel Tancred is disillusioned with the lack of morality in British politics. Instead of taking his inherited place in high society, he chooses instead to go on a quest for spiritual meaning to the land where his religion began. Disraeli, as novelist, uses the Levant as a backdrop for his psychological portrait of young Tancred, but it is as much about the foibles of the British political scene as it is an “Orientalist” rendering of the cradle of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The novel is full of intrigue, as adventure stories should be. It has not made canonization as a “great” work, but it is still worth a read (if you can find a copy). Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Tancred of the New Crusade →

‘Muslim antisemitism’ and Al-Andalus: a historical perspective

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Islamophobia, Judaism


Image of a cantor reading the Passover story in Al Andalus, from the 14th century Haggadah of Barcelona.

by Ed Swan, Research Intern, Quilliam Foundation

The phenomenon of antisemitism in Muslim-majority societies is usually explained in one of two ways. Either it is seen as something innate to Islam, constituting a core element of Islamic thought and scripture, and exemplified by centuries of persecution and conflict, or it is presented as a reaction to Zionism, and a break with a history of interfaith cooperation. The debate is influenced by absolutist viewpoints, which hold, for example, that the reaction to Israel in the Islamic world is purely antisemitic, or that pre-Zionist relations between Jews and Muslims constituted a utopian ideal of coexistence. The Islamic Caliphate of Al-Andalus, which existed in various forms in Iberia from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries, is often held up as the example par excellence of this coexistence. A closer look at the society of Al-Andalus helps to demonstrate that, while perhaps it was no utopia, the phenomenon of ‘Muslim antisemitism’ as we recognise it today does not have its roots in Islamic history.

Antisemitism in Muslim majority countries is well documented: a recent survey reports that large majorities of respondents in countries such as Egypt (95%), Turkey (76%) and Pakistan (76%) have an ‘unfavourable opinion of Jews’ (Pew Research Global Attitudes Project, 2008). Focusing specifically on the Arab World, where the largest majorities reported unfavourable opinions, there are a number of examples in local media that demonstrate the form of this antisemitism. European narratives play a prominent role, for example, Mein Kampf and the fabricated Protocols of the Elders of Zion continue to this day to be widely published and distributed in Arabic translation, and the latter formed the basis of a 2002 Egyptian television series syndicated across the Arab World.

These European-inspired antisemitic ideas can be seen employed as a response to the two overwhelming perceived threats to Islam: Western imperialism and Zionism. Continue reading ‘Muslim antisemitism’ and Al-Andalus: a historical perspective →

Humans without Gods

Bible and Holy Land, Books You Should Read, Ethics, Islam and Christianity, Judaism


Theobald von Oer, The Weimar Court of the Muses (1860)

by Anouar Majid. Tingis Redux, August 7, 2013

For many years now, I have shared my utter amazement at how human beings living in the 20th and 21st centuries could still believe that the gods of the Bible and the Koran are as real as the computer or mobile device in their hand, the cars they drive, or the many people, animals, or trees they see and touch. When I ask people if God exists, many say yes. But when I ask them how they got to know Him (God in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition is unmistakably male), they quote their holy books as evidence. I have yet to meet someone who had a direct encounter with God; our knowledge of the Almighty relies heavily on our faith that Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed had exclusive access to Him, and that the books that tell us about these privileged encounters are the uncorrupted truth.

Most of us have been indoctrinated into such beliefs since childhood, so that by the time we start defending God against unbelievers, the best we can do is rationalize the faiths we inherited from our parents, families, and social environments. Take away the holy books and the theologians that have spent millennia preaching their dogmas and we are left with only our mere existences, alone with the elements, without any guide to show us how to make sense of our lives. This is, in fact, how the world was in ancient Greece before Christianity took over and condemned philosophy to perdition. And this is the world that the British philosopher A. C. Grayling wants us to rediscover in his newly published book, The God Argument: The Case Against Religion and for Humanism (2013).

Grayling doesn’t talk about the role of writing and scripture in the making of religions; he is more interested in making a humanist case against the basic assumptions of the three monotheistic religions. (Buddhism, Jainism and Confucianism, for example, are better understood as philosophies, not religions in the sense Westerners understand the term.) Such religions, a “hangover from the infancy of modern humanity,” a collection of “superstitions of illiterate herdsmen living several thousands of years ago,” expressions of the “pre-scientific, rudimentary metaphysics of our ancestors,” and a relic of the distant unlettered past are “essentially a stone-age outlook in the modern world.” It would be as if today’s governments still depended on the power of astrology and magic to govern people and run their affairs. This survival, needless to say, is astonishing in an age when science has made great strides—but, then again, science has yet to make a significant impact on many parts of the world, including the Islamic one. Continue reading Humans without Gods →

On the Jews of Yemen

Judaism, Yemen


Imam Yahya’s “Niẓām al-YuhÅ«d,” ms.ar.120 from the National Library of Israel

There is a new study out on the statute on Yemeni Jews by Imam Yahya in 1323/1905 by the historian Kerstin Hünefeld. This is published in Chroniques du manuscrits au Yémen, in the July 2013 issue, which is available in download as a pdf. Hünefeld provides both an edition and an annotated translation.

