Narrative of Judeo Influences in The Quranic Jurisprudence According to Jewish Orientalist: A Study on The Koran by N.J. Dawood

Abstract

This paper examines the narrative roots of the Jewish-Orientalist perspective on the study of the Quran from the perspective of jurisprudence. Using a qualitative method, this paper draws on the works of a modern Jewish Orientalist named Nessim Joseph Dawood. Through his translation work titled The Koran, this paper uses content analysis and critical discourse analysis by presenting all Quranic verses of jurisprudence that have been speculated as biblical receptions in the Quran. The data is thoroughly analysed in all aspects to counter the view of N.J. Dawood by comparing the alleged Quranic texts and those of the biblical sources. The analysis involves a study on Judeo jurisprudence with Islamic jurisprudence. The results show that the Orientalist tradition of casting doubt on the Quran is rooted in ethnocentrism and the desire for Western intellectual hegemony. This article shows how exaggerated ethnocentrism has historically rooted the views of Jewish Orientalists, like those of other Jewish Orientalists such as Abraham Geiger, Gustav Weil, Ignaz Goldziher, and Eugen Mittwoch. Significantly, N.J. Dawood, as his predecessor, took up the propagation of tendentious and discriminatory claims about the Eastern world and Islam.