Prof. Yohanan Friedmann
M.A., Hebrew University
Yohanan Friedmann is Max Schloessinger Professor Emeritus of Islamic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Member, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Since 2007, he has served as the Chair of the Division of Humanities of the Academy. At the Hebrew University, he served as Chair of the Institute of Asian and African Studies (1975-1978), Chair of the Graduate School (1980-1983), Dean of Humanities (1985-1988), and Chair of the Department of Arabic Language and Literature (2002-2004). He has also served several times as visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania and at New York University, and in 2001 was a fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University. In 2002, he was member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Since 1991, he has been the editor of Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam. In 2003, Prof. Friedmann received the Landau Prize in the Humanities.
Selected Publications
Books
Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī. An outline of his thought and a study of his image in the eyes of posterity. McGill-Queens University Press, Montreal and London 1971, XIV, 130 pp.
Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī. An outline of his thought and a study of his image in the eyes of posterity. Paperback edition: Oxford University Press, New Delhi 2000.
Prophecy continuous. Aspects of Aḥmadī religious thought and its medieval background. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1989. xiii+215 pp; bibliography, appendices and index.
Prophecy continuous. Aspects of Aḥmadī religious thought and its medieval background. Second Printing. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Includes a new Preface by Zafrira and Yohanan Friedmann.
The history of Ṭabarī: The battle of al-Qādisiyyah and the conquest of Syria and Palestine. Translated and annotated by Yohanan Friedmann. Vol. XII. 237 pp. Bibliography and index. State University of New York Press. Albany 1992.
Tolerance and coercion in Islam. Interfaith relations in the Muslim tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 233 pp. Bibliography and index.
Tolerance and coercion in Islam. Interfaith relations in the Muslim tradition. Paperback edition: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 233 pp. Bibliography and index.
Messianic ideas and movements in Sunnī London: Oneworld Publications, 2022. Bibliography and indices, 352 pp.
Books Edited
Yohanan Friedmann, ed., Islam in South Asia. The Magnes Press of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem 1984. 289 pp.
Yohanan Friedmann, ed., Religious movements and transformations in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities 2016. 177 pp.
Yohanan Friedmann and Christoph Markschies, eds. Rationalization in religions. Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Berlin: De Gruyter 2019. 308pp.
Yohanan Friedmann, Muslim minorities in non-Muslim countries in modern times. Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2019. 217pp.
Yohanan Friedmann and Christoph Markschies, Religious responses to modernity. Berlin: De Gruyter 2021. 241pp.
Yohanan Friedmann and Christoph Markschies, Religious Polemics in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Brill-DeGruyter 2025.
Recent Articles (Selected)
“Tolerance and coercion in Islam”, in M. Gálik and M. Slobodník, eds. Eastern Christianity, Judaism and Islam between the death of Muḥammad and Tamerlane (632-1405). Bratislava: Slovak Academy of Sciences, 2011, pp.129-141
“Ahmadis”, in Oxford Companion to Pakistani History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 12-13 (misattributed to Nadia Ghani).
“Ahmad, Mirza Bashiruddin”, in Oxford Companion to Pakistani History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 10.
“Ahmad, Mirza Ghulam”, in Oxford Companion to Pakistani History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 10-11.
“Sirhindi, Shaikh Ahmad”, in Oxford Companion to Pakistani History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 491.
“Minorities”. Encyclopaedia of Islamic Political Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, pp. 340-346.
“Aḥmad Sirhindī.” Encyclopaedia of Islamic Political Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, pp. 26-27.
“Ahmadis”. Encyclopaedia of Islamic Political Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, pp. 25-26.
“Conversion, apostasy and excommunication in the Islamic tradition.” In Y. Friedmann, ed. Religious movements and transformations in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2016, pp. 109-177.
“Quasi-rational and anti-rational elements in radical Muslim thought: the case of Abū al-Aʿlā Mawdūdī. In Y, Friedmann, Ch. Markschies and M. Bergermann, eds. Rationalization in religions. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016, pp. 289-300.
“The pillars of Islam.” In Meir M. Bar Asher and Meir Hatina, eds. Islam, History, Culture. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2017, pp. 250-280 (in Hebrew).
“The Aḥmadiyya.” In Meir M. Bar Asher and Meir Hatina, eds. Islam, History, Culture. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2017, pp. 682-696 (in Hebrew).
“Dār al-islām and dār al-ḥarb in modern Muslim India.” In G. Lancioni and V. Calasso, eds., Dār al-islām/dār al-ḥarb: territories, people, identities. Leiden: Brill, 2017, pp. 341-380.
“Muslim minorities - an introductory essay”. In Yohanan Friedmann, ed., Muslim minorities in non-Muslim countries in modern times. Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2019, pp. 9-37.
“Practicalities and motivations of conversion as seen through early ḥadīth and law.” In N. Hurvitz, C. Sahner et.alii, Conversion to Islam in the pre-modern age. A source book. Oakland: University of California Press 2020, pp. 74-78.
“The scholarly oeuvre of Professor Ella Landau-Tasseron.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 49(2020), pp. i-vi.
Review Article: “Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship After Empire: (By SherAli Tareen).” American Journal of Islam and Society, 41(2024), pp. 171–177.
“Ignác Goldziher’s reception in the Arab world.” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae (2026).