Children of Abraham : the 1,400-year history of Jewish-Muslim relations / Marc David Baer.
| Author/creator | Baer, Marc David, 1970- author |
| Format | Book |
| Edition | First US hardcover edition. |
| Publication | New York : Basic Books, 2026. |
| Copyright Date | ©2026 |
| Description | 488 pages, 8 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm |
| Subjects |
| Portion of title | 1,400-year history of Jewish-Muslim relations |
| Contents | Introduction: Interfaith utopias or antagonistic histories? -- Part I: Pre-modern times. Judeo-Islamic religious symbiosis and pacts of alliance and protection, seventh-thirteenth centuries -- The secular symbiosis and Jews ruling over Muslims: the Turkish Jewish Khazar Kingdom, eighth-tenth centuries -- Jewish-Muslim symbiosis and alliance: Al-Andalus, eighth-seventeenth centuries -- Muslim saviours: Jews and Muslims in the Ottoman Empire and Morocco, fifteenth-nineteenth centuries -- Part II: Modern times. Severed symbiosis and new saviours: colonialism and new alliances in the long nineteenth century, 1789-1914 -- Enemies and allies, persecutors and protectors: Jews, Muslims, and Nazism in Europe and the Middle East, 1933-45 -- Transforming Jewish-Muslim relations: Jewish nationalism and the establishment of Israel -- The Arab Jew in the Middle East and Europe after 1948 -- Duelling myths, divided histories, and promoting symbiosis today -- Conclusion: Abraham's inheritance: Ishmael and Isaac, Hagar and Sarah today. |
| Abstract | "Today, the dominant narrative of the relationship between Jewish and Muslim peoples assumes a long history of violent hostility. In Children of Abraham, historian Marc David Baer lays this myth to rest, showing how Jews and Muslims lived together in the Middle East and Europe, more often in cooperation than in conflict, for more than a millennium. When Islam emerged in the seventh century, Muslims and Jews were bound by shared religious tenets and common cultural practices, and for centuries afterward, they were often allies. Baer introduces readers to Muslim warriors fighting for a medieval Turkish Jewish kingdom on the Caspian Sea, Jewish viziers leading the Muslim sultan's troops in Spain, and Jewish literary lights and political party leaders in modern Egypt and Iraq. But Baer resists the alluring fable that Jews and Muslims ever lived in interfaith utopia, and he shows how European colonization and nationalism fed the emergence of modern antisemitism and Islamophobia and helped to drive these two peoples further and further apart. Traversing the full spectrum of Jewish-Muslim relations, this is an urgent, essential history for understanding today's unending conflicts in the Middle East and beyond" -- Dust jacket. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 384-453) and index. |
| Genre/form | Informational works. |
| Genre/form | Documents d'information. |
| ISBN | 9781541606593 (hardcover) |
| ISBN | 1541606590 (hardcover) |
Availability
| Library | Location | Call Number | Status | Item Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joyner | New Books | DS119.7 .B2173 2026 | ✔ Available | Want This? |