By Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

IT STRIKES ME HOW LITTLE AWARENESS THERE IS AMONG MANY MUSLIMS AND JEWS OF THE TREASURES that we share. This is especially true of issues concerning what Muslims term Tawhid, or pure monotheistic theology, and concerning the inner work of transformation, what they call the Greater Jihad, and we call Tikkun Hammidot. There has been some terrible propaganda by Islamists on the web: based on misunderstood words in the Qur'an, propagandists have been comparing Jews and Christians to apes and pigs. But the many Muslims who reject such slanders may also not be aware of how much we, Muslims and Jews, have learned from and given to each other in the past.

There exists an entire ilterature in Judeo-Arabic. Many people have noidea that some of the greatest Jewish writers wrote in Arabic and Judeo-Arabic, were greatly influenced by Muslim thinkers and influenced them in turn. Rabbi Bachya ben Joseph ibn Paquda authored the first Jewish system of ethics, in the year 1040--in Arabic. His Al Hidayah ila Faraid al-Kulub was not translated into Hebrew until more than a century had passed, under the title Hovol Halevavot (Instruction in the Duties of the Heart). He shared significant ideas in that book with Muslim thinkers of the time such as the great Al-Ghazali, and there are different theories about whether Bachya influenced Al-Ghazali or the other way round. In the twelfth century Maimonides produced one of the great philosophic statements of Judaism, the Guide To The Perplexed. It is still influential today. Again, it was written in Judeo-Arabic.

"Judeo-Arabic" refers to several Arabic dialects spoken by Jews in Islamic countries and written in Hebrew script. It is still spoken in some places today. The medieval works in Judo-Arabic were closer to standard Arabic than were later works. Maimonides himself wrote some of his works in standard Arabic and some in Judeo-Arabic, depending on his desired audience.

I have copies of Duties Of The Heart and Guide For The Perplexed with the Hebrew text in on column and the Judeo-Arabic in the other. Thinking of the way in which Jews have been characterized in Islamist broad-casts and literature as apes and pigs, I felt that it would be of great import if we could make these and other classic volumes available in Arabic script.

I envisage a project in which we would scan Judo-Arabic works into a computer, and create a program to transliterate the scanned material from Hebrew fonts into Arabic Then we would need to find scholars of medieval Arabic who would be able to offer in brackets current Arabic terms for the original old ones, so modern Muslims could easily understand them.

I would like to see the finished product made available on the web so that, for instance, Rabbi Bachya's Gate to One-ness (Sha'ar Hayichud in Hebrew, Bab al Tawhid in Arabic) would be available for people to read in Arabic. While the current atmosphere in parts of the Muslim world may not be conducive to publicizing the existence of such a website, in the long run it could serve as possible lever to change the tenor of our relationship.

From my childhood on I had a certain romantic feeling about Islam. I was raised in Austria, where many youths avidly read the adventure books of Karl Mai. Some of the adventures described were in North America, some even in South America, but almost an equal number were in Islamic territories--Dar al-Islam. The hero, a stand-in for Karl Mai, was named Kara ben Nemsi and his sidekick was named Haji Halef Omar. When I came across a transliteration of the Fatiha, the opening Sura of the Qur'an. I was fascinated by the words "Bism'illah ArRahmani ArRahimi, Al Hamdul'illua Rabb Al Alamin, Maliki Yaum Ad'din." I could clearly see Hebrew behind them. Whenever I had the opportunity to read something that was available in the German or, later, English translation, I always found more that was beautiful, noble and praiseworthy.

Later on, when after my yeshiva years my outlook broadened, I found much in the Sufi literature that impressed me. The following story is an example of what I came to honor in relationship to my sense of Shiviti (a symbol of the Diety used in prayer).

A Sufi master had a circle of twenty close disciples. Many of these were envious of one disciple who seemed likely to become the successor of the Sheikh. Their master became aware of their grumbling and gathered them, giving them the following task: each of you bring me a live bird and assemble here again for my next instructions. This they did and as they stood around the Sheikh, he ordered them to go a place where no one could see them and kill the bird and them return. When key returned. nineteen of them presented their dead bird to the Sheikh. He asked the twentieth, "Why did you not kill your bird?" He responded, looking down at his feet, "My master, I could not find any place where I would not be seen."

In one of the great Kabbalistic morality books, the R'eshit Hochmah, we find a story quoted by Rabbi Isaac of Acco that was take from a volume of dervish tales. There are other tales in which the Rabbi of Damascus learned with great respect from a Muslim Sheikh. A Shiite mullah shared with me that his father in Iran, an expert on Islamic halachah, known as Fiqh, would in cases of difficult decisions confer with the local Jewish expert on halachah, the Hacham. On the other side of things we have the beautiful Hebrew version of the Qur'an done by Professor Rivlin. Recently the Hebrew translation of Rumi's poetry was published in Jerusalem.

This brought me to the idea of having Judeo-Arabic classics (and by extension also Judeo-Persian texts, which were written in the Farsi language but in Hebrew letters) easily available online for Muslims who would like to read them. In addition to the books by Maimonides' son and grandson, there is of course the most authentic Arabic translation of the Bible that was done by Saadya Gaon.

So I am looking to bring together a team of people; some with a scholarly background, some with technical expertise, and others with a knowledge of Hebrew and Arabic. This project will make it possible for the people studying in madrassas to read these texts and learn to appreciate them. In fact I have it from a reliable Muslim source that a link to such a website would be offered to people learning to become imams. I believe that such an effort will over time bear irenic fruit.

This is what I would like to see, although I haven't got the energy at the age of eighty-three to push this project. The only thing that I can do is plant the seed in people's minds to get together and to create a social and financial instru-ment to put this on the web. I know at least of some people with the appropriate academic and digital know-how who might be able to make it happen.

So, Tikkun readers: if you have an occasion to talk to somebody who might be fired up by this idea and who wants to see peace between our two worlds, then ask him or her to get in touch with me.

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, better known as "Reb Zalman," is the father of the Jewish Renewal and Spiritual Eldering movements, and an active teacher of Hasidism and Jewish Mysticism. If you are interested in this project please contact him at zalmans@aol.com.