For the first time ever, a Saudi professor submitted an article in Hebrew to an Israeli publication. Professor Mohammad Ibrahim Alghbban, who heads the Hebrew studies department at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia, published an article in Kesher, an academic journal by the Shalom Rosenfeld Institute for Research of Jewish Media and Communication in Tel Aviv University.
Titled “A Contribution Towards Improving the Image of the Prophet Muhammad in the Eyes of Israeli Public: Muhammad’s Alliances and Mail Exchanges with Jews of the Arabian Peninsula,” Alghbban says that Muhammad had a good relationship with Jews, and believes that clashes came based on politics, and not religion.
Prof. Alghbban introduces the article stating that “Erroneous assumptions about the origins of Islam, proposed by Oriental Studies researchers in the previous century – some of which were written in Hebrew – led to a distorted understanding of manuscripts, wrong methodology, and negative influences on Hebrew speaking Middle Eastern Studies researchers. Accusing Islam and the Prophet Muhammad of hate speech and racism against Jewish tribes in Hejaz is erroneous. Muhammad treated equally all social groups in Al Madinah and in other places under his control, regardless of race and religion. The misrepresentations in the research are due to the fact that his letters were never translated into Hebrew.”
