This session will engage one of the most surprising elements to come out of medieval Muslim Spain: risqué poems of sexual desire penned in biblical Hebrew by rabbis and religious scholars. We will discuss a number of poems in depth, analyzing both hetero and homo-erotic poems in which the lover’s sensual experience of the beloved is sacrilegiously compared to Scriptural characters and storylines.

Shari Lowin is Professor of Religious Studies and Theology at Stonehill College, where she teaches Islamic and Jewish Studies. She serves as on the board of directors of the International Qur’anic Studies Association. Lowin holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago’s department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Her research centers on the interplay between Islamic and Jewish texts in the early and early medieval Islamic periods, focusing on scriptural and exegetical narratives. Her publications include The Making of a Forefather: Abraham in Islamic and Jewish Exegetical Narratives and Arabic and Hebrew Love Poems of al-Andalus. Lowin’s current research project analyzes the statements of blasphemous direct speech attributed to the Jews in the Qur’an in light of midrash and piyyut.