Muslim perceptions of other religions: a historical survey

366 Pages·1999·2.055 MB·English

by  Jacques Waardenburg

Muslim Perceptions
of Other Religions

MUSLIM PERCEPTIONS
of OTHER RELIGIONS
A Historical Survey
Edited by
Jacques Waardenburg
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1999
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York
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Copyright © 1999 by Jacques Waardenburg
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Muslim perceptions of other religions : a historical survey /
edited by Jacques Waardenburg.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references
ISBN 0-19-510472-2
1. Islam—Relations. 2. Islam—History.
I. Waardenburg, Jean Jacques.
BP171.M86 1998
297.2'8—DC21 97-29982
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For H.M.D.
since 1975

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In the course of history, Islam as a religion and as a The historical and social relations between reli-
religious community has come into contact with a gious communities are attracting increasing scholarly
number of other religions in the East and West. Mus- attention. I hope that this book with its bibliography
lims have met non-Muslims and their cultures in dif- will encourage others to continue research in this rela-
ferent situations and at different times and places. tively new field. It is not just the religions them-
Throughout this history there have been Muslim au- selves—the interpretations their adherents have given
thors who wrote of what they knew and thought about them and the norms they have derived from them in
other religions and their adherents. It is a legitimate the course of time—that are worthy of attention. The
scholarly question how, in different circumstances, views, appreciations, and judgments that these adher-
they saw people with other religions or none at all, ents have given of each other and their behavior are
and to seek an answer through the study of texts equally a valid subject of investigation. This holds
which have reached us from the past. especially true for Islam, today’s second largest reli-
This book presents some results of such research. gion, about which most people have opinions but only
Part I, written by the editor, is of a general nature a few knowledge and insight.
and surveys the field. Parts II and III contain essays Thanks are due to all those who gave this research
by different authors on specific subjects in the me- project scholarly, moral, and financial support. With-
dieval and modern periods of the history of Islam. out a subsidy from the Swiss National Science Foun-
They were originally read and discussed at a sym- dation and the Swiss Academy for the Humanities and
posium organized at the University of Lausanne in Social Sciences the symposium would not have taken
December 1991. Unfortunately, the publication of place. Without much patient work by Hilary Kilpatrick
the definitive texts took much more time than I had and Isabel Stümpel the text and the bibliography would
expected; in the meantime four participants have not have been readable. And without the active partici-
published five books related to the subject: Camilla pation of colleagues who prepared papers and took part
Adang, Islam Frente a Judaïsmo: La polémica de in the discussion, the whole enterprise would have been
Ibn Hazm de Córdoba (Madrid: Aben Ezra Ediciones, but one man’s dream. The dream started in 1965 when
1994); Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaïsm and the late Gustav E. von Grunebaum encouraged me to
the Hebrew Bible: From Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm study the medieval Muslim contribution to the devel-
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996); Christine Schirrmacher, opment of Religionswissenschaft. I have extended this
Mit den Waffen des Gegners: Christlich-muslimische subject to cover the whole field of Muslim views of
Kontroversen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Berlin: other religions in the course of history, collecting a vast
Klaus Schwarz, 1992); Isabel Stümpel-Hatami, Das documentation on the subject. The symposium of
Christentum aus der Sicht zeitgenössischer iranischer December 1991 has been one of the results of what may
Autoren: Eine Untersuchung religionskundlicher be called a lifelong dream, “Religions in the Mirror of
Publikationen in persischer Sprache (Berlin: Klaus Islam”—more or less the reverse of my doctoral dis-
Schwarz, 1996); Steven M. Wasserstrom, Between sertation, “Islam in the Mirror of Western Orientalists.”
Muslim and Jew: The Problem of Symbiosis under
Early Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, Lausanne, Switzerland J. W.
1995). August 1998
vii
viii Medieval Times
The Early Period ix
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Introduction xi 8 Medieval Muslim Polemics against
the Jewish Scriptures 143
Contributors xiii Camilla Adang
9 Heresiography of the Jews
I Muslim Studies of Other Religions 1 in Mamluk Times 160
Steven M. Wasserstrom
1 The Early Period: 610–650 3
Jacques Waardenburg 10 Perceptions of Other Religions
in Sufism 181
2 The Medieval Period: 650–1500 18 Carl-A. Keller
Jacques Waardenburg
11 Philosophical Schools as Viewed
3 The Modern Period: 1500–1950 70 by Some Medieval Muslim Authors:
Jacques Waardenburg Doctrines and Classifications 195
Charles Genequand
4 The Contemporary Period: 1950–1995 85
Jacques Waardenburg 12 Zoroastrians as Viewed
in Medieval Islamic Sources 202
J. Christoph Bürgel
II Medieval Times 103
13 Representations of Social Intercourse
5 Christians in the Qur(cid:1)an and Tafsir 105 between Muslims and Non-Muslims
Jane Dammen McAuliffe in Some Medieval Adab Works 213
Hilary Kilpatrick
6 Arab-Islamic Perceptions of Byzantine
Religion and Culture 122
Ahmad M. H. Shboul III Modern Times 225
7 Some Arab-Muslim Perceptions of Religion 14 Christianity as Described by
and Medieval Culture in Sicily 136 Persian Muslims 227
Andrea Borruso Isabel Stümpel-Hatami
x Contents
15 Arabic Muslim Writings on Contemporary 20 The Debate on Muslim-Christian Dialogue
Religions Other Than Islam 240 as Reflected in Muslim Periodicals
Patrice Brodeur in Arabic (1970–1991) 297
Ekkehard Rudolph
16 The Muslims in South Asia
(1857–1947) 250
Selected Bibliography 309
Sheila McDonough
Jacques Waardenburg
The Early Period 310
17 Muslim Views of Hindus since 1950 263
The Medieval Period 312
Asghar Ali Engineer
The Modern Period 326
The Contemporary Period 330
18 The Influence of Higher Bible Criticism
Oriental Languages: Selected Modern
on Muslim Apologetics
Texts 337
in the Nineteenth Century 270
Christine Schirrmacher
General Index 341
19 The Pancasila Ideology and an Indonesian
Muslim Theology of Religions 280
Karel A. Steenbrink Muslim Author Index 349