Yemenite Jews: A Photographic Exhibition

Judaism, Photography, Yemen

An exhibition of photographs of Yemenite Jews is on display from February 1- April 30, 2013 at the Katz Snyder Gallery in San Francisco. The entire collection can be seen online.

Israeli photojournalist Naftali Hilger’s breathtaking photos of Yemen reveal a nation and a landscape lost in time. His intimate portraits of the isolated Jewish communities of Yemen, taken over a period of 20 years, have been most recently seen in a widely heralded exhibition at the Museum of Islamic Art in Jerusalem.

Hilger’s life-altering love affair with the mysteries of Yemen began in 1987. Over six subsequent trips from 1987 through 2008, he documented not only one of the most ancient communities in the Jewish diaspora, but Muslim Yemen as well – its markets, its landscapes and the fascinating architecture of Sana’a and the rural villages.

Illuminating Jewish Life in a Muslim Empire

Afghanistan, Archaeology and Antiquities, Iran, Judaism


A document attesting to the accounts of Abu Ishaq the Jew (1020-1021CE); The National Library of Israel

By Isabel Kershner, The New York Times, January 14, 2013

JERUSALEM — A batch of 1,000-year-old manuscripts from the mountainous northern reaches of war-torn Afghanistan, reportedly found in a cave inhabited by foxes, has revealed previously unknown details about the cultural, economic and religious life of a thriving but little understood Jewish society in a Persian part of the Muslim empire of the 11th century.

The texts are known collectively as the Afghan Geniza, a Hebrew term for a repository of sacred texts and objects.

The 29 paper pages, now encased in clear plastic and unveiled here this month at the National Library of Israel, are part of a trove of hundreds of documents discovered in the cave whose existence had been known for several years, with photographs circulating among experts. Remarkably well preserved, apparently because of the dry conditions there, the majority of the documents are now said to be in the hands of private dealers in Britain, Switzerland, and possibly the United States and the Middle East. Continue reading Illuminating Jewish Life in a Muslim Empire →

Buried Christian Empire Casts New Light on Early Islam

Archaeology and Antiquities, Art, Bible and Holy Land, Islamic History, Judaism, Yemen


The “crowned man” relief found in Zafar, Yemen is seen as evidence that there was a Christian empire in the region before Islam took hold.

by Matthias Schulz, Der Spiegel, December 21, 2012

The commandment “Make yourself no graven image” has long been strictly followed in the Arab world. There are very few statues of the caliphs and ancient kings of the region. The pagan gods in the desert were usually worshipped in an “aniconic” way, that is, as beings without form.

But now a narcissistic work of human self-portrayal has turned up in Yemen. It is a figure, chiseled in stone, which apparently stems from the era of the Prophet.

Paul Yule, an archeologist from the southwestern German city of Heidelberg, has studied the relief, which is 1.70 meters (5’7″) tall, in Zafar, some 930 kilometers (581 miles) south of Mecca. It depicts a man with chains of jewelry, curls and spherical eyes. Yule dates the image to the time around 530 AD.

The German archeologist excavated sites in the rocky highlands of Yemen, an occupation that turned quite dangerous recently because of political circumstances in the country. On his last mission, Yule lost 8 kilograms (18 lbs.) and his equipment was confiscated.

Nevertheless, he is pleased, because he was able to bring notes, bits of debris and bones back to Heidelberg. Yule has concluded that Zafar was the center of an Arab tribal confederation, a realm that was two million square kilometers (about 772,000 square miles) large and exerted its influence all the way to Mecca. Continue reading Buried Christian Empire Casts New Light on Early Islam →

Who was (fill in the prophet)?

Humor and Satire, Islam and Christianity, Journalism and Media, Judaism, YouTube Watch


The current cover of about-to-be-print-defunct Newsweek asks a question that could be seen as an old (and oh so tired) joke:

Who’s there?
Jesus.
Jesus who?
Jesus who? After 2000 years you still don’t know who Jesus was?

Perhaps Newsweek is reduced to the digital because it took so long to follow up on Time Magazine‘s 1966 cover that asked “Is God Dead?” Both are questions that beg further questions. For Time, which God? For Newsweek, which Jesus? For that matter, it could also be asked which Moses, which Muhammad, which Buddha, which Krishna, which Ishtar, which Baal, which Zeus, which Napoleon, which Joseph Smith and which Elvis? In all but the last three choices above, no historian can ever answer the question, and even Napoleon is philosophically iffy.

Since this is the Christmas season that is consuming our time, let’s start with Jesus. Do you want the Jesus who is mortal or the one born of a virgin and equal to eternal deity? Be careful how you choose for you could end up (and it would be your end after the middle of the 4th century) being an Arian heretic rather than accepting the alternative of homoousious (a word worth looking up if only because it has a double o in the middle). Do you want the babe away in a manger while angels sang to shepherds and wise guys followed a star to Bethlehem? Then even the current Pope has his doubts. Do you want Jesus of the Gospels, who thought it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven and preferred the wisdom of children to the theologians of his day? Then think twice about applying for funding from the for-profit Andrew Carnegie’s trying-philanthropically-to-be-like-the-prophet Carnegie Foundation.

Do you want the Jesus that died for your sins so you could go on a crusade to the Holy Land and kill the infidels who had taken over Jerusalem? Continue reading Who was (fill in the prophet)? →