Customer Reviews

Comparing Religions Through Law: Judaism and Islam

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This book does less 'comparing' than I expected. 3/4 of the book describes explains the religious law of Judaism & Islam independent of any attempt at comparisons; thus, it reads nearly like two parallel books. To be fair, each chapter does end with an overview of material covered, pointing out similarities, but this is usually only 1 or 2 paragraphs long. Nonetheless, the other 1/4 of the book achieves some interesting conclusions and, I feel, makes the book worthwhile.

Sonn and Neusner set the parameters of their study within 'classical' Judaism and Islam beforehand. Though this itself raises many questions, they provide a sound justification for this approach in the opening pages that, even if you disagree with their starting point, makes the entire enterprise of this book intelligible. Neusner and Sonn both wrote the book well; however, I feel that Neusner quoted large, extended passages from the Misnhah and Talmud too often, which interrupted the flow of his presentation, and Sonn depended too much on secondary sources, which causes modern views more palatable to Westerners to dilute her presentation of classical Islamic law.

I enjoyed a good part of this book, but like I said above, the failure of the majority of the book to 'compare' disappointed me. Nonetheless, this work is a wonderful contribution, and reading it should be quite fruitful to understanding both systems of religious law.