"Winner of the PROSE Award in Theology & Religious Studies, Association of American Publishers" Meir M. Bar-Asher is the Max Schloessinger Professor of Islamic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His books include Scripture and Exegesis in Early Imāmī Shiism and The Nusayrī-'Alawī Religion: An Enquiry into Its Theology and Liturgy. He lives in Jerusalem. A compelling book that casts the Qur'anic encounter with Jews in an entirely new light
In this panoramic and multifaceted book, Meir Bar-Asher examines how Jews and Judaism are depicted in the Qur'an and later Islamic literature, providing needed context to those passages critical of Jews that are most often invoked to divide Muslims and Jews or to promote Islamophobia. He traces the Qur'anic origins of the protection of Jews and other minorities living under the rule of Islam, and shows how attitudes toward Jews in Shi'i Islam are substantially different from those in Sunni Islam. Bar-Asher sheds light on the extraordinary contribution of Jewish tradition to the Muslim exegesis of the Qur'an, and draws important parallels between Jewish religious law, or halakha, and shari'a law.
An illuminating work on a topic of vital relevance today, Jews and the Qur'an offers a nuanced understanding of Islam's engagement with Judaism in the time of Muhammad and his followers, and serves as a needed corrective to common misperceptions about Islam. "Jews and the Qur'an is a critically important book that advances our understanding of the Qur'an while clarifying misconceptions of the relationship between Islam and Judaism. Bar-Asher analyzes Judaism and Islam with sophistication and sensitivity."-Gabriel Said Reynolds, author of Allah: God in the Qur'an "Richly informed, admirably concise, unfailingly clear, and commendably balanced on a remarkably wide range of relevant, fascinating, and sometimes contested topics."-Jack Miles, author of God in the Qur'an "Meir M. Bar-Asher masterfully portrays [the] complex relation between Judaism and Islam. . . . I see in [this book] an informative basis for frank dialogue between the children of Abraham-no matter how deep-seated their intra-family issues."-from the foreword by Mustafa Akyol
