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Career Views and Perspectives | ||
Very few texts inJudaism refer to or take note of the Islamic prophet,Muhammad. Those that do generally reject Muhammad's proclamation of receiving divine revelations fromGod.
In the Middle Ages, it was common forJewish writers to describe Muhammad asha-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 hisEpistle 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, theMishneh 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 theJewish 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-centuryYemenite rabbi and theologian, and the founder of what is sometimes called "Jewish Ismailism," wrote in his philosophical treatiseBustan 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 nativeYemen.[8]
TheapocalypticMidrashThe Secrets of Rabbi Simon ben Yohai compares Muhammad to the JewishMessiah. According to this text, ascribed to the famous 1st-century sage and mysticSimeon 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 inAl-Andalus from the 9th to 12th centuries, known as theGolden Age ofIberian Jewry. For example, RabbiJacob Joseph of Polonne, one of the earlyHasidic mystics, wrote that one pious man (hasid) taught that the internal struggle against the evil inclination is greater than external battle, quotingBahya ibn Paquda's popular treatiseChovot HaLevavot. In theJudeo-Arabic original version of that book, Bahya Ibn Paquda refers to both external and internal battles asjihad and the "pious man" about whom the story is told initially is Muhammad, though the author does not mention his source by name.[11]
