Maimonides on the Pagan Roots of Islamic Practice

Maimonides as is well known, emphatically affirmed that Islam as practiced is undoubtedly monotheistic, however what is less known is that he understood several Islamic practices to be rooted in an ancient paganism. That the practitioners of Islam had effectively adopted and subverted idolatrous practices and used it towards their own religious ends. Undoubtedly this is an idea that most traditionally minded Muslims would find offensive, however as we shall see in the context of Maimonidean thinking it is a pattern that one can discern within Judaism as well. In the following responsum he addresses himself to Obadiah the Proselyte:

אלו הישמעאלים אינם עובדי ע"ז כלל, וכבר נכרתה מפיהם ומלבם והם מיחדים לאל יתעלה יחוד כראוי, יחוד שאין בו דופי, ולא מפני שהם משקרים עלינו ומכזבים ואומ' שאנו אומרים שיש לאל יתעלה בן נכזב, כך אנחנו עליהם ונאמר שהם עובדי ע"ז. התורה העידה עליהם: "אשר פיהם דבר שוא וימינם ימין שקר". והיא העידה עלינו "שארית ישראל לא יעשו עולה ולא ידברו כזב ולא ימצא בפיהם לשון תרמית". ואם יאמר אדם שהבית שהם מקלסין אותו בית ע"ז הוא, וע"ז צפונה בתוכו שהיו עובדין אותה אבותיהם באותו הבית, מה בכך? אלו המשתחוים כנגדו היום אין לבם אלא לשמים. וכבר פירשו רז"ל בסנהדרין (דף ס"א ב) שאם השתחוה אדם לבית ע"ז [והוא] סבור שהוא בית הכנסת הרי לבו מסור לשמים. וכן אלו הישמעאלים היום כולם טף ונשים נכרתה ע"ז מפיהם וטעותם וטפשותם בדברים אחרים היא שאי אפשר לאומרו בכתב מפני פושעי ורשעי ישראל, אבל ביחוד השם יתעלה אין להם טעות כלל ובאמת שהיה לישמעאלים מקודם באותם המקומות שלשה מיני ע"ז פעור ומרקוליס וכמוש, והם עצמם מודים בדברים אלו היום וקוראין להם שמות בלשון ערבי. פעור (עי' ה עבודה זרה פ"ג ה"ה) עבודתו שיפעור עצמו לפניו או שיניח ראשו ויגביה ערותו למולו כמו שאלו הישמעאלים משתחוים היום בתפלתם, ומרקוליס עבודתו ברגימת האבנים, וכמוש עבודתו בפריעת הראש ושלא ילבש בגד תפור ודברים אלו כולם מפורשים וידועים אצלנו (עי' גמ' ע"ז ס"ד א') מקודם שתעמד דת הישמעאלים, אבל הישמעאלים היום אומרים זה שנפרע ראשנו ושלא נלבש בגד תפור בתפירות הוא כדי להכנע לפני האל יתעלה ולזכור היאך יעמוד האדם מקברו, וזה שנשליך האבנים בפני השטן אנו משליכים אותם כדי לערבב, ואחרים מפקחיהם נותנים טעם, ואומרים צלמים היו שם ואנו רוגמים במקום הצלמים כלומר שאין אנו מאמינים בצלמים שהיו שם, ודרך בזיון להם, אנו רוגמין אותן, ואחרים אומרים מנהג הוא כללו של דבר אע"פ שעיקר הדברים יסודם לע"ז אין אדם בעולם משליך אותם האבנים ולא משתחוה לאותו המקום ולא עושה דבר מכל הדברים לשם ע"ז לא בפיו ולא בלבו אלא לבם מסור לשמים  

