Rick Sopher's career was in finance, not religious scholarship, but two questions had long captivated him as a Jew with an ancient family connection to the Arab world. Do the Muslim and Jewish scriptures stand in ideological opposition to each other? Are they the root of a perpetual enmity between Muslims and Jews?

So, nearly a decade ago he began to investigate. He dove into learning classical Arabic to study the Qur'an, and in 2020 established The Qur’an / Bible Reading Group of religion scholars and academic researchers that met regularly virtually to discuss links between the two scriptures. Sopher eventually joined up with Abdulla Galadari, a scholar of Qur’anic studies at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to co-author Illuminating Scriptural Connections: A Qur’anic Commentary on the Torah (Jewish Publication Society, Sept. 1).

Their book finds that the answers to both of Sopher’s questions are "no."

Galadari, whose research focus is on “how the Qur’an engages with the diverse religious traditions of the late antique Near East,” believes that “historical scholarship can contribute meaningfully to contemporary interfaith dialogue.” He adds, “It is difficult to study the Qur’an seriously without engaging the Torah and the broader biblical tradition,” because the Qur’an was recorded in the 7th century in Arabia, which was then a “religiously diverse environment that included Jewish and Christian communities.”

Sopher's Jewish family traces its history to an ancient time in what we today call the Middle East—the exile of Jews that began in 586 BCE, from the land called Judea to Babylon, which is modern-day Iraq. Over the decades between 1930 and 1970, Sopher’s family joined 1 million Jews in fleeing Iraq to Iran and, eventually, to other parts of the world, like the UK where Sopher was raised.

Their book explores all 54 weekly portions of the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, alongside the Qur’an, which often refers directly to biblical stories and rabbinic interpretations of and practices around them.

According to the authors, verses in the Qur’an show awareness of some of the most foundational Jewish prayer practices, including the shema, which declares the one-ness of God, and the Amidah, a prayer of praise and gratitude recited while standing. The Qur’an also recounts stories of major biblical figures. Moses is mentioned 136 times, and Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, David, and Solomon are described, with Joseph’s story being the subject of an entire chapter of the Qur’an.

Similarities Between the Texts are Many

For these reasons, Sopher concludes that the two texts “have more similarities than they have differences,” with the latter often involving the Qur’an’s differing perspectives on the stories of biblical patriarchs.

Yet, despite the myriad connections, both authors lament that their respective faith communities don’t generally have a broad understanding of the other’s scriptures.

Sopher notes that when he asks Jewish audiences to raise their hands if they have read the Qur’an, fewer than ten percent do. Instead, he says, Jews are exposed through social media to “tropes” that are often drawn from writings outside the Qur’an, such as hadith, a collection of quotes attributed to the prophet Muhammad, or contemporary slogans which do not emerge from the Qur'an."

Read out of context, such verses can alarm Jewish readers. But Sopher cautions that divorcing scriptures from their historical setting can “inflame passions in an unhealthy way that doesn’t, in my opinion, respect the original text.”

The Bible—passages in the Torah as well as the sayings of prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos—does contain severe criticisms of Israelites for failing to live up to God’s commandments and requirements for righteous living. The Qur’an follows in this tradition, containing verses that criticize the Jews of its time and the early Muslims for whom the text is intended, the authors say.

Scholars find the Qur'an is not anti-Jewish

However, says Galadari, “If the Qur’an’s criticisms of some early Muslims do not make it anti-Muslim, then its criticism of some Jews should not be understood as making it anti-Jewish.”

Galadari points out that, “many Muslims, unfortunately, never read the Torah and often remain suspicious of it because of the widespread belief that the text of the Torah has been corrupted and, therefore, has little value for understanding the Qur’an.” His hope is that Illuminating Scriptural Connections will help “dispel some of those misconceptions by showing how deeply the Qur’an engages with the Torah and the broader Jewish scriptural tradition.”

Joy Weinberg, managing editor at JPS, says the book reflects the Jewish commitment to "tikkun olam, repairing the world, because it builds on our broader vision to bring Jewish tradition into conversation with the wider world and build bridges with others.”