Judaism and Islam

The purpose of this research is to compare and contrast two characteristics of Judaism and Islam. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context in which the two religions emerged and then to discuss the monotheistic orientation of each religion as well as the ethos informing the spread/expansion of the religion as a world-historical force.

Judaism and Islam all arose out of the same general geographical region and flourished there, namely, the eastern Mediterranean area and reaching eastward into Asia Minor. More will be said about that dynamic; the present point is that there were significant overlaps in geographical boundaries in what is today referred to as the Middle East. Even so the general tendency of Judaism was to concentrate in the region of the Levant and eastern Mediterranean, while Islam spread both eastward and westward from the Sinai peninsula and into Europe.

Chronologically the earlier of the two religions in the scheme of history, Judaism was referred to and to an extent absorbed by Islam when it coalesced into a religious belief system in the seventh century CE. Meanwhile, of course, Christianity had intervened and become a world-historical force on its own, but that is outside the scope of this research. What is noteworthy about all three of these religions is that they were avowedly--and uniquely, as regards long-lived belief systems in the West--monotheistic in character.

The term monotheism would seem to be self-explanatory and straightfo

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errant believers, is to be contrasted with the more insular, tribalistic Judaism--at least as far as worship of Jahweh was concerned. That does not mean that the Jews as a people did not engage in expansionism. As the Hebrew bible makes clear, the emergence of Saul, David, and Solomon and consequent displacement of the polytheistic peoples in the region that came under authority of Israel and Judah shows that there was an ethos of conquest among the Jews. Indeed, the fact that Joshua, Moses' protTgT, settled Canaan by violence (e.g., at the famous battle of Jericho) shows that the ethos was present from early days. Whatever the source of Jewish monotheism, the big picture is nevertheless that Judaism was the first religion in history to make monotheism a doctrinal as well as cultural foundation with universalist application and--significantly--to reinforce the doctrine with governing texts of faith. As the people of the book, the Jews reduced to codified law and doctrine their cultural history and a depiction of what they took to be their unique relationship with God. The existence of a written cultural record immediately historicizes the religion attached to it and can work as a major unifying and organizing source. In that conn

Category: Philosophy - J