Comparison is held to be one of the central methods of the academic study of religion. While many ostensibly engage in the comparative act, often overlooked is what it actually means to do this. What is comparison? Why engage in it and for what purposes? Can there be such a thing as a valid or invalid comparison? Can comparison itself be compared to anything? This book starts with the premise that while there are good comparisons and bad comparisons, what is common to both is the sheer artificiality of the enterprise and develops an analytical framework for using the method in the context of religious studies. After briefly tracing the history and genealogy of the category, Hughes draws on his own extensive work in Judaism and Islam to argue that comparison can be a useful method, but only under strictly controlled conditions.

The scholarly study of Islam has become ever more insular and apologetic. Academic Islamic Studies has tried to maintain a focus on truth, authenticity, experience and meaning and has effectively avoided discussion of larger social, cultural and ideological issues. Many scholars of Islam have presented themselves to their colleagues, the media and the public as the interpreters of Islam and have done so with an interpretation which tends, almost universally, to the liberal and egalitarian. The ignorance and hostility which the Islamic faith has faced since 9/11 has partly necessitated the taking of such a position. But, as Theorizing Islam argues, the issue remains that only one interpretation of Islam is generally being presented and, as with any interpretation, this has its own assumptions. The aim of Theorizing Islam is to explore the potential for a fuller, more honest and more sophisticated approach to both theory and methodology in the academic study of Islam.

One would think that the space between Islam and Judaism would prove fertile enough to engage in questions of social, religious, cultural, and intellectual interactions. Yet, for a variety of political reasons this is unfortunately rarely the case. In Somewhere Between Islam and Judaism, Hughes reflects on what it means to work in both traditions, but feel at home in neither. The essays collected in this volume provide a set of critical reflections on what it means to study these two religious traditions within the larger context of the academic study of religion. Using case studies that span from the rise of Islam to the current state of Islamic studies and Jewish studies, this work examines the discourses that scholars use to bring Islam and Judaism into what they believe to be sharper focus. In the process, Hughes forces us to confront the countless blindspots, assumptions, and problematic assertions, which structure, frame, and otherwise bring Islamic and Jewish data into focus or, alternatively, obscure it. Somewhere Between Islam and Judaism will be of interest to scholars and students of religion concerned with comparison and those studying Islam, Judaism and Jewish-Muslim relations.

In this volume, a list of esteemed scholars engage with the literary readings of prophetic and poetic texts in the Hebrew Bible that revolve around sensitivity to the complexity of language, the fragility of meaning, and the interplay of texts. These themes are discussed using a variety of hermeneutical strategies. In Part 1, Poets and Poetry, some essays address the nature of poetic language itself, while others play with themes of love, beauty, and nature in specific poetic texts. The essays in Part 2, Prophets and Prophecy, consider prophets and prophecy from a number of interpretive directions, moving from internal literary analysis to the reception of these texts and their imagery in a range of ancient and modern contexts. Those in Part 3, on the other hand, Texts in Play, take more recent works (from Shakespeare to Tove Jansson's Moomin books for children) as their point of departure, developing conversations between texts across the centuries that enrich the readings of both the ancient and modern pieces of literature.

Many scholars of Islam are interested in creating a liberal, inclusive, pluralistic, feminist, and modern version of the religion that they believe to be explicit in the pages of the Qur'an, but missed by earlier interpreters. In so doing, they create "good" Islam and, in the process, seek to define what does and does not get to count as authentic. As the purveyors of what they now believe to be veritable Islam, they subsequently claim that rival presentations are bastardizations based either on Orientalism and Islamophobia (if one is a non-Muslim) or misogyny and homophobia (if one is a Muslim that disagrees with them). Instead of engaging in critical scholarship, they engage in a constructive and theological project that they deceive themselves into thinking is both analytical and empirical. This book provides a hard-hitting examination of the spiritual motivations, rhetorical moves, and political implications associated with these apologetical discourses. It argues that what is at stake is relevance, and examines the consequences of engaging in mythopoesis as opposed to scholarship.

