Short answer
Yes. Maimonides (died 1204) wrote one of the most famous codes of Jewish law. He ruled that Muslims are not idolaters, because they declare God's (﷾) unity "without blemish". He wrote this to Obadiah, a convert to Judaism. His law code says the same. It names "these Ishmaelites", meaning Muslims, as non-Jews who do not worship idols. The same code rules that Christians are idolaters. He was no friend of Islam. In his letter to the Jews of Yemen, as it has come down to us, he attacked the Prophet (ﷺ) in harsh words. That makes his verdict on Islam's God (﷾) harder to set aside. The Qur'an tells Muslims to say to Jews and Christians, the People of the Book: "Our Allah and your Allah is one". So Islam agrees with him on who God (﷾) is. Where he and Islam part is on prophethood and the Torah's text.
Full explanation
Who Maimonides was, and what he lived through
Moses ben Maimon is known as Maimonides or the Rambam. He was born in Córdoba, in Spain, in the 1130s and died in Egypt in 1204. His code of Jewish law, the Mishneh Torah, was finished about 1180. It is still a foundation of Jewish law. He wrote much of his other work in Judeo-Arabic, which is Arabic written in Hebrew letters. Muslim rule shaped his life, for harm and for good. In 1148 the Almohads, a Berber Muslim dynasty, took Córdoba and pressed Jews to convert. His family left. After years of moving, they settled in Fez, in Morocco, about 1160. He later moved to Egypt. There al-Qadi al-Fadil, chief minister to Saladin, the 12th-century Muslim ruler of Egypt, became his patron. He brought Maimonides to the court as a physician.
A biography that places Maimonides in the Islamic world of his day. It tells how the Almohads took Córdoba in 1148 and pressed Jews to convert, how his family left and settled in Fez about 1160, and how he moved on to Egypt, where Saladin's chief minister, al-Qadi al-Fadil, became his patron and brought him to the court as a physician.
His letter to Obadiah the convert
His clearest verdict is in a responsum. That is a written ruling given in answer to a question. Obadiah, a convert to Judaism, had been told by his teacher that Muslims are idolaters. The teacher pointed to the stones thrown on the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. He said they were thrown for an ancient idol. Maimonides replied that Muslims are not idolaters at all. Idolatry, he wrote, has already been cut off from their mouths and hearts. They declare God's (﷾) unity as is fitting, "a unity without blemish". He adds at once that Muslims lie about the Jews, claiming the Jews say God (﷾) has a son. The Qur'an's words on this (9:30) name Ezra. Al-Tabari was an early commentator on the Qur'an. He reports from Ibn Abbas, a companion of the Prophet (ﷺ), that four named Jews said it to the Prophet (ﷺ). The verse is not a claim about all Jews. Even so, Maimonides says, the Jews will not lie about the Muslims and call them idolaters. He allows, for argument's sake, that the House at Mecca, the Kaaba, was once a house of idols. He grants that some Muslim practices resemble the rites of old pagan cults, and that those rites are rooted in idolatry. Islam holds that the pilgrimage rites go back to Abraham (22:27, 2:128), and that pagans corrupted them later. The Qur'an says God (﷾) gave Abraham the site of the House for the worship of God (﷾) alone (22:26). The page on whether Muslims worship the Kaaba answers the rest. Maimonides' own answer is that those who bow toward it today have their hearts only toward Heaven. He also says their errors in other matters cannot safely be written down.
