ISLAM AND JUDAISM

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ISLAM AND JUDAISM

• Ahmed Mirza M.D
• Naqshbandiya Foundation For Islamic
  Education(NFIE)

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AbrahamFather of Jews,ChristiansMuslims

• Abraham means "Father of Many Nations.He
  believed in One God
• Jews know this one God as Yahweh or Yehovah, the
  self-Existent or Eternal. Jehovah, the Lord.
• Muslims know this God as Allah. They say there is
  "No god, but God."
• Christians know the Sacred One first in Matthew
  123 as Emanuel, "God with Us."

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Prophet Abraham in IslamFaith, sacrifice,
commitment and patience

• Salam (peace) be upon Abraham! Quran (37109).
• In Islam, Prophet Ibrahim/Abraham is the
  friend of God and the father of Prophets
  (Ismail/Ishmael and Ishaq/Isaac and the
  grandfather of Prophet Yaqub/Jacob). He is also
  one of the ancestors of the Prophet
  Muhammad.PeaceBlessings be upon them

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Abrahamic Faiths
LawWay
Way
Law
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Prophet Abraham in Islam

• Salat-Prayer Muslims must ask God to send His
  blessings upon Prophet Ibrahim/Abrahamhis Family
  during five daily prayersface towards Kaaba in
  Makkah built by AbrahamIshmael
• .
• Hajj-PilgrimageYou must adhere to the
  traditions and rituals (of Hajj), for these have
  come down to you from (your forefather) Ibrahim
  in heritageHadith (Tirmidhi).
• Eid-ul-Adha The sacrifice is offeredin
  commemoration of the supreme act and spirit of
  sacrifice offered by Prophet Abraham in lieu of
  his son Ismail/Ishmael.

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O God! Send blessings upon Muhammad and upon the
House of Muhammad as You sent blessings upon
Abraham and upon the House of Abraham indeed,
You are praiseworthy and glorious. O God! Bless
Muhammad and the House of Muhammad as You blessed
Abraham and the House of Abraham indeed, You are
praiseworthy and glorious
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Abraham in JudaismChristianity

• Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country
  and your kindred and your father's house to the
  land that I will show you. I will make of you a
  great nation, and I will bless you, and make your
  name great, so that you will be a blessing. I
  will bless those who bless you, and the one who
  curses you I will curse and in you all the
  families of he earth shall be blessed
• Genesis 121-3 (NRSV)

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THE JEWISH CHRISTIAN MUSLIM SYMBIOSIS The
Golden Age of Jewry in Muslim Spain(711-1496)

• In the 13th century, nearly 90 of the worlds
  Jewry lived under Muslim rule.  Jews read and
  wrote in Arabic, worked hand in hand with Muslims
  at commercial projects, and even studied the
  Koran in the schools known as madrassas.  Once
  introduced to the great Sufi thinkers, many of
  the more mystically inclined Jews responded to
  the deep piety of their spiritual cousins and
  ingested their ideas

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Reviving the Model of Muslim Spain

• I believe there are three reasons that
  learning about Al-Andalus is crucial to the world
  today
• 1.The level of civilization that Al-Andalus
  achieved. At a time when the rest of Europe was
  shrouded in the Dark Ages, the Muslim city of
  Cordoba in Al-Andalus was the most advanced city
  on the entire European Continent. In philosophy,
  architecture, mathematics, astronomy, medicine,
  poetry, theology, and numerous other fields of
  human endeavor, medieval Islam was the world's
  most advanced civilization.Three wise
  menAverroes,Maimonides,Thomas Aquinas.
  Jacob
  Bender

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Reviving the Model of Muslim Spain

• 2.Al-Andalus in particular, and Islamic
  civilization in general, served as both the
  repository of ancient Greek knowledge and
  science, and the transmission point in its
  journey to the Christian-dominated West.

