Islam and anti-Semitism
Encyclopedia
Islam and antisemitism relates to Islam
ic theologicial teaching against Jews
and Judaism
and the treatment of Jews in Muslim countries.
With the origin of Islam
in the 7th century AD and its rapid spread in the Arabian peninsula
and beyond, Jews (and many other peoples) came to be subject to the rule of Muslim rulers. The quality of the rule varied considerably in different periods, as did the attitudes of the rulers, government officials, clergy and general population to various subject peoples from time to time, which was reflected in their treatment of these subjects. Reuven Firestone notes that "negative assessments and even condemnation of prior religions and their adherents occur in all three scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam." This article looks at the Muslim attitude to, and treatment of, Jews in Islamic thought and societies throughout history, and explores the ramifications of these attitudes in the contemporary world.
makes forty-three specific references to "Bani Isrāīl" (meaning the Children of Israel). The Arabic term yahud, denoting Jews, and "yahudi" occur eleven times and the verbal form hāda (meaning "to be a Jew/Jewish") occurs ten times. According to Khalid Durán, the negative passages use Yahūd, while the positive references speak mainly of the Banī Isrā’īl. Jews are not mentioned at all in verses dating from the Meccan period
. According to Bernard Lewis
, the coverage given to Jews is relatively insignificant.
The references in the Qur'an
to Jews are interpreted in different ways. According to Frederick M. Schweitzer and Marvin Perry, these references are "mostly negative" According to Tahir Abbas the general references to Jews are favorable, with only those addressed to particular groups of Jews containing harsh criticisms.
According to Bernard Lewis
and other scholars, the earliest verses of the Qur'an were largely sympathetic to Jews. Mohammed admired them as monotheists and saw them as natural adherents to the new faith and Jewish practices helped model early Islamic behavior, such as midday prayer, prayers on Friday, Ramadan
fasting (modelled after the Jewish Yom Kippur
fast on the tenth of the month of Tishrei
), and most famously the fact that until 623 Muslims prayed toward Jerusalem
, not Mecca. After his flight (al-hijra
) from Mecca, where religious intolerance reigned, in 622 Mohammad with his followers settled in Yathrib
, subsequently renamed Medina al-Nabi (‘City of the Prophet’) where he managed to draw up a ‘social contract’, widely referred to as the 'Constitution of Medina'. This contract, known as the Leaf (ṣaḥīfa) upheld the peaceful coexistence between Muslims, Jews and Christians, defining them all, under given conditions, as constituting the umma
, or community of that city, and granting the latter freedom of religious thought and practice. Yathrib/Medina was not homogeneous. Alongside the 200 odd emigrants from Mecca (the Muhājirūn), who had followed Mohammad, its population consisted of the Faithful of Medina (Anṣār, ‘the helpers’), Arab pagans, three Jewish tribes and some Christians. The foundational 'constitution' sought to establish, for the first time in history according to Ali Khan, a formal agreement guaranteeing interfaith conviviality, albeit ringed with articles emphasizing strategic cooperation in the defense of the city.
In paragraph 16 of this document, it states that:'Those Jews who follow us are entitled to our aid and support so long as they shall not have wronged us or lent assistance (to any enemies) against us'.
Paragraph 37 has it that 'To the Jews their own expenses and to the Muslims theirs. They shall help one another in the event of any attack on the people covered by this document. There shall be sincere friendship, exchange of good counsel, fair conduct and no treachery between them.'. The three local Jewish tribes were the Banu Nadir
, the Banu Qurayza
, and the Banu Qaynuqa
. While Mohammad clearly had no prejudice against them, and appears to have regarded his own message as substantially the same as that received by Jews on Sinai, tribal politics, and Mohammad's deep frustration at Jewish refusals to accept his prophethood, quickly led to a break with all three. unfortunate linguistic misunderstandings may also have given the impression, evidenced in the Qur'an, that the Jewish community was publicly humiliating Mohammad. One clan was evicted from Medina in 624. In 625, the Banu Nadir Jewish tribe was evicted from Medina
. Lastly, in the Mecca siege of Medina in 627, the last major Jewish tribe initially helped the Muslims in fortifying the back portions of Medina
, but due to their later exposed treachery in trying to assist the pagan Meccan army, the Muslims laid siege to this last group of Jews. Since the Torah
prescribes the death penalty for treachery, the adult males of this last Jewish tribe were killed, and the women and children were taken into slavery (but later freed). The direction of prayer was shifted towards Mecca
from Jerusalem and the most negative verses about Jews were set down after this time.
According to Laqueur, conflicting statements about Jews in the Qur'an have affected Muslim
attitudes towards Jews to this day, especially during periods of rising Islamic fundamentalism
.
, there is nothing in Muslim theology (with a single exception) that can be considered refutations of Judaism or ferocious anti-Jewish diatribes. Lewis and Chanes suggest that, for a variety of reasons, Muslims were not antisemitic for the most part. The Qur'an, like Judaism, orders Muslims to profess strict monotheism. It also rejects the stories of Jewish deicide
as a blasphemous absurdity, and other similar stories in the Gospels play no part in the Muslim educational system The Qur'an does not present itself as a fulfillment of the Hebrew Bible but rather a restoration of its original message - thus, no clash of interpretations between Judaism and Islam can arise.
In addition Lewis argues that the Qur'an lacks popular western traditions of 'guilt and betrayal'. Rosenblatt and Pinson suggest that the Qur'an teaches toleration of Judaism as a fellow monotheistic faith.
Lewis adds, negative attributes ascribed to subject religions (in this case Judaism and Christianity) are usually expressed in religious and social terms, but only very rarely in ethnic or racial terms. However, this does sometimes occur. The language of abuse is often quite strong. It has been argued that the conventional Muslim epithets for Jews, apes, and Christians, pigs derive from Qu'ranic usage. Lewis adduces three passages in the Qu’ran used to ground this view. The interpretation of these 'enigmatic' passages in Islamic exegetics is highly complex, dealing as they do with infractions like breaking the Sabbath,. According to Goitein, the idea of Jewish Sabbath breakers turning into apes may reflect the influence of Yemen
i midrash
im. Firestone notes that the Qurayza tribe itself is described in Muslim sources as using the trope of being turned into apes if one breaks the Sabbath to justify not exploiting the Sabbath in order to attack Mohammad, when they were under siege.
According to Stillman, the Qur'an praises Moses
, and depicts the Israelites as the recipients of divine favour. The Qur'an dedicates many verses to the glorification of Hebrew prophets, says Leon Poliakov. He quotes verse as an example,
(Note the 'We' refers to a royal plural meaning I. Similar to How the British royalty spoke to crowds.)
