Shared Identities

"In Shared Identities: Medieval and Modern Imaginings of Judeo-Islam, Aaron W. Hughes reminds us of the important role of intellectuals, historiographers, and deconstructionists who decode the past in finding a solution for today's conflicts For academics and activists, Hughes not only suggests a philological reading of the past but also a critical re-reading of the literature that emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries, which has shaped our understandings of, and approaches to, the 'Other.' Thus, this could be considered an important contribution to the history of religion, religious studies, and the Middle East."--Majid Daneshgar, Reading Religion "Aaron Hughes has produced another brilliant book. Officiating at a happy marriage between history and religious studies, he has given us a new vision of the emergence of Judaism and Islam in the sixth to the twelfth centuries. The book is thrilling in its scholarship and exemplary for future research in religious studies in other chronotopes."--Daniel Boyarin, Taubmann Professor of Talmudic Culture, University of California, Berkeley "Aaron Hughes rethinks the complex relationship between Judaism and Islam without succumbing to the conventional view of symbiosis, which assumes two essential religions influencing each other but remaining fundamentally unchanged in their presumed internal cores of stability and self-definition. This timely and groundbreaking historical analysis will undoubtedly be provocative in the best sense, stimulating serious reconsideration of the identity formation of two religious traditions that continue to play an important role in the sociopolitical machinations of world history."--Elliot R. Wolfson, Marsha and Jay Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara "This is a highly original work by a leading thinker in the field of Religious Studies. Aaron Hughes pushes the boundaries in calling into question notions of normativity concerning the Jewish communities of the medieval Islamic world and Jewish and Muslim identity at the rise of Islam, challenges fixed categories and concepts used to describe Jewish-Muslim interactions over the centuries, and provides a wide-ranging assessments of such themes as the Jewish communities of Arabia at the rise of Islam to Jewish-Muslim interaction during the 'Golden Age' of Al-Andalus in the tenth and eleventh centuries and the modern day Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Hughes's interpretations encourage further discussion and deliberation and his conclusions are a welcome contribution to the debate concerning Jewish and Muslim identity in past, present, and future."--Josef Meri, Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations, Merrimack College