The Ishmaelites are not at all idolaters, it has already been eradicated from their lips and their hearts and they attribute to God a oneness that is fitting, a flawless conception of oneness, and just because they lie about us and engage in deceit by claiming that we attribute to God a son we should not also lie about them and say that they are idolaters. The Torah testifies concerning them: “Whose mouth speaketh falsehood, and their right hand is a right hand of lying.” And it testifies concerning us: “The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies, neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth.” And should a person say that the house which they extol is one of idolatry, and that in that very house there are idols within which their ancestors worshiped, of what matter is it? Those that prostrate before it today, their minds are not directed towards anything but heaven. And our Sages already explained in the tractate Sanhedrin (61b) that if a person prostrated before a house of idol worship having mistakenly reasoned that it was a synagogue, surely his mind was [nevertheless] surrendered to heaven. And similarly the entirety of the Ishmaelites today, including their women and children have eliminated idolatry from amongst them though their errors and stupidities concerning other matters cannot be discussed in writing due to the transgressors and evil ones (who may inform on us), however concerning the oneness of God may He be exalted they do not possess any error at all and in truth the Ishmaelites of these places formerly committed themselves to three different kinds of idolatry – Pe’or, Merqulis and Kamosh, they themselves even admit of this today and call them names in Arabic. The service of Pe’or consisted of exposing one’s self before it or lowering one’s head and raising one’s privates above just like the Ishmaelites prostrate today in their prayers, the service of Merqulis consisted of pelting it with stones and the service of Kamosh consisted of uncovering one’s head [i.e. shaving it] and not wearing ornate [lit. woven] garments, and the all of their practices were already known to us previously [i.e. through rabbinic tradition] that such is the religious practice of the Ishmaelites, but the Ishmaelites today say that the uncovering of their heads and their refrain from embroidered clothes is in order to humble themselves before God and as a reminder of how man will find himself in his grave, and the stones they cast before Satan in order to confuse him, and some of their enlightened ones give a rationale to the effect that there had once been graven idols there and so they are stoning a place of graven idolatry as if to say “we do not believe in these graven idols and as a means of rendering them despised we pelt them,” and others say simply that it is a custom. The general principle of the matter is that even though the root of these matters and their foundation is that of idolatry, no man will ever cast stones, prostrate towards the place or anything else in the name of idol worship, not in his mouth and not in his mind, rather his mind is surrendered to heaven.

The practices that Maimonides alludes to are extant within Islam today – and are generally considered to be normative amongst most orthodox expressions of Islam. The first one he mentions is the method of their prostration. Though he does not go into very great detail concerning the method of their prostration, he does give a rough description of it which he correlates to the obscene gestures made before the idol Ba’al Pe’or, with a lowered head and a raised genital region that is exposed. While I do not know how he would differentiate it from the כריעה על ברכים (the bending down upon one’s knees) which he prescribes for tefillah, it is not difficult to see a parallel between his description and the Islamic form of worship as it stands today. 

The second practice which is a part of the Hajj that he mentions is the removal of hair (taqsir – trimming or halaq - shaving) and the wearing of simple clothes which originates with a worship of Kamosh. In the Sefer HaMiswoth (NC#6) he also ties the paganism of Kamosh to the removal of hair (in explaining liability for kareth in the case where one worships the idol in its regularly prescribed fashion): 

בדבר שדרכה להעבד בו, כגון פוער לפעור וזורק אבן למרקוליס, ומעביר שערו לכמוש

In the matter of the normal method of whorship, such as one who exposes one’s self to Pe’or, one who throws stones to Merqulis and the one who offers one’s hair to Kemosh.

I have been unable to locate a Hazalic text that explicitly ties the shearing of one’s hair directly to service of Kemosh. However Plutarch (Greek historian, 1^st century CE) records the following concerning Theseus (the purported founder of Athens) in Parallel Lives: 

When Æthra was delivered of a son, some say that he was immediately named Theseus, from the tokens which his father had put under the stone; others that he had received his name afterwards at Athens, when Ægeus acknowledged him for his son. He was brought up under his grandfather Pittheus, and had a tutor and attendant set over him named Connidas, to whom the Athenians even to this time, the day before the feast that is dedicated to Theseus, sacrifice a ram, giving this honour to his memory upon much juster grounds than to Silanio and Parrhasius for making, pictures and statues of Theseus. There being then a custom for the Grecian youth, upon their first coming to man's estate, to go to Delphi and offer first-fruits of their hair to the god, Theseus also went thither, and a place there to this day is yet named Thesea, as it is said, from him. He clipped only the fore part of his head, as Homer says the Abantes did. And this sort of tonsure was from him named Theseus. The Abantes first used it, not in imitation of the Arabians, as some imagine, nor of the Mysians, but because they were a warlike people, and used to close fighting, and above all other nations accustomed to engage hand to hand; as Archilochus testifies in these verses:-- "Slings shall not whirl, nor many arrows fly, When on the plain the battle joins; but swords, Man against man, the deadly conflict try As is the practice of Euboea's lords Skilled with the spear.--" Therefore that they might not give their enemies a hold by their hair, they cut it in this manner. They write also that this was the reason why Alexander gave command to his captains that all the beards of the Macedonians should be shaved, as being the readiest hold for an enemy.