Religion in 50 More Words: A Redescriptive Vocabulary provides a succinct historical, social, and political examination of some of the key words used in the modern study of religion. Differing from the first volume's more theoretical focus, this volume analyzes more common first order descriptive terms that are used throughout the field, inviting readers to theorize their traditional vocabulary. Topics covered include: * Atheism/Theism * Conversion * Cult * Evil * Fundamentalism * Idol * Magic * Pilgrimage * Ritual * Sacrifice Religion in 50 More Words submits such terms to a critical interrogation and subsequent redescription. This paves the way for a collective and more critical reframing of the field. The volume, along with Religion in 50 Words, provides an indispensable resource for students and academics working in the field of religious studies and cognate disciplines.

Religion in 50 More Words: A Redescriptive Vocabulary provides a succinct historical, social, and political examination of some of the key words used in the modern study of religion. Differing from the first volume's more theoretical focus, this volume analyzes more common first order descriptive terms that are used throughout the field, inviting readers to theorize their traditional vocabulary. Topics covered include: * Atheism/Theism * Conversion * Cult * Evil * Fundamentalism * Idol * Magic * Pilgrimage * Ritual * Sacrifice Religion in 50 More Words submits such terms to a critical interrogation and subsequent redescription. This paves the way for a collective and more critical reframing of the field. The volume, along with Religion in 50 Words, provides an indispensable resource for students and academics working in the field of religious studies and cognate disciplines.

This volume includes a broad range of hotly contested terms that are very important to the study of religion. The authors are well known in the field of religious studies and will provide a useful insight for students and junior and emerging academics. This volume will help with critical analysis of the subject.

Jewish thought is, in many ways, a paradox. Is it theology or is it philosophy? Does it use universal methods to articulate Judaism's particularity or does it justify Judaism's particularity with appeals to illuminating the universal? These two sets of claims are difficult if not impossible to reconcile, and their tension reverberates throughout the length and breadth of Jewish philosophical writing, from Saadya Gaon in the ninth century to Emmanuel Levinas in the twentieth. Rather than assume, as most scholars of Jewish philosophy do, that the terms "philosophy" and "Judaism" simply belong together, Hughes explores the juxtaposition and the creative tension that ensues from their cohabitation, examining adroitly the historical, cultural, intellectual, and religious filiations between Judaism and philosophy. Breaking with received opinion, this book seeks to challenge the exclusionary, particularist, and essentialist nature that is inherent to the practice of something problematically referred to as "Jewish philosophy." Hughes begins with the premise that Jewish philosophy is impossible and begins the process of offering a sophisticated and constructive rethinking of the discipline that avoids the traditional extremes of universalism and particularism.

Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a virtual cottage industry in all things ''Abrahamic.'' Directly proportionate to the rise of religious exclusivism, perhaps best epitomized by the attacks of 9/11 and the problems now plaguing the Middle East and Afghanistan, there has been a real desire both to find and map a set of commonalities between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This is often done, however, for the sake of interfaith dialogue, rather than scholarship. Recently, however, the term "Abrahamic religions" has been used with exceeding frequency in the academy. We now regularly encounter academic books, conferences, and even positions (including endowed chairs) devoted to the so-called "Abrahamic religions." But what exactly are "Abrahamic religions"? Although many perceive him as the common denominator of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Abraham remains deceptively out of reach. An ahistorical figure, some contend he holds the seeds for historical reconciliation. Touted as symbol of ecumenicism, Abraham can just as easily function as one of division and exclusivity. Like our understanding of Abraham, the category "Abrahamic religions" is vague and nebulous. Usually lost in contemporary discussions is a set of crucial questions: Whence does the term "Abrahamic religions" derive? Who created it and for what purposes? What sort of intellectual work is it perceived to perform? In order to answer these and related questions, Aaron Hughes examines the creation and dissemination of this category in Abrahamic Religions. Part genealogical and part analytical, his study seeks to raise and answer questions about the appropriateness and usefulness of employing "Abrahamic religions" as a vehicle for understanding and classifying data. In so doing, this monograph can be taken as a case study that examines the construction of categories within the academic study of religion, showing how the categories we employ can become more an impediment than an expedient to understanding.

