Wikipedia

Islam and the Problem of Israel

Islam and the Problem of Israel is a 1980 book by Ismail Raji al-Faruqi, published by the Islamic Council of Europe. It sets out an Islamic reading of the state of Israel, covering Zionism, Jewish and Islamic theology, and the politics of the Palestine conflict.[1]

Islam and the Problem of Israel
Cover of the 2003 edition
AuthorIsmail al-Faruqi
LanguageEnglish
SubjectIslamic studies, Middle Eastern politics, Zionism
Published1980
PublisherIslamic Council of Europe
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint
Pages114
ISBN9780907163022
OCLC9105283
Preceded by Christian Ethics: A Historical and Systematic Analysis of Its Dominant Ideas (1967) 
Followed byAl-Tawhid: Its Implications for Thought and Life (1982) 

Background

edit

Ismail al-Faruqi, a Palestinian-American philosopher who worked in comparative religion and Islamic studies, wrote the book in response to the founding of Israel in 1948 and its consequences for the Muslim world. He set out to treat Zionism as a single system with intellectual, religious, and political dimensions.[2]

Contents

edit

The book is organised into ten chapters.

Chapter I: The Three-Cornered Nature of the Problem

edit

Al-Faruqi frames the conflict as a problem between three parties: the Muslim world, Western Christendom, and the Jews. He argues that it has no exact precedent. Modern colonialism and the Crusades each explain part of it, and neither explains the whole.[1]

Chapter II: Aperçu of Jewish History in the Christian West

edit

The chapter surveys Jewish life in Christian Europe before the Emancipation. Al-Faruqi argues that Christian theology, above all the charge of deicide tied to the crucifixion, shaped how Europe treated its Jewish minority.[1]

Chapter III: The Emancipation and Its Aftermath

edit

Al-Faruqi turns to Jewish emancipation in Europe and the strain it created. He sets out the bind facing emancipated Jews: assimilate and lose a distinct identity, or hold to that identity and stay apart.[1]

Chapter IV: The Romantic Relapse of Europe

edit

Al-Faruqi links the rise of European Romanticism to the formation of Zionist thought. He argues that romantic nationalism gave Jewish intellectuals a new language of collective identity, which then fed into Zionism.[1]

Chapter V: Zionism: The European Jew’s Counsel of Despair

edit

Al-Faruqi reads Zionism as a counsel of despair. He presents it as the response of European Jews to a situation they had come to see as hopeless, a search for security through a state of their own.[1]

Chapter VI: Jewish Universalism and Ethnocentrism

edit

The chapter sets two strands in Jewish tradition against each other, one universalist and one ethnocentric, and argues that the tension between them runs through later Zionist thought.[1]

Chapter VII: Zionism as Religion

edit

Al-Faruqi treats Zionism itself as a religion. He argues that it recasts Jewish tradition through European Romanticism and secular nationalism, turning a faith into a national project.[1]

Chapter VIII: Zionism as Politics

edit

Al-Faruqi follows Zionist politics before and after World War I. He works through the Balfour Declaration, the British Mandate in Palestine, and the methods used to acquire land and build the institutions of a future state.[1]

Chapter IX: Islam and Judaism

edit

The chapter sets Islam beside Judaism. Al-Faruqi reviews the historical record of Muslim-Jewish relations and lays out an Islamic critique of certain Jewish practices and claims.[1]

Chapter X: Islam and Zionism

edit

The final chapter gives Al-Faruqi's Islamic verdict on Zionism, which he holds to have wronged Jews and non-Jews alike. He proposes a settlement built on what he calls de-Zionization.[1]

Themes

edit

Al-Faruqi treats Zionism as at once political, religious, and cultural, and judges it from an Islamic standpoint. He places its origins in modern European thought: Jewish assimilation after the Enlightenment, and a romantic nationalism that taught Europe to think in terms of peoples and homelands.

He compares Islamic and Jewish theology and argues that real doctrinal differences were hardened and rewritten under the pressure of the Palestine conflict. He also situates Zionism within Western colonial and strategic interests, among them military power and control of resources, and reads its idea of a "God-state" as one expression of European political theology and nationalism.[2][3]

Reception

edit

The book found a wide readership in Islamic scholarly circles and among writers on Middle Eastern politics. Supporters credit it with a sustained Islamic analysis of Zionism. Critics charge that it argues from a fixed position against Zionism and the state of Israel.[2][3][4]

Publication

edit

Islam and the Problem of Israel was first published in 1980 by the Islamic Council of Europe. A later edition appeared in 2003 from The Other Press in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.[5]

References

edit
  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Ismail Raji al-Faruqi (1980). Islam and the Problem of Israel. Islamic Council of Europe.
  2. 1 2 3 John L. Esposito (1991). "Ismail R. al-Faruqi: Muslim Scholar-Activist". In Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad (ed.). The Muslims of America. Oxford University Press. pp. 65–79.
  3. 1 2 Abu Rabi, Ibrahim M. (1992). "Review: Israel and the Palestinians: Muslim and Jewish Perspectives". Islamic Studies. 31 (2): 235–245. JSTOR 20840076.
  4. ↑ Abu-Lughod, Ibrahim (1982). "Review: Studies on the Islamic Assertion: A Review Essay". Arab Studies Quarterly. 4 (1/2). Pluto Journals: 157–175. JSTOR 41857623.
  5. ↑ Ismail Raji al-Faruqi (2003). Islam and the Problem of Israel. Kuala Lumpur: The Other Press.
edit
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Islam_and_the_Problem_of_Israel&oldid=1357510207"