Obadiah, a convert to Judaism, had been told by his teacher that Muslims are idolaters, because the stones they throw at their place of worship are for Merkolis, an ancient idol. Maimonides answers that these Ishmaelites are not idolaters at all (einam ovdei avodah zarah kelal): idolatry has already been cut off from their mouths and hearts, and they declare the unity of God as is fitting, a unity without blemish (yihud ka-ra'uy, yihud she-ein bo dofi). He adds at once that although they lie about the Jews, saying that the Jews say God has a son, the Jews will not lie about them and call them idolaters. He allows that someone may call the House they honour a house of idolatry, and asks what of it. Those who bow toward it today have their hearts only toward Heaven, as the Talmud says of a man who bows to an idol's house thinking it a synagogue (Sanhedrin 61b). All these Ishmaelites today, children and women (taf ve-nashim), are free of idolatry. Their error and foolishness in other matters cannot be put in writing, because of the sinners and wicked of Israel, but in the unity of God they have no error at all. He grants that some Muslim practices (the bowing in prayer, the thrown stones, the bared head, the unsewn garment) resemble rites of three old pagan cults of that land, and that these rites are rooted in idolatry. But Muslims, he reports, say they throw the stones at Satan, and none of it is done for idolatry, in mouth or in heart. He rebukes the teacher for shaming a convert. He praises Obadiah for seeing that all other religions are stolen from Israel's (genuvot), one adding, one taking away, one changing.
“The Jews call 'Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!”
Al-Tabari records two views of who said "'Uzair is the son of Allah". One says it was one man, named as Finhas. The other, from Ibn Abbas, names Sallam ibn Mishkam, Nu'man ibn Awfa, Sha's ibn Qays and Malik ibn al-Sayf. These men asked the Prophet (ﷺ) how they could follow him when he did not hold Ezra to be God's son. He also reports Ibn Abbas that the saying arose because Ezra restored the Torah after it had been forgotten.
“Behold! We gave the site, to Abraham, of the (Sacred) House, (saying): "Associate not anything (in worship) with Me; and sanctify My House for those who compass it round, or stand up, or bow, or prostrate themselves (therein in prayer).”
“"And proclaim the Pilgrimage among men: they will come to thee on foot and (mounted) on every kind of camel, lean on account of journeys through deep and distant mountain highways;”
“"Our Lord! make of us Muslims, bowing to Thy (Will), and of our progeny a people Muslim, bowing to Thy (will); and show us our place for the celebration of (due) rites; and turn unto us (in Mercy); for Thou art the Oft-Returning, Most Merciful.”
His code of law: Muslims are not idolaters
The same ruling is in his code, the Mishneh Torah. There it is halakha, that is, binding Jewish law. It concerns wine, because Jewish law treats an idolater's wine more strictly. A gentile, or non-Jew, who is not an idolater, "such as these Ishmaelites", has wine that a Jew may not drink but may otherwise use. The Christians, the same halakha says, are idolaters, and their wine may not be used at all. Another halakha says plainly that the Christians are idolaters and Sunday is their festival. Christian censors later had both lines changed in print. The original wording survives in the Yemenite manuscripts, the hand-copied books of the Jews of Yemen. So Maimonides drew the line between the two faiths in law, not only in a letter. On the question of idolatry he put Islam on the side of Israel.
Halakha. The wine of a resident alien (ger toshav), who has accepted the seven Noahide commandments, is forbidden to drink but permitted for other benefit. So too any gentile who is not an idolater, such as these Ishmaelites (ke-gon elu ha-yishme'elim): their wine is forbidden to drink and permitted for benefit, and so ruled all the Geonim. But the Christians, the halakha continues, are idolaters (ha-notzrim ovdei avodah zarah hen), and their ordinary wine is forbidden even for benefit. The censored printed editions do not name the Christians here.
Halakha. The Christians are idolaters, and Sunday is their festival (ha-notzrim ovdei avodah zarah hen, ve-yom rishon yom eidam hu). Therefore trading with them is forbidden in the Land of Israel on the Thursday and Friday of every week, and on Sunday itself everywhere; and the same is done for all their festivals. Censored printings put "Canaanites" where the uncensored text names the Christians.
