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Spoerl / The Levantine Review Volume 2 Number 1 (Spring 2013)

MUHAMMAD AND THE JEWS ACCORDING TO IBN ISHAQ

Joseph Spoerl∗

Abstract

This paper examines the phenomenon of anti-­Semitism in the Muslim world, shedding light on one component of the Islamic tradition, namely, the earliest extant biography of the Prophet Muhammad, the Sirat Rasul Allah, or The Life of the Prophet of God by Ibn Ishaq (d. 767 CE.)

INTRODUCTION

A number of scholars have chronicled the intensification and spread of anti-­Semitism in large parts of the Muslim world over the past 80 years or so, some of them—including Andrew Bostom, Robert Wistrich, Matthias Kuentzel, Klaus Gensicke, Meir Litvak, ISSN: 2164-­6678