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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.
In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of mashiach, messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a mashiach is a king or High Priest traditionally anointed with holy anointing oil.
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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.
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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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Adherents of Judaism do not believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah or Prophet nor do they believe he was the Son of God. In the Jewish perspective, it is believed that the way Christians see Jesus goes against monotheism, a belief in the absolute unity and singularity of God, which is central to Judaism; Judaism sees the worship of a person as a form of idolatry, which is forbidden. Therefore, considering Jesus divine, as “God the Son”, is forbidden.
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, Druze faith, Zoroastrianism (Saoshyant), Buddhism (Maitreya), Taoism, and Bábism.
The Banu Qurayza were a Jewish tribe which lived in northern Arabia, at the oasis of Yathrib. They were one of the three major Jewish tribes of the city, along with the Banu Qaynuqa and Banu Nadir.
In religion, a false prophet or pseudoprophet is a person who falsely claims the gift of prophecy or divine inspiration, or to speak for God, or who makes such claims for evil ends. Often, someone who is considered a "true prophet" by some people is simultaneously considered a "false prophet" by others, even within the same religion as the "prophet" in question. In a wider sense, it is anyone who, without having it, claims a special connection to the deity and sets themself up as a source of spirituality, as an authority, preacher, or teacher. Analogously, the term is sometimes applied outside religion to describe someone who fervently promotes a theory that the speaker thinks is false.
Al-Masih ad-Dajjal, otherwise referred to simply as the Dajjal, is an evil figure in Islamic eschatology who will pretend to be the promised Messiah and later claim to be God, appearing before the Day of Judgment according to the Islamic eschatological narrative. The word Dajjal is not mentioned in the Quran, but he is mentioned and described in the Hadith. Corresponding to the Antichrist in Christianity, the Dajjal is said to emerge out in the East, although the specific location varies among the various sources.
Jacob ben Nathanael ibn al-Fayyumi was a rosh yeshiva of the Yemenite Jews in the second half of the 12th century CE, son of the illustrious Rabbi, Nathanel al-Fayyumi. All that is known of him is that at the suggestion of Solomon ha-Kohen, a pupil of Maimonides, he wrote to the latter asking his advice in regard to a pseudo-Messiah who was leading the Jews of southern Arabia astray. From a passage in Maimonides' "Letter to the Wise Men of the Congregation of Marseilles", the date of Jacob's letter is fixed as 1172. In answer, Maimonides sent his Iggeret Teman or, as it is also called, Petah Tikva. Abraham Harkavy supposes that Jacob had knowledge of Saadia Gaon's Sefer ha-Galui. Jacob's father was known as a philosophical writer.
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".
It is believed that Jews began migrating to the Arabian Peninsula in as early as the 6th century BCE, when the Babylonian conquest of Judah triggered a mass Jewish exodus from Judea in the Land of Israel. Over time and through successive exiles, the local Jewish tribes, who were concentrated in the Hejaz and partly in South Arabia, established themselves as one of the most prominent ethno-religious communities of pre-Islamic Arabia. Likewise, Judaism, which had been introduced as one of the few monotheistic religions in the region, stood as a deviation from the typical polytheistic practices of Arabian paganism. These Jewish tribes continued to have a presence in Arabia during the rise of Muhammad, who founded Islam in the 7th century CE. Muhammad's interaction with the Jewish community is documented to a considerable degree in Islamic literature, including in many ahadith. The Jewish tribes of the Hejaz are seen in Islam as having been the offspring of the Israelites/Hebrews. Two of Muhammad's wives were Jewish: Safiyya bint Huyayy and Rayhanah bint Zayd, both of whom belonged to the Banu Nadir by birth, though Rayhanah's status as a wife is disputed.
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 Gan HaSikhlim; Garden of the Intellects). 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.
Arguments that prophecies of Muhammad exist in the Bible have formed part of Islamic tradition since at least the mid-8th century, when the first extant arguments for the presence of predictions of Muhammad in the Bible were made by Ibn Ishaq in his Book of Military Expeditions. A number of Christians throughout history, such as John of Damascus and John Calvin, have interpreted Muhammad as being the Antichrist of the New Testament.