Though Plutarch attempts to provide a rational spin on the practice of hair shearing, it is openly stated as a part of a cultic offering of the “first-fruits of their hair to the god” and akin to though not in direct imitation of the Arabian practice (this is perhaps also the origin for the Lurianic practice of Halak/Upsherin which perhaps we will explore in another article). From his statement we see that Arab hair sacrifice was well known. Indeed Lucian of Samosata attests to the worship of the goddess Ataratha at Hierapolis Bambyce (modern Manbij, Syria) through similar means (De Dea Syria, §55):

As soon as a man comes to Hierapolis he shaves his head and his eyebrows; afterwards he sacrifices a sheep and cuts up its flesh and eats it; he then lays the fleece on the ground, places his knee on it, but puts the feet and head of the animal on his own head and at the same time he prays that the gods may vouchsafe to receive him, and he promises a greater victim hereafter. When this is performed he crowns his head with a garland and the heads of all those engaged in the same procession. Starting from his house he passes into the road, previously bathing himself and drinking cold water. He always sleeps on the ground, for he may not enter his bed till the completion of his journey.

Here we see that a pilgrim shears his head, engages in various ascetic practices (cold water, sleeping on the ground) and the sacrificial offering of an animal. In Surat Al-Baqra (2:196) one detects a similar program being prescribed for the pilgrim by Muhammed which involves the readying of an animal sacrifice, the shaving of the head, and ascetic fasting: 

And complete the Hajj and 'umrah for Allah . But if you are prevented, then [offer] what can be obtained with ease of sacrificial animals. And do not shave your heads until the sacrificial animal has reached its place of slaughter. And whoever among you is ill or has an ailment of the head [making shaving necessary must offer] a ransom of fasting [three days] or charity or sacrifice. And when you are secure, then whoever performs 'umrah [during the Hajj months] followed by Hajj [offers] what can be obtained with ease of sacrificial animals. And whoever cannot find [or afford such an animal] - then a fast of three days during Hajj and of seven when you have returned [home]. Those are ten complete [days]. This is for those whose family is not in the area of al-Masjid al-Haram. And fear Allah and know that Allah is severe in penalty.

I similarly have not been able to identify a rabbinic text that associates Kamosh with the preparatory pilgrimage practice of donning ihram clothing, however it is interesting to note the parallel between what Maimonides reports as the Islamic rationale for it (כדי להכנע לפני האל יתעלה ולזכור היאך יעמוד האדם מקברו) and the halakha as codified in Avel 4:1:

 מנהג ישראל במתים ובקבורה, כך הוא:  מאמצין עיניו של מת, ואם נפתח פיו, קושרין את לחייו; ופוקקין את נקביו, אחר שמדיחין אותו, וסכין אותו במיני בשמים, וגוזזין שיערו.  ומלבישין אותו תכריכין תפורין של פשתן לבנים, ולא יהיו דמיהם יקרים; נהגו חכמים בצודר שווה זוז, שלא לבייש את מי שאין לו.  ומכסין פני המת, שלא לבייש את העניים שפניהם מושחרין ברעב

These are the customs observed by the Jewish people with regard to corpses and burial. We close the eyes of the deceased. If one's mouth hangs open, we tie the jaw close. After washing the corpse, we stuff close the orifices, anoint it with different fragrances, cut its hair, and dress it in shrouds of white linen which are not expensive. Our Sages followed the custom of using a cloak worth a zuz, so as not to embarrass a person who lacks resources. We cover the faces of the deceased so as not to embarrass the poor whose faces turned black because of hunger.

In Smith’s Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (p. 451) he suggests that: 

The Meccan custom is explained by saying that they would not perform the sacred rite in garments stained with sin, but the real reason is quite different. It appears that sometimes a man did make the circuit in his own clothes, but in that case he could neither wear them again nor sell them, but had to leave them at the gate of the sanctuary (Azrael, p. 125; B. Hisham, p. 128 sq.). They became taboo (harim, as the verse cited by Ibn Hisham has it) through contact with the holy place and function.

Which is to say that through contact with the cultic activity the clothes one wore would have become sacralized, accordingly the practice of donning simple clothes was simply precipitated by a need caused by the doffing clothes for fear that they would be rendered otherwise unusable for mundane purposes.

The third ritual Maimonides mentions that he claims the Muslims have co-opted and given new meaning to is the pelting of Merqulis. Maimonides states that “all of their practices were already known to us previously” and indeed the Talmud is indeed replete with many references to it. One such occasion in which Maimonides makes reference to Hazalic knowledge of Merqulis is in H. Talmud Torah 4:1:

אמרו חכמים, כל השונה לתלמיד שאינו הגון, כאילו זרק אבן למרקוליס, שנאמר "כצרור אבן, במרגמה--כן נותן לכסיל, כבוד" (משלי כו,ח):  ואין "כבוד" אלא תורה, שנאמר "כבוד, חכמים ינחלו" (משלי ג,לה

The Sages said, whoever teaches a student that is not fit, it’s as if he throws a stone to Merqulis, as [Proverbs 26:8] states: "As one who winds a stone in a sling, so is he who gives honor to a fool." There is no "honor" other than Torah, as [Proverbs 3:35] states: "The wise shall inherit honor."

