Reuven Firestone
Biographic Data
| ID | 1132840 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Reuven Firestone |
| GIVEN NAMES | Reuven |
| FAMILY NAME | Firestone |
| SIGNATURE | FIRESTONE R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0673-4489 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 9 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1990 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Jews and the Qur’an
The Prophet Problem
Because scripture represents the direct word of God, it is the most sacred source for authority in the scriptural monotheisms. Scripture is conveyed to humanity through extraordinary individuals known as prophets. But if the purported prophet is a false prophet, then the conveyed message is false, resulting in the collapse of the structure upon which religious authority rests. This problem was recognized in the Hebrew Bible, and accusations of fl…
Veiling Esther, Unveiling Her Story: The Reception of a Biblical Book in Islamic Lands, written by Adam J. Silverstein
Robert C. Gregg, Shared Stories, Rival Tellings: Early Encounters of Jews, Christians and Muslims
Muhammad, the Jews, and the Composition of the Qur'an: Sacred History and Counter-History
According to Islamic religious teachings, some Jews confirmed the authenticity of Muhammad's prophethood and joined him. Most Jews, however, are condemned for both rejecting the Prophet and failing to live up to their own religious imperatives. Medieval polemics tended to be harsh and belligerent, but while Muslims and Christians produced polemics under the protection and encouragement of their own religious and political authorities, Jews lived …
Jewish Radical Ultra-Orthodoxy Confronts Modernity, Zionism and Women’s Equality. Motti Inbari
War Policies in Judaism as Responses to Power and Powerlessness
Just Wars, Holy Wars, and Jihad: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Encounters and Exchanges. Edited by Sohail H. Hashmi
All forms of human social organization that we have ever known forbid the killing of other humans—at least, without valid justification. Another way of putting it is that human civilization, from the simplest to the most complex, has always justified the killing of other humans under certain conditions. The circumstances that allow for killing may lie within the boundaries of what we could call today policing—that is, treating, controlling, or th…
Learned Ignorance: Intellectual Humility among Jews, Christians and Muslims
Constructive interreligious dialogue is only a recent phenomenon. Until the nineteenth century, most dialogue among believers was carried on as a debate aimed either to disprove the claims of the other, or to convert the other to one's own tradition. At the end of the nineteenth century, Protestant Christian missionaries of different denominations had created such a cacophony amongst themselves in the mission fields that they decided that it woul…
Learned ignorance: Intellectual humility among Jews, Christians, and Muslims
Constructive interreligious dialogue is only a recent phenomenon. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, many branches of Christianity, not least the Catholic Church, are engaged in a world-wide constructive dialogue with Muslims, made all the more necessary by the terrorist attacks of September 11. In these new conversations, Muslim religious leaders took an important initiative when they sent their document, 'A Common Word Between Us', t…
The Jews as a Chosen People: Tradition and Transformation, by S. Leyla Gürkan
Contextualizing anti‐Semitism in Islam: Chosenness, choosing, and the emergence of new religion
Holy War in Modern Judaism? “Mitzvah War” and the Problem of the “Three Vows”
"Holy war," sanctioned or even commanded by God, is a common and recurring theme in the Hebrew Bible. Rabbinic Judaism largely avoided discussion of holy war for the simple reason that it became dangerous and self-destructive. The failed "holy wars" of the Great Revolt and the Bar Kokhba Rebellion eliminated enthusiasm for it among the survivors engaged in reconstructing Judaism from ancient biblical religion. The rabbis therefore built a fence a…
Jihād
While there is no evidence to date that the indigenous inhabitants of Arabia knew of holy war prior to Islam, holy war ideas and behaviors appear already among Muslims during the first generation. This book focuses on why and how such a seemingly radical development took place. Basing the hypothesis on evidence from the Qurʾān and early Islamic literary sources, this book locates the origin of Islamic holy war and traces its evolution as a respon…
The Sīra
This chapter examines biographical writings about Muḥammad from which cultural and historical data are extracted for comparison with that retrieved from the Qurʾān and Hadīth, and for examining the relationship between formation of the new Muslim community (Umma) out of the old social systems of pre-Islamic Arabia and the development of religiously sanctioned war. The sīra literature is a genre of the hadīth literature that was edited into the fo…
Conclusion: From Mundane War to Holy War
This chapter summarizes earlier findings and situates them in the historical context by linking the development of the Islamic holy war idea with changes in the social structure and the worldview of the new Muslim community. The transition from the mundane (or materially-driven) fighting in pre-Islamic Arabia to the sacred, divinely sanctioned warring of Islam occurred during a short period. It was the period following the Hijra in 622 C.E. that …
