إِسْراَئيليات

Isrā'īliyyāt ("Israelitica"), Definitions, Articles, Miscellany

IN PROGRESS 2007-8

The Bible or Islamo-biblical tradition in early Islam

            Neither the Arabic language nor the region of Arabia are abstracted from the biblical text or from biblical and post-biblical religious history. With good philological reasoning it has proposed that the biblical Book of Job might have originally been written or orally transmitted (6th->4th cent BCE?) in (Old) Arabic (Edomite?) and it is explicitly stated in the New Testament that Paul (Saul) of Tarsus (d.  c. 64 CE), after his conversion from Pharisaic Judaism to the nascent Jesus movement that became Christianity (c. 33 CE), sojourned in the desert of Arabia east of the river Jordon for several “mysterious years” (Gal. 1:17) (Greenstein, 2003: 651f and Ayoub, 2004: 313). In a recent discussion of Christian-Muslim Dialogue Mahmoud Ayoub continues the latter observation about Paul by noting that “from the Syrian Desert, Christianity was carried into South Arabia, perhaps by wandering monks, where it played a significant role in the rise of a rich civilization. From there, Christianity came to Northern Arabia, where it helped prepare the moral and spiritual grounds for Islam” (Ayoub 2004: 313).

            During the centuries surrounding the onset of the Common Era diverse groups of  Samaritans, Jews (Essenes, Pharisees, etc) Jewish-Christians (Ebionites, Nazoreans, etc) Christians (e.g Nestorians, Monophysites) and related groups such as Gnostics, Mandaeans and Manichaeans  became established in Arabia and adjacent countries including Palestine, Syria, Ethiopia, Iraq and Persia. Members of these groups often revered, translated, studied and commented upon portions or varieties of the Biblical text.

        The evolution, history and transmission of the Arabic Bible remains inadequately known and a complex and somewhat neglected area of academic research. It is today likely though uncertain whether an Arabic Bible was available in the Middle East  by the 7th-8th centuries CE.  Patristic and other traditions about pre-Islamic times mention Arabic, Middle Persian and other Bible translations though little trace of them exists. Origen (d. 254 CE),  the erudite compiler of the (largely lost) Hexapla (“Sixfold parallel Bible”), mentions his having consulted “Chaldean” (Syriac) and Arabic Bible versions. This is especially interesting in the light of his debating Christian doctrines with Beryllus of Bostra (Jordan) and the Arabian bishop Heraclides (Beeston, CHAL 1:22).  While the one time Patriarch of Constantinople, John Chrysostom (d. 407 CE) in his Homily on John, stated that the doctrines of Christ had been translated into the “languages of the Persians” (Pat. Graec. LIX col. 32), Moses Maimonides (d. 1204 CE) held that the Pentateuch was translated into ancient Persian hundreds of years before Muhammad (Toy and Gottheil, JE).

        It is thus not clear whether Muhammad (d. 632 CE) had direct or indirect access to an Arabic  Bible version or another Bible version such as the Syriac, Greek, Coptic, Ge`ez- Ethiopic versions. Most scholars in this area affirm his considerable awareness of oral channels of biblical and post-biblical religious tradition but hold back from affirming the contemporary availability of an Arabic Bible. It is intriguing, however, that there exist certain Islamic ḥadīth which are highly suggestive in this respect. ADD

            If Muhammad knew the Bible directly it was largely bypassed in the Qur’ān which sacred book claims to legitimate, abrogate, confirm and clarify the three or four bodies of pre‑Islamic revelation to which it refers. Key Israelite-Jewish figures and concepts (e.g. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, the Mishnah-Talmud) as well as  Christian doctrines (e.g. Jesus’ resurrection and Paul) are not mentioned in the Qur'an.  Muhammad largely bypassed he intricacies of the Rabbinic discussions and the potentially divisive Christological and related speculations of the patristic era.  Muhammad aligned himself with Abrahamic monotheism which was neither exactly Jewish nor Christian.

The terms Islamo-biblica / Islamo-biblical would seem to be appropriate terms to indicate biblical texts or biblically rooted data as variously cited, assimilated and expounded within varieties of  Islamic literatures or expressions of an Islamic `universe of discourse'.

Isrā’īliyyāt - “Israelitica”.

        In numerous Islamic sources Isrā’īliyyāt has a long, disparate and not yet fully articulated semantic history. There is no standard, clear cut or universally agreed upon Islamic or modern academic definition of Isrā’īliyyāt. The early Islamic and contemporary senses and implications of the Arabic plural Isrā’īliyyāt (loosely but literally “Israelitica”) have been variously sketched in contemporary Islamic scholarship. Modern scholarly attempts to define Isrā’īliyyāt have largely been paraphrases of such oral and literary materials as are thought to have been indicated by this term.  As early as  the 2nd cent CE Wahb ibn Munabbih (ADD) appears to have composed a work entitled Isrā’īliyyāt though this may have been an alternative title for his Kitāb al-mubtadā’ wa qiṣaṣ al-anbiyā’  (“Book of Beginnings and the Stories  of the Prophets”) (so  Khoury, Wahb, 227ff; `Wahb b. Munabbih, Abū `Abd Allāh’  EI2   XI : 34a).