What he wrote against Islam
Maimonides was also a sharp critic of Islam, and a Jewish reader will know it. About 1172 a ruler in Yemen ordered the Jews there to convert, as the Almohads had done in the West. Maimonides had seen that persecution. He wrote the Epistle to Yemen, a letter to strengthen the Jews there. In it the Prophet (ﷺ) is called "the madman". Abraham Halkin, who translated the Epistle, noted that a copyist may have added that word. The Meccans said the same of the Prophet (ﷺ). The Qur'an answered: "Thou art not, by the Grace of thy Lord, mad or possessed" (68:2). Maimonides writes that no nation ever rose against Israel more hostile than the nation of Ishmael. He calls the Muslim readings of Deuteronomy 18:15 and 33:2 and Genesis 17:20 laughable. In a responsum he forbids teaching the commandments to Muslims, though he allows it with Christians. His reason is that Muslims believe "this Torah is not from Heaven". In his code he wrote that the nations will learn their prophets misled them. Yet he also wrote that the work of Jesus and "this Ishmaelite who arose after him" only prepares the way for the Messiah. Through them, he says, talk of the Torah and its commandments spread to far lands. Some of those peoples, he adds, say the commandments have lapsed. Others say they hold only hidden meanings. This passage, Kings and Wars 11:4, is discussed on the page on Jesus in the Talmud. Islam does not blame anyone alive today for his words: "no bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another" (6:164).
Written to the Jews of Yemen, where a ruler had ordered them to convert, as "the Canaanite" (the Almohads) had done in the lands of the West. Maimonides urges them to hold fast. He calls the Prophet (ﷺ) ha-meshugga, "the madman" (so the Hebrew translation; the Arabic original is reported to read al-majnun, and Abraham Halkin, who translated the Epistle, noted that a copyist may have supplied the word). He writes that no nation has ever risen against Israel more hostile than the nation of Ishmael, nor one that did so much to debase and humble it. He tells them that the Jews, great and small, have agreed to bear the subjugation of Ishmael, and that while they seek peace, they are met with war. He dismisses as laughable the Muslim readings of Deuteronomy 18:15, Deuteronomy 33:2 and Genesis 17:20. To the charge that the Jews changed the Torah, he answers that it was translated into Aramaic, Persian, Greek and Latin centuries before Islam, and that it is handed down from east to west without a single difference, even in its vowels.
“They say: "O thou to whom the Message is being revealed! truly thou art mad (or possessed)!”
“Thou art not, by the Grace of thy Lord, mad or possessed.”
Asked whether one may teach the commandments to gentiles, Maimonides rules that it is permitted to teach the commandments and their explanation to Christians, but nothing of this to Ishmaelites, because they believe that this Torah is not from Heaven (she-torah zo einah min ha-shamayim). If they were taught, they would find it at odds with what they had received, would not take it as proof that they were wrong, would read it through their own mistaken premises, and would turn it against the Jews living among them. Christians, he says, admit that the text of the Torah is complete as it is in Jewish hands; they only interpret it wrongly, and some may return to the right reading.
Halakha 4 in the uncensored text. A king of David's line who studies the Torah and keeps the commandments, compels Israel to walk in them and fights the wars of the LORD is presumed to be the Messiah. If he succeeds, rebuilds the Temple in its place and gathers Israel's exiles, he is surely the Messiah; the texts printed by Mechon Mamre and Sefaria's Wikisource add that he defeats all the nations around him. If he does not succeed, or is killed, he is surely not the one the Torah promised: he is like the worthy kings of David's line who died, and God raised him only to test the many (Daniel 11:35). Then Maimonides writes of Yeshua ha-Notzri (Jesus the Nazarene), who imagined he would be the Messiah and was killed by the court (nehrag be-veit din). He applies Daniel 11:14 to him. The prophets, he says, foretold a Messiah who would save Israel, gather its exiles and strengthen its commandments; Jesus caused Israel to be destroyed by the sword and scattered, caused the Torah to be changed (le-hachalif ha-Torah), and led most of the world to worship a god besides the LORD. Then he says that all the matters of Jesus the Nazarene and of the Ishmaelite who came after him serve only to prepare the way for the King Messiah, and to set the whole world right to serve the LORD together, citing Zephaniah 3:9. Through them the world has been filled with talk of the Messiah, the Torah and the commandments, spread to far islands and many peoples. Those peoples debate the commandments. Some say they were true but have lapsed in this age and were not meant for all generations; others say they hold hidden meanings, not their plain sense, and that the Messiah has already come and revealed them. When the true Messiah comes, those peoples will know that their fathers inherited falsehood and that their prophets and fathers misled them. Printed editions were censored. On Sefaria (Torat Emet Hebrew) the failed claimant is 11:5 and the lines on Jesus and the Ishmaelite are 11:6-9; Sefaria's layer of censorship omissions reinserted marks 11:5-9 as cut. Soloweyczik's English of 1863 keeps 11:5 but not the names, the court, the changed Torah, the other god or the misled prophets.
