Et studie om oprindelsen, naturen og religionen af Farisæerne og deres forhold til Jesus og senere hen Islam; konceptet af de menneskers hvis liv var 'underkastet Gud'.

In her person, Ruqaiyyah Maqsood embodies the encounter of three great world faiths. Born a Christian, she was converted to Islam, and ever since her days as a theological student has had a deep interest in the Pharisaic movement in Judaism, and a sympathy with the Pharisees.

The Pharisees, she points out, have had a bad press. All too often they ad judged by what is said about them in the Gospels, which recent studies have shown often to be unjust, indeed a caricature. If we look at the origins of the Pharisaic movement, we see the beginning of a form of belief in God and an attitude to fellow-men and women which was not opposed by Jesus and his teaching was continued in Islam. The Pharisees and Jesus, like the followers of the other prophets and of Muhammad, are Muslim, those who have submitted themselves to the one God.

Ruqaiyyah Maqsood begins by introducing us to the Pharisees, exploring where they came from and what we can know of the movement at the time of Jesus; then she looks at the treatment of the Pharisees in the Gospels, showing that while there are notorious passages in which the Pharisees are castigated by Jesus, there are many more which show Jesus' teaching very much in line with theirs. Then she presents her picture of the 'true' Pharisee, and in concluding postscript shows how what is more commonly understood by Pharisaism exists in the three great monotheistic faiths, in reprehensible in all of them, but cannot be attributed to the genuine tradition of the Pharisees.

What particularly impressive is the way in which Jewish tradition, New Testament and Qur'an are woven together to present an approach which all believers would do well to take in our troubled times.

Ruqaiyyah Maqsood taeches in a Hull secondary school, and has had 8 religious subjects published in her previous name of Rosalyn Kendrick.

ISBN: 0-334-02498-6
Author: Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood
Publisher: SCM Press (1991)
Pages: 194
Binding: Paperback