| In studies on Islamic and Jewish narratives on the early biography of the forefather Abraham, scholars have looked only fleetingly at the themes embedded in the texts, dwelling instead on determining the primacy of one tradition over another. Such a practice ignores the dynamism and creativity of Islam while also presenting an injustice to the complex, often symbiotic, relationship between the two religious traditions. The present study, an in-depth comparative examination of the Islamic and Jewish exegetical motifs on the early life of Abraham, challenges the earlier scholarly tendencies in two ways: (a) it reveals that, as far as the forefather Abraham is concerned, the Islamic and Jewish exegetical traditions were intertextually related, mutually giving and receiving motifs and ideas, and (b) this project reveals the Abrahamic motifs' larger significance for understanding the ways in which Islam and Judaism define and differentiate themselves as independent spiritual traditions, specifically regarding the question of free-will vs. predestination.; Founding fathers serve as the paradigms on whom adherents model themselves, their religious philosophy, and ultimately their relationship to God. This dissertation demonstrates that the Jewish narratives of the midrash aggadah, exegetical and homiletical post-Biblical narrative expansions, depict Abraham as proactive, the embodiment of free-will. Using strikingly similar narratives, the Islamic exegetic corpus of tafsīr and h&dotbelow;adīth, as well as the qis&dotbelow;as&dotbelow; al-anbiyā` (Stories of the Prophets), embraces an Abraham whose role and relationship with the Divine reflect a more predestined world view. We will see here that despite the obvious sharing of material, at times almost verbatim, Islam and Judaism subtly and consistently manipulate the texts of the other in their endeavor to create Ibrāhīm/Abraham in their own image and thus impart to their adherents a unique understanding of what it means to be Muslim or Jew. |
