This collection of essays reveals the breadth and depth of the interests of William Brinner as well as the extent of his influence on recent scholarship. The essays cover a broad span of time, from the medieval to modern era, and a variety of topics, including, but not limited to, law, literature, language, politics, and scriptural studies. The collection has assumed even greater relevance in light of recent events because of its examination of the long and complex interrelationship between two of the great Western monotheistic traditions, Judaism and Islam. As these essays demonstrate, the two faiths have often found themselves in direct competition over the understanding of history, sacred and secular, and revelation. But the essays also show the rich exchanges between Jews and Muslims throughout their history. As the title appropriately indicates, that history is one of boundaries, communication, and interaction, both positive and negative.
After an appreciation of Brinner's scholarship and a bibliography of his work, the volume opens with an overview article by Jacob Lassner that raises issues that will appear throughout the collection and also places Jewish-Muslim relations in their medieval and modern context. Lassner argues that at the heart of the conflict of the religions of Judaism and Islam is a difference in the understanding of history, which also influences how members of each faith react to modernity. The Jewish historiographic tradition is accommodationist, according to Lassner, and the Islamic tradition is triumphalist. The Jewish understanding of history, rooted in issues of morality, could accept the absorption of their communities by Islam as well as the changes brought on by modernity. The triumphalist view can accommodate periods of success but is less ready to respond to the changes, political setbacks, and challenge to traditional assumptions brought on by modernity. Lassner also argues that the Jewish and Islamic historiographic tradition is a source of conflict between the two religions as they seek to appropriate biblical history to themselves. Tensions between the religions exist, therefore, because Islam identified the biblical prophets as Muslims and Jews have not accepted this identification. Competition over claims to biblical history and the success of the modern state of Israel, Lassner concludes, remains a source of historic and historiographic tension between the two faiths.
The next two sections concern Jewish and Muslim interaction in medieval and modern times. These sections included Stephen D. Benin's study of the Chronicle of Ahimaaz, which "portrays the relations among Jews, Muslims and Christians in a manner unique in Hebrew literature". (27) Mark R. Cohen examines the concept of galut in medieval Jewish writings from both the Islamic and Christian worlds and argues persuasively that these writings reveal that the situation for Jews was worse in Christian lands than those territories under Islamic rule. The debate that existed between Christians and Jews is the focus of Daniel Lasker's chapter. He notes that Jews living in Christian Spain were influenced by the anti-Christian polemic of Jews in the Islamic world. Jewish and Muslim relations is the subject of chapter by Gordon Newby, who explores the Jewish response to the spread of Islam during the Umayyad period. He notes that Jewish writers of the time interpreted the success of Islam and the end of the Umayyad dynasty in eschatological terms, and developed messianic traditions similar to those of the Shi'a movement. Attitudes toward the rival faiths as well as toward modernity and European colonialism are considered in the chapters by Michael M. Laskier and Norman A. Stillman. The section on medieval Jewish-Muslim interaction also contains two excellent chapters drawing from the wonderfully rich material of the Cairo Genizah. David Marmer's study of court documents from the Genizah describes marital relations and the means in which members different social classes resolved marital disputes. Shaul Shaked examines Jewish magical literature from the Genizah and draws comparisons between Islamic and Jewish magical traditions.
The next section, the longest of the volume, examines the various literary and artistic traditions associated with the Bible and the Qur'an and relationships between the two texts. Eva Bear compares a 10th century Pentateuch with contemporaneous illuminated Qur'ans. The study, which includes 22 black and white illustrations, demonstrates the artistic similarities of the texts and suggest the exchange between illuminators. The section includes several articles that examine scriptural or other religious texts and make similar arguments about interchange between the two faiths. Marc Bernstein reveals a circular pattern of influence as Jewish Midrashic material was adopted by Muslim writers, whose material was then incorporated into Jewish texts. Vera Moreen, using the writings of Mawlana Shahin-I Shirzi, explores how Islamic lore penetrated Jewish literary texts, and Steven Wasserman demonstrates that Jewish pseudepigrapha influenced the author of a popular Islamic literary work. Other chapters examine the influence of the Tafsir of Saadiah Gaon on modern Protestant and Catholic translations of the Bible and the similar way in which Jewish, Christian, and Islamic texts treat the story of the garment of Adam. Finally, Reuven Firestone offers a fascinating, but ultimately unconvincing, chapter that argues that the story of Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael found in the Qur'an is based on a tradition that predates the Genesis account.