             The Arabic plural إِسْراَئيليات Isrā’īliyyāt (loosely, Israelitica) is derived from the Hebrew proper name יִשְׂרָאֵל (yisrā’êl, lit. `contender with God’), namely (Ar.) إِسْرَائِيل Isrā’īl, the Arabic designation of the biblical and qur’anic figure Israel (fl. mid. 2nd millennium BCE.,?), the renamed Jacob, who was the father of the twelve tribes (Gen. 32:28, 35:10; cf. Qur’ān 3:87 etc).  In use from the first Islamic centuries in Tafsir (qur’anic exegetical) and other connections, [2]  this term is indicative of data and traditions thought to have been transmitted by or derived from Jews or (Ar.) banī Isrā’īl (“children of Israel”) although its use in a multitude of Islamic sources presupposes that it can indicate a wider range of Abrahamic and associated scriptural legands and traditions.  The word Isrā’īliyyāt has been in use since the early Islamic centuries when it initially had  purely descriptive and neutral connotations (Adang, 1996:9 fn. 49). In some circles in later centuries this word came to be used pejoratively though this negative use of Isrā’īliyyāt was not and never has been adopted universally in the Muslim world. [3]

            Islamic Isrā’īliyyāt traditions may to a greater or lesser extent be Biblical or biblically related  materials which are in some way expressive of  Islamic  perspectives or “Islamicate”, “Islamified” or Islamo‑biblical. This in the sense of having been doctrinally assimilated within Islam or having been creatively and exegetically-eisegetically reinterpreted by Muslims. A good deal of Isrā’īliyyāt consists of biblically or extra-biblically related texts, legends and traditions etc.,  often echoed or found in  a very wide range of diverse Jewish and/ or Christian literatures.

Modern Muslims generally use to word Isrā’iliyyāt negatively or derisively of   Isrā’īliyyāt has been literally translated “Israelitica”. It has been given many and varied modern definitions in academic literatures. Examples include, “

Wahb Ibn Munabbih, `Abd `Abd-Allah (d. c. 110/728 or 114/732)

  • Sirat al-Nabi (Life of the Prophet) [lost]

  • Kitab al-Isra‘iliyyat [largely lost]

  • Maghazi Rasul Allah (The Military Expeditions of the Prophet of God)

  • Kitab al-Qadr (The Book of Destiny)

  • Kitab al-muluk … min Himyar (The Book of the Himyarite Kings…)  extant in the recension of  Ibn Hisham known as Kitab al-Tijan fi muluk al-Himyar

  • (The Book of the crowned Kings of the Himyarites)

Ibn Ḥishām / Wahb b. Munabbih

  •  K. Tijan = Kitāb al-Tijān fī mulūk Ḥimyar.   Markez al-Darāsāt..: Ṣan`a’, 1347/1928.

There can no longer be any doubt about the books attributed to Wahb b. Munabbih. Their contents were transmitted orally, taught or set down in writing, partly at least in his own lifetime, and later by particular members of his family. A literature belonging generally to the biblical heritage as disseminated by Jewish and Christian scholarship (in Yemen and Ḥidjāz, and, especially, in Medina) was formed quite early. It was called biblical but was within Islam. It was disseminated by the philosophers and by others from the same Jewish/Christian milieux chiefly in Arabia, and then supplemented by posterity.

 

Bibliography and miscellany

Abū Shahibah, Muhammad ibn Muhammad 

  • al‑Isrā’īliyyāt wa’l‑mawḍū`āt fī kutub al‑tafsīr.  Cairo: Maktabat al-Sunnah, 1393/1973;  4th rep. 1408/ 1987-8
  • al-Isrā’īliyyāt  wa'al-mawḍu‘at fī kutub al-tafsīir  li-Muhammad ibn Muhammad Abū Shuhbah. 1st ed. Cairo: Majma` al-Hayth al-Islamiyya 1393/    ; 1402+1405+1408= Cairo: Maktabat al-Sunnah, 1408/ 1987-8. (348pp.).
  • al-Isrā’īliyyāt  wa'al-mawḍu‘at fī kutub al-tafsīir ... Beirut: Dar al-Jil, 1413/1992. (347pp.). *

Albayrak, ismail.

  • 2000 Qur'anic narrative and Isra'iliyyat in Western scholarship and in classical exegesis. Univ. of Leeds. 2000

  • 2002  `Isrā’īliyyāt and Classical Exegetes’ Comments on the Calf with a Hollow Sound Q. 20:83-98/7:147-155 with Special reference to `Aṭiya’, JSS XLVII (2002), pp. 39-65.

Aydemir, Abdullah

  • Tefsirde Ýsrailiyat. 2000. ISBN: 975473058 [Turkish]. 

 Brinner, Wiliam, M.

  • [1998] `Isrā’īliyyāt’, Encyclopedia of Arabic Llierature (= EAL) 1: 400‑401.

