Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2011
Abstract
The present paper inquiers into Maimonides' attitude to Islam. His halakhic stance towards Islam has been molded in the period of large-scale religious persecutions in Maghreb and Yemen whose repercussions has found the way to his writings dealing with Islam.
Both persecutions affected not only local Jewish communities but also Maimonides personally when he had to convert to Islam. The paper analyzes his refutation of the main arguments of Muslim polemics with Judaism: Biblical testimonies to Muhammad; falsification of the Scripture; the abrogation of the Mosaic Law.
In his polemical discourse with Islam Maimonides has not introduces much new and in fact reiterates polemical arguments of the older Jewish authorities.