Defining Neighbors. Religion, Race, and the Early Zionist-Arab Encounter - Jonathan Marc Gribetz

RUHI AL-KHALIdI’S “AS-SAYūNīZM” • 63

assemblies— articulating what came to be known in modern Jewish
historiography as “classical” Reform ideology^90 and what al- Khalidi
names with the shorthand “Mendelssohn’s theory”— irrevocably al-
tered the nature of Judaism.

Translating consensus

Al- Khalidi’s theory of the illegitimacy of modern manifestations of
Jewish nationalism, as I have thus far portrayed it, is remarkable for
its concern with the internal dynamics and reasoning of Judaism. Yet
his theory of the rabbinic consensus on “Mendelssohn’s theory” is curi-
ous, indeed, and may, at least in part, reflect the Islamic influences on
al- Khalidi’s understanding of the way in which religious law is estab-
lished.^91 consider once more the language al- Khalidi uses in defining
the asqāmah:

wa-­ajmaʿat­ummatuhum­ʿalā­qubūlihā­wa-­sammū­hādhā­al-­ijmāʿ­

­bi-­iṣṭilāḥ­sharīʿatihim­(asqāmah)­wa-­maʿnāhu­ijmāʿ­al-­umma.

And their people [umma]^92 agreed to accept it^93 [i.e., Mendels-

sohn’s theory] and they named the consensus [ijmāʿ] [which they

had reached] “asqāmah”— a term from their religious law— which

means the consensus [ijmāʿ] of the people.

I highlight the Arabic terminology here because the word ijmāʿ, which
al- Khalidi equates with asqāmah, is of utmost importance. Ijmāʿ is the
term used for the Islamic theory of “consensus,” one of the four rec-
ognized sources for determining law in Sunni Islam. As Wael Hallaq
explains, ijmāʿ

functions both as a sanctioning instrument and as a material

source of law. Once agreement has been reached on an issue,

usually a question of law, that issue becomes epistemologically

certain and thus insusceptible to further interpretation. . . . The

epistemological value attached to consensus renders this instru-

ment so powerful in the realm of doctrine and practice in the

(^90) See Meyer’s chapter on “classical” Reform in Response­to­Modernity, 264– 95.
(^91) As we shall see, though, the Islamic principle that al- Khalidi projects onto Judaism
was actually integrated into Judaism by way of Islam in the medieval period.
(^92) The term umma could also mean ‘nation’ as well as ‘religious community.’ On the
use of this term, see Lewis, The­Political­Language­of­Islam, 32; Ayalon, Language­and­
Change­in­the­Arab­Middle­East, 21– 22.
(^93) wa-­ajmaʿat­could also be rendered: “decided unanimously.” See below on ijmāʿ.