  • `Legends of the Prophets (Qiṣaṣ al‑anbiyā’)’, EAL 2:465‑6.

Būjnūrdī, Kāẓim Mūsāvī.

  • DMI  (ed.), Dā’irat al‑ma`ārif‑i buzurg‑i Islāmiyya (The Great Islamic Encyclopedia). Tehran, 11 vols. 1996‑2003

  • Dā’irat al‑ma`ārif‑i buzurg‑i Islamī  (Great Islamic Encyclopedia) Tehran, 1998, `Isra’īlliyyāt’, vol. 8:290-4 .

The recent, Shī`ī centered and bulky Persian Dā’irat al‑ma`ārif‑i buzurg‑i Islamī  (`Great Islamic Encyclopedia’, Tehran, 1998) contains  an entry `Isra’īlliyyāt’ which includes a thorough consideration of Isrā’īliyyat seen as a techincal term in the realm of  tafsīr  and ḥadīth  studies (vol. 8:290‑4).

Dehkhodā, Alī Akbar Qazvīnī, (1879-1956)

Born. Tehran c. 1297/1879 d.  Tehran 7th Esfand 1334 Sh. / 26th February 1956.  His Persian [Shī`ī] Encyclopedic Dictionary, the  Lughat-Nāmih contains the entry

  •  `Isrā’īliyyāt’  Vol. 2:1924.

The largely unchanged 1993 2nd edition of the Lughat‑Namih  of Dekhoda incudes a very basic, only slightly dismissive definition of `Isrā’īliyyāt’ (vol. 2:1924),

 al‑Dhahabī, Muḥammad Husayn 

  • al‑Isrā’īliyyāt fī’ l‑tafsīr wa’l‑ḥadīth .  Jāma`at al‑Azhar/ Majma` al‑buḥuth al‑Islāmiyya, 1391/1971+ 4th printing, 1991. 

Originally a paper  several times separately published volume,

Dhahabī, Muḥammad Husayn.

  • 1971 [1991] al-Isrā’īliyyāt fī’l-tafsīr wa’l-ḥadīth. Jāma`at al-Azhar [Majma` al-Buḥūth al-Islāmiyya] Maktabat al-Wahabiyya, 1391/1971, 1991.

Donner, F. M.

  • 1998 Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginnings of Islamic Historical Writing.  Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press

Duri, A. A.   

  • 1983 The Rise of Historical Writing Among the Arabs.  Ed. and trans. F. Donner.  New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

EAL = Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature.  2 vols. ed. J. S. Meisami & P. Starkey.  London & New York: Routledge, 1998

Ginzberg, Louis, trans.,

  • The Legends of the Jews, 7 vols. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909-46.

Goitein, S.D.,

  • "Isrā'îliyat" in Tarbiz, vol. 6֊, Jerusalem: 1936, pp. 89-101; 510-22 (in Hebrew). 

Goldziher, Ignaz,

  • Muslim Studies, ed. by S.M. Stern. Vol. Two, London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1971.

Goldziher, Ignaz.  (1850-1921)

  • 1876  `Ueber muhammadanische Polemik gegen Ahl al-kitāb’ ZDMG. 32: 341-387.

  • 1888-90 [Muh.Stud.]  Muhammedanische Studien.  2 vols.  Halle: Max Niemayer, 1889-90. Tr. S.M. Stern and C.R. Barber, Muslim Studies.  [= MStudies] 2 vols.  London: George Allen and Unwin, 1967-71.

  • GS [1968]   Gesammelte Schriften. 6 vols.  Ed. J. De Somogyi. Hildesheim: Georg  Olms, 1968.

  • `Mélanges judae-arabes: isra’iliyyāt’, REJ XIV: 62-66.

von Grunebaum, Gustave E.,

  • Medieval Islam: A Study in Cultural Orientation, Second Edition, (Phoenix Books) Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956.

Green, D. F.

  • 1972 [74] `Arab Theologians  on Jews and Israel, Extracts from the Fourth Conference of the Academy of Islamic Research.’  (Geneva, [1972], 74)

 

Halperin, David J.,

  • "The Hidden Made Manifest: Muslim Traditions and the Latent . Content of Biblical and Rabbinic Stories," in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and .Near Eastern Ritual, law, and Literature m Honor of Jacob Milgrom. ed. David P. Wright, David Noel Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz. Winona Lake, IN: 1995, pp. 581-594.
  • and Gordon Newby, "Two Castrated Bulls: A Study in the Haggadah of Ka'b al-Ahbãr," in Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 102:4, Oct.֊Dec. 1982, pp. 631 -38.

 

Hary, Benjamin H., John L. Hayes and Fred Astren (eds.)

  • 2000 Judaism and Islam: boundaries, communication and interaction: essays in honor of William M. Brinner . Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2000

Hawting, G. R. and Abdul-Kader A. Shareef (eds.)

  • 1993 Approaches to the Qur’ān.  London and New York: Routledge.

Hawting, G.R. et al., eds. 

