Lecture
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
Tuesday 21.10.2025
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
Jewish-Islamic Philosophy: The Rise of Jewish “Kalam” and the Jewish Philosophers in the Islamic World
Tuesday 21.10.2025
How to watch
This lecture starts on 21 October at 5:00pm (UK).
Summary
The translation of Greek philosophy into Arabic gave rise to Muslim thinkers and philosophers who incorporated Greek thought with Islamic theological discussions. Jewish philosophers soon followed. In this fascinating historical lecture we will consider several of these Jewish philosophers with a focus on the greatest—Maimonides and his “Geniza” community in Egypt.
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite teaches Chinese History, Middle Eastern and Islamic history, and sometimes Jewish history, at New York University. He is author of The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of Muslims in Late Imperial China (Harvard, 2005); The Ten Lost Tribes: A World History (Oxford, 2009); co-editor of Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity, Culture, and Politics (Brandeis, 2013); The Scaffolding of Sovereignty: Global and Aesthetic Perspectives on the History of a Concept (Columbia University Press, 2017); and Time and Language: New Sinology and Chinese History (Hawaii University Press, 2023).