ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the intertwining of ideas, history and politics in a particular reconsideration of the Isra'iliyyat. The purpose is to elucidate the general contours and prominences of a process rather than to dwell on its details. The Sunni Arab world is the focus. Central in earlier Islamic thought, the Isra'iliyyat literature was often deemed suspect in modern circles where a call was issued to contain and reduce its role in Islamic textual sources. This occurred within the larger modern review of earlier Islamic thought, in the search for a pristine Islam for modern emulation. The Isra'iliyyat were seen as alien and containing fantastical, irrational and, sometimes, subversive material. The presumed Jewish provenance and context of the Isra'iliyyat engendered a general review of Muslim-Jewish relations; and at one point the modern problem in Palestine directed that review also to the theory and practice of Muslim-Zionist relations. The theoretical problem of the Isra'iliyyat would now assume a modern practical significance in both the intra-Islamic and Muslim-Jewish realms.
