Rosenzweig defines Islam as holy war rather than neighborly love

Evidence

Here, Rosenzweig continues, is something that distinguishes Islam from love, for Islam is not on the way to, but rather in the way of love. Unable to achieve any more than a purposive act (which, we have seen, “comes to nought” and brings down with it “the fanatic, the sectarian, in short all the tyrants of the kingdom of heaven” who “leave their nighest unloved”), Islam is on a way of subservience, and this, “more than its content,” predictably “distinguishes it from the love of neighbor” (216/G240). To walk in the way of Allah is thus not to love the neighbor-it is not to love at all. Rather, “walking in the way of Allah means, in the strictest sense, the spread oflslam by means of the holy war” (215/G240). — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 492

Categorization

• DEFINE: Rosenzweig’s distinction between ‘on the way to’ (love) and ‘in the way of’ (Islam as subservience) is a precise conceptual framework.
• XREF: Connects to the book’s overall thesis (from the title) about the Jew/Arab as enemy — this is the theological root of that framing.