, Walter Laqueur
, and Jane Gerber
, argue that passages in the Qur'an
reproach Jews for their refusal to recognize Muhammad
as a prophet
of God
. "The Quran is engaged mainly in dealing with the sinners among the Jews and the attack on them is shaped according to models that one encounters in the New Testament." The Muslim holy text defined the Arab
and Muslim attitude towards Jews to this day, especially in the periods when Islamic fundamentalism
was on the rise.
Walter Laqueur states that the Qur'an and its interpreters has a great many conflicting things to say about the Jews. Jews are said to be treacherous and hypocritical and could never be friends with a Muslim.
Frederick M. Schweitzer and Marvin Perry state that references to Jews in the Qur'an
are mostly negative. The Qur'an states that wretchedness and baseness were stamped upon the Jews, and they were visited with wrath from Allah, that was because they disbelieved in Allah's revelations and slew the prophets wrongfully. And for their taking usury, which was prohibited for them, and because of their consuming people's wealth under false pretense, a painful punishment was prepared for them. The Qur'an requires their "abasement and poverty" in the form of the poll tax jizya
. In his "wrath" God has "cursed" the Jews and will turn them into apes/monkeys and swine and idol worshipers because they are "infidels".
According to Martin Kramer, the Qur'an speaks of Jews in a negative way and reports instances of Jewish treachery against the Islamic prophet Muhammad
. However, Islam didn't hold up those Jews who practiced treachery against Muhammad as archetypes nor did it portray treachery as the embodiment of Jews in all times and places. The Qur'an also attests to Muhammad's amicable relations with Jews.
While traditional religious supremacism played a role in the Islamic view of Jews, the same attitude applied to Christians and other non-Muslims. Islamic tradition regards Jews as a legitimate community of believers in God (called "people of the Book") legally
entitled to sufferance.
The Qur'an clears Jews from the accusation of deicide
, and states "they [Jews] killed him [Jesus] not". They also argue that the Jewish Bible has not been incorporated in the Islamic text, and "virtuous Muslims" are not contrasted with "stiff-necked, criminal Jews".
The standard Qur'anic reference to Jews is the verse . It says:
However, due to the Qur'an's timely process of story-telling, a majority of scholars agree that all references to Jews or other groups within the Qu'ran refers to only certain populations at a certain point in history and bare any racial profiling or religious profiling, it also gives some legitimacy to their religion in
"Those who believe, and the Jews, and the Sabi'un, and the Christians, who believe in God and the Last Day and do good, there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve."
The Qur'an gives credence to the Christian claim of Jews scheming against Jesus, " ... but God also schemed, and God is the best of schemers."(Qur'an ) In the Muslim view, the crucifixion of Jesus
was an illusion, and thus the Jewish plots against him ended in failure. According to Gerber, in numerous verses the Qur'an accuses Jews of altering the Scripture
.
But the Qur'an differentiates between "good and bad" Jews, adding to the idea that the Jewish people or their religion itself are not the target of the story-telling process. The criticisms deal mainly "with the sinners among the Jews and the attack on them is shaped according to models that one encounters in the New Testament."
The Qur'an also speaks favorably of Jews. Though it also criticizes them for not being grateful of God's blessing on them, the harsh criticisms, are only addressed towards a particular group of Jews, as it is clear from the context of the Qur'anic verses, but the translations usually confuse this by using the general term "Jews". To judge Jews based on the deeds of some of their ancestors is an anti-Qur'anic idea.
Ali S. Asani
suggests that the Qur'an endorses the establishment of religiously and culturally plural societies and this endorsement has affected the treatment of religious minorities in Muslim lands throughout history. He cites the endorsement of pluralism to explain why violent forms of anti-Semitism generated in medieval and modern Europe, culminating in the Holocaust, never occurred in regions under Muslim rule.
Some verses of the Qur'an, notably , preach tolerance towards members of the Jewish faith. According to Kramer, Jews are regarded as members of a legitimate community of believers in God, "people of the Book
", and therefore legally
entitled to sufferance.
argues that for Muslims to arrive at the concept of the "eternal Jew", there must be more at work than the Islamic tradition. Islamic tradition does, however, provide the sources for islamic antisemitism. The fact that many Islamic thinkers have spent time in the West has resulted in the absorption of antisemitism, he says. Modern texts further distort the Qur'an by quoting it besides texts such as the Protocols of Zion. Thus, Kramer concludes that there is no doubt modern Muslims effectively make use of the Qur'an, using Islamic tradition as a source on which antisemitism today feeds, but it is also a selective and distorting use.
, especially in and around Medina
. Muhammad is also known to have Jewish friends, and had a Jewish wife (Safiyya). According to Poliakov, "the degree to which Muhammad shows his respect for each religion [Jews and Christians] is remarkable".
The Jews reportedly refused Muhammad
's offer for them to convert and accept him as the Prophet. According to Koppel Pinson and Samuel Rosenblatt, although the Jews initially swore friendship and peace with Muhammad, they later taunted and mocked him, charging him with ignorance.
According to Pinson, Rosenblatt and F.E. Peters, they also began to connive with Muhammad's enemies in Mecca to overthrow him (despite having signed a peace treaty). According to F.E. Peters, they also began to secretly to conspire with Muhammad's enemies in Mecca
to overthrow him (despite having been forced by their conquerors to sign a peace treaty.) After each major battle, Muhammad accused one of the Jewish tribes of treachery and attacked it. Two Jewish tribes were expelled and the last one, the Banu Qurayza
, was wiped out after it threw itself on Muhammad's mercy.
Samuel Rosenblatt states that these incidents were not part of policies directed exclusively against Jews, and Muhammad was more severe with his pagan Arab kinsmen than foreigner monotheists. In addition Muhammad's conflict with Jews was considered of rather minor importance. According to Lewis, since the clash of Judaism and Islam was resolved and ended during Muhammad's lifetime with Muslim victory, no Muslim equivalent of the still unresolved theological dispute between Church and Israel fueled antisemitism. There is also a difference between Jewish denial of Christian and Muslim messages, since Muhammad never claimed to be a Messiah or Son of God. It is significant that the death of Muhammad was not caused by Jews.
The attitude towards Jews changed in the course of Muhammad's career, as expressed in more positive teachings in the earlier Qur'anic surahs, from the Mecca period, to increasingly hostile and negative ones, characterizing Jews as such, in Medina as the Jewish tribes there refused to submit completely to Muhammad's authority and claims. This distinction of periods is crucial to assess the weight of Qur'anic passages.
Muhammad's disputes with his neighboring Jewish tribes left no marked traces on his immediate successors (known as Caliphs). The first Caliphs based their treatment upon the Qur'anic verses encouraging tolerance.
