MES 17.18 Jewish Views of Islam
This course will examine Jewish views of Islam by reviewing the history of medieval and modern Jewish experience under Muslim rule, Jewish theological understandings of Islam, and modern Jewish historiographical interpretations of Islamic origins within Judaism. We will study Jewish understandings of Islam: the articulated differences between Jewish and Muslim beliefs, particularly in relation to prophecy, revelation, scripture, and messianism; the ways that Islam served as a template for presenting Judaism to modern Christian Europe; the alliance forged between Jewish scholars and their imagined Islam as a polemical tool against Christianity; the rise of Oriental Studies and Religious Studies in Europe and the role played within that field by Jewish scholars; Jewish-authored travelogues to Muslim countries; and individual cases of conversions from Judaism to Islam. We will examine Arab-Jewish intellectual and literary creativity and how Orientalism has shaped other cultural phenomena, specifically early psychoanalytic writings.
Instructor
Heschel
Cross Listed Courses
JWST 058