Three wise menAverroes,Maimonides,Thomas
Aquinas. Jacob
Bender
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Reviving the Model of Muslim Spain

• 3.The culture of Al-Andalus is now justly
  celebrated for the extent that religious
  pluralism and tolerance were hallmarks of this
  most glorious age, as manifested in Islam's
  respect for ahl al-kitab, the "People of the
  Book."
• Three wise men Averroes,Maimonides, and Thomas
  Aquinas, Bender

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Mosque,Cathedral,Cordoba
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THE JEWISH CHRISTIAN MUSLIM SYMBIOSIS The
Golden Age of Jewry in Muslim Spain(711-1496)
Mosque
Synagogue
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THE THREE WISE MEN OF THE MIDDLE AGES

• Averoes, Maimonides, and Aquinas lived during a
  time of unprecedented and reciprocal spiritual
  intellectual and cultural exchange between Islam,
  Judaism, and Christianity, specially during the
  so called Golden Age of Muslim Spain that
  continues to inspire, both by its high level of
  civilization and its tolerance.

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Three wise men Averroes.

• Ibn Rushd,Averroes, was born in Cordoba,
  Spain in1126 and died in 1198. He is without
  question the greatest mind produced by Islamic
  civilization in Al-Andalus. As a young man, Ibn
  Rushd already excelled in theology, religious
  law, astronomy, literature, mathematics, music,
  zoology, medicine and philosophy.
• Three wise men Averroes, Moses Maimonides,
  and Thomas Aquinas.
  Jacob Bender

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Three wise men Averroes

• It is in the field of philosophy, however,
  that Ibn Rushd left an indelible mark upon the
  intellectual history of Western civilization. In
  the year 1169, Ibn Rushd was asked by the Caliph
  to undertake new and up-to-date Arabic
  translations and commentaries of the works of
  Aristotle. Ibn Rushd's commentaries on Aristotle
  have had an immense impact upon both Christian
  and Jewish philosophy for hundreds of years.
• Three wise men Averroes, Moses
  Maimonides, and Thomas Aquinas.
  Jacob Bender

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Moses Maimonides (1135-1204)

• Visionary thinkerProlific author,Wrote on topics
  ranging from physics to Jewish Law, theology to
  politics, psychology to Biblical exegesis, and
  from philosophy to medicine. Rich and complex in
  their own right, Maimonides' writings must,
  however, be understood within their 12th-13th
  century Spanish Muslim context,of the works of
  three of the most well-known Islamic thinkers,
  al-Farabi (ca. 870-950), Avicenna (Ibn Sina)
  (980-1037) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd) (1126-1198).
• The Influence of Islamic Thought on Maimonides
  Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyJun 30, 2005

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Moses Maimonides Ibn Rushd

• Born 12 years after Ibn Rushd.
• Most important Jewish thinker in the last 2,000
• Both were born in Cordoba in Al-Andalus
• Both became philosopher/theologians
• Both became interpreters of Aristotle
• Both harmonized the reason with the revelations
• Both became jurists of ShariahHalakhah
• Both lived part of their lives in Fez in Morocco
• Both became court physicians, Ibn Rushd to the
  Caliph of Cordoba, Rabbi Musa to the great
  Salah-ah-Din in Egypt.

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Moses Maimonides

• Shining example of the Muslim-Christian-Jewish
  symbiosis that went on for 800 years and was
  ultimately extinguished by the Spanish
  Inquisition in 1478. Jews at that time fled to
  the only country that would allow them an asylum,
  the Ottoman Empire where they celebrated 500
  years of prosperity

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Moses Maimonides 13 principles of faith
Gods Existence God's unity God'sSpirituality
and Incorporeality God's Eternity God alone
should be the object of worship Relevation
through God's Prophets The preeminence of Moses
among the Prophets God's law given on Mount
Sinai The immutability of theTorah as God's Law
God's foreknowledge of human actions Reward of
good and retribution of evil The coming of the
Jewish Messiah The Resurrection of the dead
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Three Wise MenThomas Aquinas

• Born near Naples,Italy in1225,is the most
  important and influential Christian philosopher
  of the Middle Ages. His masterpiece, the Summa
  Theologiae, is widely considered the most
  comprehensive exploration of philosophy and
  theology in the entire history of Christianity.
  And like Ibn Rushd and Rabbi Musa before him, as
  was primarily concerned with finding a way of
  incorporating Aristotle's rationalism into
  Christian theology.

