The Jewish Discovery of Islam: Studies in Honor of Bernard Lewis.

• Author: Butterworth, Charles E.
• Position: Book Review

The Jewish Discovery of Islam: Studies in Honor of Bernard Lewis. Edited by MARTIN KRAMER. Tel Aviv: THE MOSHE DAYAN CENTER FOR MIDDLE EASTERN AND AFRICAN STUDIES, TEL Aviv UNIVERSITY, 1999. Pp. viii + 311. $24.95 (Distrib. in U.S. by Syracuse Univ. Press).

About four decades ago, A. J. Arberry published his appealing Oriental Essays: Portraits of Seven Scholars. It stood alone until the first of the three-volume series Medieval Scholarship: Biographical Studies on tile Formation of a Discipline, that on history, edited by Helen Damico, with Donald Fennema and Karmen Lenz, appeared in 1995. Since then, two more--one on literature and philology, and, most recently, another on philosophy and the arts--have appeared. These are far broader in scope than Arberry's volume and than Tile Jewish Discovery of Islam. Moreover, while orientalists find a place only cursorily in the Medieval Scholarsilip series and whereas Arberry restricted himself to British Orientalists, this volume focuses on scholars having a Jewish heritage in common--whether they embraced, neglected, or rejected it--and whose scholarly efforts were somehow centered on Islam.

This volume is to be recommended, above all, for Joel Kraemer's excellent essay on Paul Kraus. Indeed, Kraemer gracefully, intelligently, and most sympathetically portrays the genius, as well as the deep personal suffering and ultimate overwhelming self-doubt, of this unusually gifted scholar and towering intellect whose life was all too short. The brevity of Kraus's life notwithstanding, he and his path-breaking insights continue to fascinate and inspire the imaginative among us. Now, thanks to Kraemer and his painstaking research, we can all gain an even deeper appreciation of Kraus's rare genius. For years, every Arab scholar to whom I have spoken and who has had some contact with Paul Kraus--even Ahd al-Rahman Badawi, otherwise all too stinting with compliments--has sung his praises and told one tale or another of how Kraus delighted and amazed critical Arabic-speaking audiences with his fluent grasp of Arabic and its rich culture. Kraemer traces Kraus's intellectual formation and provides thoughtful syn opses of his myriad scholarly undertakings.

Laurence Conrad's account of Ignaz Goldziher is not quite as helpful, largely because he dwells too much on the shortcomings of Edward Said's account of orientalist scholarship. Still, when Conrad explains how Goldziher points to Ernest Renan's shortcomings and sets aside his own list of grievances against...