Islam

It is well known within Shi`i scholarship that numerous ahadith attest that the Mahdi will “rule according to the judgment of David and Solomon.” This article will attempt to answer just what this tradition meant in its historical context. For the sake of focus, this …

Did the Qur’an permit Muhammad’s audience to eat camel, in contradiction to the Torah as we find it not only in Muhammad’s day, but centuries before from the Dead Sea Scroll copies of the Chumash? If it did, we might be surprised to find that …

Before the re-discovery and the edition of Ref IV-X, Epiphanius’ Panarion was by far the most informative source on the Elchasaites and Osseans. In addition, the study of Elchasai and the Elkesaites could be based on Origen’s brief report in Eusebius, Hist. eccles. VI 38, and on some later and likewise …

Throughout the centuries, the Muslim world has argued that the Qur’an is to be read as sola scriptura, with supplementation only from fairly late hadith accounts, but never from the Bible. This is determined through the late hadith literature where the literary character of Muhammad is claimed to have forbidden Umar …

One of the most often quoted, in definining what a Muslim is and is not, and simultaneously one of the most ambiguous passages of the Qur’an, is found in ‘ayah 67 of Surat al `Imran. From the outset, it must be stated that any discussion on this …

Why does the Qur’an call meat from certain animals ONLY “halal” and yet calls the food from the Earth: “halal and tayyib”? Thus we read:   Oh Humankind: Partake from all that is is in the Earth (fi al-Ardi) which is both permissible and good (halalan tayyiban)… …

To discuss the notion of Naziritism in the Qur’ān we must first assume that the reader has some cursory knowledge of the Nadr Nazīr, the Torah’s oath of Naziritism. Two complete tractates of the Talmūd are dedicated to Nazīrūt. These collections indicate that by the Second …