Peace in the Name of Allah: Islamic Discourses on Treaties with Israel

From Anwar al-Sadat’s dramatic gambit in 1977 to the surprising declaration of the Abraham Accords in 2020, making peace with Israel was always a tough sell for Arab regimes. Through an analysis of hundreds of fatwas, sermons, essays, books, interviews, poems, postage stamps and other media, Peace in the Name of Allah examines how Egyptian, Jordanian, and Emirati political and religious authorities introduced Islamic justifications for peace with Israel, and how those opposed countered them. The discussion demonstrates the flexible and ambiguous nature of revelation-based political discourses; Islam is neither ’for’ nor ’against’ peace with Israel - people are, as different Muslim political actors take competing or even contradictory positions.

Ofir Winter is a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, where he specializes in Arab-Israeli relations and contemporary Egypt. He is also a lecturer in Tel Aviv University’s Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, where he teaches the course ＂Peace in Islam.＂ He earned his Ph.D. in Middle Eastern History from the same university in 2015. He has authored several articles for reputable international peer-reviewed journals, including Middle Eastern Studies, Islamic Law and Society, and New Middle Eastern Studies. He is also the co-author of the book Zionism in Arab Discourses (MUP, 2016).