Muḥammad in Zion

Abstract

Abstract This article discusses the ways in which Hebrew writers in late Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine interacted with the history of early Islam and the relations between Muslims and Jews of the Arabian Peninsula and the political, cultural, and social functions their reconstruction fulfilled in the critical junctures of Hebrew culture in the East. The article argues that these Hebrew works reflected the development of Hebrew culture in Palestine and masqueraded the advancement of Zionist tenants among Jewish settlers on the land. Those Zionist ideals encompassed: the revival of Hebrew, the physical and cultural return to the Orient, the demonstration of the cultural and material profits Zionists might bring to the indigenous population of Palestine through underscoring a Jewish influence on Islam, and finally, to promote aspects of Jewish heroism and sacrifice by focusing on the early confrontation between Jews and Muslims.