Tracing possible Jewish influence on a common Islamic commentary on Deuteronomy 33:2

Abstract

One of the most frequent arguments in Islamic polemical writings is that allusions to Muḥammad exist in the Bible but were obliterated by the Jews in what Muslim polemicists call taḥrīf – falsification. One verse in particular, Deut. 33:2, is so commonly treated by these polemicists as to occur literally or in paraphrase in almost every anti-Jewish Islamic tract. The last of three place names that appear in this verse, Paran – Muslim polemicists claim – refers to Muḥammad and to Mecca and Islam. In this article, a review of the treatment of Deut. 33:2 in four Midrashic and two Targumic sources raises the possibility that the Paran–Muḥammad/Mecca/Islam nexus owes its origins to the Muslim polemicists’ appropriation of ideas taken from Jewish sources that either pre-date Islam or, perhaps, coincided with the dawn of Islam.