  • 2000 Studies in Islamic and Middle Eastern Texts and Traditions in Memory of Norman Calder  (JSS Supp. 12). Oxford University Press.

Humphreys, R. Stephen.

  • I99I Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry. Revised Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Ibn Isḥāq, Muhammad  [`Abd al-Malik ibn Hishām] (d. 150/767 )

  • Sira = Sīrat rasul Allah, ed. Ferdinand Wustenfeld (Das Leben Muhammed's). 2 vols. Gottingen: Dieterichsche Universitats-Buchhandlung, 1858-60. Trans. Alfred Guillaume as The Life of Muhammad:  a Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah. Oxford:  OUP, 1955.

Ibn Kathīr. `Abū’l-Fidā’ Ismā’il ( d.              ).

  • Tafsir = Tafsīr al-Qur'ān al-`Azīm. 7 Vols. Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1389/1970.

  •  Qisas = `Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyā’. Beirut: Dar al-Qalam.  1405/1985. 

  •  Bidaya = al-Bidāyah wa al-nihāyah.  Ed. Aḥmad Abu Māḥim et. al.  n.p.: Dār al-kutub al-`ilmiyyah, 1992/1412.

Ibn Taymiyya, Tāqī al-Dīn ( d.              ).

  • Int. Tafsir     `Introductory Treatise on the Principles of Tafsir’,  trans. McAuliffe, Jane, D. in J. Renard ed. 1998 -->.

Khoury, R. G.

  • Wahb b. Munabbih. Vol1 Der Heidelberger Papyrus PSR Heid Arab 23, Leben und Werkdes Dichters, 2 vols.   Wiesbaden: O Harrassowitz.

  • Wahb b. Munabbih, ed. R.G. Khoury  ( = A monograph and ed. of two papyri on the Maghāzī and the History of David). Wiesbaden 1972

  •  Les légendes prophétiques dans l’Islam depuis le Ier-IIIe siècle H., Wiesbaden 1978 . Contains an ed. of the Kitāb bad’ al-khalq  wa-qiṣaṣ al-anbiyā’ of  `Umāra b. Wathīma al-Fārisī.

  •  `Umāra b. Wathīma.  EI2 Vol X.  835-836.

  • `Wahb b. Munabbih, Abū `Abd Allāh’ .  EI2   Vol. XI : XX-XXX. 

Khoury, R. G.

  • 1972 Wahb B. Munabbih. Vol. 1: Der Heidelberger Papyrus PSR Heid Arab 23.
  • Vol 2: Faksimiletafeln, Wiesbaden 1972 (Codices Arabici Antiqui I).
  • 1972 Wahb b. Munabbih. Vol1 Der Heidelberger Papyrus PSR Heid Arab 23, Leben und Werkdes Dichters, 2 vols.   Wiesbaden: O Harrassowitz.
  • 1972 Wahb b. Munabbih, ed. R.G. Khoury  ( = A monograph and ed. of two papyri on the Maghāzī and the History of David). Wiesbaden 1972
  •  Les légendes prophétiques dans l’Islam depuis le Ier-IIIe siècle H., Wiesbaden 1978 . Contains an ed. of the Kitāb bad’ al-khalq  wa-qiṣaṣ al-anbiyā’ of  `Umāra b. Wathīma al-Fārisī.
  •  `Umāra b. Wathīma.  EI2 Vol X.  835-836.
  • `Wahb b. Munabbih, Abū `Abd Allāh’ .  EI2   Vol. XI : XX-XXX. 

Kister, M. J.

  •  `Haddithu 'an israila we-la haraja: a Study of an Early Tradition,` IOS 2 (1972) 215-39.

  •  1988 `Legends in Tafsīr and Hadīth Literature: the Creation of Adam and Related Stories,’ in Rippin, ed., Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qur'an, 82-114.   

  • `On the Papyrus of Wahb b. Munabbih,’   BSOAS 37:  545-71.

  • The Sirah Literature," in Beeston et al., eds., CHAL 1:  352-57.

  • "Ādam: A Study of Some Legends in Tafsır and Hadith Literature." pp. 113-74 in idem, Concepts and Ideas at the Dawn of Islam. Aldershot: Ashgate/ Variorum, 1997.
  • "... And He Was Born Circumcised...." pp. 10-30 in idem, Concepts and Ideas at the Dawn of Islam. Aldershot: Ashgate/Variorum, 1997.

 Lambden, Stephen N.

1992 `From Fig‑Leaves to Fingernails: Some Notes on the Garments of Adam & Eve in the Hebrew Bible and Select early post‑Biblical Jewish Writings in  A Walk in the Garden : Exegesis, Iconography and Literature  (Proceedings of a Conference held at the University of Lancaster Jan. 8‑9, 1986), 1992.

  • 2001 Some Aspects of Isra’iliyyat and the Emergence of the Babi-Bahā’ī Interpretation of the Bible’. University of Newcastle upon Tyne Ph.d thesis (unpublished)2006. 
  • Chapter 9 ` Islam' in the Blackwell Companion to the Bible and Culture' ed. John F.A. Sawyer,

 Lassner, J.