Three wise men Averroes,Maimonides,Thomas
Aquinas.
Jacob Bender
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Rabbi Abraham Maimonides (1186-1237)

• Eminent exponent of the medieval Jewish-Sufi
  synthesis,compiled treatise Kifayat ul-'Abidin
  the compendium for those who serve God
  advocated an ideal of sublime piety based on a
  discipline of mystical communion,recommended Sufi
  practices, solitary contemplation and dhikr,
  repetitions of the divine names.
• SourcesEliezer Segal

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Rabbi Abraham Maimonides (1186-1237)

• Abraham grew up in a truly multi-cultural world,
  where Moslems, Jews and even Christians
  interacted in one of the most accepting societies
  in the history of man. Unlike our current epoch,
  when the voices of hatred speak far louder than
  those of friendship, medieval Egypt was a place
  of mutual respect, protective laws and
  surprisingly strong and positive relations
  between the religions. It was also a time and
  place rife with Sufis and Sufi thought - and
  Jewish libraries often contained books by such
  masters as al-Ghazali, as-Suhrawardi and
  al-Hallaj, all dutifully transcribed into the
  blocky Hebrew script of the local Jewish
  population. Sufis and Jews knew each other, read
  each other's books and even compared notes on
  spirituality and the quest for divine union with
  God. Tom Block

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Kifayat ul-'Abidin the compendium for those who
serve God Abraham Maimonides

• Mystical masterpiece,2500-pages, first three
  chapters re-hashing his father's thought and laws
  ,fourth section spelled out in minute detail the
  tariqa,the Sufi Path, including sincerity, mercy,
  generosity, gentleness, humility, faith,
  contentedness, abstinence, mortification and
  solitude. He also mentions that upon successful
  completion of the "path" and the achievement of
  divine union with God,the seeker is to wear the
  Sufi garb. He himself, wore Sufi Khirqah implying
  that he had not only followed the Sufi Way, but
  had completed it!The Kifaya, had already spread
  to distant lands in his own lifetime, taking with
  it his ideas on Sufism tomblock.com

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Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111)

• al Ghazali played a similar role to Islam as did
  Maimonides to Judaism aligning mystical and more
  orthodox streams, allowing these two impulses to
  coexist within the same religion. Quoted time and
  again in Jewish tracts,his treatises have been
  found copied out into Hebrew in medieval Jewish
  libraries, and his ideas are sprinkled throughout
  medieval Jewish texts.

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Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111)

• Al-Ghazalis influence on Jewish mysticism was
  far reaching,Jewish mystics,Moses Maimonides
  (12th century), Abraham he-Hasid (13th century),
  Obadyah Maimonides (13th century), Judah Halevi
  (12th century), Abraham Ibn Hasdai (13th century)
  up to the Kabbalist Abraham Gavison of Tlemcen
  (17th century) specifically quoted the Sufi
  master in their own exegesis of Jewish life and
  law.Rabbi Gavison stated I have translated the
  poetry of this sage, for even though he be not of
  the children of Israel, it is accepted that the
  pious of the gentiles have a share in the world
  to come and surely heaven will not withhold from
  him the reward of his faith.

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Solomon Ibn Gabirol (b.1020).

• Personified the interweaving of Judaism and
  Islam.He assimilated ideas from Sufis Ikhwan
  as-Safa, to such an extent that after the
  Bible,it was his primary source of inspiration!He
  also followed the teachings of Sufi mystic Ibn
  Masarra (883-931), who had introduced Sufism to
  Spain.

• MEDITATION
•  
• Three things remind me of You,
• the heavens
• who are a witness to Your name
• the earth
• which expands my thought
• and is the thing on which I stand
• and the musing of my heart
• when I look within.

