Jews, Christians, and the Abode of Islam

“One of the greatest authorities on medieval Islam” sheds “immensely stimulating” new light on cross-cultural relations in the Middle Ages (Times Literary Supplement, UK).

In Jews, Christians, and the Abode of Islam, historian Jacob Lassner examines the relationship between the three Abrahamic faiths that defined their political and cultural interaction during the Middle Ages—and continues to define them today. Examining the debates taking place in modern Western scholarship on Islam, Lassner sheds new light on the social and political status of medieval Jews and Christians in various Islamic lands from the seventh to the thirteenth century.

Using a vast array of primary sources, Lassner balances the rhetoric of literary and legal texts from the Middle Ages with other, newly discovered medieval sources that describe life as it was actually lived among the three faith communities. Lassner demonstrates what medieval Muslims meant when they spoke of tolerance, and how that abstract concept played out at different times and places in the Christian and Jewish communities under Islamic rule. Finally, he considers how this new understanding of medieval Islamic civilization might affect the highly contentious global environment of today.