Jews and Muslims in the Middle Ages
go to [week 1] [week
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Monday July 12
1. Organizational meeting
2. Jews and Muslims in history: the problematic (Cohen)
(discussion)
The "myth of the interfaith utopia and the "countermyth
of Islamic persecution. How the subject of Jewish-Muslim relations in past
time has become politicized by Jewish and by Arab writers and journalists in
modern and contemporary times
3. Texts from the historiography of Jewish-Muslim relations
(Cohen) (workshop)
A selection of representative readings from Jewish and
Arabist historiography will be read and discussed
4. Historical survey (Cohen) (lecture)
A quick overview of Jewish history in the context of
medieval Islamic history up to about the 13th century.
5. Political status of the Jews (Cohen) (workshop)
The Islamic sources for non-Mulsim political (legal) status,
their origins and application. What was the Pact of `Umar? Discussion of the
actual texts.
Tuesday, July 13
6. The sectarian milieu (Stroumsa) (lecture)
Introduction to the place of the Jews in the
multi-religious, multi-cultural setting of the medieval Islamic world
7. The Language of Symbiosis (Stroumsa) (lecture)
Judaeo-Arabic, Christian-Arabic. How much acquaintance with
the Other’s Scriptures? Terminology as evidence of influence.
8. Jewish-Muslim Polemics (Stroumsa) (lecture/discussion)
The texts (status questionis before the opening up of
the Russian Firkovich Collection); prophetology; exegetical concerns; Jewish
converts to Islam
9-10. Legal sources of Jewish and Islamic law (Libson)
(lecture)
Discussion of the sources of law in Judaism and in Islam
Wednesday, July 14
11. Is the Qur’an a "Text" or a
"Discourse?" (Abu Zayd) (workshop)
12. Methodology of Interpretation of Islamic Religious
Texts: Historical Survey (Abu Zayd) (lecture)
13. The Cairo Geniza (Cohen) (illustrated lecture)
What was the Cairo Geniza? Its discovery and contents. What
we can learn from it for Jewish and for Muslim history and culture. What is
"Islamic geniza?"
14-15. Panel: Faculty: "Jewish and Islamic
Hermeneutics"
E.g., the Islamic and Jewish story of the
"sacrifice" of the son of Abraham/Ibrahim in Scripture and
commentary: how the two religions understood this story in the light of their
respective histories and belief systems.
Field Trip to Kaufmann Geniza Collection, Hungarian Academy
of Sciences
Thursday, July 15
16. Is the Sunna a Foundational Text Equal to the Qur’an?
(Abu Zayd) (lecture)
17. The despised other (Stroumsa) (lecture/discussion)
Polemical theologumena; abrogation of the law (naskh);
distortion of revelation (tahrif); polemical stereotypes of the Jews;
Qur’anic exegesis and as reflecting an inter-religious reality
18. Jewish-Christian polemics: a comparison (Stroumsa)
(lecture/discussion)
Texts; Christology; trinitarianism; exegetical concerns
19. Jewish heresiography: pre-Islamic and early Islamic
period (Stroumsa) (lecture/discussion)
The genre: Christian heresiography (the Church Fathers, John
of Damascus; Islamic heresiography (al-Warraq, the mu`tazila, "the 72
sects" tradition); Jewish heresiography and its goals: Karaite (Qirqisani
[10th century]) and Rabbanite (Ibn Daud [12th centiry]);
pre-Islamic period: Sadducees, Maghariyya, Samaritans; early Islamic period:
Isawiyya, Hiwi of Balkh.
20. Ananites, Karaites, Rabbanites (Stroumsa)
(lecture/discussion)
The height of the debate in the tenth century; the scholarly
debate on the origins of Karaism; Karaism in Palestine, Egypt, the Iberian
Peninsula, Byzantium, Eastern Europe
Field trip to Jewish quarter of Budapest
Friday, July 16
21. Methodological problems in determining channels of
mutual influence (Libson) (lecture)
How can we determine who influenced whom? What are the
methodological problems?
22. Early stages of Jewish influence upon Islamic law:
Bible and Qur’an (Libson) (lecture)
How, in the early Islamic period, Jewish texts and ideas
influenced nascent Islamic law.
23. Poverty and Charity in the Geniza period (Cohen)
(workshop)
A case-study of how the Geniza is used for social history
and for illuminating, not only Jewish society, but also, by comparison,
Islamic society. With unpublished texts from the instructor’s recently
completed project in hand.
24. Geonic Period: Muslim influence upon Jewish law against
a social, economic, and legal background (Libson)
(lecture)
How, as Islam matured, influence flowed primarily from Islam
to Judaism.
25. Selected topics of Muslim influence upon Jewish law (Libson)
Examples (with illustrative texts) of Islamic influence upon
Jewish law: in family law; in private law; and in legal procedure with regard
to oaths
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Monday, July 19
26. Methods of interpretation in Judaism in the Middle Ages
(Hegedus) (lecture)
A methodological introduction to Scriptural exegesis,
rational theology (kalam), philosophy (the Greek type of thinking), and
mysticism.