  Statue of Solomon Ibn Gabirol in a park in
Málaga, Spain
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Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi (1165-1240)

• Ibn ArabiIbn Gabirol,were the two great
  followers of Sufi mystic Ibn Masarra (883-931) .
  Where al-Ghazali was known as the Renovator of
  Islam, Ibn Arabi was the Distiller, taking 500
  fertile years of Sufi thought,and creating a
  unified vision of Islamic mysticism, influencing
  virtually all of Islamic spirituality that
  postdated his fertile life span and much of
  Jewish mysticism, as well.

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Abraham Abulafia(1240-1291)

• In addition to Abulafias belief in the ability
  to commune completely with God, he borrowed much
  of what is today commonly thought of as
  particularly Jewish mystical prayer from the
  Muslim mystics called the Science of the
  Letters. This system, based in a complicated
  series of chants, breathing techniques, movements
  of the head, and special clothing, had very
  little to do with the traditional laws of
  Judaism.  Many of these same ideas and rites,
  however, could be found in the Sufi practice of
  that time.Abulafia imported the emotional aspects
  of Sufism into Kabbalistic practice
  Shalom/Salaam, Tom Block

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Abraham Abulafia

• The gentle melding of Sufism with Judaism
  produced a period of tremendous fertility in the
  Jewish religion some have even claimed it to be
  the most productive and creative epoch in the
  entire history of Jewish mysticism.   After the
  Sufi influence was digested, a few hundred years
  after Abraham Abulafias death, the face of
  Jewish worship itself had changed, with
  reverberations reaching deep into the inner
  sanctum of the Jewish Kabbalah and down to the
  Baal Shem Tovs Hasidism.  Even today,
  contemporary Jewish adepts in Jerusalem, Europe
  and even Brooklyn worship in ways that are more
  reminiscent of Sufism than earlier, pre-medieval
  Jewish spirituality
• Shalom/Salaam,Tom Block

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A Sufi-Jewish DialoguePhilosophy and Mysticism
in Bahya ibn Paquda's Duties of the HeartDiana
Lobel

• Written in eleventh-century Muslim Spain , Bahya
  Ibn Paquda's Duties of the Heart is a profound
  guidebook of Jewish spirituality.Diana Lobel
  explores the full extent to which Duties of the
  Heart marks the flowering of the "Jewish-Muslim
  symbiosis,"
• Bahya a maverick who integrated abstract
  negative theology, devotion to the inner life,
  and an intimate relationship with a personal
  God,steeped in Islamic traditions represents a
  genuine bridge between religious cultures. He
  brings together, as well, a rationalist,
  philosophical approach and a strain of Sufi
  mysticism, paving the way for the integration of
  philosophy and spirituality in the thought of
  Moses Maimonides.

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Kitab al-hidayah ila faraid al-qulub (Guidance
to the Duties of the Heart) Bahya Ibn Paquda's
Ten Principles

• 1.Sincere profession of the oneness of God
  (ikhlas al-tawhid)
• 2.Consideration for all created beings
  (al-i'tibar bilmakhluqin)
• 3.Obedience to God (ta'at Allah),
• 4.Abandonment(tamakkul,the principle of giving
  oneself entirely to Him)
• 5.Sincerity of action (ikhlas)
• 6.Humility (tawadu')
• 7.Repentance (tawba)
• 8.Constant examination of one's conscience
  (muhasaba),
• 9.Abstinence and asceticism (zuhd)
• 10.Love of God (mahabba)

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Kabbalah

• Jewish mysticism,
• developing during 12th to 17th AD  
• The Zohar (Book of Splendor)
• a mystical interpretation of the Torah
• God as ultimate reality,
• God as the Boundless is En Sof,
  transcendent,beyond all human comprehension
• Ten emanations (sefirot) come from En Sof,
• Ten forms of God's presence in creation