Classical commentators viewed Muhammad's struggle with Jews as a minor episode in his career, but this has changed in modern times due to external influences. Poliakov opines that Muhammad's actions and teachings gave rise to an open and more conciliatory society, where the Muslims were compelled to protect the lives and religion of the Jews.
(recordings of deeds and sayings attributed to Muhammad) use both the terms Banu Israil and Yahud in relation to Jews, the latter term becoming ever more frequent and appearing mostly in negative context. According to Norman Stillman
:
He said:
This hadith has been quoted countless times, and it has become a part of the charter of Hamas
.
According to Schweitzer and Perry, the hadith are "even more scathing (than the Qur'an) in attacking the Jews":
It is important to note though, that many hadith have unverifiable sources - Reza Aslan
, a noted Islamic scholar and commentator, claims that more than 700,000 hadith of dubious origin had emerged by the end of the 10th Century. Many hadith may also reflect the culture and perception of societies at the time.
! we cannot endure one kind of food (always); so beseech thy Lord for us to produce for us of what the earth groweth, -its pot-herbs, and cucumbers, Itsgarlic
, lentil
s, and onion
s." He said: "Will ye exchange the better for the worse? Go ye down to any town, and ye shall find what ye want!" They were covered with humiliation and misery; they drew on themselves the wrath of Allah. This because they went on rejecting the Signs of Allah and slaying His Messengers without just cause. This because they rebelled and went on transgressing."
Two verses later we read: "And remember, Children of Israel
, when We made a covenant with you and raised Mount Sinai
before you saying, "Hold tightly to what We have revealed to you and keep it in mind so that you may guard against evil." But then you turned away, and if it had not been for Allah
's grace and merecy, you surely would have been among the lost. And you know those among who sinned on the Sabbath
. We said to them, "You will be transformed into despised apes." So we used them as a warning to their people and to the following generations, as well as a lesson for the Allah-fearing."(Qur'an ) The accusation that Jews will ultimately be transformed into apes and pigs is traditionally understood literally and is derived from such Qur'anic and other early Muslim sources.
The Qur'an associates Jews above all with rejection of God's prophets including Jesus and Muhammad, thus explaining their resistance to him personally. (Cf. Surah 2:87–91; 5:59, 61, 70, and 82.) It states that they are, together with outright idolators, the worst and most inveterate enemies of Islam, and thus will not only suffer eternally in Hell but in this world will be the most degraded of the Peoples of the Book, below even Christians, everywhere. (Cf. Surah 5:82; 3:54–56.) It also asserts that Jews believe that they are the sole children of God (Surah 5:18), and that only they will achieve salvation (Surah 2:111). According to the Qur'an, Jews blasphemously claim that Ezra
is the son of God, as Christians claim Jesus is, (Surah 9:30) and that God's hand is fettered (Surah 5:64 – i.e., that they can freely defy God). Some of those who are Jews, "pervert words from their meanings", (Surah 4:44), and because they have committed wrongdoing, God has "forbidden some good things that were previously permitted them", thus explaining Jewish commandments regarding food, Sabbath restrictions on work, and other rulings as a punishment from God (Surah 4:160). They listen for the sake of mendacity (Surah 5:41), twisting the truth, and practice forbidden usury, and therefore they will receive "a painful doom" (Surah 4:161). The Qur'an gives credence to the Christian claim of Jews scheming against Jesus, "...but God also schemed, and God is the best of schemers"(Surah 3:54). In the Muslim view, the crucifixion of Jesus
was an illusion, and thus the supposed Jewish plots against him ended in complete failure. In numerous verses (Surah 3:63, 71; 4:46, 160–161; 5:41–44, 63–64, 82; 6:92) the Qur'an accuses Jews of deliberately obscuring and perverting scripture
.
, Norman Stillman
, Uri Avnery
, M. Klien and Bernard Lewis
argue that antisemitism in pre-modern Islam is rare, and did not emerge until modern times. Lewis argues that there is little sign any deep-rooted emotional hostility directed against Jews, or any other group, that can be characterized as antisemitism. There were, however, clearly negative attitudes, which were in part the "normal" feelings of a dominant group towards subject groups (which exists in virtually any society). More specifically, the contempt consisted of Muslim contempt for disbelievers.
until Ottomans learned the concept from their Greek subjects in 15th century.
Poliakov writes that various examples of medieval Muslim literature portray Judaism as an exemplary pinnacle of faith, and Israel being destined by this virtue. He quotes stories from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights
that portray Jews as pious, virtuous and devoted to God, and seem to borrow plots from midrashim. However, Poliakov writes that treatment of Jews in Muslim literature varies, and the tales are meant for pure entertainment, with no didactic aim.
After Ibn Nagraela, a Jew, attacked the Quran by alleging various contradictions in it, Ibn Hazm, a Moor, criticized him furiously. Ibn Hazm wrote that Ibn Nagraela was "filled with hatred" and "conceited in his vile soul."
According to Schweitzer and Perry, some literature during the tenth and eleventh century "made Jews out to be untrustworthy, treacherous oppressors, and exploiters of Muslims". This propaganda sometimes even resulted in outbreaks of violence against the Jews. An eleventh century Moorish poem describes Jews as "a criminal people" and blames them for causing social decay, betraying Muslims and poisoning food and water.
Martin Kramer writes that in Islamic tradition, in striking contrast with the Christian concept of the eternal Jew, the contemporary Jews were not presented as archetypes—as the embodiment of Jews in all times and places.
s, a status that was later also extended to other non-Muslims like Sikhs. As dhimmis they were to be tolerated, and entitled to the protection and resources of the Ummah, the Muslim commonwealth. In return they had to pay a tax known as the jizya
in accordance with Qur'an. Lewis and Poliakov argue that Jewish communities enjoyed toleration and limited rights as long as they accepted Muslim superiority. These rights were legally established and enforced. The restrictions on dhimmis included: payment of higher taxes; at some locations, being forced to wear clothing or some othe insignia distinguishing them from Muslims; sometimes barred from holding public office, bearing arms or riding a horse; disqualified as witnesses in litigation involving Muslims; at some locations and times, dhimmis were prevented from repairing existing or erecting new places of worship. Proselytizing on behalf of any faith but Islam was barred.
Later additions to the code included prohibitions on adopting Arab names, studying the Qur'an, selling alcoholic beverages. Abdul Aziz Said writes that the Islamic concept of dhimmi
, when applied, allowed other cultures to flourish and prevented the general rise of antisemitism.