Today the ritual is known amongst Muslims as the stoning of the three jamarāt (رمي الجمرات‎) at Minna and has become an integral component of the Hajj pilgrimage. In recent years Saudi authorities have replaced the pillars with wall like structures and re-designed the entire plaza in order to mitigate against pilgrims getting trampled to death. Maimonides states that one of the rationales for the practice that they suggest is that it is intended to confuse Satan. This “stoning of Satan” is according to Al-Azraqi’s (9^th c. Arab historian) Kitab Akhbar Makka a re-enactment of  Abraham’s activities: 

When he [Abraham] left Mina and was brought down to (the defile called) al-Aqaba, the Devil appeared to him at Stone-Heap of the Defile. Gabriel said to him: "Pelt him!" so Abraham threw seven stones at him so that he disappeared from him. Then he appeared to him at the Middle Stone-Heap. Gabriel said to him: "Pelt him!" so he pelted him with seven stones so that he disappeared from him. Then he appeared to him at the Little Stone-Heap. Gabriel said to him: "Pelt him!" so he pelted him with seven stones like the little stones for throwing with a sling. So the Devil withdrew from him. (F.E. Peters, A Reader on Classical Islam, p. 21)

Maimonides' detail to the effect that the stoning is intended to confuse Satan (, וזה שנשליך האבנים בפני השטן אנו משליכים אותם כדי לערבב) is reminiscent of the Talmudic rationale for practices associated with blowing the Shofar (RH 16a-b):

ואמר רבי יצחק למה תוקעין בר"ה למה תוקעין רחמנא אמר תקעו אלא למה מריעין מריעין רחמנא אמר זכרון תרועה אלא למה תוקעין ומריעין כשהן יושבין ותוקעין ומריעין כשהן עומדין כדי לערבב השטן

Isaac said: Why do we sound the horn on New Year? — [You ask], why do we sound? The All-Merciful has told us to sound! — What he means is, why do we sound a teru'ah? [You ask] why do we sound a teru'ah? The All-Merciful has proclaimed ‘a memorial of teru'ah! — What he means is, why do we sound a teki'ah and teru'ah! — sitting and then again sound a teki'ah and teru'ah standing? — It is so as to confuse the Satan

Notably Maimonides does not explicitly record this reason in the Mishneh Torah, however we know that in the Hazalic tradition that Maimonides follows, that Satan is simply another epithet for the Yeser HaRah (Guide 3:22):

According to our Sages the evil inclination, the adversary (satan), and the angel [of death], are undoubtedly identical; and the adversary being called "angel, "because he is among the sons of God, and the good inclination being in reality an angel, it is to the good and the evil inclinations that they refer in their well-known words, "Every person is accompanied by two angels, one being on his right side, one on his left." In the Babylonian Gemara (Shabbath 119b), they say distinctly of the two angels that one is good and one bad. See what extraordinary ideas this passage discloses, and how many false ideas it removes.

Thus we see in the MT he frames the shofar blasts in psychological terms: 

אף על פי שתקיעת שופר בראש השנה גזירת הכתוב, רמז יש בו:  כלומר עורו עורו ישנים משינתכם, והקיצו נרדמים מתרדמתכם; וחפשו במעשיכם וחזרו בתשובה, וזכרו בוראכם.  אלו השוכחים את האמת בהבלי הזמן, ושוגים כל שנתם בהבל וריק אשר לא יועיל ולא יציל--הביטו לנפשותיכם, והטיבו דרכיכם ומעלליכם; ויעזוב כל אחד מכם דרכו הרעה, ומחשבתו אשר לא טובה.

Even though the sounding of the shofar on Rosh HaShanah is a Scriptural decree, it contains an allusion: it is as if to say, wake up you sleepy ones from your sleep and you who slumber, arise. Inspect your deeds, repent, remember your Creator. Those who forget the truth in the vanities of time and throughout the entire year, devote their energies to vanity and emptiness which will not benefit or save: Look to your souls. Improve your ways and your deeds and let every one of you abandon his evil path and thoughts.

Though Maimonides understood the stoning of the jamarāt to be rooted in paganism, he nevertheless did not see it as invalidating Muslims as being pure monotheists – perhaps he even saw a parallel to the Talmudic rationale for the shofar blasts and understood the Islamic practice similarly in a psychological fashion. 