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Kabbalah

• Divine Will generates Wisdom and Intelligence
• Wisdom and Intelligence generates Grace/Love and
  Power
• the union of Grace/Love and Power produces Beauty
  
• from Grace, Power, Beauty springs the natural
  world

• other emanations Sovereignty, Glory/Presence or
  Shekina, Community or Knessetl, human beings are
  imbued with something from all of God's
  emanations

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TREE OF LIFE
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Daniel Pearl Foundation

• The Daniel Pearl Foundation was formed in
  memory of journalist Daniel Pearl to further the
  ideals that inspired Daniel's life and work. The
  foundation's mission is to promote cross-cultural
  understanding through journalism, music, and
  innovative communications

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The Daniel Pearl FoundationJudea Pearl

• We hope our impact would take effect on both
  the symbolic and substantive dimensions.
  Symbolically, we wish to demonstrate that even
  the hardest issues underlying Jewish-Muslim
  tensions could be discussed in a civil, friendly
  and respectful manner. Substantively, we wish to
  remind people of the common principles that
  underlie the two Abrahamic traditions, to
  understand the mechanism of the golden age when
  the two societies thrived as friendly neighbors
  and, most importantly, to explore how these
  commonalities can help us shape a future of peace
  and understanding. Fostering Muslim-Jewish
  Dialogue
• Judea Pearl and Akbar Ahmed discuss their
  message of reconciliation at Duke University,
  February 25, 2005

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The Daniel Pearl FoundationAkbar Ahmed

• I hope that what sticks with them is the
  common humanity that binds us, transcends all
  other loyalties, ethnic, political, ideological.
  Our roots go back to a common idea, to the
  patriarch Abraham. The number one idea Muslims
  and Jews share is that there is an omnipotent
  God. They both have Holy Books they believe in
  an afterlife, in doing good and avoiding evil and
  that the 10 commandments guide society. This is a
  very, very strong common base, unfortunately, it
  isn't often known. Fostering Muslim-Jewish
  Dialogue
• Judea Pearl and Akbar Ahmed discuss their
  message of reconciliation at Duke University,
  February 25, 2005

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ConclusionThree Wise MenJacob Bender

• I believe that some eight hundred years after
  they lived, Ibn Rushd the Muslim, Rabbi Musa the
  Jew, and Thomas Aquinas the Christian can still
  all enter both our hearts and minds if we let
  them. Their words, and their life stories, can
  both inform and inspire us about some of the
  greatest issues confronting us at the beginning
  of this new century the relationship between
  religion and the state, between faith and
  science, between reason and revelation the
  dangers of political extremism and the courage
  it often takes to oppose injustice and search for
  truth

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ConclusionThree Wise MenJacob Bender

• By reading and interpreting their writings, we
  can discover that we, Muslims, Jews and
  Christians, are all Ibnu Ibrahim, the children of
  Abraham, PBUH. We can discover that in the
  struggle to create a more just and peaceful
  world, we may perhaps have more in common with
  those in other traditions who share our values of
  justice than with the more extreme followers
  within our own religious families.

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Three wise men Averroes, Moses Maimonides, and
Thomas Aquinas. Jacob Bender

• Just as our three wise men were not afraid to
  challenge prevailing opinion within their own
  religious community in the Middle Ages, so today
  I believe we must also be willing to openly
  criticize our co-religionists when they engage in
  extremism and intolerance. Thus Muslim religious
  leaders around the world condemned the Taliban's
  destruction of the ancient Buddhist statues in
  Afghanistan and the 9/11 terror attacks by
  Al-Qaeda. Thus many Christian ministers in the US
  denounced the bigoted attacks on Islam by
  Reverends Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallwell and
  Franklin Graham And thus many Jews, like myself,
  have for decades supported the right of the
  Palestinian people to an independent state and
  condemned Israel's brutal occupation with its
  assassinations, house demolitions, closures, and
  illegal settlement policy

Three wise men Averroes, Moses Maimonides, and
Thomas Aquinas. Jacob Bender