Analogising Judaism and Islam: nineteenth- and twentieth-century German–Jewish scholarship on Islam. Issue 3 (2nd September 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Johnston-Bloom, Ruchama
• Is Part Of: Journal of beliefs & values. Volume 38:Issue 3(2017)
• Page Start: 267
• Page End: 275
• Publication Date: 2017-09-02
• Subjects: Orientalism -- Jewish reform -- Islamic reform -- German–Jewish thought -- Abrahamic; Religions -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; Theology -- Periodicals; Religious education -- Periodicals; Values -- Periodicals; 200.1
• DOI: 10.1080/13617672.2017.1317521
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1361-7672

Abstract

Abstract: This paper focuses on one chapter of the history of Jewish–Muslim intellectual encounter by examining the work of three Jewish scholars of Islam: Gustav Weil, Ignác Goldziher and Ilse Lichtenstadter. In recent years, (German–)Jewish Orientalism has received growing attention, with scholars arguing that Jewish Orientalists used the study of Islam to confront issues related to their own position as members of a religious minority in Christian Europe. This paper focuses in particular on the analogies these thinkers drew between Judaism and Islam in general and between Jewish and Islamic 'responses to modernity' in particular. I argue that the idea that Judaism and Islam are similar remains an idée fixe from the nineteenth century into the twentieth century (and beyond) but that it is also malleable. I conclude with some remarks about contemporary calls for an 'Islamic reformation'.