“Say: "Shall I seek for (my) Cherisher other than Allah, when He is the Cherisher of all things (that exist)? Every soul draws the meed of its acts on none but itself: no bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another. Your goal in the end is towards Allah: He will tell you the truth of the things wherein ye disputed."”
Why his verdict on God (﷾) carries weight
A witness who has reason to be hostile, and still speaks in your favour, is the strongest kind. Maimonides had such reasons. His family left Córdoba after the Almohads took it. He also rejected the Prophet (ﷺ) outright. Yet on the question of God (﷾) he would not bend. He did not only say it politely in a letter. He wrote it into law, where it decides what a Jew may drink and use. His quarrels with Islam are about the Prophet (ﷺ) and the Torah's text. They are not about who God (﷾) is. Those quarrels followed from his creed. He held that no prophet could ever bring a new law after Moses, so he could not judge the Prophet (ﷺ) any other way. On God (﷾), his verdict went against his interest. Fear does not explain it either. His law code, written in Egypt under Muslim rule, says the nations will learn that their prophets misled them (Kings and Wars 11:4).
Obadiah, a convert to Judaism, had been told by his teacher that Muslims are idolaters, because the stones they throw at their place of worship are for Merkolis, an ancient idol. Maimonides answers that these Ishmaelites are not idolaters at all (einam ovdei avodah zarah kelal): idolatry has already been cut off from their mouths and hearts, and they declare the unity of God as is fitting, a unity without blemish (yihud ka-ra'uy, yihud she-ein bo dofi). He adds at once that although they lie about the Jews, saying that the Jews say God has a son, the Jews will not lie about them and call them idolaters. He allows that someone may call the House they honour a house of idolatry, and asks what of it. Those who bow toward it today have their hearts only toward Heaven, as the Talmud says of a man who bows to an idol's house thinking it a synagogue (Sanhedrin 61b). All these Ishmaelites today, children and women (taf ve-nashim), are free of idolatry. Their error and foolishness in other matters cannot be put in writing, because of the sinners and wicked of Israel, but in the unity of God they have no error at all. He grants that some Muslim practices (the bowing in prayer, the thrown stones, the bared head, the unsewn garment) resemble rites of three old pagan cults of that land, and that these rites are rooted in idolatry. But Muslims, he reports, say they throw the stones at Satan, and none of it is done for idolatry, in mouth or in heart. He rebukes the teacher for shaming a convert. He praises Obadiah for seeing that all other religions are stolen from Israel's (genuvot), one adding, one taking away, one changing.
Halakha. The wine of a resident alien (ger toshav), who has accepted the seven Noahide commandments, is forbidden to drink but permitted for other benefit. So too any gentile who is not an idolater, such as these Ishmaelites (ke-gon elu ha-yishme'elim): their wine is forbidden to drink and permitted for benefit, and so ruled all the Geonim. But the Christians, the halakha continues, are idolaters (ha-notzrim ovdei avodah zarah hen), and their ordinary wine is forbidden even for benefit. The censored printed editions do not name the Christians here.
Halakha. It is clear and explicit in the Torah that it is a commandment standing for ever, with no change, no subtraction and no addition, as it says, "thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it" (Deuteronomy 13:1). From "It is not in heaven" (Deuteronomy 30:12) he learns that no prophet may now introduce anything new. So if a man, whether from the nations or from Israel, gives a sign and a wonder and says the LORD sent him to add a commandment or remove one, to explain a commandment in a way not heard from Moses, or to say that the commandments were only for a time, he is a false prophet (navi sheker), because he comes to deny the prophecy of Moses.