In this controversial study, Aaron W. Hughes breaks with received opinion, which imagines two distinct religions, Judaism and Islam, interacting in the centuries immediately following the death of Muhammad in the early seventh century. Tradition describes these relations using tropes such as that of "symbiosis." Hughes instead argues that various porous groups-neither fully Muslim nor Jewish-exploited a shared terminology to make sense of their social worlds in response to the rapid process of Islamicization. What emerged as normative rabbinic Judaism on the one hand, and Sunni and Shi'a Islam on the other were ultimately responses to such marginal groups. The so-called "Golden Age" in places such as Muslim Spain and North Africa continued to see the articulation of this "Islamic" Judaism in the writings of luminaries such as Bahya ibn Paquda, Abraham ibn Ezra, Judah Halevi, and Moses Maimonides. Drawing on social theory, comparative religion, and primary texts, Hughes presents a compelling case for rewriting our understanding of Jews and Muslims in their earliest centuries of interaction. Not content to remain solely in the past, he examines the continued interaction of Muslims and Jews, now reimagined as Palestinians and Israelis, into the present.

Jacob Neusner was a prolific and innovative contributor to the study of religion for over fifty years. A scholar of rabbinic Judaism, Neusner regarded Jewish texts as data to address larger questions in the academic study of religion that he helped to formulate. Jacob Neusner on Religion offers the first full critical assessment of his thought on the subject of religion. Aaron W. Hughes delineates the stages of Neusner's career and provides an overview of Neusner's personal biography and critical reception. This book is essential reading for students and scholars interested in Neusner specifically, or in the history of Religious Studies, Jewish Studies, and philosophy of religion more broadly.

The scholarly study of Islam has become ever more insular and apologetic. Academic Islamic Studies has tried to maintain a focus on truth, authenticity, experience and meaning and has effectively avoided discussion of larger social, cultural and ideological issues. Many scholars of Islam have presented themselves to their colleagues, the media and the public as the interpreters of Islam and have done so with an interpretation which tends, almost universally, to the liberal and egalitarian. The ignorance and hostility which the Islamic faith has faced since 9/11 has partly necessitated the taking of such a position. But, as 'Theorizing Islam' argues, the issue remains that only one interpretation of Islam is generally being presented and, as with any interpretation, this has its own assumptions. The aim of 'Theorizing Islam' is to explore the potential for a fuller, more honest and more sophisticated approach to both theory and methodology in the academic study of Islam.

Jews from all ages have translated the Bible for their particular times and needs, but what does the act of translation mean? Aaron W. Hughes believes translation has profound implications for Jewish identity. The Invention of Jewish Identity presents the first sustained analysis of Bible translation and its impact on Jewish philosophy from the medieval period to the 20th century. Hughes examines some of the most important Jewish thinkers Saadya Gaon, Moses ibn Ezra, Maimonides, Judah Messer Leon, Moses Mendelssohn, Martin Buber, and Franz Rosenzweig and their work on biblical narrative, to understand how linguistic and conceptual idioms change and develop into ideas about the self. The philosophical issues behind Bible translation, according to Hughes, are inseparable from more universal sets of questions that affect Jewish life and learning."

Breaking with strictly historical or textual perspectives, this book explores Jewish philosophy as philosophy. Often regarded as too technical for Judaic studies and too religious for philosophy departments, Jewish philosophy has had an ambiguous position in the academy. These provocative essays propose new models for the study of Jewish philosophy that embrace wider intellectual arenas including linguistics, poetics, aesthetics, and visual culture as a path toward understanding the particular philosophic concerns of Judaism. As they reread classic Jewish texts, the essays articulate a new set of questions and demonstrate the vitality and originality of Jewish philosophy."

Defining Judaism illustrates the range of theoretical and practical issues involved in defining Judaism for the purposes of comparative and historical studies. The book is divided into three overlapping sections that all deal, in various ways, with the configuration of Judaism and how this configuration relates to other historical and/or disciplinary contexts. Texts range from historical attempts to define individual Jews to imagining Judaism as a religion like other religions to modern and post-modern attempts to decenter these earlier definitions. The texts anthologized here are put into context by a comprehensive general introduction. Although all of the texts collected here are interested in defining Judaism, the theories underpinning their definitions are relevant to anyone interested in the academic study of religion.

Aaron W. Hughes presents the first major study of dialogue as a Jewish philosophical practice. Examining connections between Jewish philosophy, the literary form in which it is expressed, and the culture in which it is produced, Hughes shows how Jews understood and struggled with their social, religious, and intellectual environments. In this innovative and insightful book, Hughes addresses various themes associated with the literary form of dialogue as well as its philosophical reception: Why did various thinkers choose dialogue? What did it allow them to accomplish? How do the literary features of dialogue construct philosophical argument? As a history of philosophical form, context, and practice, this book will interest scholars and students working at the intersections of religious studies, philosophy, and literature.

