L’auteur

Reuven Firestone est rabbin et professeur de d’études médiévales juives et islamiques à l’Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion à Los Angeles. Ses domaines de recherche sont l’Islam et ses relations avec les Juifs et le judaïsme, l’interprétation biblique de la Bible et du Coran et le phénomène de la guerre sainte. Reuven Firestone a servi pendant huit ans comme directeur d’instituts de l’HUC-JIR (l’Edgar F. Magnin et le Jerome Louchheim). Avant de rejoindre le corps professoral de l’HUC-JIR, il a enseigné à l’Université de Boston.

Presentation

While there exists no evidence to date that the indigenous inhabitants of Arabia knew of holy war prior to Islam, holy war ideas and behaviors appear already among Muslims during the first generation. This book focuses on why and how such a seemingly radical development took place. Basing his hypothesis on evidence from the Qur’an and early Islamic literary sources, Firestone locates the origin of Islamic holy war and traces its evolution as a response to the changes affecting the new community of Muslims in its transition from ancient Arabian culture to the religious civilization of Islam. (Source http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/?view=usa&ci=9780195125801#Description)

Table des matières

Transliterations

Introduction

• 1. Islam and Holy War
• 2. The Pre-Islamic World
• 3. The Qur’an: The Traditional Reading and Its Inherent Weakness
• 4. The Qur’an on War: A New Reading
• 5. The Prophetic Sunna
• 6. The Sira
• 7. Conclusion: From Mundane War to Holy War

Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index of Scriptural Citations
Subject Index