1993 Demonizing the Queen of Sheba. Chicago: University of Chicago  Press.

  • 1993a  `The “One Who had knowledge of the Book” and the “Mightiest Name” of God. Qur’ānic Exegesis and Jewish Cultural Artifacts’ in Nettler (ed.): 59-74.

  • 1993b Demonizing the of the Queen of Sheba, Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Medieval Islam. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press.

  • 2000 `Time, Historiography, and Historical Consciousness: The Dialectic of Jewish-Muslim Relations’   in  Hary, et. al. eds. 2000, pp. 1-26.

Lazarus-Yafeh, Hava. (d. 200X).

  • `Self-Criticism in Jewish and Islamic Traditions’ in Hary et. al. eds.  2000 [= Brinner Fest.]  pp. 303-319.

Leder, S et al. eds.

  • 2002 Studies in Arabic and Islam, Proceedings of the 19th Congress, Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, Halle 1998. (= Orientalia Louvaniensia Analecta -108-) Paris-Sterling, VA : Uitgeveru Peeters. viii+541 pp. : ill. ; 25 cm.  

Maghniyah, Muhammad Jawad and `Abd al-Husayn Maghniyah.

  • Isra'iliyyat al-Qur'an : Tafsir Isra'iliyyat al-Qur'an yuzhiru haqiqat al-Yahud wa `aqidatahum al-Sahyuniya. Beirut: Dar al-Jawad, 1400/ 199X. (246pp.)

Maghiniyya, Muhammad Jawad

  • Isra'iliyyat al-Qur'an. Tafsir Isra'iliyyat  al-Qur'an... `Abd alHusayn Mughniyya, Beirut: Dar al-Jawad , 1404/1984. (246+1pp.).*

Manūchihrī, F.

· 1998 `Isra’īl [Isrā’īliyyāt]’ in Dā’irat- al-ma`ārif-i  buzurg-i Islamī (`Great Islamic Encyclopedia’), Vol. 8 , Tehran, 1377/1998, pp. 290-4.

McAuliffe, J.D. 1998

McAuliffe, Jane. Dammen.

  • 1991 Qur'ānic Christians : An Analysis of Classical and Modern Exegesis. Cambruidge: Cambriudge Univ. Press. ISBN: 0521364701.

  • 1990 `Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī on āyat-jizyah and āyat al-sayf’ in M. Gevers, ed. 1990, 103-118.

  • 1998 `Assessing the Isrā’īliyyāt: An exegetical conundrum’ in Leder  ed. 1998: 345-369.

  • 1999 `Debate with them in the Better Way, The Construction of a Qur’ānic Commonplace’ in Neuwirth et. al. eds. 1999, pp. 163-188.

McAuliffe, Jane Dammen.

  • "Chosen of all women: Mary and Fatima in Qur'anic exegesis." Islamochristiana 7 (1981): 19-28.
  • "Fakhr al-DIn al-Rāzī on ayat al-jizyah and ayat al-sayf." In Conversion and Continuity: indigenous Christian Communities in Islamic Lands, Eighth to Eighteenth Centuries. Edited by Michael Gervers and Ramzi J. Bikhazi, 103-119. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1990.
  •  Qur'anic Christians: An Analysis of Classical and Modern Exegesis. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
  •  "The Qur'anic context of Muslim biblical scholarship." Islam and Muslim-Christian Relations, Vol. 7 No. 2 (1996), 141-158.
  •  "Assessing the Isra'ïliyyat: An exegetical conundrum." Forthcoming m Fiction in Nonfictional Classical Arabic Literature, ed. S. Leder (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag).
  • "Tabarĩ's Prelude to the Prophet." Forthcoming in Al-TabarT: A Medieval Muslim Historian and His Work, ed. Hugh Kennedy (Princeton: Darwin Press).
     

McAuliffe, Jane Dammen.

  • "The Abrogation of Judaism antl Christianity in Islam: A Christian Perspective." Concilium (1994/3): 154-63.
  • "Assessing the Isrã'ĩliyyãt: An Exegetical Conundrum." Pages 345-69 in Slory-Telling in the Framework of Non-fictional Arabic Literainre. Edited by Stefan Leder. Wiesbaden: I larrassovvit/, 1998. 

 

McAuliffe, Jane Dammen et. al. (eds.)

  • Enc. Q =  Encyclopedia of the Qur’ān. Vols. 1-5,  Leiden: Brill, 2001-5

   McAuliffe, Jane Dammen; Barry D. Walfish and Joseph W. Goering (eds.)

  • 2003  With reverence for the word: medieval scriptural exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  Oxford; New York : Oxford University Press, 2003

Meisami, Julie.

  • EAL = (ed.) Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature. 2 vols. London and New York: Routledge.  Montgomery Watt, W. 

Moreen, Vera B.

  •   2000 `Is[h]ma'iliyat: A Judeo-Persian Account of the Building of the Ka'ba’  in  Hary, et. al. eds. 2000, pp. 185-199.  

