Definition:

Since Islam did not develop from Judaism as did Christianity, relations between the Jewish and Muslim communities have often been very cordial. Muhammad is described as having spent time with Jewish communities and there are so many Jewish maxims included in the hadith literature that it is clear that there was a healthy intellectual dialogue between the two communities. In Muslim lands, Jews, afforded a special status under the rubric of being ‘people of the book,’ flourished.

The narratives of the Torah and the Qu’ran bear many resemblances, with specific important differences. For example, in both texts Abraham is called on to sacrifice his son. In the Torah the son is Isaac, in the Qu’ran it is Ishmael – both seen to be the distinctive ancestor of each faith.

Unfortunately, relations between the Jewish and Muslim communities have become strained over the politicization of the dialogue based on the creation, continued existence and the actions surrounding the State of Israel. Fortunately, much of the dialogue in the British communities is now able to differentiate between Jew and Israeli, and between Muslim and Arab.

While we acknowledge that there is much work to be done to improve Jewish-Muslim relations, the establishment of the Jewish-Christian-Muslim Bible Week by the Rabbi Jonathan Magonet of Leo Baeck College in 1968 and of the Three Faiths Forum by Sir Sigmund Sternberg in 1997 are evidence of the Reform Movement’s continued desire to dialogue with all faiths.

Sources:

• Encyclopaedia Judaica, Keter Publishing House, 1972, Vol. 9, 92-105

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