Abraham Melamed
Machiavellism and Anti-Machiavellism in 17th Century Jewish Amsterdam: From Ragione di Stato to Razon de Estado

Machiavellian influences penetrated early modern Jewish political thought, as manifest in Simone Luzzatto's Discorso and Spinoza's Theologicao-Political Treatise, and influenced their views concerning the relationship between religion and state, and the way they described the great leaders of the ancient Hebrew state. The influence of the anti-Machiavellian movement appeared much later, although it had an enormous influence on the formation of early modern European political thought, and could have served as a useful means in the struggle of traditional scholars against heterodox tendencies. It first appeared in Jewish Amsterdam in the 1650's, following the Publication of Spinoza's Treatise. This paper traces the appearance of the anti-Machiavellian tendency in this period, as manifest in the writings of Abraham Pereyra and other Jewish scholars in mid-Seventeenth century Amsterdam.

Annabel Herzog
“A King like All the Nations”: The Building of Politics in the Hebrew Bible

This paper analyzes the political philosophy underlying biblical kingship. It shows that the advent of kingship that takes place in I Sam 8, when “all the elders of Israel” ask the judge and prophet Samuel to “make us a king to judge us like all the nations” (8:5), meant the birth of a new power that had not previously existed in Israel and that from that moment on would function in parallel with God’s power: politics. It argues that “kingship” in the Bible corresponds to what the Greeks understood as the political in general; namely, the sphere of collective affairs on a determined and built-up territory, or city.

Jonathan Jacobs
Torah and Political Power: Judaism and the Liberal Polity

The discussion explains how intellectual and moral resources in Judaism can support and sustain the liberal polity. In particular, Jewish understandings of relations between reason, law, moral life, and social life encourage dispositions and commitments needed by the liberal polity. Modern conceptions of liberalism, which often regard political values as basic and hence, ‘privatize’ religion, sometimes fail to appreciate values and principles that are more fundamental than political commitments. They also fail to acknowledge important ways as those values and principles can be congenial to liberalism. The essay elaborates these claims on the basis of central, enduring themes of Jewish thought, reference to some texts of Torah, and reference to works by significant Jewish thinkers from various periods of history.

Benjamin Jokisch
Herrschaft und Recht im frühabbasidischen Kalifat

There is the general conviction among Muslim and non-Muslim scholars that Islamic law from the outset was a jurists’ law controlled by independent scholars and rivalling political power. By contrast, the article at hand is intended to challenge this prevailing opinion advancing the hypothesis that the relationship between law and power was a different one in the early Abbasid caliphate. In fact, there is much to indicate that Islamic law was codified and controlled by the caliphs in that time and transformed into a jurists’ law only later from the 9./10. century onwards. This is also confirmed by non-islamic political concepts which circulated in neighbouring cultures and states in the time and which obviously had a considerable impact on the political development in the caliphate.

Assem Hefny
Die Rolle der Interpretation beim Machtverständnis im Islam

The Muslim understanding of power is shaped by theological beliefs. The dispute over the concept of authority in Islam demonstrates that Islamic theology is not only concerned with religious dogma, but also with politics, so as to maintain a form of authority which adheres to a religious dogma. The theologically defined title ‘caliph’ has – with all of its differing factors – accounted for the fact that scholars as well as laymen erroneously accept the caliph as a mandatory position and that the caliph acts as a ruler in place of God and/or the prophets.

Sabine Damir-Geilsdorf
Buchstabe und Geist der Scharia: Rechtsgüter (maqasid al-sharia) in politisch-hermeneutischen Diskursen

The application of Sharia in political, economic, juridical and social orders is a controversial issue among Muslim scholars. After preliminary remarks about political authority and religious sources in Islam, the main focus of the article lies on the reception and further development of traditional juridical concepts like that of the “higher intentions of Sharia” (maqasid al-sharia). The application of the maqasid allows finding new answers to contemporary legal questions. Generally, to the mind of some Muslim reformers, it also allows disregarding particular texts in the traditional legal corpus (Qur'an and hadith) so as to give more freedom of interpretation. Based on selected reformist writings the article explores the controversies, potentials and limits of the maqasid-approach in the process of ijtihad (independent reasoning) in current Muslim reformer debates.

Außerhalb des Schwerpunkts

Willy Birkenmaier
Judentum ohne Rückkehr nach Palästina. Isaak Steinberg und der Territorialismus als Alternative zum Zionismus

For Zionism the only way to solve the Jewish problem was the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Territorialism by contrast called for a sufficiently large and compact Jewish territory outside Palestine and not necessarily fully autonomous. The article describes the life and activity of Isaac Steinberg, key figure of the second generation of territorialism (the so-called Free-land league) from 1935 to 1957. Steinberg saw the essence of Judaism in the perpetuation of the message of Mount Sinai and not in the return to the ancient Jewish homeland. In his view Jerusalem was only one of the centers of Jewish life. Wilna was for him no less important. On the whole Steinberg opted for diaspora as a normal Jewish way of life, whereas the state of Israel represented for him a change-over from a glorious spiritual path to the glittering and unjewish symbols of state-power and military prestige. Many of Steinberg’s predictions came true. He may be seen as an unheard prophet who deserves attention even nowadays.

Klaus L. Berghahn
"Die Sendung Moses". Die Juden und das Judentum in Schillers Entwurf einer Universalgeschichte

The Jews have not played an important role in Schiller's life or works. He had professional contacts with a few Jews, but never named them as such. The robber Moritz Spiegelberg is the only Jewish character in Schiller's plays, but Schiller cut the scene of The Robbers, which clearly characterized him as a Jew. The historian Schiller dealt with the ancient history of the Jews twice, especially in his lecture "The Mission of Moses."

In the context of his enlightened, philosophical construct of history, called "universal history," he saw Moses and the Jews as the beginning of Enlightenment, which he interpreted as the first step of humanity that led her from slaves of nature to a religion of reason. As an aside at the end, the article also touches upon the different receptions of Goethe's and Schiller's works among the Jews: While Goethe became the favorite of the emancipated German Jews, Schiller became popular with Eastern European Jews.

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