"So, what did the Muslims do for the Jews?"

Professor David Wasserman argues that "in 570 CE, when the Prophet Mohammad was born, the Jews and Judaism were on the way to oblivion. And second, the coming of Islam saved them, providing a new context in which they not only survived, but flourished, laying foundations for subsequent Jewish cultural prosperity - also in Christendom - through the medieval period into the modern world."

David Wasserman is the Eugene Greener Jr Professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University. This article from the Jewish Chronicle is adapted from last week's Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE

Jews and Christians in 5th and 6th century Arabia: book review

Professor Hagith Sivan of the Department of History, University of Kansas, writes about the collected 2008 conference proceedings published in Paris in 2010 as Juifs et chrétiens en Arabie aux Ve et VIe siècles: regards croisés sur les sources (edited by Joëlle Beaucamp, Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet and Christian Julien Robin)


Read her opinions in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Find this book in SOAS Library at QO296.396 / 750253

Jewish-Muslim dialogue today: Centre for Jewish Studies talk

"Isaac and Ishmael: what next? - On Jewish-Muslim relations today"
A talk by Dr. Ed Kessler of the University of Cambridge (chaired by Prof. Tudor Parfitt) will take place in the Brunei Gallery (Room B104) on 17th November between 5.30 and 7.30 p.m.
This is one of a series of lectures being given this term by the Centre for Jewish Studies

For further details, contact cs52@soas.ac.uk, or phone 020-7898-4358

Religion, tourism and development

New York Times article on Ezekiel's tomb in Kifl (Iraq) looks at the historic and religious context of the site and the "competing aims of historic preservation and modern development".
This online article includes a slide show (pictures of the shrine) and video about the plans for the restoration and development of the historic centre of Kifl, including Ezekiel's shrine

Riot in Alexandria (Book Review)

Edward Watts' "Riot in Alexandria: tradition and group dynamics in late antique pagan and Christian communities" (published this year by the University of California Press) has just been reviewed in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review by Peter Van Nuffelen of Ghent University.

Read the book in SOAS Library. It is shelved at NE916.2104 / 741999 on Level B (between stacks 59 and 61)