That Maimonides understands the ritualism of Islam to be rooted in paganism is not intended as an offense, though conceivably the Muslim traditionalist would have been taken aback if confronted with such knowledge. This tact though of determining the pagan roots of a ritual practice associated with a strictly monotheistic religion is as we know one that he reserves not just for Islam, but rather for his ancestral faith as well. According to Maimonides, the entire sacrificial cult of the Tabernacle and consequently the Temple was based off of a primitive pagan practice. It was only due to the Israelites unpreparedness to abandon the practice altogether that it was transfigured, subverted and given new meaning such that it could properly be of service within the Torah’s religion. He states in the Guide (3:32): 

Many precepts in our Law are the result of a similar course adopted by the same Supreme Being. It is, namely, impossible to go suddenly from one extreme to the other: it is therefore according to the nature of man impossible for him suddenly to discontinue everything to which he has been accustomed…  the custom which was in those days general among all men, and the general mode of worship in which the Israelites were brought up, consisted in sacrificing animals in those temples which contained certain images, to bow down to those images, and to burn incense before them; religious and ascetic persons were in those days the persons that were devoted to the service in the temples erected to the stars, as has been explained by us. It was in accordance with the wisdom and plan of God, as displayed in the whole Creation, that He did not command us to give up and to discontinue all these manners of service; for to obey such a commandment it would have been contrary to the nature of man, who generally cleaves to that to which he is used… For this reason God allowed these kinds of service to continue; He transferred to His service that which had formerly served as a worship of created beings, and of things imaginary and unreal, and commanded us to serve Him in the same manner... By this Divine plan it was effected that the traces of idolatry were blotted out, and the truly great principle of our faith, the Existence and Unity of God, was firmly established; this result was thus obtained without deterring or confusing the minds of the people by the abolition of the service to which they were accustomed and which alone was familiar to them… God refrained from prescribing what the people by their natural disposition would be incapable of obeying, and gave the above-mentioned commandments as a means of securing His chief object, viz., to spread a knowledge of Him [among the people], and to cause them to reject idolatry. It is contrary to man's nature that he should suddenly abandon all the different kinds of Divine service and the different customs in which he has been brought up, and which have been so general, that they were considered as a matter of course…

Once we understand that Maimonides sees the same sort of paradigm of the absorption of a pagan practice as not being intrinsically a psul (defect) but that rather as actually representative of wisdom, then we may suggest that in his own esoteric fashion beyond simply attesting to the purity of Islamic monotheism, he was also complimenting the religion insofar as it utilizes what he understands to be a similar model to that of the Torah’s in the dissemination of knowledge of God.

Radical Rabbinic View on the Prophethood of Muhammed

Rabbi Nathanael Al-Fayumi was a 12th century Jewish Yemenite rabbinic scholar who produced an ethical-philosophical treatise in Judeo-Arabic entitled "Bustan al-Ukul" ("Orchard of the Intellect" or as Rabbi Yosef Qafih titled it in Hebrew "Gan Sekhalim"). He was a man thoroughly versed in the science and philosophy of the day and in characterizing the intellectual culture of Yemenite Jewry of the era, Dr. David Levine in the introduction to his English translation (all English quotes here of the work are from his translation) protested that "under brighter political and social conditions the splendor of Jewish achievements in Moorish Spain might have been rivaled by that in South-western Arabia. But the sun of the Andalusian Jews failed to rise for their brethren in Yemen." (p. xii)

Al-Fayumi's theological work is perhaps best known for one very interesting claim concerning the founder of Islam. In the sixth chapter he shockingly asserts that Muhammed was a prophet. The idea is one that is radical and potentially dangerous to Judaism, insofar as it may lend credence to the idea that the Torah is not eternal and is subject to abrogation and replacement by the Quran. Al-Fayumi therefore exerted extra care in affirming the eternality of the Torah:

the Torah has not been abrogated and never will be... and that it will not be annulled or forgotten out of the mouths of the people as long as the heaven and the earth last; and furthermore this people will not be pierced through, will not be destroyed, will not disappear. (p. 97)

We shall not be exculpated before God if we forsake it [the Torah] and take upon ourselves another law merely because the nations deride our claim, saying, "For your good God has sent us a prophet who has abrogated your law." (p.103)

Al-Fayumi suggests that while the Torah is eternal and confers extra merit upon the nation of Israel, that just as Hazal affirmed the existence of gentile prophets in the past, so too may there be gentile prophets in the current era, communicating religion unto mankind:

Know then my brother, that nothing prevents God from sending unto His world whomsoever He wishes, since the world of holiness sends forth emanations unceasingly from the light world to the coarse world to liberate the souls from the sea of matter - the world of nature - and from destruction in the flames of hell. Even before the revelation of the Law He sent prophets to the nations, as our Sages of blessed memory explain, "Seven prophets prophesied to the nations of the world before the giving of the Torah: Laban, Jethro, Balaam, Job, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar." And again after its revelation nothing prevented Him from sending to them whom He wished that the world might not remain without religion. (p. 104)

