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Very few texts in Judaism refer to or take note of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. Those that do generally reject Muhammad's proclamation of receiving divine revelations from God.
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| Muhammad |
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Very few texts in Judaism refer to or take note of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. Those that do generally reject Muhammad's proclamation of receiving divine revelations from God.
In the Middle Ages, it was common for Jewish writers to describe Muhammad as ha-meshuggah ("the madman"), a term frequently used in the Bible for those who believe themselves to be prophets. [1] [2] [3]
Maimonides referred to Muhammad as a false prophet and an insane man. In his Epistle to Yemen he wrote, "After [Jesus] arose the Madman who emulated his precursor [Jesus], since he paved the way for him. But he added the further objective of procuring rule and submission [talb al-mulk; pursuit of sovereignty] and he invented what was well known [Islam]." [4]
In his authoritative work of law, the Mishneh Torah (Hilkhot Melakhim 11:10–12), Maimonides indicated that, nevertheless, Muhammad was part of God's plan of preparing the world for the coming of the Jewish Messiah: "All those words of Jesus of Nazareth and of this Ishmaelite [i.e., Muhammad] who arose after him are only to make straight the path for the messianic king and to prepare the whole world to serve the Lord together. As it is said: 'For then I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech so that all of them shall call on the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord' (Zephaniah 3:9)." [5]
Natan'el al-Fayyumi, a prominent 12th-century Yemenite rabbi and theologian, and the founder of what is sometimes called "Jewish Ismailism," wrote in his philosophical treatise Bustan al-Uqul ("Garden of the minds") that God sends prophets to establish religions for other nations, which do not have to conform to the precepts of the Jewish Torah. Nethanel explicitly considered Muhammad a true prophet who was sent from Heaven with a particular message that applies to the Arabs but not to the Jews. [6] [7] Al-Fayyumi's explicit acceptance of Muhammad's prophecy was rare and virtually unknown until recent times beyond his native Yemen. [8]
The apocalyptic Midrash The Secrets of Rabbi Simon ben Yohai compares Muhammad to the Jewish Messiah. According to this text, ascribed to the famous 1st-century sage and mystic Simeon bar Yochai, and thought to have been written at the beginning of the Muslim conquest or in the 8th century, [9] Muhammad's role as a prophet includes redeeming the Jews from the Christian ("Roman" or "Edomite") oppression and playing a positive role in the messianic process. [10]
A number of stories from the Islamic tradition about Muhammad entered mainstream Jewish thought incidentally due to the great cultural convergence in Al-Andalus from the 9th to 12th centuries, known as the Golden Age of Iberian Jewry. For example, Rabbi Jacob Joseph of Polonne, one of the early Hasidic mystics, wrote that one pious man (hasid) taught that the internal struggle against the evil inclination is greater than external battle, quoting Bahya ibn Paquda's popular treatise Chovot HaLevavot. In the Judeo-Arabic original version of that book, Bahya Ibn Paquda refers to both external and internal battles as jihad and the "pious man" about whom the story is told initially is Muhammad, though the author does not mention his source by name. [11]
Habakkuk, or Habacuc, who was active around 612 BC, was a prophet whose oracles and prayer are recorded in the Book of Habakkuk, the eighth of the collected twelve minor prophets in the Hebrew Bible. He is revered by Jews, Christians, and Muslims.
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Jewish philosophy includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or in relation to the religion of Judaism. Until the modern Haskalah and Jewish emancipation, Jewish philosophy was preoccupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism, thus organizing emergent ideas that are not necessarily Jewish into a uniquely Jewish scholastic framework and world-view. With their acceptance into modern society, Jews with secular educations embraced or developed entirely new philosophies to meet the demands of the world in which they now found themselves.
The Messiah in Judaism is a savior and liberator figure in Jewish eschatology who is believed to be the future redeemer of the Jews. The concept of messianism originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible a messiah is a king or High Priest of Israel traditionally anointed with holy anointing oil.
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Messianism is the belief in the advent of a messiah who acts as the savior of a group of people. Messianism originated as a Zoroastrian religious belief and followed to Abrahamic religions, but other religions also have messianism-related concepts. Religions with a messiah concept include Hinduism (Kalki) Judaism (Mashiach), Christianity (Christ), Islam Masih [title] Isah son of mary, Druze faith, Zoroastrianism (Saoshyant), Buddhism (Maitreya), Taoism, and Bábism.
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Taḥrīf or corruption of the Bible, is a term used by most Muslims to refer to believed alterations made to the previous revelations of God—specifically those that make up the Tawrat, the Zabur or Psalms, and the Injil. The term is also used to refer to what Muslims consider to be the corrupted Jewish and Christian interpretations of the previous revelations of God, known as “Tahrif al-Mana”. This concept holds that earlier revelations have been misinterpreted rather than textually altered.
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Abu ʿIsa was a Jewish prophet who lived in the 8th century CE in Persia. He founded the Isawiyya movement that led a military revolt in the city of Isfahan. The timing of this event is disputed, but it is thought to have occurred as early as the reign of the caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan and as late as that of Marwan II. Eventually, he was killed by al-Mansur near Ray. Abu 'Isa was identified with the Dajjal and was conflated in a famous hadith that reads "the Dajjal will be followed by 70,000 Jews of Isfahan wearing Persian shawls".
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Hoter ben Shlomo was a scholar and philosopher from Yemen who was heavily influenced by the earlier works of Natan'el al-Fayyumi, Maimonides, Saadia Gaon and al-Ghazali.
Natan'el al-Fayyumi, born about 1090 – died about 1165, of Yemen was the twelfth-century author of Bustan al-ʿUqul, a Jewish version of Ismaili Shi'i doctrines. It was an imitation of Bahya ibn Paquda's book Duties of the Heart that al-Fayyumi composed to counter some of the basic principles and tenets of Judaism expressed by ibn Paquda. He wrote in the third chapter that God's unity is far greater than that described by ibn Paquda.
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