27. Saadya Gaon and the rise of Judaeo-Arabic culture (Scheindlin)
(lecture)
The early Geonic period; Saadya’s career; the
tenth-century revolution in Jewish literature; Arabic as a Jewish language and
the changing role of Hebrew.
28. Maimonides and Islamic law (Libson)
Islamic influences that can be detected in the great Code of
Jewish Law (Mishneh Torah, completed ca. 1180) of Maimonides
29-30. Group discussion; research reports
Tuesday, July 20
31. What is rationalist theology? (Hegedus) (lecture)
The main topics addressed by the kalam, based on
texts of Saadya Gaon, Qirqisani, and the Mughni of `Abd al-Jabbar.
32. The circle of Hasdai ibn Shaprut (10th
century al-Andalus) (Scheindlin) (lecture)
Literature as a feature of leadership; Ibn Shaprut’s
protegés: Menahem, Dunash, and their disciples; the introduction of Arabic
metrics; the linguistic controversy.
33. The literary achievement of Samuel the Nagid (11th
century al-Andalus) (Scheindlin)
The Nagid’s public career; the Nagid as the first major
Hebrew poet of the Judeo-Arabic age; his three diwans.
34. The Kitab al-Amanat wa’l-I`tiqadat of Saadya Gaon (Hegedus)
(workshop)
Structure, epistemology, and ontology in this classic work
of Jewish kalam
35. Canonizing Cosmology (Langermann) (lecture)
Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Basic Laws of the Torah,
chapters 1-4. (A close reading of Maimonides’ succinct presentation of the
basic structures and rules of the cosmos and its relationship to the
scientific consensus of his day.)
Wednesday, July 21
36. Major texts and issues in medicine (Langermann)
(lecture)
A survey part bibliographic and part topical; description of
the major medical texts read and produced by Jews in Arabic speaking lands,
with special emphasis upon Ibn Sina’s al-Qanun fi ‘l-Tibb and its
satellite literature; and a discussion of some the major controversies,
especially those in which the views of two great Greek authorities, Aristotle
and Galen, are pitted one against the other) (with some transparencies)
37. The faylasuf as poet (Scheindlin) (lecture)
Neoplatonism as a force for liturgical renewal; Ibn Gabirol’s
liturgical poetry; his poetic persona.
38. Reaction to the Golden Age: Judah ha-Levi (lecture)
Anxiety about the Judeo-Arabic symbiosis: Halevi’s turn to
piety; his pilgrimage; his poetry
39. The debate concerning astrology (Langermann) (lecture)
Discussion of scientific, philosophical, and theological
aspects of the debate.
40. Sefer Yetzira: Arabic commentaries to an ancient
(?) Hebrew text (Langermann) (workshop)
Debate still ranges as to the proper dating of Sefer
Yetzira. For our purposes, however, the key point is that students of that
book in the Islamic world saw it to be an ancient repository of true—that is
to say, congruent with the current consensus--science, and, from this point of
view, sought to ferret out its scientific teachings
Thursday, July 22
41. Saadya’s philosophical commentary on the Sefer
Yetzirah ("Book of Creation") (Hegedus)
(lecture)
An attempt to demonstrate that while composing a commentary
on the Sefer Yetzira Saadya made use of a philosophical terminology
different from the language of the kalam.
42. Karaite Kalam (Hegedus) (lecture)
The Kitab al-Anwar wa’i-maraqib ("Book or
Lights and Watchtowers") of Ya1qub al-Qirqisani.
43. Pythagoreanism (Langermann) (lecture)
Jewish interest in Pythagorean arithmetic and astronomy, and
a general assessment of the place of Pythagoreanism within the history of
mathematics in Islamic lands.
44. Ibn Kammuna and the "New Wisdom" (Langermann)
(workshop)
A study of new directions in medicine, physics, and
astronomy in the wake of the Mongol conquests of the thirteenth century, as
these are reflected in the writings of the Jewish savant Sa‘d ibn Mansur Ibn
Kammuna (13th century, Baghdad).
45. Poems of Judah ha-Levi (Scheindlin) (workshop)
Reading of some of Halevi’s pilgrimage poems.
Friday, July 23
46. Judah al-Harizi and the Maqama (Scheindlin) (lecture)
Literature of entertainment in prose; the Arabic and the
Hebrew maqama; al-Harizi’s achievement
47. Maimonides and Saadya (Hegedus) (lecture)
A comparison between the Aristotelian method of Maimonides
and the kalam method of Saadya.
48. Maimonides and the sciences (Langermann) (lecture)
Jewish interest and attitudes towards the various scientific
disciplines, and the scientific enterprise as a whole, as these are reflected
in, and shaped for later generations by, the thought of Moses Maimonides.
Summation: faculty and students
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syllabus .doc]
