ment as they gazed at him. Some Muslims believe
that this proverbial beauty is one of the rewards
of heaven, where all men are as handsome as
Joseph. Commentators have even asserted, “God
allotted to Joseph two-thirds of (all) beauty and
divided up the remaining third among humanity”
(Thalabi 183). The Joseph story also attracted the
attention of Sufi visionaries such as Muhyi al-Din
ibn al-arabi (d. 1240), Jalal al-Din rUmi (d. 1273),
and Jami of Herat (d. 1492). Persian and Turkish
mystical poets in particular were drawn to the
romance between Joseph and Zulaykha, the name
given by commentators to the Egyptian’s wife.
Her desire for him was understood to symbolize
the desire of the purified soul for union with God,
the beloved.
The location of Joseph’s remains is disputed.
Pious Jews and Palestinians believe that they are
located in the West Bank city of Nablus. This
shrine has been the focus of conflict between
Israelis and Palestinians; it suffered damage in
2000 during the al-Aqsa Intifada.
See also dreams; JUdaism and islam; maJnUn
and layla; prophets and prophethood.
Jon ArmajaniFurther reading: Shalom Goldman, The Wiles of Women/
the Wiles of Men: Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife in Ancient
Near Eastern, Jewish, and Islamic Folklore (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1995); G. R. Hawting and
Abdul-Kader A. Shareef, Approaches to the Quran (London
and New York: Routledge, 1993); John Kaltner, Inquiring
of Joseph: Getting to Know a Biblical Character through
the Quran (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2003);
Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Thalabi, Arais al-majalis fi
qisas al-anbiya, or “Lives of the Prophets.” Translated by
William M. Brinner (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2002), 181–235.
Judaism and Islam
As Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Islam bear
significant similarities that testify to a lengthy
and complex history of dynamic interactions.
Although it is widely perceived today that the rela-
tionship between these two religions is essentially
one of conflict and opposition, closer examination
reveals that there have been occasions of extended
mutual accommodation and shared civilizational
development in the past that cannot be easily
dismissed. Indeed, scholars maintain that Juda-
ism and Islam engaged in a “creative symbiosis,”
whereby each party benefited and changed as
a result of its contacts with the other. It is also
the case that in modern times national and geo-
political factors have been more important than
religious ones. arab-israeli conFlicts cannot be
adequately explained in terms of the 12 centuries
of Judeo-Muslim interaction that preceded the
20th-century conflicts. Moreover, though these
modern conflicts have been horrific, they are
of a limited scope, confined largely to a part of
the Middle East region, directly involving only a
minority of the world’s total Muslim population.FAMIly rESEMblANCES
There are a number of key similarities that cluster
together to support the view that Judaism and
Islam form part of a family of religions, which
may be called Abrahamic. The foremost of these
is belief in a unique sovereign deity who governs
creation. The commonest name for this deity in
Islam, allah, is historically related to one of the
divine names in the Hebrew Bible, Elohim, and
both names are related to a word root for god
found in other Semitic cultures of the ancient
Near East (for example, el, il, ilu). Both religions
reject idolatry, holding that God communicated
to humanity in history through chosen prophets,
a number of whom are shared by both religions.
These revelations were captured in scriptures, or
holy books. The primary scripture for Judaism is
the torah of moses and for Islam it is the qUran
of mUhammad. These scriptures, written in the
sacred languages of Hebrew and Arabic, respec-
tively, express key beliefs, ethical principles, sacred
histories, and rules for worship and everyday life.Judaism and Islam 409 J