Schweitzer and Perry give as examples of early Muslim antisemitism: 9th century "persecution and outbreaks of violence"; 10th and 11th century antisemitic propaganda that "made Jews out to be untrustworthy, treacherous oppressors, and exploiters of Muslims". This propaganda "inspired outbreaks of violence and caused many casualties in Egypt". An eleventh century Moorish poem describes Jews as "a criminal people" and alleges that "society is nearing collapse on account of Jewish wealth and domination, their exploitation and betrayal of Muslims; that Jews worship the devil, physicians poison their patients, and Jews poison food and water as required by Judaism, and so on."
Jews under the Muslim rule rarely faced martyrdom or exile, or forced conversion and they were fairly free to choose their residence and profession. Their freedom and economic condition varied from time to time and place to place. Forced conversions occurred mostly in the Maghreb, especially under the Almohads, a militant dynasty with messianic claims, as well as in Persia, where Shi'a Muslims were generally less tolerant than their Sunni counterparts. Notable examples of the cases where the choice of residence was taken away from them includes confining Jews to walled quarters (mellah
s) in Morocco beginning from the 15th century and especially since the early 19th century.
dynasty in Egypt were known to be Judeophiles
, according to Leon Poliakov. They paid regularly to support the Jewish institutions (such as the rabbinical academy of Jerusalem). A significant number of their ministers and counselors were Jews. Benjamin of Tuleda, a famous 12th century Jewish explorer, described the Caliph al Abbasi as a "great king...kind unto Israel". He further mentions Muslims and Jews being involved in common devotions, such as visiting the grave of Ezekiel
, whom both religions regard as a prophet.
, Spanish Judaism flourished for several centuries. Thus, what some refer to as the "golden age" for Jews began. During this period the Muslims (at least in Spain) tolerated other religions, including Judaism, and created a heterodox society.
Muslim relations with Jews in Spain were not always peaceful, however. The eleventh century saw Muslim pogroms against Jews in Spain; those occurred in Córdoba
in 1011 and in Granada
in 1066. In the 1066 Granada massacre
, a Muslim mob crucified the Jewish vizier
Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred about 4,000 Jews. The Muslim grievance involved was that some Jews had become wealthy, and others had advanced to positions of power.
The Almohad
dynasty, which overthrew the dynasty that ran Spain during the early Muslim era, offered Christians and Jews the choice of conversion or expulsion; in 1165, one of their rulers ordered that all Jews in the country convert on pain of death (forcing the Jewish rabbi, theologian, philosopher, and physician
Maimonides
to feign conversion to Islam before fleeing the country). In Egypt, Maimonides resumed practicing Judaism openly only to be accused of apostasy
. He was saved from death by Saladin
's chief administrator, who held that conversion under coercion is invalid.
During his wanderings, Maimonides also wrote The Yemen Epistle
, a famous letter to the Jews of Yemen
, who were then experiencing severe persecution at the hands of their Muslim rulers. In it, Maimonides describes his assessment of the treatment of the Jews at the hands of Muslims:
Mark Cohen
quotes Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, a specialist in medieval European Jewish history, who cautioned that Maimonides' condemnation of Islam should be understood "in the context of the harsh persecutions of the twelfth century and that furthermore one may say that he was insufficiently aware of the status of the Jews in Christian lands, or did not pay attention to this, when he wrote the letter." Cohen continues by quoting Ben-Sasson, who argues that Jews generally had a better legal and security situation in the Muslim countries than in Christendom
.
rose as the "greatest Muslim state in history". As long as the empire flourished, the Jews did as well, according to Schweitzer and Perry. The Ottomans were more tolerant of Jews and promoted their economic development. The Jews flourished as great merchants, financiers, government officials, traders and artisan
s.
literature attacking the Christians and occasionally also the Jews. "The negative attributes ascribed to the subject religions and their followers are usually expressed in religious and social terms, very rarely in ethnic or racial terms, though this does sometimes occur." The language of abuse is often quite strong. The conventional epithets are apes for Jews, and pigs for Christians. Lewis continues with several examples of regulations which were symbolizing the inferiority that non-Muslims living under Muslim rule had to live with, such as different formulae of greeting when addressing Jews and Christians than when addressing Muslims (both in conversations or correspondences), and forbidding Jews and Christians to choose names used by Muslims for their children by the Ottoman
times.
Schweitzer and Perry argue that there are two general views of the status of Jews under Islam, the traditional "golden age" and the revisionist "persecution and pogrom" interpretations. The former was first promulgated by Jewish historians in the 19th century as a rebuke of the Christian treatment of Jews, and taken up by Arab Muslims
after 1948 as "an Arab-Islamist weapon in what is primarily an ideological and political struggle against Israel". The revisionists argue that this idealized view ignores "a catalog of lesser-known hatred and massacres". Mark Cohen concurs with this view, arguing that the "myth of an interfaith utopia" went unchallenged until it was adopted by Arabs as a "propaganda weapon against Zionism", and that this "Arab polemical exploitation" was met with the "counter-myth" of the "neo-lachrymose conception of Jewish-Arab history", which also "cannot be maintained in the light of historical reality".
, M. Klein suggests the antisemitism could have been present in the mid-19th century.
Scholars point out European influence, including that of Nazis, and the establishment of Israel as the root causes for antisemitism. Norman Stillman
explains that increased European commercial, missionary and imperialist activities during the 19th and 20th centuries brought anti-Semitic ideas to the Muslim world. Initially these prejudices only found a reception among Arab Christians and were too foreign for any widespread acceptance among Muslims. However, with the rise of the Arab-Israeli conflict, European anti-Semitism began to gain acceptance in modern literature.
, Arab anti-Semitism in the modern world arose relatively recently, in the nineteenth century, against the backdrop of conflicting Jewish and Arab nationalism, and was imported into the Arab world primarily by nationalistically minded Christian Arabs (and only subsequently was it "Islamized").
The Damascus affair
occurred in 1840, when an Italian monk and his servant disappeared in Damascus
. Immediately following, a charge of ritual murder was brought against a large number of Jews in the city. All were found guilty. The consuls of England, France and Austria
as well as Ottoman authorities, Christians, Muslims and Jews all played a great role in this affair.
Following the Damascus affair, Pogroms spread through the Middle East and North Africa. Pogroms occurred in: Aleppo (1850, 1875), Damascus (1840, 1848, 1890), Beirut (1862, 1874), Dayr al-Qamar (1847), Jerusalem (1847), Cairo (1844, 1890, 1901–02), Mansura (1877), Alexandria (1870, 1882, 1901–07), Port Said (1903, 1908), Damanhur (1871, 1873, 1877, 1891), Istanbul (1870, 1874), Buyukdere (1864), Kuzguncuk (1866), Eyub (1868), Edirne (1872), Izmir (1872, 1874).
There was a massacre of Jews in Baghdad
in 1828. There was another massacre in Barfurush in 1867.
