It was a moment of crisis for Yeminite Jews. They were being persecuted by extremists of the Zaidi branch of Shiite Islam and forced to convert — with the explicit threat of death if they refused. Moses Maimonides, a widely respected rabbi in what is now Egypt, responded in the way he thought best: discrediting the prophetic tradition of the Muslim sect oppressing the Yemenite Jewish community — and Christianity, for the sake of definitiveness, as well.
In what became known as the “Epistle to Yemen” after widespread circulation throughout the Middle East, Maimonides claimed that Islam and Christianity were but distortions of the “true and divine religion, revealed to us through Moses, chief of the former as well as of the later prophets.” His strategy was clear: bolster the Jews of Yemen by discrediting the faith of those oppressing them. He then forcefully questioned whether Jesus and Muhammad had knowledge of the sacred — even going so far as to hurl epithets about them.
Tags: Abrahamic Religion, belief, Dharma, Hinduism, History Centrism, interfaith dialogue, journal of inter-religious dialogue, judaism, Prophecy, Rajiv Malhotra, Religious History, religious tolerance
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