Rosenzweig casts Islam as pure political war opposed to Judaism

Evidence

Yet there is another crucial moment to this theologico-political configuration within which war inscribes itself, one that is less contingent than the very limited conversation on it has, so far, allowed. I am referring to Rosenzweig’s discussion of Islam. Indeed, considered in the light of war, and as the first example in the Star of a holy war, Glaubenskrieg, we will see that Islam is situated at the opposite pole from Judaism-that ahistorical and apolitical marker. Failing in its religious dimension, failing as a religion, Islam is paradoxically an essential-if essentially negative and vanishing-moment in the political theology that is The Star of Redemption. Islam is war, “pure political” war. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 459

Categorization

• DEFINE: Anidjar identifies the precise Rosenzweigian formulation: Islam as ‘pure political’ war, the holy war (Glaubenskrieg) at the opposite pole from ahistorical Judaism — the genealogical anchor for the antisemitism-Islamophobia bridge.
• ADDENDUM: Directly supports the genealogical claim that secular European concepts of enmity and war draw on theological pairings of Jew and Arab — the theoretical spine the Islamophobia cluster points back to.