By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
Land. To some it is nothing more than dirt, a few rivers and maybe some trees. But for many Jews, Muslims and Christians living today in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza is a promised land.
Those few square miles of soil hold the destiny for three of the world’s religious traditions, but Reuven Firestone, a professor of Medieval Judaism and Islam at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, says it is for very different reasons.
During his lecture, “A Fixed Abode Beyond the Jordan? Space and Place In Jewish and Muslim Conceptions of the Promised Land,” Firestone looks at the concept of a “Promised Land” in all three religions. The lecture was sponsored by the Middle East Center in the Henry M. Jackson School at the University of Washington,
The differences, according to Firestone, are significant. Jews are emotionally connected to the land of Israel as their sacred, promised covenant from God, and it is this land that will keep them safe and secure. Muslims want to see the crusading Jews banished and Christians believe in a metaphorical Israel to come in the afterlife.
“In all three religious systems, religious activists believe that they are going back to their roots,” said Firestone. “Israel’s promised land is a concrete physical land. This ‘Promised Land’ has everything to do with salvation, preservation from extinction, independence, redemption and safety on the divinely appointed land.
“To militant Islamists,“he said, “the land of Palestine is really no different than any other land. The Quranic promise is for salvation in the next world, not an earthly worldly promise. The existence of crusading Jews has upped the ante on the need for re-conquest and incorporation into the new ‘old empire’ of authentic Islam. But salvation in Islam is found not in this world, but the next.
“To Christians,” Firestone continued, “land has nothing to do with it. To Christians, salvation is purely an otherworldly affair. In Christianity, the notion of a ‘Promised Land’ is removed from old Jewish notion of a material land and it becomes an abstract notion. It’s spiritualized. The land promised is not the physical material earth.”
In his research, Firestone found that the term “The Promised Land” was derived from the English language. Although it is a highly Biblical concept, it merges the Jewish concept of a holy land and the promise of possessing the land that God made to Abraham, into a transcendent Christian idea.
“The emerging notion of salvation in Christianity was de-territorialized,” said Firestone. “Salvation was in the next world. The land that is promised in Christian scripture is not necessarily the same land that is promised in the Hebrew Bible. It could be spiritual, heavenly or simply heaven.”
This “otherworldliness” lets Christians somewhat off the hook, said Firestone, because it is not imperative for them to defend, preserve or maintain a physical location for their salvation.
But in Israel, he says, a post-1967 War zionist Jewish movement is committed to maintaining their God-given claim to the land.
“To millennial, ultra-nationalist, observant Orthodox Jews, the land is not only holy, it is promised,” continued Firestone, who holds a doctorate from New York University. “They point to the Hebrew Bible and say, ‘This is our deed. This is the deed to our land.’”
Firestone believes the Jewish position is rooted in a desire to return to Jewish control: a time when, Firestone says, all things come together in Jerusalem — the God of Israel, the people of Israel, the Torah of Israel and the land of Israel all arranged in and around Jerusalem, its capital.
“Jews were a colonized people for some 2,000 years, and some Jews feel that their de-colonization is not complete without a total upheaval against their Christian and Muslim colonizers and complete Jewish control over their patrimony duly promised by God,” said Firestone.
Working directly against this return to God’s promise to the Hebrews, says Firestone, is the Islamic dictate to replenish that land and all lands with “believers” in Islam, a mission dictated to them by the Quran.
Citing multiple quotes from the Quran, Firestone showed why Islam has come to view Jews or Israelites as unsuitable to live in the land because they believe that Jews failed to be a holy people unto their God, and therefore lost the benefits of the covenant.
“There is a negative assessment of Israel [in the Quran],” said Firestone, paraphrasing particular Surah, or verses. “Despite such gifts and miracles provided by God, like manna in the desert and the destruction of enemies, Israel was unable to live up to God’s demands. Therefore, Israel invalidated its privilege through its own rotten behavior. The divine gifts were in effect rejected by Israel’s rebellious conduct. Therefore, Israel no longer merits its privileged status.”
Firestone shows how Islam’s replacement theology is not only meant for the Holy Land, but for the entire world.
“This is a re-Islamification, first of the Middle East heartland of the Islamic world, then of the remainder of the Islamic world and finally the entire world,’ added Firestone. “But I remind you that this idea is not found in the Quran. It’s drawn out by later interpreters.”
Firestone’s says his own solution to these dilemmas would be to marginalize the religious aspect as much as possible and make the argument one of competing nationalisms rather than one of competing religious claims.
“Nationalism is a human endeavor,” said Firestone. “It can be negotiated — land, resources, borders, political control of ownership. Religion is transcendent, non-rational and absolute.”