Muslim and Jew: Origins, Growth, Resentment seeks to show how and why Islam and Judaism have been involved in political and theological self-definitions using the other since the seventh century. This short volume provides a historical and comparative survey of how each religion has thought about the other and, in so doing, about itself. It confines itself to those points at which Judaism and Islam intersect and cross-pollinate, and explores how this delicate process continues into the present with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Muslim and Jew thus seeks to move beyond the intersection of a monolithic Judaism and a monolithic Islam and instead examines and organizes the messiness of the encounter as both religions sought to define themselves within, from, and against the other.

This volume includes a broad range of hotly contested terms that are very important to the study of religion. The authors are well known in the field of religious studies and will provide a useful insight for students and junior and emerging academics. This volume will help with critical analysis of the subject.

Muslim Identities: An Introduction to Islam (Second Edition) presents a fully updated introduction to the religion of Islam and the various social groups who define themselves as Muslim. Unlike other such works, it presents both insider and outsider accounts with the aim of striking a unique balance between overly apologetical and overly Orientalist perspectives. With the first edition described as a "truly outstanding book", and "the very best introduction currently available in English for non-Muslims seeking a sound approach to Islam" (Journal of Islamic Studies), this new edition offers both students and general readers a comprehensive and balanced introduction to the world's second-largest religion.

Muslim and Jew: Origins, Growth, Resentment seeks to show how and why Islam and Judaism have been involved in political and theological self-definitions using the other since the seventh century. This short volume provides a historical and comparative survey of how each religion has thought about the other and, in so doing, about itself. It confines itself to those points at which Judaism and Islam intersect and cross-pollinate, and explores how this delicate process continues into the present with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Muslim and Jew thus seeks to move beyond the intersection of a monolithic Judaism and a monolithic Islam and instead examines and organizes the messiness of the encounter as both religions sought to define themselves within, from, and against the other.

Muslim Identities: An Introduction to Islam (Second Edition) presents a fully updated introduction to the religion of Islam and the various social groups who define themselves as Muslim. Unlike other such works, it presents both insider and outsider accounts with the aim of striking a unique balance between overly apologetical and overly Orientalist perspectives. With the first edition described as a "truly outstanding book", and "the very best introduction currently available in English for non-Muslims seeking a sound approach to Islam" (Journal of Islamic Studies), this new edition offers both students and general readers a comprehensive and balanced introduction to the world's second-largest religion.

Defining Judaism illustrates the range of theoretical and practical issues involved in defining Judaism for the purposes of comparative and historical studies. The book is divided into three overlapping sections that all deal, in various ways, with the configuration of Judaism and how this configuration relates to other historical and/or disciplinary contexts. Texts range from historical attempts to define individual Jews to imagining Judaism as a religion like other religions to modern and post-modern attempts to decenter these earlier definitions. The texts anthologized here are put into context by a comprehensive general introduction. Although all of the texts collected here are interested in defining Judaism, the theories underpinning their definitions are relevant to anyone interested in the academic study of religion.

Jacob Neusner was a prolific and innovative contributor to the study of religion for over fifty years. A scholar of rabbinic Judaism, Neusner regarded Jewish texts as data to address larger questions in the academic study of religion that he helped to formulate. Jacob Neusner on Religion offers the first full critical assessment of his thought on the subject of religion. Aaron W. Hughes delineates the stages of Neusner's career and provides an overview of Neusner's personal biography and critical reception. This book is essential reading for students and scholars interested in Neusner specifically, or in the history of Religious Studies, Jewish Studies, and philosophy of religion more broadly.

Too often the study of philosophical texts is carried out in ways that do not pay significant attention to how the ideas contained within them are presented, articulated, and developed. This was not always the case. The contributors to this collected work consider Jewish philosophy in the medieval period, when new genres and forms of written expression were flourishing in the wake of renewed interest in ancient philosophy. Many medieval Jewish philosophers were highly accomplished poets, for example, and made conscious efforts to write in a poetic style. This volume turns attention to the connections that medieval Jewish thinkers made between the literary, the exegetical, the philosophical, and the mystical to shed light on the creativity and diversity of medieval thought. As they broaden the scope of what counts as medieval Jewish philosophy, the essays collected here consider questions about how an argument is formed, how text is put into the service of philosophy, and the social and intellectual environment in which philosophical texts were produced.