Silent History: Judaism and Islam on the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th and 8th Centuries CE

FAIN: FEL-262292-19

Aaron William Hughes
University of Rochester (Rochester, NY 14627-0001)

Writing a history of Judaism in the Arabian Peninsula during the founding years of Islam in the seventh and eighth centuries CE.

Some aspects of the historical record receive more attention than others. Within this latter context we know very little about the Jews and Judaism of late antique Arabia. Standard histories tend either to bypass them completely or to use much later sources that describe them as rabbinic. There is, however, little evidence to suggest that they were. This project hopes to correct this lacuna by writing their history with attention to all the relevant textual and material remains. Attention to epigraphy and inscriptions on the one hand, and external and internal sources on the other, reveals both a fluid and a formative period of late antique history. Since the fate of these Jews is very much caught up with the rise of Islam in the first half of the seventh century, it becomes necessary to connect their history to that of early Islam. The result is an ambitious project that stands at a crossroads in the history of two scholarly fields, Jewish studies and Islamic studies.