Jihād: The origin of holy war in Islam
"Tracing the social and political changes experienced during the transition from pre-Islamic Arabian culture to the religious civilization of Islam, Firestone concludes that jihad is an indigenous Arabian phenomenon. It resulted, he argues, from the mixture of old Arabian culture with innovations in the traditional social structure and worldview engendered by the introduction of Islamic monotheism. The cauldron in which this mixture produced its …
The Jews of Medieval Islam, Community, Society, Identity: Proceedings of an International Conference Held by the Institute of Jewish Studies, University College, London, 1992
International Relations and Politics
Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and Bible Criticism . Hava Lazarus-Yafeh
Merit, Mimesis, and Martyrdom: Aspects of Shi'ite Meta-historical Exegesis on Abraham's Sacrifice in Light of Jewish, Christian, and Sunni Muslim Tradition
Journal Article Merit, Mimesis, and Martyrdom: Aspects of Shi'ite Meta-historical Exegesis on Abraham's Sacrifice in Light of Jewish, Christian, and Sunni Muslim Tradition Get access Reuven Firestone Reuven Firestone Associate Professor of Medieval Jewish and Islamic Studies at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles, CA 90007-3796. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the Amer…
Disparity and Resolution in the Qurʾānic Teachings on War: A Reevaluation of a Traditional Problem
Prophethood, Marriageable Consanguinity, and Text: The Problem of Abraham and Sarah's Kinship Relationship and the Response of Jewish and Islamic Exegesis
Reuven Firestone, Prophethood, Marriageable Consanguinity, and Text: The Problem of Abraham and Sarah's Kinship Relationship and the Response of Jewish and Islamic Exegesis, The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 83, No. 3/4 (Jan. - Apr., 1993), pp. 331-347
The History of al-Ṭabarī, Vol. I: General Introduction and from the Creation to the Flood
Abraham's Journey to Mecca in Islamic Exegesis: A Form-Critical Study of a Tradition
International Relations and Politics
Difficulties in Keeping a Beautiful Wife: The Legend of Abraham and Sarah in Jewish and Islamic Tradition
Holy War in Modern Judaism? “Mitzvah War” and the Problem of the “Three Vows”
"Holy war," sanctioned or even commanded by God, is a common and recurring theme in the Hebrew Bible. Rabbinic Judaism largely avoided discussion of holy war for the simple reason that it became dangerous and self-destructive. The failed "holy wars" of the Great Revolt and the Bar Kokhba Rebellion eliminated enthusiasm for it among the survivors engaged in reconstructing Judaism from ancient biblical religion. The rabbis therefore built a fence a…
Merit, Mimesis, and Martyrdom: Aspects of Shi'ite Meta-historical Exegesis on Abraham's Sacrifice in Light of Jewish, Christian, and Sunni Muslim Tradition
Journal Article Merit, Mimesis, and Martyrdom: Aspects of Shi'ite Meta-historical Exegesis on Abraham's Sacrifice in Light of Jewish, Christian, and Sunni Muslim Tradition Get access Reuven Firestone Reuven Firestone Associate Professor of Medieval Jewish and Islamic Studies at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles, CA 90007-3796. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the Amer…
Prophethood, Marriageable Consanguinity, and Text: The Problem of Abraham and Sarah's Kinship Relationship and the Response of Jewish and Islamic Exegesis
Reuven Firestone, Prophethood, Marriageable Consanguinity, and Text: The Problem of Abraham and Sarah's Kinship Relationship and the Response of Jewish and Islamic Exegesis, The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 83, No. 3/4 (Jan. - Apr., 1993), pp. 331-347
Abraham's Journey to Mecca in Islamic Exegesis: A Form-Critical Study of a Tradition
The Problem of Sarah's Identity in Islamic Exegetical Tradition 1
The Problem of Sarah's Identity in Islamic Exegetical Tradition 1
Difficulties in Keeping a Beautiful Wife: The Legend of Abraham and Sarah in Jewish and Islamic Tradition
Journeys in Holy Lands: The Evolution of the Abraham-Ishmael Legends in Islamic Exegesis
Abraham's Journey to Mecca in Islamic Exegesis: A Form-Critical Study of a Tradition
"Firestone, "Journeys in Holy Lands
Prophethood, Marriageable Consanguinity, and Text: The Problem of Abraham and Sarah's Kinship Relationship and the Response of Jewish and Islamic Exegesis
Reuven Firestone, Prophethood, Marriageable Consanguinity, and Text: The Problem of Abraham and Sarah's Kinship Relationship and the Response of Jewish and Islamic Exegesis, The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 83, No. 3/4 (Jan. - Apr., 1993), pp. 331-347
The History of al-Ṭabarī, Vol. I: General Introduction and from the Creation to the Flood
Disparity and Resolution in the Qurʾānic Teachings on War: A Reevaluation of a Traditional Problem
International Relations and Politics
Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and Bible Criticism . Hava Lazarus-Yafeh
Merit, Mimesis, and Martyrdom: Aspects of Shi'ite Meta-historical Exegesis on Abraham's Sacrifice in Light of Jewish, Christian, and Sunni Muslim Tradition
