Judah halevi’s defense of judaism and critique of islam as put forth in his kuzari

Abstract

Moses Maimonides, a famous medieval Jewish thinker, is perhaps the most recognized Jewish scholar in the western world as well as in Turkish academia. This is due primarily to his famous philosophical work entitled Dalālat al-ģā’irīn (known as Guide for the Perplexed to English speaking people), which is a classic of religious rationalism. Judah Halevi, on the other hand, is another important medieval Jewish thinker and poet, who, known as the most fervent defender of traditional Judaism and a fierce critic of religious rationalism, belongs to the opposite camp. Despite the fact that a huge body of scholarly work exists on Halevi in the West, including those that deal with the Arabic-Islamic background of his thought, he has not gained much recognition in Turkish academia. This paper aims to draw attention to Halevi’s al-Kitāb al-Khazarī, widely known as Sefer ha-Kuzari, by analyzing its background and content. In this way, this paper presents an evaluation of the main points of Halevi’s defense of the Jewish religion and critique of Islam as he put forth in his Kuzari. Halevi, through his religious-nationalist poems as well as his polemical book, the Kuzari, had a significant impact on the Jews of his time and of later periods. In his Kuzari, which is written as a dialogue between a Khazar king (Khazari) and a Jewish scholar (haver), Halevi defends the Jewish religion and criticizes, directly or indirectly, the main beliefs and opinions of certain groups that he considers to be either external (philosophers, Muslims and Christians) or internal (Karaites) adversaries of Rabbinic Judaism. The Kuzari is also regarded as the first Jewish polemical book written against Islam. Even more important is the fact that since Halevi lived in a time and place that was dominated by Muslim Arab culture, he makes use of Islamic terminology to a great extent in the Kuzari. As demonstrated by a long chain of scholars including David Kaufmann, Ignaz Goldziher, Julius Guttman, David Baneth, Israel Efros, Harry Wolfson, Shlomo Pines, Diana Lobel and Ehud Krinis, Halevi borrows Arabic words and concepts not only from the Islamic (both Sunni and Shiite) literature of philosophy, kalām and taŝawwuf, but also directly from the Qur’an and the ģadīth, integrating them into his own system of thought, i.e., into a Jewish context. The most important of these Islamic words or concepts are amr/amr Allāh, ittiŝāl, ŝafwa, qiyās, ijtihād, sanad, taqlīd, etc. It is also important to note that the main adversary groups that Halevi critiques in his Kuzari –namely, the philosophers (especially the Aristotelians), the kalām scholars and the Karaites– have one point in common: They all flourished in a Muslim culture and, in the case of the first two groups, consisted mostly of Muslim scholars. Accordingly, Greek philosophy, which was criticized by Halevi, had gained ascendency through the writings of Muslim philosophers and influenced Jewish scholars as well. As for Karaite Judaism, which emerged in Muslim Iraq, it was also influenced by the Muslim kalām tradition. Thus, for some scholars, the Kuzari should be seen as a clarion call made to persuade the Jewish elite of Spain, who came under the influence of Muslim culture with its emphasis on philosophy (i.e., Athens), to return to an authentic Jewish tradition (i.e., Jerusalem). This helps to explain the eventual decision of the haver, the main character of the Kuzari, as well as of Halevi himself to travel to the holy land to live and die there. In light of this background knowledge, it is fair to consider Halevi’s defense of Judaism in parallel to his critique of Islam. In dealing with different topics, Halevi often makes a comparison between the two religions and most of the time the main point of this comparison is the contrast made between particularism and universalism. According to Halevi, what is special about Judaism is that it is based upon the reality and experience of one people, i.e., the Jews, and therefore is particularistic and exclusivist in nature; Islam, on the contrary, has a universalistic and inclusivist orientation. From the Islamic point of view, the dependence of Jewish religion on ethnicity makes it a limited one, to say the least, whereas for Halevi this element of ethnicity or peoplehood, which is an inherent feature of Jewish religion, becomes the indicator of its authenticity. The reason for this is that Judaism, according to Halevi, is the only religion that depends on the religious experience of a whole people and not only of certain individuals. This element of peoplehood, namely the public experience of divine revelation (i.e., Sinai revelation) and its transmission by chosen individuals (i.e., prophets and sages) throughout the following generations, makes it a reliable and genuine revelation and tradition at one and the same time. Islam, on the other hand, is depicted by Halevi as a feeble and failed religion of universalism. However, this paper argues that this picture presented by Halevi does not go beyond a caricature of Islam, on the one hand, and a romantic and idealistic embellishment of Judaism, on the other.