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Israiliyyat (in " Israelisms") is a sub-genre of Tafsir and Hadith which supplements Quranic narratives.Lowin, Shari L. "Abraham in Islamic and Jewish Exegesis." Religion compass 5.6 (2011): 225. Isra'iliyyat may derive from Judaism, Christianity or Zoroastrianism sources.Isabel Lang Intertextualität als hermeneutischer Zugang zur Auslegung des Korans: Eine Betrachtung am Beispiel der Verwendung von Israiliyyat in der Rezeption der Davidserzählung in Sure 38: 21-25 Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH, 31.12.2015 p. 30 (German) In the early years, Isra'iliyyat were widely accepted.Lowin, Shari L. "Abraham in Islamic and Jewish Exegesis." Religion compass 5.6 (2011): 225.Karen Bauer Gender Hierarchy in the Qur'an: Medieval Interpretations, Modern Responses Cambridge University Press 2015 p. 115. Only by the time of Ibn Taimiyya and Ibn Kathir, the term Isra'iliyyat began to denote content considered dubious or as un-Islamic.Isabel Lang Intertextualität als hermeneutischer Zugang zur Auslegung des Korans: Eine Betrachtung am Beispiel der Verwendung von Israiliyyat in der Rezeption der Davidserzählung in Sure 38: 21-25 Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH, 31.12.2015 p. 21-25 (German)Lowin, Shari L. "Abraham in Islamic and Jewish Exegesis." Religion compass 5.6 (2011): 225. In modern times, Turkish Quran commentators still allow for usage of Isra'iliyyat, while they are rejected by half of the Arab Quran commentators.Johanna Pink (2010). Sunnitischer Tafsīr in der modernen islamischen Welt: Akademische Traditionen, Popularisierung und nationalstaatliche Interessen. Brill, ISBN 978-9004185920, pp. 114–116
The Qisas Al-Anbiya usually contain the same materials, but avoided criticism of foreign import.Lowin, Shari L. "Abraham in Islamic and Jewish Exegesis." Religion compass 5.6 (2011): 225. Whether Qaṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ is a subdivision of Israiliyyat or the other way around, remains a scholarly debate.Lowin, Shari L. "Abraham in Islamic and Jewish Exegesis." Religion compass 5.6 (2011): 225.
Israiliyyat frequently appear in tafsir, Sufi and Islamic literature.Lowin, Shari L. "Abraham in Islamic and Jewish Exegesis." Religion compass 5.6 (2011): 225. They are used to offer more detailed information regarding earlier prophets mentioned in the Bible and the Qur'an.
clearly indicates that the term isrāʾīliyyāt was known in the IV/X sec. and that it was used to refer to a genre of prodigious stories about cosmogony and Biblical history of questionable reliability.The next known usage is in the writings of Ibn al-Murağğā, in a text written around 430/1040, also in the context of narratives sourced from Wahb. In this case, Ibn al-Murağğā was directly citing a book of Wahb's entitled the Kītāb al-isrāʾīliyyāt (Book of Israelisms). Al-Ghazali also uses the term in relation to the name of a book, but one that is not connected to Wahb's name. Whether Wahb composed a document by such a name is disputed (others instead attribute a similar text to Hammad ibn Salama (d. 783)). In addition to these, a few initial occurrences of the term can also be found in the works of Abu Bakr al-Turtushi, Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi (a pupil of Turtushi), Ibn al-Jawzi, and some others. What these usages indicate is that before the 13th and 14th centuries, usage of the term was not systematic (though well-attested), that the term was used in a few different senses (especially in terms of a book name, or as references to unreliable traditions about cosmogony or prophets originating among Israelite's).
Until the 14th century, the term Isra'iliyyat did not play a significant role and was not systematically used. It was only until Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) that the Isrā'īlīyāt came to be understood as a collection of unreliable traditions of supposed Jewish origin, related to earlier narrators, such as Wahb ibn Munabbih and Ka'b al-Ahbar, whose authority was still retained by earlier Sunni scholars, such as Tabari.Mainiyo, Attahir Shehu, and Muhammad Sani Abdullahi. "Impact of Isra’iliyyat reports on the Islamic creed of contemporary Muslims." Ilorin Journal of Religious Studies 7.1 (2017): 67-82.
Nevertheless, it was Ibn Taymiyya's student Ibn Kathīr who first systematically used the term for traditions that he vehemently rejected.Albayrak, Ismail. Qur'anic narrative and Isra'iliyyat in Western scholarship and in classical exegesis. Diss. University of Leeds, 2000. He treats not only the traditions themselves, but also the narrators, such as ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbbās, disparagingly. But it was not until the 20th century that the systematic use of Isrā'īlīyāt became established. They are often criticized, especially today in the Arab world, and viewed as “un-Islamic”. Only in the Turkish regions are Isrā'īlīyāt occasionally used and tolerated.Johanna Pink (2010). Sunnitischer Tafsīr in der modernen islamischen Welt: Akademische Traditionen, Popularisierung und nationalstaatliche Interessen. Brill, ISBN 978-9004185920, pp. 114–116. However, Arabic contemporary exegesis generally sees them as foreign to Islam and believes that elements such as the perspectives on prophetic figures, contradict or appear to contradict certain theological beliefs.Isabel Lang: Ein sündloser Prophet ? – Davidvorstellungen im Islam. In : Religionen unterwegs; 18,4. 2012. pp. 18–23 The strong criticism of this literature is a modern phenomenon and stands in contrast to the intensive use of these texts in pre-modern times.Isabel Lang: Intertextualität als hermeneutischer Zugang zur Auslegung des Korans. Eine Betrachtung am Beispiel der Verwendung von Isrā'īlīyāt in der Rezeption der Davidserzählung in Sure 38: 21-25. Logos Verlag. Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3832541514. For that reason, political rather than traditional motivations have been proposed as a motivator for the contemporary usage of the label Isrā'īlīyāt.Johanna Pink (2010). Sunnitischer Tafsīr in der modernen islamischen Welt: Akademische Traditionen, Popularisierung und nationalstaatliche Interessen. Brill, ISBN 978-9004185920, pp. 114–116
Image. Vol, 17 of Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam. Princeton: The
Darwin Press, 1999.
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