In 1839, in the eastern Persian city of Meshed, a mob burst into the Jewish Quarter
, burned the synagogue, and destroyed the Torah scrolls
. This is known as the Allahdad incident
. It was only by forcible conversion that a massacre was averted.
Benny Morris
writes that one symbol of Jewish degradation was the phenomenon of stone-throwing at Jews by Muslim children. Morris quotes a 19th century traveler: "I have seen a little fellow of six years old, with a troop of fat toddlers of only three and four, teaching [them] to throw stones at a Jew, and one little urchin would, with the greatest coolness, waddle up to the man and literally spit upon his Jewish gaberdine
. To all this the Jew is obliged to submit; it would be more than his life was worth to offer to strike a Mahommedan."
-inspired pogroms in Algeria
in the 1930s, and massive attacks on the Jews in Iraq
and Libya
in the 1940s (see Farhud
). Pro-Nazi Muslims slaughtered dozens of Jews in Baghdad in 1941.
American academic Bernard Lewis
and others have charged that standard antisemitic themes have become commonplace in the publications of Arab Islamic movements such as Hizbullah and Hamas
, in the pronouncements of various agencies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and even in the newspapers and other publications of Refah Partisi, the Turkish Islamic party whose head served as prime minister
in 1996-97." Lewis has also written that the language of abuse is often quite strong, arguing that the conventional epithets for Jews and Christians are apes and pigs, respectively.
, the first attempts at an Arab Nazi movement occurred in 1933, when a Jaffa
correspondent of the Cairo
newspaper Al-Ahram
applied to the German council for help. Many of the Arabs were in full support of Nazi Germany, and believed that if Hitler won the war, the Arab cause would prosper. The influence of the Nazis in the Arab world continued to grow though the 1930s. Nazi influenced political parties arose in the 1930s and 1940s, many of which played an important role in the leadership of the Arab world post-World War II. Egypt
, Syria
, and Iran
are believed to have harbored Nazi war criminals, though they have rejected the charge. Mein Kampf
has been published and, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute
(MEMRI), was 6th on the Palestinian best-seller list in 1999.
The Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
attempted to create an alliance with Nazi Germany
against the Jews.
Historians debate to what extent al-Husayni's fierce opposition to Zionism was grounded in nationalism
or antisemitism or a combination of both.
On March 31, 1933, within weeks of Hitler
's rise to power in Germany, al-Husayni sent a telegram to Berlin addressed to the German Consul-General in the British Mandate of Palestine saying Muslims in Palestine and elsewhere looked forward to spreading their ideology in the Middle East. Al-Husayni secretly met the German Consul-General near the Dead Sea
in 1933 and expressed his approval of the anti-Jewish boycott in Germany and asked him not to send any Jews to Palestine. Later that year, the Mufti's assistants approached Wolff, seeking his help in establishing an Arab National Socialist party in Palestine. Reports reaching the foreign offices in Berlin showed high levels of Arab admiration of Hitler.
Al-Husayni met the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop
on November 20, 1941 and was officially received by Adolf Hitler
on November 30, 1941 in Berlin. He asked Hitler for a public declaration that "recognized and sympathized with the Arab struggles for independence and liberation, and that it would support the elimination of a national Jewish homeland", and he submitted to the German government a draft of such a declaration, containing the clause.
Husayni aided the Axis cause in the Middle East by issuing a fatwa for a holy war against Britain in May 1941. The Mufti's widely heralded proclamation against Britain was declared in Iraq, where he was instrumental in the anti-British Iraqi revolt of 1941. During the war, the Mufti repeatedly made requests to "the German government to bomb Tel Aviv."
Al-Husayni was involved in the organization and recruitment of Bosnian
Muslims into several divisions of the Waffen SS and other units. and also blessed sabotage teams trained by Germans before they were dispatched to Palestine
, Iraq
, and Transjordan
.
In March 1940, General Rashid Ali, a nationalist Iraqi officer forced the pro-British Iraqi Prime Minister
Nuri Said Pasha, to resign. In May, he declared jihad
against Great Britain. Forty days later, British troops occupied the country. The 1941 Iraqi coup d'état occurred on April 3, 1941 when the regime of the Regent 'Abd al-Ilah
was overthrown, and Rashid Ali was installed as Prime Minister.
In 1941, following Rashid Ali's pro-Axis
coup, riots known as the Farhud
broke out in Baghdad
in which approximately 180 Jews were killed and about 240 were wounded, 586 Jewish-owned businesses were looted and 99 Jewish houses were destroyed.
Iraq initially forbade the emigration of its Jews after the 1948 war on the grounds that allowing them to go to Israel would strengthen that state, but they were allowed to emigrate again after 1950, if they agreed to forgo their assets.
In Iran
, Reza Shah
sympathized with Nazi Germany, making the Jewish community fearful of possible persecutions. Although these fears did not materialise, anti-Jewish articles were published in the Iranian media. A rumor that Hitler converted to Islam led to a marriage between the Shia clergy and the nascent, ultra-nationalist secularized prejudices in Iran.
In Egypt
, Ahmad Husayn founded the Young Egypt Party in 1934. He immediately expressed his sympathy for Nazi Germany
to the German ambassador to Egypt. Husayn sent a delegation to the Nuremberg rally
and returned with enthusiasm. After the Sudeten Crisis, the party leaders denounced Germany for aggression against small nations, but nonetheless retained elements similar to Nazism or Fascism, e.g. salutes, torchlight parades, leader worship, and antisemitism and racism. The party's impact before 1939 was minimal, and their espionage efforts were of little value to the Germans.
During World War II, Cairo
was a haven for agents and spies throughout the war. Egyptian nationalists were active, with many Egyptians, including Farouk of Egypt
and prime minister Ali Mahir Pasha
, all of whom hoped for an Axis victory, and full independence of Egypt from Britain.
Lashkar-e-Toiba
's propaganda arm has declared the Jews to be "Enemies of Islam", and Israel to be the "Enemy of Pakistan".
Hamas has been widely described as antisemitic. It has issued antisemitic leaflets, and its writings and manifestos rely upon antisemitic documents (the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and other European Christian literature), exhibiting antisemitic themes. In 1998, Esther Webman of the Project for the Study of Anti-Semitism at the Tel Aviv University
wrote that although the above is true, anti-Semitism was not the main tenet of Hamas ideology.
In an editorial in The Guardian
in January 2006, Khaled Meshaal, the chief of Hamas's political bureau denied antisemitism, on Hamas' part, and said that the nature of Israeli-Palestinian conflict
was not religious but political. He also said that Hamas has "no problem with Jews who have not attacked us."