Mourad, S. A.,

  • ADD

  • ADD

Muqātil  b. Sulaymān al- Khurasānī  [al-   ] (d. Basra, 150/767).

  • Tafsir = Tafsīr Muqātil b. Sulaymān. Ed. `Abd-Allāh Maḥmūd Shahḥata . 4+1 vols. Cairo: 1979-1988.

  • Tafsir (2003) =   = Tafsīr Muqātil b. Sulaymān. Ed. `Abd-Allāh Maḥmūd Shahḥata  5 vols. Beirut: Mu`assat al-Tārīkh al-`Arabī. 1423/2003.

Mursi, Ahmad.

  • al-Fulklur wa'l-Isrāiliyat . Dar al-Ma°arif , 1977 179pp.  ISBN: 9772466031

Na`iniyya, Ramzi.

  • al-Isra'iliyyat wa athurah fi'l-kutub al-tafsir. Damascus: Dar al-Qalam, 1970 (493pp.).

Nagel, T.

  • 1967 Die Qisas al-anbiya'. Ein Beitrag zur arabischen Literaturgeschichte. Bonn: Selbstverlag des orientalischen Seminars der Universitat Bonn.

Nettler, R. L.

  • 1993 (ed.) Studies in Muslim-Jewish Relations Vol.1 Harwood Academic Publishers,  Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies.

& Suha Taji-Farouki, eds.

  • 1998 Muslim-Jewish Encounters Intellectual Traditions and Modern Politics.  Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers. 

Nettler, Ronald L.  and Suha Taji-Farouki Eds.

• 1988  Muslim-Jewish Encounters : intellectual traditions and modern politics. Amsterdam, The Netherlandds : Harwood Academic Publishers, 1988.

 Newby, Gordon D.

  • "Tafsir isra'iliyat : Qur'an commentary in early Islam in its relationship to Judaeo-Christian traditions of scriptural commentary" Journal of the American Academy of Religion Thematic Studies. 47 (1979),  685-697.

  • 1979 `Tafsīr Isrā’īliyyāt’ , Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Thematic Issue S.  47 (1979), pp. 694-5. 
  • 1989 The Making of the Last Prophet: a Reconstruction of the Earliest Biography of Muhammad. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press.
  • 1999 `Quranic and Islamic Interpretation of Biblical Materials’ in Hayes, J (ed) DBI (1999), 356-360.
  • 2000 `Text and Territory: Jewish-Muslim Relations 632-750 CE’   in  Hary, et. al. eds. 2000, pp. 83-ADD

Neuwirth, Angelika.   

  • 1996 Myths, Historical Archetypes, and Symbolic Figures in Arabic Literature: Towards a New Hermeneutic Approach Proceedings of the International Symposium in Beirut, June 25th - June 30th, 1996. ISBN: 3515071016 

Qāsimī. Ḥamīd Muḥammad.

  • اسرائيليات و تأثير آن بر داستانهاى انبيا در تفاسير قرآن = Isrāʾīliyāt va taʾth̲īr-i ān bar dāstānʹhā-yi anbiyā dar tafāsīr-i Qurʾān, Tehran: Surūsh, 2001. ISBN: 9644356047. ( 535pp.). Persian...

Rabī`, Āmāl `Abd al-Raḥman,

  • al-Isrā’īliyyāt fī Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī : dirāsah fī al-lughah wa al-masādir al-‘Ibriyyah. Dar al-Thaqafah al-°Arabiyah (2000) Language: Arabic ISBN: 9772221942  (510 pp.)
  • al-Isrā’īliyyāt fī Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī : dirāsah fī al-lughah wa al-masādir al-‘Ibriyyah. Cairo : Jumhūriyyat Miṣr al-‘Arabiyyah, Wizarat al-Awqaf, al-Majlis al-A‘lā lil-Shu'ūn al-Islāmiyyah. 2001

Reeves, John. C., ed.

  • 1994 Tracing the Threads, Studies in the Vitality of Jewish Pseudepigrapha. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press.

  • 1996 Heralds of That Good Realm: Syro-Mesopotamian Gnosis and Jewish Traditions. Leiden: Brill Academic Pub   ISBN =  9004104593.

  • 1999 `Manichaica Aramaica? Adam and the Magical Delverance of Seth’. JAOS 119: 432-439

  • 2004 (ed.) Bible and Quran: Essays in Scriptural Intertextuality.  Leiden,  New York: Brill Academic Pub.  2004  ( = Series Society of Biblical Literature symposium series ; no. 24)

     

    Reynolds, Gabriel Said (ed.)

    • The Qur'an in its Historical Context.  Routledge, 2007, 294pp. ISBN-10: 0415428998 ISBN-13: 978-0415428996. 

