The Cult of Saints among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria

Josef Meri is a scholar of medieval Islamic and Jewish history, and this academic book, published by Oxford University Press, examines the shared practice of venerating saints among both Muslims and Jews in medieval Syria, drawing on primary sources from both religious communities to show how devotional practices around holy sites were sometimes shared or paralleled across religious lines. Its strength is that comparative approach, using primary sources from both traditions rather than studying either community in isolation, and showing genuine interfaith overlap in religious practice that a single tradition study would miss. Its limit is its specific regional and period focus, medieval Syria, so it should not be generalized to saint veneration practice among Muslims and Jews in other times and places without a separate source for those.