Amal Saad-Ghorayeb
, a Shiite scholar and assistant professor at the Lebanese American University
has written that Hezbollah is not Anti-Zionist, but rather Anti-Jewish. She quoted Hassan Nasrallah
as saying: "If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli." Regarding the official public stance of Hezbollah as a whole, she said that while Hezbollah, "tries to mask its anti-Judaism for public-relations reasons ... a study of its language, spoken and written, reveals an underlying truth." In her book, Hezbollah: Politics & Religion, she explored the anti-Jewish roots of Hezbollah ideology, arguing that Hezbollah "believes that Jews, by the nature of Judaism, possess fatal character flaws." Saad-Ghorayeb also said that "Hezbollah's Quranic reading of Jewish history has led its leaders to believe that Jewish theology is evil."
On July 28, 2006, at around 4:00 p.m. Pacific time
, the Seattle Jewish Federation shooting occurred when Naveed Afzal Haq
shot six women, one fatally, at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle building in the Belltown
neighborhood of Seattle, Washington
, United States. He shouted, "I'm a Muslim American; I'm angry at Israel" before he began his shooting spree. Police have classified the shooting as a hate crime
based on what Haq said during a 9-1-1
call.
In Egypt
, Dar al-Fadhilah published a translation of Henry Ford
's antisemitic treatise, The International Jew
, complete with distinctly antisemitic imagery on the cover.
In a sermon, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on January 9, 2009 (as translated by MEMRI), Egyptian Muslim scholar and preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi
stated:
In a subsequent speech on Al-Jazeera on January 30, 2009, al-Qaradawi expressed his views on Adolf Hitler
and the Holocaust, stating (as translated by MEMRI):
In a speech delivered by Egyptian Salafi islamic scholar Muhammad Hussein Yacoub
which aired on Al-Rahma TV on January 17, 2009, he stated (as translated by MEMRI):
Palestinian preacher Ibrahim Mahdi said in a sermon:
On another occasion, Sheikh
Madhi added:
Sami Al-Arian
, a leading Muslim speaker in the U.S. until his arrest and conviction for funding an Islamist terrorist organization, on September 29, 1991, said in a speech at a Chicago conference that "God cursed those who are the sons of Israel", and that Allah
had made Jews "monkeys and swine", and damned them in this world and the afterworld.
Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais
is the leading imam
of the Grand mosque
located in the Islamic holy city of Mecca
, Saudi Arabia
. The BBC
aired a Panorama
episode, entitled A Question of Leadership, which reported that al-Sudais referred to Jews as "the scum of the human race" and "offspring of apes and pigs", and stated, "the worst ... of the enemies of Islam are those ... whom he ... made monkeys and pigs, the aggressive Jews and oppressive Zionists and those that follow them ... Monkeys and pigs and worshippers of false Gods who are the Jews and the Zionists."
In another sermon, on April 19, 2002, he declared:
According to Dr. Leah Kinberg, "Saudi Sheikh Ba'd bin Abdallah Al-Ajameh Al-Ghamidi, in a sermon in Taif, explained":
He also said Jews are "the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs." Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy
, Grand Imam
of Al-Azhar Mosque
and Grand Sheikh
of Al-Azhar University
, and "perhaps the foremost Sunni Arab authority", has been criticized for remarks made in April 2002, described Jews in his weekly sermon as "the enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs."
Mahathir bin Mohamad
, who served as Prime Minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003, has made a number of public remarks about Jews.
In 1970, he wrote in his controversial book The Malay Dilemma
: "The Jews for example are not merely hook-nosed, but understand money instinctively."
In a statement made prior to hosting an international meeting of Muslim countries on terrorism, Mahathir said of terrorism:
Mahathir address at a United Nations symposium on Islam at UN University in Tokyo:
On 16 October 2003, shortly before he stepped down as prime minister, Mahathir Muhammad said during a summit for the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Putrajaya
, that:
A May 2006 study of Saudi Arabia
's revised schoolbook curriculum discovered that the eighth grade books included the following statements,
On May 5, 2001, after Shimon Peres
visited Egypt
, the Egyptian al-Akhbar internet paper stated that: "lies and deceit are not foreign to Jews.... For this reason, Allah changed their shape and made them into monkeys and pigs."
Author Erel Shalit has written that Jews must listen to statements made about them from the Arab world, regardless of whether they are positive or negative. He cited the following example:
has been outspoken against Anti-Semitism, stating: "In the name of their faith and conscience, Muslims must take a clear position so that a pernicious atmosphere does not take hold in the Western countries. Nothing in Islam can legitimize xenophobia or the rejection of a human being due to his/her religious creed or ethnicity. One must say unequivocally, with force, that anti-Semitism is unacceptable and indefensible." Mohammad Khatami
, former president of Iran, declared antisemitism to be a "Western phenomena", having no precedents in Islam and stating the Muslims and Jews had lived harmoniously in the past. An Iranian newspaper stated that has been hatred and hostility in history, but conceded that one must distinguish Jews from Zionists.
In North America, the Council on American-Islamic Relations
has spoken against some antisemitic violence, such as the 2006 Seattle Jewish Federation shooting. According to the Anti-Defamation League
, CAIR has also been affiliated with antisemitic organizations such as Hamas
and Hizbollah.
The Saudi mufti, Shaykh Abd al-Aziz Bin Baz, gave a fatwa ruling that negotiating peace with Israel is permissible, as is the cist to Jerusalem by Muslims. He specifically said:
Martin Kramer considers that as "an explicit endorsement of normal relations with Jews".
, Antisemitism in Muslim world increased greatly for more than two decades following 1948 but "peaked by the 1970s, and declined somewhat as the slow process of rapprochement between the Arab world and the state of Israel evolved in the 1980s and 1990s." Johannes J. G. Jansen believes that antisemitism will have no future in the Arab world in the long run. In his view, like other imports from the Western World
, antisemitism is unable to establish itself in the private lives of Muslims. In 2004 Khaleel Mohammed
said that "Anti-Semitism has become an entrenched tenet of Muslim theology, taught to 95 per cent of the religion's adherents in the Islamic world", a claim immediately dismissed as false and racist by Muslim leaders, who accused Mohammed of destroying efforts at relationship building between Jews and Muslims.
According to the Pew Global Attitudes Project released on August 14, 2005, high percentages of the populations of six Muslim-majority countries have negative views of Jews. To a questionnaire asking respondents to give their views of members of various religions along a spectrum from "very favorable" to "very unfavorable", 60% of Turks
, 74% of Pakistanis, 76% of Indonesia
ns, 88% of Moroccans
, 99% of Lebanese
Muslims and 100% of Jordan
ians checked either "somewhat unfavorable" or "very unfavorable" for Jews.