Written to the Jews of Yemen, where a ruler had ordered them to convert, as "the Canaanite" (the Almohads) had done in the lands of the West. Maimonides urges them to hold fast. He calls the Prophet (ﷺ) ha-meshugga, "the madman" (so the Hebrew translation; the Arabic original is reported to read al-majnun, and Abraham Halkin, who translated the Epistle, noted that a copyist may have supplied the word). He writes that no nation has ever risen against Israel more hostile than the nation of Ishmael, nor one that did so much to debase and humble it. He tells them that the Jews, great and small, have agreed to bear the subjugation of Ishmael, and that while they seek peace, they are met with war. He dismisses as laughable the Muslim readings of Deuteronomy 18:15, Deuteronomy 33:2 and Genesis 17:20. To the charge that the Jews changed the Torah, he answers that it was translated into Aramaic, Persian, Greek and Latin centuries before Islam, and that it is handed down from east to west without a single difference, even in its vowels.
Halakha 4 in the uncensored text. A king of David's line who studies the Torah and keeps the commandments, compels Israel to walk in them and fights the wars of the LORD is presumed to be the Messiah. If he succeeds, rebuilds the Temple in its place and gathers Israel's exiles, he is surely the Messiah; the texts printed by Mechon Mamre and Sefaria's Wikisource add that he defeats all the nations around him. If he does not succeed, or is killed, he is surely not the one the Torah promised: he is like the worthy kings of David's line who died, and God raised him only to test the many (Daniel 11:35). Then Maimonides writes of Yeshua ha-Notzri (Jesus the Nazarene), who imagined he would be the Messiah and was killed by the court (nehrag be-veit din). He applies Daniel 11:14 to him. The prophets, he says, foretold a Messiah who would save Israel, gather its exiles and strengthen its commandments; Jesus caused Israel to be destroyed by the sword and scattered, caused the Torah to be changed (le-hachalif ha-Torah), and led most of the world to worship a god besides the LORD. Then he says that all the matters of Jesus the Nazarene and of the Ishmaelite who came after him serve only to prepare the way for the King Messiah, and to set the whole world right to serve the LORD together, citing Zephaniah 3:9. Through them the world has been filled with talk of the Messiah, the Torah and the commandments, spread to far islands and many peoples. Those peoples debate the commandments. Some say they were true but have lapsed in this age and were not meant for all generations; others say they hold hidden meanings, not their plain sense, and that the Messiah has already come and revealed them. When the true Messiah comes, those peoples will know that their fathers inherited falsehood and that their prophets and fathers misled them. Printed editions were censored. On Sefaria (Torat Emet Hebrew) the failed claimant is 11:5 and the lines on Jesus and the Ishmaelite are 11:6-9; Sefaria's layer of censorship omissions reinserted marks 11:5-9 as cut. Soloweyczik's English of 1863 keeps 11:5 but not the names, the court, the changed Torah, the other god or the misled prophets.
Forced conversion breaks Islamic law
The Almohads did what the Qur'an forbids. It says "Let there be no compulsion in religion". It also asks whether the Prophet (ﷺ) would compel people to believe. The Prophet (ﷺ) warned that whoever kills a person under a treaty with the Muslims will not smell Paradise. So the persecutions Maimonides lived through were a breach of Islam, not an example of it. His later life, and his greatest works, came under Muslim rule in Egypt.
“Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things.”
“If it had been thy Lord's will, they would all have believed,- all who are on earth! wilt thou then compel mankind, against their will, to believe!”
Abdullah ibn Amr reports that the Prophet (ﷺ) said that whoever kills a person who has a treaty with the Muslims will not smell the fragrance of Paradise, though its fragrance reaches a distance of forty years.
