Islam and Judaism: The Past As Archive For The Future

Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are „historical religions“, in the sense that in each of them the ongoing study of texts and figures from the past provides believers with a basis for the constant reinterpretation of revelation over time. History therefore becomes not only a potent instrument of sectarian formation for communities within these traditions, but also a powerful discourse in polemic and apologetics across and between them. What is the historian’s role in this process? As we write our own histories of Christian-Muslim-Jewish encounters, how do we think about what this means for our practice as historians?