In the Netherlands
anti-semitic incidents, from verbal abuse to violence, are reported, allegedly connected with islamic youth, mostly boys from Moroccan
descent. According to the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel, a pro-Israel lobby group in the Netherlands, in 2009, the number of anti-Semite incidents in Amsterdam
, the city that is home to most of the approximately 40,000 Dutch Jews
, was said to be doubled compared to 2008.
anti-semitic incidents, from verbal abuse to violence, are reported, allegedly connected with islamic youth, mostly boys from Moroccan
descent. According to the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel, a pro-Israel lobby group in the Netherlands, in 2009, the number of anti-Semite incidents in Amsterdam
, the city that is home to most of the approximately 40,000 Dutch Jews
, was said to be doubled compared to 2008. In 2010, Raphaël Evers, an orthodox
rabbi in Amsterdam
, told the Norwegian
newspaper Aftenposten
that jews
can no longer be safe in the city anymore due to the risk of violent assaults. "Jews no longer feel at home in the city. Many are considering aliyah
to Israel
."
in 2009. This was a 100% increase from the year before. The perpetrators were usually young males of immigrant background from the Middle East
. In 2009, the Belgian
city of Antwerp, often referred to as Europe's
last shtetl
, experienced a surge in antisemitic violence. Bloeme Evers-Emden
, an Amsterdam resident and Auschwitz survivor, was quoted in the newspaper Aftenposten
in 2010: "The antisemitism now is even worse than before the Holocaust
. The antisemitism has become more violent. Now they are threatening to kill us."
was tortured to death by the so-called "Barbarians gang", led by Youssouf Fofana. In 2007, over 7,000 members of the community petitioned for asylum in the United States, citing antisemitism in France.
Between 2001 and 2005, an estimated 12,000 French Jews took Aliyah
to Israel. Several émigrés cited anti-semitism and the growing Arab population as reasons for leaving. At a welcoming ceremony for French Jews in the summer of 2004, then Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon
caused controversy when he advised all French Jews to "move immediately" to Israel and escape what he coined "the wildest anti-semitism" in France.
In the first half of 2009, an estimated 631 recorded acts of antisemitism took place in France, more than the whole of 2008. Speaking to the World Jewish Congress
in December 2009, the French Interior Minister Hortefeux described the acts of antisemitism as "a poison to our republic." He also announced that he would appoint a special coordinator for fighting racism and anti-Semitism.
Rises in antisemitism in modern France have been linked to the intensifying Israeli–Palestinian conflict
. Since the Gaza War in 2009, decreases in antisemitism have been reversed. A report compiled by the Coordination Forum for Countering Anti-Semitism singled out France in particular amongst Western countries for antisemitism. Between the start of the Israeli offensive in Gaza in late December and the end of it in January, an estimated hundred antisemitic acts were recorded in France. This compares with a total of 250 antisemitic acts in the whole of 2007.
and Austria
, Sweden has the highest rate of antisemitic incidents in Europe. A government study in 2006 estimated that 39% of the Muslim population, harbor strong and consistent antisemitic views. Former Prime Minister Göran Persson
described these results as "surprising and terrifying". However, the Rabbi of Stockholm's Orthodox Jewish community, Meir Horden claimed that "It's not true to say that the Swedes are anti-Semitic. Some of them are hostile to Israel because they support the weak side, which they perceive the Palestinians to be."
In March 2010, Fredrik Sieradzk told Die Presse, an Austrian Internet publication, that Jews are being "harassed and physically attacked" by "people from the Middle East," although he added that only a small number of Malmo's 40,000 Muslims "exhibit hatred of Jews." Sieradzk also stated that approximately 30 Jewish families have emigrated from Malmo to Israel in the past year, specifically to escape from harassment. Also in March, the Swedish newspaper Skånska Dagbladet reported that attacks on Jews in Malmo totaled 79 in 2009, about twice as many as the previous year, according to police statistics.
In early 2010, the Swedish publication The Local published series of articles about the growing anti-Semitism in Malmö, Sweden. In an interview in January 2010, Fredrik Sieradzki of the Jewish Community of Malmö stated that “Threats against Jews have increased steadily in Malmö in recent years and many young Jewish families are choosing to leave the city. Many feel that the community and local politicians have shown a lack of understanding for how the city’s Jewish residents have been marginalized.” He also added that "right now many Jews in Malmö are really concerned about the situation here and don’t believe they have a future here.” The Local also reported that Jewish cemeteries and synagogues have repeatedly been defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti, and a chapel at another Jewish burial site in Malmö was firebombed in 2009. In 2009 the Malmö police received reports of 79 anti-Semitic incidents, double the number of the previous year (2008). Fredrik Sieradzki, spokesman for the Malmo Jewish community, estimated that the already small Jewish population is shrinking by 5% a year. “Malmo is a place to move away from,” he said, citing anti-Semitism as the primary reason.
In October 2010, The Forward reported on the current state of Jews and the level of Anti-semitism in Sweden. Henrik Bachner, a writer and professor of history at the University of Lund, claimed that members of the Swedish Parliament have attended anti-Israel rallies where the Israeli flag was burned while the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah were waved, and the rhetoric was often anti-Semitic—not just anti-Israel. But such public rhetoric is not branded hateful and denounced. Charles Small, director of the Yale University Initiative for the Study of Anti-Semitism, stated that “Sweden is a microcosm of contemporary anti-Semitism. It’s a form of acquiescence to radical Islam, which is diametrically opposed to everything Sweden stands for.” Per Gudmundson, chief editorial writer for Svenska Dagbladet, has sharply criticized politicians who him claims offer “weak excuses” for Muslims accused of anti-Semitic crimes. “Politicians say these kids are poor and oppressed, and we have made them hate. They are, in effect, saying the behavior of these kids is in some way our fault.” Judith Popinski, and 86-year-old Holocaust survivor, stated that she is no longer invited to schools that have a large Muslim presence to tell her story of surviving the Holocaust. Popinski, who found refuge in Malmo in 1945, stated that, until recently, she told her story in Malmo schools as part of their Holocaust studies program, but that now, many schools no longer ask Holocaust survivors to tell their stories, because Muslim students treat them with such disrespect, either ignoring the speakers or walking out of the class. She further stated that "Malmo reminds me of the anti-Semitism I felt as a child in Poland before the war. “I am not safe as a Jew in Sweden anymore.”