Journal Article Merit, Mimesis, and Martyrdom: Aspects of Shi'ite Meta-historical Exegesis on Abraham's Sacrifice in Light of Jewish, Christian, and Sunni Muslim Tradition Get access Reuven Firestone Reuven Firestone Associate Professor of Medieval Jewish and Islamic Studies at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles, CA 90007-3796. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the Amer…
Jihād: The origin of holy war in Islam
"Tracing the social and political changes experienced during the transition from pre-Islamic Arabian culture to the religious civilization of Islam, Firestone concludes that jihad is an indigenous Arabian phenomenon. It resulted, he argues, from the mixture of old Arabian culture with innovations in the traditional social structure and worldview engendered by the introduction of Islamic monotheism. The cauldron in which this mixture produced its …
The Jews of Medieval Islam, Community, Society, Identity: Proceedings of an International Conference Held by the Institute of Jewish Studies, University College, London, 1992
Jihād
While there is no evidence to date that the indigenous inhabitants of Arabia knew of holy war prior to Islam, holy war ideas and behaviors appear already among Muslims during the first generation. This book focuses on why and how such a seemingly radical development took place. Basing the hypothesis on evidence from the Qurʾān and early Islamic literary sources, this book locates the origin of Islamic holy war and traces its evolution as a respon…
The Sīra
This chapter examines biographical writings about Muḥammad from which cultural and historical data are extracted for comparison with that retrieved from the Qurʾān and Hadīth, and for examining the relationship between formation of the new Muslim community (Umma) out of the old social systems of pre-Islamic Arabia and the development of religiously sanctioned war. The sīra literature is a genre of the hadīth literature that was edited into the fo…
Conclusion: From Mundane War to Holy War
This chapter summarizes earlier findings and situates them in the historical context by linking the development of the Islamic holy war idea with changes in the social structure and the worldview of the new Muslim community. The transition from the mundane (or materially-driven) fighting in pre-Islamic Arabia to the sacred, divinely sanctioned warring of Islam occurred during a short period. It was the period following the Hijra in 622 C.E. that …
Holy War in Modern Judaism? “Mitzvah War” and the Problem of the “Three Vows”
"Holy war," sanctioned or even commanded by God, is a common and recurring theme in the Hebrew Bible. Rabbinic Judaism largely avoided discussion of holy war for the simple reason that it became dangerous and self-destructive. The failed "holy wars" of the Great Revolt and the Bar Kokhba Rebellion eliminated enthusiasm for it among the survivors engaged in reconstructing Judaism from ancient biblical religion. The rabbis therefore built a fence a…
Contextualizing anti‐Semitism in Islam: Chosenness, choosing, and the emergence of new religion
The Jews as a Chosen People: Tradition and Transformation, by S. Leyla Gürkan
Learned Ignorance: Intellectual Humility among Jews, Christians and Muslims
Constructive interreligious dialogue is only a recent phenomenon. Until the nineteenth century, most dialogue among believers was carried on as a debate aimed either to disprove the claims of the other, or to convert the other to one's own tradition. At the end of the nineteenth century, Protestant Christian missionaries of different denominations had created such a cacophony amongst themselves in the mission fields that they decided that it woul…
Learned ignorance: Intellectual humility among Jews, Christians, and Muslims
Constructive interreligious dialogue is only a recent phenomenon. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, many branches of Christianity, not least the Catholic Church, are engaged in a world-wide constructive dialogue with Muslims, made all the more necessary by the terrorist attacks of September 11. In these new conversations, Muslim religious leaders took an important initiative when they sent their document, 'A Common Word Between Us', t…
Just Wars, Holy Wars, and Jihad: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Encounters and Exchanges. Edited by Sohail H. Hashmi
All forms of human social organization that we have ever known forbid the killing of other humans—at least, without valid justification. Another way of putting it is that human civilization, from the simplest to the most complex, has always justified the killing of other humans under certain conditions. The circumstances that allow for killing may lie within the boundaries of what we could call today policing—that is, treating, controlling, or th…
War Policies in Judaism as Responses to Power and Powerlessness
Jewish Radical Ultra-Orthodoxy Confronts Modernity, Zionism and Women’s Equality. Motti Inbari
Robert C. Gregg, Shared Stories, Rival Tellings: Early Encounters of Jews, Christians and Muslims
Philosophy (21 works) · History (20 works) · Theology (14 works) · Islam (13 works) · Religious studies (12 works) · Islamic Studies and History (11 works) · Art (10 works) · Archaeology and Historical Studies (9 works) · Judaism (9 works) · Political science (9 works)