One God (﷾), and the one question left
Maimonides said Muslims declare God's (﷾) unity without blemish. The Qur'an says the same about the God (﷾) of Israel. It tells Muslims to say to the People of the Book, "Our Allah and your Allah is one". Its words "Allah, the One and Only" say what the Shema says: "the LORD is one". The Shema is the Jewish declaration of faith. The Qur'an says God (﷾) gave one religion to Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus. It also calls the People of the Book to common terms: worship none but God (﷾), and set up no lords beside Him. So Maimonides and the Qur'an agree on who God (﷾) is. What divides them is one question. Did God (﷾) send, after Moses, a prophet with a new law? The Torah itself promised one "from among their brethren, like unto thee", with God's (﷾) words in his mouth. Islam says that prophet came. The page on Deuteronomy 18:18 sets out the case.
“And dispute ye not with the People of the Book, except with means better (than mere disputation), unless it be with those of them who inflict wrong (and injury): but say, "We believe in the revelation which has come down to us and in that which came down to you; Our Allah and your Allah is one; and it is to Him we bow (in Islam)."”
“HEAR, O ISRAEL: THE LORD OUR GOD, THE LORD IS ONE.”
“Say: He is Allah, the One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him.”
“The same religion has He established for you as that which He enjoined on Noah - the which We have sent by inspiration to thee - and that which We enjoined on Abraham, Moses, and Jesus: Namely, that ye should remain steadfast in religion, and make no divisions therein: to those who worship other things than Allah, hard is the (way) to which thou callest them. Allah chooses to Himself those whom He pleases, and guides to Himself those who turn (to Him).”
“Say: "O People of the Book! come to common terms as between us and you: That we worship none but Allah; that we associate no partners with him; that we erect not, from among ourselves, Lords and patrons other than Allah." If then they turn back, say ye: "Bear witness that we (at least) are Muslims (bowing to Allah's Will).”
“I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee; and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto My words which he shall speak in My name, I will require it of him.”
Replies a learned Jew makes, answered
Maimonides, Epistle to Yemen — Iggeret Teiman, about 1172
Written to the Jews of Yemen, where a ruler had ordered them to convert, as "the Canaanite" (the Almohads) had done in the lands of the West. Maimonides urges them to hold fast. He calls the Prophet (ﷺ) ha-meshugga, "the madman" (so the Hebrew translation; the Arabic original is reported to read al-majnun, and Abraham Halkin, who translated the Epistle, noted that a copyist may have supplied the word). He writes that no nation has ever risen against Israel more hostile than the nation of Ishmael, nor one that did so much to debase and humble it. He tells them that the Jews, great and small, have agreed to bear the subjugation of Ishmael, and that while they seek peace, they are met with war. He dismisses as laughable the Muslim readings of Deuteronomy 18:15, Deuteronomy 33:2 and Genesis 17:20. To the charge that the Jews changed the Torah, he answers that it was translated into Aramaic, Persian, Greek and Latin centuries before Islam, and that it is handed down from east to west without a single difference, even in its vowels.
Cited for
Maimonides called the founder of Islam "the madman" and wrote that no nation ever harmed Israel more. Citing him as a witness for Islam hides what he really thought of it.
The response
The page gives those words. His hostility to the Prophet (ﷺ) is real, and it was a verdict on prophethood. His code, finished a few years later, still ruled that Muslims are not idolaters. A hostile witness who still says they declare God's (﷾) unity "without blemish" is a stronger witness, not a weaker one.
Where it lands — His hostility to Islam's prophet is real, and it makes his verdict on Islam's God (﷾) harder to dismiss.