    • Table of Contents: Foreword D. Madigan. Notes on Contributors. List of Images. Map: Locations Cited in the Present Volume. Abbreviations. Introduction: Qur'anic Studies and its Controversies G.S. Reynolds Part 1: Linguistic and Historical Evidence 1. The Qur'an in Recent Scholarship - Challenges and Desiderata F. Donner 2. Epigraphy and the Linguistic Background to the Qur'an R. Hoyland 3. Reconstructing the Qur'an: Emerging Insights G. Böwering 4. Reconsidering the Authorship of the Qur'an. Is the Qur'an Partly the Fruit of a Progressive and Collective Work? C. Gilliot 5. Christian Lore and the Arabic Qur'an: The "Companions of the Cave" in Surat al-Kahf and in Syriac Christian Tradition S. Griffith Part 2: The Religious Context of the Late Antique Near East 6. The Theological Christian Influence on the Qur'an: A Reflection S.K. Samir 7. Mary in the Qur'an: A Reexamination of Her Presentation S.A. Mourad 8. The Legend of Alexander the Great in the Qur'an 18:83-102 K. van Bladel 9. Beyond Single Words: ma'ida - Shaytan - jibt and taghut. Mechanisms of Translating the Bible into Ethiopic (Ga'az) Bible and of Transmission into the Qur'anic Text M. Kropp 10. Nascent Islam in the 7th Century Syriac Sources A. Saadi Part 3: Critical Study of the Qur'an and the Muslim Exegetical Tradition 11. Notes on Medieval and Modern Emendations of the Qur'an D. Stewart 12. Syriac in the Qur'an: Classical Muslim Theories A. Rippin. Bibliography. Index of Biblical Verses. Index of Qur'anic Verses. Index of People, Places and Subjects".

    •  

    Rippin,  Andrew (ed).

    •  "Qur'an 21:95 : "A ban is upon any town". Journal of Semitic Studies. 24 (1979): 43-53.

    • "The present status of tafsir studies." Muslim World. 72 (1982), 224-238.

    • "The present status of Tafsir studies : [bibliog]." Hamdard Islamicus. 6 No 4 (1983), 17-31.

    • "Qur'an 78:24 : a study in Arabic lexicography." Journal of Semitic Studies. 28 (1983), 311-320.

    • "Reading the Qur'an with Richard Bell." Journal of the American Oriental Society 112 (1992),  639-647.

    • "Translating the Qur'an." Religion and Literature. 20 (1988): 23-30.

    • 1988 (Ed) Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qur'an. Oxford: Clarendon Press.  

    •  `Interpreting the Bible through the Qur’an,’ in Hawting and Shareef,   eds., Approaches to the Qur'an, 249-59.

    Rosenthal, F.

    • A History of Muslim Historiography, rev. 2nd  edn. Leiden: Brill.

    • `General Introduction," in The History of al-Tabari, 1, 5-154. (-> al-Ṭabarī). 

    Rubin, U..

    • The Eye of the Beholder: the Life of Muhammad as Viewed by the Early Muslims. A Textual Analysis. SLAEI. 5.  Princeton. NJ: Darwin Press.

    Saleh, Walid, A.

    • 2004 The Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition: The Qur'ān Commentary of al-Tha`labī.  Leiden, Boston: E.J. Brill.

    al‑Sakhāwī (d.902/1497)

    Like other late medieval commentators and historians al‑Sakhāwī (d.902/1497) was one  ill‑disposed towards fanciful Isrā’īliyyāt  communicated by over imaginative storytellers or derived from the `people of the Book’ . refer I`lān bi’l‑tawbīḥ..  trans. Rosenthal, 1968: 335. (cf. Vajda, `Isrā’īliyyāt’, EI2 IV:211f.)

    •  I`lān bi’l‑tawbīḥ..  trans. Rosenthal, 1968: 335.

    al-Sammān, Ghādā.

    • إسرائيليات بأقلام عربية : الدس الصهيوني / غادا السمان. 

    = Isrāʾliyyāt bi-aqlām ʻArabīyah : al-dass al-Ṣihyūnī.   Beirut : Dār al-Hādī lil-Ṭibāʻah wa'l-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʻ, 2001. (325 pp.).

    Schwartzbaum, H.

    • 1982 Biblical and Extra-Biblical Legends in Islamic Folk-Literature. Verlag für Oruentkunde Dr. H. Vorndran. Walldorf-Hessen, 1982

    Sharon, Moshe. ( ed.)

    • 1986 Studies in Islamic History and Civilization in Honour of Professor David Ayalon.  Jerusalem: Cana.

    Shboul, A.

    • al-Mas’ūdī and His World, A Muslim Humanist and his interest in non-Muslims. London: Ithaca Press.

    Abū Shuhbah, Muhammad ibn Muhammad 

    • al-Isrā’īliyyāt  wa-al-mawḍu‘at fī kutub al-tafsīir  li-Muhammad ibn Muhammad Abū Shuhbah. Cairo: Maktabat al-Sunnah, 1408/ 1987-8.