 One cannot help but hear Maimonides echoing a similar sentiment in H. Melakhim 11:11. While he certainly did not entertain or suggest the prophethood of Muhammed, he did see the advent of Islam and Christianity as a post-facto manifestation of the divine will:

מחשבות בורא עולם--אין כוח באדם להשיגם, כי לא דרכינו דרכיו ולא מחשבותינו מחשבותיו.  וכל הדברים האלו של ישוע הנוצרי, ושל זה הישמעאלי שעמד אחריו--אינן אלא ליישר דרך למלך המשיח, ולתקן את העולם כולו לעבוד את ה' ביחד:  שנאמר "כי אז אהפוך אל עמים, שפה ברורה, לקרוא כולם בשם ה', ולעובדו שכם אחד"

the thoughts of the Creator of the universe - are not within the power of man to grasp, for our ways are not His ways, nor are our thoughts, His thoughts. And all of these matters of Jesus the Nazarene, and of the Ishmaelite who arose after him -- they serve as nothing other than to straighten the path for the Messiah, and to rectify the entire world to serve God in unity: as it is said: 'For then will I turn to the peoples a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve Him with one consent..' 

Here is the bulk of the discussion wherein Al-Fayumi concerns himself with the prophethood of Muhammed and Islamic claims of abrogation (p. 105-110):

The Koran mentions that God favored us, that He made us superior to all other men: "O children of Israel, remember my favor wherewith I showed favor unto you; and that to you above all creatures have I been bounteous;" and further, "I have made you excellent with a settled decree, it is not a rumor." He speaks after this manner in many verses and also to the effect that the Torah has not been abrogated. This contradicts what they assert because of the power they exercise over us, because of our weakness in their eyes, and because our succor has been cut off. And concerning that he said, "As in my presence, and declares true what is in my presence from the Torah, "And he says, "How will they submit to thy decision since they have the Torah wherein is the judgment of God?" The judgment of God shall never be forgotten. And it is further said, 'Thou shalt not find any change in the ordinance of God." He means the Torah. How can we change His tradition and His religion which Moses brought down? Our pious forefathers witnessed no change in God's tradition and religion received from Moses His messenger. Following in their footsteps we have made choice of it, and emulating their laudable qualities we cling fast to the Torah and the performance of its duties and precepts, for its exchange or alteration is forbidden. It is further said, "God desireth to declare these things unto you and direct you according to the ordinances of those who have gone before you." That indicates that Mohammed was a prophet to them but not to those who preceded them in the knowledge of God. And he said, "O People of the Book, He shall not accept a deed of you unless ye fulfill the Torah. "And again, "If there is any doubt concerning what I reveal unto thee, then ask those who received my Book before thou didst." This indicates that He would not have commanded him to ask concerning the Book had He annulled it. And if they say, "Lo, our Book abrogates your Book, just as your Book abrogates the Book of Abraham," we reply, "That is not true. On the contrary, we uphold the religion of our father Abraham, and especially circumcision which God made incumbent upon him, according to the passage, "For I know him, that he will command his sons and his house after him, etc.” When God sent Moses al-Kalim with the Torah to the children of Israel they were six hundred thousand. And God made incumbent upon them what He had made incumbent upon Abraham, but to those duties he added what the times required. But He did not annul the Law of Abraham. On the contrary, in a number of passages Moses al-Kalim calls upon God in His name and in the name of Isaac and Jacob... Similarly, when we argue with non-Jewish disputants in regard to the nullification of our Law, we give them a silencing reply: "What do you say about the Law received by Moses al-Kalim? What distinguishes it, ignorance or wisdom?" They must perforce answer not "ignorance" but "wisdom." This answer suffices, for wisdom is never altered, changed, abrogated or replaced by something else. God forbid that He should give a command at the hands of a prophet with signs, proofs, miracles and extraordinary manifestations in the heavens, and then should set about to abrogate and annul it. But it is His way to continually command whom He wishes and send whom He wishes to whomsoever He wishes, since all the worlds are His possession and in His grasp. A proof that He sends a prophet to every people according to their language is found in this passage of the Koran, "We sent a prophet only according to the language of His people." Consequently had He sent a prophet to us He would have surely been of our language, and again, had He been for us why did God say to him, 'Lo thou art one of the apostles sent to warn a people whose fathers I have not warned." He meant the people who served at-Lat and al-Uzzah. As for us, behold our fathers were not without warnings throughout an extended period, and likewise prophets did not fail them. But Mohammed's message was to a people whose fathers had not been warned and who had no Divine Law through which to be led aright, therefore he directed them to his law since they were in need of it. And as for other people they had something to lead them aright. It is not proper to contradict those who are of another religion since their irreligion and their punishment are not our concern but that of the Praised and Exalted One. But it is our duty to fear and reverence Him as He commanded us in the Law which He delivered to our prophets. Through it the covenant was assumed by them and by us, as we have pointed out in this treatise. Thus spoke one of the learned condemning the bigotry of the sects and their strife, "The teachings of bigotry shall not tyrannize forever, for knowledge has appeared in its stead and is spread broadcast. Take as proof the fact that the seekers of knowledge are going from strength to strength although the ignorant multitude are not cognizant of it." Since the Creator — blessed and exalted be He !—controls the record of all mankind according to which they receive their deserts. He brings to light their good and their evil deeds just as Holy Writ declares, "The end of the matter makes the whole thing understand : fear God and keep His commandments for this is the whole duty of man. For every work God bringeth in judgment with every hidden thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil."