Maimonides, Responsa (Blau) 448 — responsum to Obadiah the proselyte (Freimann 369)
Obadiah, a convert to Judaism, had been told by his teacher that Muslims are idolaters, because the stones they throw at their place of worship are for Merkolis, an ancient idol. Maimonides answers that these Ishmaelites are not idolaters at all (einam ovdei avodah zarah kelal): idolatry has already been cut off from their mouths and hearts, and they declare the unity of God as is fitting, a unity without blemish (yihud ka-ra'uy, yihud she-ein bo dofi). He adds at once that although they lie about the Jews, saying that the Jews say God has a son, the Jews will not lie about them and call them idolaters. He allows that someone may call the House they honour a house of idolatry, and asks what of it. Those who bow toward it today have their hearts only toward Heaven, as the Talmud says of a man who bows to an idol's house thinking it a synagogue (Sanhedrin 61b). All these Ishmaelites today, children and women (taf ve-nashim), are free of idolatry. Their error and foolishness in other matters cannot be put in writing, because of the sinners and wicked of Israel, but in the unity of God they have no error at all. He grants that some Muslim practices (the bowing in prayer, the thrown stones, the bared head, the unsewn garment) resemble rites of three old pagan cults of that land, and that these rites are rooted in idolatry. But Muslims, he reports, say they throw the stones at Satan, and none of it is done for idolatry, in mouth or in heart. He rebukes the teacher for shaming a convert. He praises Obadiah for seeing that all other religions are stolen from Israel's (genuvot), one adding, one taking away, one changing.
Cited for
Maimonides denied God any body or likeness. Islam's texts speak of God's hand and face, of His laughing and descending. He would have called that corporeal, so his praise cannot cover Islam as Muslims hold it.
The response
Maimonides knew the Muslims of his day, and he judged them all, "children and women", free of error on God's (﷾) unity. He did not limit this to their philosophers. The Torah too speaks of the hand of the LORD, the finger of God (﷾) and His eyes. Maimonides did not take these as a body; he said the Torah speaks in the language of men. Islam affirms what God (﷾) says of Himself and denies that anything is like Him: "there is nothing whatever like unto Him". Both faiths refuse to picture God (﷾).
Where it lands — Both faiths deny that anything is like God (﷾); Maimonides judged ordinary Muslims free of error on His unity.
Perspectives
Maimonides (12th century)
Maimonides held that Muslims are true monotheists and not idolaters, unlike Christians. But he held that Muhammad (ﷺ) was not a prophet, and that the Torah of Moses is unchanged and eternal.
Muslims are not idolaters at all; they declare God's unity as is fitting, without blemish.
Rebuttal
Islam agrees. The Qur'an tells Muslims to say to Jews and Christians, "Our Allah and your Allah is one". So God (﷾) is not what divides the two faiths. Maimonides' quarrel with Islam was over the Prophet (ﷺ) and the Torah's text.
The Torah will never change, and a prophet who adds or removes a commandment is false.
Rebuttal
Maimonides rests this on verses such as "thou shalt not add thereto" and "It is not in heaven". In their plain sense they bind Israel to keep the law and say it is near. None says God (﷾) will send no prophet. The Torah itself promised a prophet "like unto thee", with God's (﷾) words in his mouth. Whether he came is argued on its own page.
Obadiah's teacher
Islam is idolatry after all: the pilgrims throw stones and bow toward a house that once held idols.
The view Maimonides rejected
The stones thrown on the pilgrimage are a rite of an ancient idol, so Muslims are idolaters.
Rebuttal
Maimonides answered this in the same letter. Muslims say they throw the stones at Satan, and none of it is done for idolatry. The Qur'an says the House was given to Abraham for God (﷾) alone: "Associate not anything (in worship) with Me". The idols came later, and the Prophet (ﷺ) struck them with a stick when he entered Mecca.
The Islamic perspective
Maimonides was right about Islam's God (﷾), and he said it as a critic. The God (﷾) of the Qur'an is the God (﷾) of the Shema. Forced conversion breaks Islamic law. What divides Islam and Judaism is whether God (﷾) sent, after Moses, a prophet with a new law, not who God (﷾) is.
The Qur'an tells Jews and Christians that their God and the Muslims' God (﷾) is one.
Islam teaches the same oneness of God (﷾) that the Shema declares.
Forced conversion breaks the Qur'an's rule that there is no compulsion in religion.