    • al-Isra'iyat wa-al-mawdu'at fi kutub al-tafsir, ta'lif Muhammad ibn Muhammad Abu Shuhbah.  Cairo: al-Hay'ah al-'Ammah li-Shu'un al-Matabi' al-Amiriyah, 1973.

    al-Ṭabarī, Muhammad b. Jarīr (d. 310/922)

    Tarikh = Ta'rīkh al-rusul wa’l-mulūk, 15 vols. Dār al-Fikr 1988/1408.

    Eng. tr., = The History of al- Ṭabarī, by various translators, general ed., E. Yarshater, 37+1 vols. Albany, N.Y: SUNY, 1985-98.

    Tarikh (Per. 1987)  1366/1987.  Tārīkh-i nāmih-yi Ṭabarī.  3 Vols.  Ed. Muḥammad Rawshan. Tehran:  Nashr-i Naw.

    Tarikh (Per. 1995) 1374/1995 Tārīkhnāmih-i Ṭabarī.  2 Vols.  Ed. Muḥammad Rawshan.  Tehran: Surūsh.

     History tr. Rosenthal. The History of al-Tabarī, vol. 1 (General Introduction and From the Creation to the Flood), Albany. SUNY. 1989.

    History  tr. Brinner, W.  vol. 2  (Prophets and Patriarchs), Albany, SUNY, 1987.

    History tr.  Brinner, W.  vol. 3 (The Children of Israel), Albany, SUNY, 1991

    History tr. Perlman. M.  vol. 4  (The Ancient Kingdoms), Albany, SUNY. 1987.

    Tha`labī, Abū Isḥāq Aḥmad b. Muhammad al-Nīsābūrī,

    • Qisas = Arā’is al-majālis qiṣaṣ al-`anbiyā’ . [Cairo, 1374/1955 =] rep.  Beirut: Dār al-Qalam.

    • Brinner tr. = ‘Arā'is al-majālis fī qiṣaṣ  al-anbiyā'  or : Lives of the prophets / as recounted by Abū Ishāq Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Tha‘labī;

    • translated and annotated by William M. Brinner ( = Series Studies in Arabic literature  vol. 24).  Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2002.  xxxiii, 772 pp..

    Tottoli, Roberto.

    • "Origin and Use of the Term Isralliyyat in Muslim Literature." Arabica 46 (1999): 193-210.

    • I profeti biblici nella tradizione islamica. Brescia: Paideia Editrice, 1999.
       

    Vajda, G.

    ·         1941-45 = `Deux “Histoires de Prophétes” selon la tradition des Shi’ites duodécimains.’  Revue des etudes juives 106: 124-133.

    ·         1943-5 Melchisédec dans la Mythologie ismaélienne  Journal Asiatique  234:173-183

    ·         1981 `De Quelques emprints d’origine juive hans le ḥadīth Shi`ite’ in Goitein (ed).ADD  1981.

    • `Isrā’īliyyāt’, EI2 IV:211f.

    Wahb Ibn Munabbih, `Abh `Abd-Allah (d. c. 110/728 or 114/732)

    • Sirat al-Nabi (Life of the Prophet) [lost]

    • Kitab al-Isra‘iliyyat [largely lost]

    •  Maghazi Rasul Allah (The Military Expeditions of the Prophet of God)

    • Kitab al-Qadr.

    • Kitab al-muluk … min Himyar (The Book of the Himyarite Kings…)  extant in the recension of  Ibn Hisham known as Kitab al-Tijan fi muluk al-Himyar

    • (The Book of the crowned Kings of the Himyarites)

    Ibn Ḥishām [Wahb ibn Munabbih] (d.           )

    • Kitāb al-Tijān fī mulūk Ḥimyar.   Markez al-Darāsāt..: Ṣan`a’, 1347/1928.

    Wasserstrom, S. M.

    • 1992 ` Who were the Jewish Sectariana under Early Islam?’  in Menahem Mor (ed.)  Jewsih Sects, Religious Movements and Political Parties.  Omaha, Nebraska : Creighton University Press, pp. 101-112.

    • 1994 `Jewish Pseudepigrapha in Muslim Literature: A Biographical and Methodological Sketch’ in Reeves ed., 87-114... 

    • 1994 [IOS] “The Šhī`īs are the Jews of our Community”, IOS XIV (1994). Leiden: Brill.

    • 1995 Between Muslim and Jew: the problem of symbiosis under early Islam.  Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    • 1997 [IOS] ‘Šahrastānī on the Magāriyya.’  In Israel Oriental Studies XVII: Dhimmis and Others: Jews and Christians and the World of Classical Islam.  Ed. Uri Rubin and David J. Wasserstein.  Tel Aviv: Eisenbrauns, Inc.

    Weir, C. J. Mullo,

    • Presentation Volume to William Barron Stevenson. Glasgow University Oriental Society (Studia Semitia et Orientalia vol II).

    Wheeler, Brannon M.

    • Prophets in the Qur’an, An Introduction to the Qur’an and Muslim Exegesis.  Selected and Translated by Brannon Wheeler. London, New York: Continuum. 2002.

    • Mecca And Eden: Ritual, Relics, And Territory in Islam.  Univ of Chicago Press, 2006  ISBN = 0226888037 HBk. (333pp.)