No rabbinic thinker prior or since has made explicit a claim attesting to the prophethood of Muhammed. Indeed quite the opposite can be seen in the choice terms our forebears employed in describing the man. As Rabbi Qafih (Iggeros HaRambam, p. 22 note #36), Marc Shapiro (Studies in Maimonides and His Interpreters, p. 151) and other scholars have noted, in Jewish communities Muhammed was known by the epithet "meshuggah" (madman). Such sentiments have been expressed by R. Sherira Gaon, R. Avraham b. Hiya, and others. The Rambam even went so far as to mockingly entitle him "pasul" (invalid, unfit) as a play on the Arabic honorific "rasul" (apostle) which oft followed his name in Islamic discourse. The claim of Muhammed's prophetic stature is one that appears to have otherwise been universally denied in rabbinic Judaism.

Rabbi Yosef Qafih produced a Hebrew translation of Al-Fayumi's work based on manuscripts his family preserved in Yemen. It is of note that his community is the only one that studied this document on a continuous basis throughout the centuries since the date of its composition. Accordingly, some credence ought be lent to the sentiments expressed by those who transmitted to us this work as an inheritance. In the introduction R. Qafih writes that the Jews of Yemen were subject to a very hostile social atmosphere and were daily provoked by Muslims trying to egg them into conversations leading either to their conversion or execution (in the footnotes he records many such occasions). The two main questions which the Muslims would try to trip the Jews up on were: a) Is the Torah eternal or is it void in light of a superseding revelation? and b) Was Muhammad a genuine prophet of God or a false prophet? R. Qafih basically argues that R. Nathanael Al-Fayumi in making such statements was attempting to provide apologetic material and ammunition intended to help preserve the Jews in a hostile environment. His intentions then in attesting to the prophethood of Muhammed were not at all prompted by ideological or philosophical conviction, or some kind of universalist ecumenicism or pluralism (as Dr. Shapiro suggests as precedent for Lord Jonathan Sacks' tact). Rather, he wanted to arm his coreligionists with answers that would enable them to face such charged theological inquiries and live to tell the tale.  For those who would like to suggest that the condition of the Jewry in Yemen in his day was pleasant and thus we ought not consider his context an important lens through which to consider his sentiments, one need look no further than his own assessment of his own era:

The nations do revile us, treat us contemptuously and turn their hands against us, so that we stand among them in speechless terror as the sheep before the shearer. (Levine, p. 110)

We detect here that the Jews of Yemen lived in fear and trepidation of enunciating anything that could possibly be construed as a criticism of Muhammed or Islam. Every word had to be tightly guarded and calculated so as to insure being able to live yet another day. When their oppressor lorded over them, they stood in "speechless terror" - a situation which Al-Fayumi in part sought to rectify. And if he were insufficiently clear in communicating the present danger against the Jews, in admiring the tenacity with which the Jews cleave to their ancestral faith he continues:

Had any other nations been visited with a tenth of a tenth, or even less of the misfortunes suffered by us from the remote past down to the very present, they would abandon whatever religious faith they posses, they would desert their sects at short notice.

The era in which he lived was indeed one that proved to be increasingly turbulent. Shortly after R. Nathanael's death, his son R. Jacob in the capacity of Nagid of Yemenite Jewry wrote at the urging of a disciple of Maimonides (Solomon ha-Kohen) to him concerning the condition of Jewry there, which proved to serve as the pretext for Maimonides famous Iggereth Teiman in which he addresses the growing persecution and how the community ought respond. Additionally we know based on a letter by a Jewish woman of Aden that was preserved in the genizah that in 1198 (the Bustan was written around 1165) the Ayyubid sultan, Mu'izz al-Din Isma'il attempted to institute a forcible conversion of the Jews of Yemen, and decreed that those Jews who had prior outwardly converted to Islam and had since returned to the faith of their fathers were to be subject to death (see fn#8 of Yosef Tobi's Conversion to Islam among Yemenite Jews under Zaydi Rule).

