Very few texts in

Judaism Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...

refer to or take note of the Islamic prophet,

Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

. Those that do generally reject Muhammad's proclamation of receiving divine revelations from

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

References to Muhammad

In the Middle Ages, it was common for

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

writers to describe Muhammad as ''ha-meshuggah'' ("the madman"), a term frequently used in the Bible for those who believe themselves to be prophets.

Maimonides

Maimonides Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and Jewish philosophy, philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah schola ...

referred to Muhammad as a false prophet and an insane man. In his '' Epistle to Yemen'' he wrote, "After

esus Esus is a Celtic god known from iconographic, epigraphic, and literary sources. The 1st-century CE Roman poet Lucan's epic ''Pharsalia'' mentions Esus, Taranis, and Teutates as gods to whom the Gauls sacrificed humans. This rare mention of Cel ...

arose the Madman who emulated his precursor

since he paved the way for him. But he added the further objective of procuring rule and submission 'talb al-mulk''; pursuit of sovereigntyand he invented what was well known slam"Norman Roth. ''Jews, Visigoths, and Muslims in Medieval Spain: Cooperation and Conflict'',

BRILL Brill may refer to: Places * Brielle (sometimes "Den Briel"), a town in the western Netherlands * Brill, Buckinghamshire, a village in England * Brill, Cornwall, a small village to the west of Constantine, Cornwall, UK * Brill, Wisconsin, an un ...

, 1994, p. 218. In his authoritative work of law, the ''

Mishneh Torah The ''Mishneh Torah'' (), also known as ''Sefer Yad ha-Hazaka'' (), is a code of Rabbinic Jewish religious law (''halakha'') authored by Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon/Rambam). The ''Mishneh Torah'' was compiled between 1170 and 1180 CE ( ...

'' (Hilkhot Melakhim 11:10–12), Maimonides indicated that, nevertheless, Muhammad was part of God's plan of preparing the world for the coming of the

Jewish Messiah The Messiah in Judaism () is a savior and liberator figure in Jewish eschatology who is believed to be the future redeemer of the Jews. The concept of messianism originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible a messiah is a king or High Priest o ...

: "All those words of Jesus of Nazareth and of this Ishmaelite .e., Muhammadwho 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)." A. James Rudin. ''Christians & Jews Faith to Faith: Tragic History, Promising Present, Fragile Future'', Jewish Lights Publishing, 2010, pp. 128–129.

Obscure and indirect references

Natan'el al-Fayyumi, a prominent 12th-century Yemenite rabbi and theologian, and the founder of what is sometimes called " Jewish Ismailism," wrote in his philosophical treatise ''Bustan 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. Al-Fayyumi's explicit acceptance of Muhammad's prophecy was rare and virtually unknown until recent times beyond his native

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

. The apocalyptic

Midrash ''Midrash'' (;"midrash"
. ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; or ''midrashot' ...

'' The Secrets of Rabbi Simon ben Yohai'' compares Muhammad to the Jewish

Messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach ...

. According to this text, ascribed to the famous 1st-century sage and mystic

Simeon bar Yochai Shimon bar Yochai (Zohar#Language, Zoharic Aramaic: , ''Šimʿon bar Yoḥay'') or Shimon ben Yochai (Mishnaic Hebrew: ), also known by the acronym Rashbi, was a 2nd-century tannaim, tanna or sage of the period of Judaea (Roman province), Roman ...

, and thought to have been written at the beginning of the Muslim conquest or in the 8th century, 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. A number of stories from the Islamic tradition about Muhammad entered mainstream Jewish thought incidentally due to the great cultural convergence in

Al-Andalus Al-Andalus () was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most o ...

from the 9th to 12th centuries, known as the

Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during wh ...

of Iberian Jewry. For example, Rabbi Jacob Joseph of Polonne, one of the early

Hasidic Hasidism () or Hasidic Judaism is a religious movement within Judaism that arose in the 18th century as a spiritual revival movement in contemporary Western Ukraine before spreading rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most of those aff ...

mystics, wrote that one pious man (''hasid'') taught that the internal struggle against the evil inclination is greater than external battle, quoting

Bahya ibn Paquda Bahyā ibn Pāqudā (Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda, Pekudah, Bakuda; , ), c. 1050–1120, was a Jewish philosopher and rabbi who lived in the Taifa of Zaragoza in al-Andalus (now Spain). He was one of two people now known as Rabbeinu Behaye, the o ...

's popular treatise '' Chovot HaLevavot.'' In the

Judeo-Arabic Judeo-Arabic (; ; ) sometimes referred as Sharh, are a group of different ethnolects within the branches of the Arabic language used by jewish communities. Although Jewish use of Arabic, which predates Islam, has been in some ways distinct ...

original version of that book, Bahya Ibn Paquda refers to both external and internal battles as

jihad ''Jihad'' (; ) is an Arabic word that means "exerting", "striving", or "struggling", particularly with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it encompasses almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with God in Islam, God ...

and the "pious man" about whom the story is told initially is Muhammad, though the author does not mention his source by name.''A Sufi-Jewish Dialogue: Philosophy and Mysticism in Bahya ibn Paquda's Duties of the Heart,'' by Diana Lobel, University of Pennsylvania Press, , p. ix "How does a perennially popular manual of Jewish piety come to be quoting Islamic traditions about the Prophet Muhammad? Muslim Spain of the tenth through twelfth century, known as the "Golden Age" of Hispano-Jewish poetry and letters, is a time of great convergence and cultural creativity."

References

{{Reflist

Religious perspectives on Muhammad Point of view

References to Muhammad

Maimonides

Obscure and indirect references

See also

References