ABSTRACT
Chapter One examines the late antique period and argues that theology – though I doubt either group would have employed this term – was the primary means whereby Jews and Muslims differentiated themselves from one another after a period of fluidity on the Arabian Peninsula. Judaism, it is frequently assumed, is the stable entity that gives birth to a nascent Islam. Rarely broached, however, is just how little we actually know about these Jews of the Arabian Peninsula in the fifth and sixth centuries CE. On account of such taxonomical difficulties, it is impossible to witness a clearly defined break between the two religions, one wherein certain beliefs and practices would have been easily identifiable as “Jewish” or “Muslim.” I instead argue that both Judaism and Islam emerged at the same time, and often in ways that were indistinct from one another.