The Bustan al-Ukul is a precious pearl, giving us insight into the religious and intellectual milieu of 12th c. Yemenite Jewry. As we saw in his Quranic proofs for the veracity and eternality of the Torah, wisdom is immutable and incorrigible. He therefore unhesitatingly incorporated and communicated ideas from outside of the Jewish canon insofar as they were understood to be repositories of human knowledge. This attitude is one that can be found amongst the writings of Hazal, and amplified in the Maimonidean tradition. It is one that would do well to emulate today. However concerning attestations to Muhammed's prophethood, we would do well to inform ourselves of the possible motives of his statements. Particularly in light of aggressive proselytizing tactics today, we cannot ignore the historical context and the tradition and sentiments of those who have preserved and transmitted the sefer down to us.

Did Maimonides actually ascend the Temple Mount?

I've read the claim in several different places and heard it on various occasions that the Rambam had made a pilgrimage to the Temple Mount. Usually this claim is presented uncritically and unsourced, so I figured I'd try and uncover where this idea came from.

Apparently there is a book that has come to be entitled פירוש הרמב"ם על מסכת ראש השנה that was supposedly copied directly from the handwritten manuscripts of the Rambam by one שמואל בר אברהם שקייל (who I can't seem to find much biographical info about). In several places he the copyist refers to the author as רבינו משה but nowhere, as far as I am aware does he explicitly say that this Moshe is to be identified with the Rambam. At the end of the work there is a letter attributed to this רבינו משה by the copyist which appears to be the source of the legend:

 בליל אחד בשבת בארבעה ימים לחודש אייר נכנסתי לים, וביום שבת, עשירי לאייר שנת תתקכ"ה עמד עלינו נחשול שבים לטבענו והיה זעף גדול בים, ונדרתי עלי: שני ימים אלו אצום בהם ואתענה בהם.. ואצווה על בני לעשות כן עד סוף כל הדורות, ויתנו צדקה כפי כוחם... בליל אחד בשבת, ג' ימים לירח סיוון, יצאתי מן הים בשלום ובאתי לעכו ונצלתי מן השמד והגענו לארץ ישראל. יום זה נדרתי שיהיה יום ששון ושמחה... וביום שלישי בשבת, ד' חשוון, יצאנו מעכו לעלות לירושלים תחת סכנה, ונכנסתי לבית הגדול והקדוש והתפללתי בו. ובאחד בשבת, ט' בחודש חשוון יצאתי מירושלים לחברון, לנשק קברי אבותי במערה... ושני ימים אלו... נדרתי שיהיו יום טוב ותפילה ושמחה לה' לאכילה ולשתייה... וכשם שזכיתי וראיתי בחורבנה כך אזכה אני וכל ישראל לראות בנחמתה, אמן. 

The letter is also replicated in the Sefer Hareidim, written by Elazar Azkiri, a Kabbalist of the Tzefath school (probably most well know for the attribution of the piyyut Yedid Nefesh to him) and introduces its provenance as שהעתיקה הנעלה רבי שמואל בר אברהם שקייל ז״ל בעכו מכתיבת יד הרב רבינו משה .מאור הגולה And from there it would seem to have attained authoritative gospel like status as being intimately tied to the Rambam. The problem is that the attribution of this פירוש על מסכת ראש השנה (and thus the letter) to the Rambam is quite probably mistaken. Menahem Mendel Kasher attempted to demonstrate that it is an erroneous attribution and raises a host of objections. He points towards major contradictions between the peirush and the Mishneh Torah the character of which he argues the Rambam would have rectified had he had a change in mind, there are also astronomical explanations which are not in conformance with the Rambam's explanations in H. Yesodei HaTorah. Kasher also points out that the author of the commentary also professes an unfamiliarity with certain astronomical Arabic terms which is hardly conceivable of the Rambam a man whose native tongue was Arabic and who was thoroughly immersed in the sciences of the day. Further, there are sections of what is understood to be the Rambam's actual commentary quoted by the Baal HaMaor (a commentary on the Rif by Zerakhia haLevi of Gerona) which are altogether absent from this commentary, which further strengthens the contention that it is a mistake to attribute it to the Rambam.

If Kasher's criticisms are to be deemed reasonable and the copyist's "Rabbeinu Moshe" ought not accordingly be conflated with the Rambam, we are then left with no substantive evidence of a pilgrimage having been made by the Rambam to the Temple Mount, as romantic as such a notion may be. There ought be an honest discourse surrounding the issue of whether it is halakhically acceptable today to ascend and I believe that the way this story is so often told is in order to make an emotional argument in its favor. Setting aside the legitimacy of such a tactic in and of itself, given that there is such a major question mark surrounding the authenticity of attributing this story to the Rambam I believe that those that favor ascent today would do well to set this story aside.