Journeys in Holy Lands: The Evolution of the Abraham-Ishmael Legends in Islamic Exegesis

by Reuven Firestone

Scholars have long pointed to the great affinity between stories found in the Bible and the Qur'an, yet no explanation has been proposed that satisfactorily explains the odd combination of incredible likeness and unique divergence. Firestone provides a refreshing, new approach to scriptural issues of textuality, exegesis, and the origins and use of legend.

This book clearly presents the full range of Islamic legends from the Qur'an and early Islamic exegesis about Abraham's journeys and adventures in the Land of Canaan and Arabia, many of them available for the first time in English translation. The author examines this broad sample of Islamic legends in relation to those found in Jewish, Christian, and pre-Islamic Arabian communities, and postulates an evolutionary journey of the literature. He presents a thorough textual analysis of the material and proposes a model for understanding early Islamic narrative based in literary theory, approaches to comparative religion, and the history of the pre-Islamic and early Islamic Middle East.

Genres: History

265 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[George Hong · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book has lots of interesting facts right from the beginning. Firestone is member of an interfaith council between Jews Christians and Muslims. his approach is kind of historical with the understanding that there are zero documents from Muhammad's time and he will not talk about whether Muhmmad was a legit prophet. something that needed to be spelled out was the story of Abraham. After Sarah died Abraham married an arabic speaking woman. some of his sons married arab women too. he tried to get them to live East of Canaan so Israel would go to Isaac's descendents. arabs were mostly nomads but some would move out of the desert to cities in Canaan and elsewhere. by Muhammad's time Christians and Jews living in Arabia looked and acted Arab. so maybe there was not as big a pagan problem as Muhammad claimed. people interacted for business reasons and for festivals.

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have only read the introduction, but Firestone provides a thorough and navigable intro on mutual interdependence between early Christian/Jewish/Islamic source material. While there is more of a focus on the Islamic tradition being the receptacle for Judeo-Christian thought (i.e., there is an underlying accusation of Islamic borrowing), this doesn't detract significantly from the premise. Note--I have only read the intro.