The next three sections--law, philosophy and ethics, and sectarian communities--demonstrate both the breadth of Brinner's influence. In the section on law, Vardit Rispler- Chaim compares the treatment of deserted wives in Islamic and Jewish law and concludes that women receive better treatment in Islamic law, which has more humanitarian rules on property, remarriage, and the right to happiness of deserted wives. In a study of the work of Ibn Hanbal, Susan Spectorsky considers the tradition of intermarriage in Islamic law. Although a matter of some interest to Ibn Hanbal, Spectorsky argues, Hanbal's treatment of the topic had more to do with the development of the Islamic legal tradition than with any actual practice. Lenn E. Goodman examines the influence of Islamic thinkers on Maimonides' understanding of the problem of theophany in the section on philosophy and ethics. Hava Lazarus-Yahef considers a topic that is raised in several earlier chapters and makes a compelling argument concerning the absence of a tradition of self-cristicism in Islam. Comparing the Bible and Qur'an, Lazarus-Yahef notes that the Qur'an does not incorporate the stories of Isaiah and other prophets who criticized their community, which helps explain the lack of a tradition of self- criticism. These chapters are followed by two that concern sectarian communities. Fred Astren argues that, despite their origins, the Karaites developed a historical sense similar to that of the Rabbinical Jews, and Philip E. Miller examines the social, economic, and political circumstances that led to the creation of an independent Karaite community in the Crimea that was separate from the general Jewish population.
The final part of the volume contains several chapters on language, linguistics, and literature. The first two chapters of the section address the works of the twentieth-century writers A. B. Yehoshua and Ghassan Kanafani. Arnold J. Band examines the influence of Shabbetai Zevi and the Sabbation situation on Yehoshua's work and attitudes toward contemporary Israel, and Ariel A. Bloch demonstrates that Kanafani, in the novel Return to Haifa, recognized the reality of Israel's existence, although not its right to exist, already in 1969. The next three chapters concern medieval literary and linguistic subjects, beginning with Ross Brann's study of the poetry of Judah Ha-Levi. Brann notes how Ha-Levi was influenced by Arabic verse and how the poet incorporated and adapted motifs from Arabic poetry into his own. Jonas C. Greenfield explores the origins of the Qur'anic epithet bismillahi al-rahman al-rahim, which he locates in the biblical tradition and the Jews of Yathrib who were known by the Prophet Muhammad. And Benjamin H. Hary examines the Egyptian Judeo-Arabic sharh, and demonstrates further the exchange between Arabic and Hebrew traditions and the way in which medieval Jews preserved their identity in Arabic lands. Shmuel Moreh concludes the book with a study of a Jewish playwright that considers how medieval Hebrew and Arabic traditions influenced nineteenth-century theater.
The volume, clearly, has a great deal to offer and stands as a fitting tribute to William Brinner. It contains chapters on a wide variety of topics, and each chapter contains a bibliography of works cited. Although the chapters are relatively short, they are often provocative and insightful. They remind us that tension between Jews and Muslims is not new and that their conflicts over history and religion have ancient roots. The volume as testifies to the important shared roots of the two faiths as well as the frequent exchanges them that have enriched both traditions. Indeed, perhaps the best lesson to draw from this timely and thoughtful collection of essays is that although there are substantial boundaries between the two faiths there is also a basis for much communication and interaction.