In December
2010, the Jewish
human rights
organization Simon Wiesenthal Center
issued a travel advisory concerning Sweden
, advising Jews to express "extreme caution" when visiting the southern parts of the country due to an increase in verbal and physical harassment of Jewish citizens by muslims in the city of Malmö
.
was common among Norwegian muslim
s. Teachers at schools with large shares of muslim
s revealed that muslim students often "praise or admire Adolf Hitler
for his killing of Jews", that "Jew-hate is legitimate within vast groups of muslim students" and that "muslims laugh or command [teachers] to stop when trying to educate about the Holocaust". Additionally that "while some students might protest when some express support for terrorism
, none object when students express hate of Jews" and that it says in "the Quran that you shall kill Jews, all true muslims hate Jews". Most of these students were said to be born and raised in Norway. One Jewish father also told that his child after school had been taken by a muslim mob (though managed to escape), reportedly "to be taken out to the forest and hung
because he was a Jew".
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic theologicial teaching against Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
and Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
and the treatment of Jews in Muslim countries.
With the origin of Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
in the 7th century AD and its rapid spread in the Arabian peninsula
Arabian Peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula is a land mass situated north-east of Africa. Also known as Arabia or the Arabian subcontinent, it is the world's largest peninsula and covers 3,237,500 km2...
and beyond, Jews (and many other peoples) came to be subject to the rule of Muslim rulers. The quality of the rule varied considerably in different periods, as did the attitudes of the rulers, government officials, clergy and general population to various subject peoples from time to time, which was reflected in their treatment of these subjects. Reuven Firestone notes that "negative assessments and even condemnation of prior religions and their adherents occur in all three scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam." This article looks at the Muslim attitude to, and treatment of, Jews in Islamic thought and societies throughout history, and explores the ramifications of these attitudes in the contemporary world.
Range of opinion
- Claude CahenClaude CahenClaude Cahen was a French Marxist orientalist and historian. He specialized in the studies of the Islamic Middle Ages, Muslim sources about the Crusades, and social history of the medieval Islamic society ....
and Shelomo Dov GoiteinShelomo Dov GoiteinShelomo Dov Goitein was a German-Jewish ethnographer, historian and Arabist known for his research on Jewish life in the Islamic Middle Ages.-Biography:...
argue against historic antisemitism in Muslim lands, writing that discriminationDiscriminationDiscrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
practiced against non-Muslims was of general nature, and not targeted specifically at Jews. For these scholars, antisemitism in Medieval IslamIslamic Golden AgeDuring the Islamic Golden Age philosophers, scientists and engineers of the Islamic world contributed enormously to technology and culture, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding their own inventions and innovations...
was local and sporadic rather than general and endemic. For Goitein antisemitism was not present at all, and for Cahen it was rarely present.
- Bernard LewisBernard LewisBernard Lewis, FBA is a British-American historian, scholar in Oriental studies, and political commentator. He is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University...
writes that while Muslims have held negative stereotypes regarding Jews, throughout most of Islamic history these stereotypes were not indicative of antisemitism because, unlike Christians, Muslims viewed Jews as objects of ridicule, not fear. He argues that Muslims did not attribute "cosmic evil" to Jews. In Lewis' view, it was only in the late nineteenth century that movements first appeared among Muslims that can legitimately be described as antisemitic.
- Frederick M. Schweitzer and Marvin Perry state that there are mostly negative references to Jews in the Qur'anQur'anThe Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
and HadithHadithThe term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
, and that Islamic regimes treated Jews in degrading ways. Jews (and Christians) had the status of dhimmis. They state that throughout much of history Christians treated Jews worse, saying that Jews in Christian lands were subjected to worse polemics, persecutions and massacres than under Muslim rule.
- According to Walter LaqueurWalter LaqueurWalter Zeev Laqueur is an American historian and political commentator. He was born in Breslau, Germany , to a Jewish family. In 1938, Laqueur left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents, who were unable to leave, became victims of the Holocaust...
, the varying interpretations of the Qur'an are important for understanding Muslim attitudes. Many Quranic verses preach tolerance towards the Jews; others make hostile remarks about them (which are similar to hostile remarks made against those who didn't accept Islam). Muhammad interacted with Jews living in Arabia: he preached to them in hopes of conversion, he fought against and killed many Jews, while he made friends with other Jews.
- For Martin KramerMartin KramerMartin Seth Kramer is an American scholar of the Middle East at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Shalem Center. His focus is on Islam and Arab politics.-Education:...
, the idea that contemporary antisemitism by Muslims is authentically Islamic "touches on some truths, yet it misses many others". Kramer believes that contemporary antisemitism is due only partially to Israeli policies, about which Muslims may have a deep sense of injustice and loss. But Kramer attributes the primary causes of Muslim antisemitism to modern European ideologies, which have infected the Muslim world.
The Qur'an on Jews in its historical setting
The Qur'anQur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
makes forty-three specific references to "Bani Isrāīl" (meaning the Children of Israel). The Arabic term yahud, denoting Jews, and "yahudi" occur eleven times and the verbal form hāda (meaning "to be a Jew/Jewish") occurs ten times. According to Khalid Durán, the negative passages use Yahūd, while the positive references speak mainly of the Banī Isrā’īl. Jews are not mentioned at all in verses dating from the Meccan period
Muhammad before Medina
The Islamic prophet Muhammad was born and lived in Mecca for the first 52 years of his life . Orphaned early in life, he became known as a prominent merchant, and as an impartial and trustworthy arbiter of disputes. He married Khadijah bint Khuwaylid at age 25.According to the Muslim tradition,...
. According to Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis, FBA is a British-American historian, scholar in Oriental studies, and political commentator. He is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University...
, the coverage given to Jews is relatively insignificant.
The references in the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
to Jews are interpreted in different ways. According to Frederick M. Schweitzer and Marvin Perry, these references are "mostly negative" According to Tahir Abbas the general references to Jews are favorable, with only those addressed to particular groups of Jews containing harsh criticisms.
According to Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis, FBA is a British-American historian, scholar in Oriental studies, and political commentator. He is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University...
and other scholars, the earliest verses of the Qur'an were largely sympathetic to Jews. Mohammed admired them as monotheists and saw them as natural adherents to the new faith and Jewish practices helped model early Islamic behavior, such as midday prayer, prayers on Friday, Ramadan
Ramadan
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which lasts 29 or 30 days. It is the Islamic month of fasting, in which participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex during daylight hours and is intended to teach Muslims about patience, spirituality, humility and...
fasting (modelled after the Jewish Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur , also known as Day of Atonement, is the holiest and most solemn day of the year for the Jews. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Jews traditionally observe this holy day with a 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue...
fast on the tenth of the month of Tishrei
Tishrei
Tishrei or Tishri , Tiberian: ; from Akkadian "Beginning", from "To begin") is the first month of the civil year and the seventh month of the ecclesiastical year in the Hebrew calendar. The name of the month is Babylonian. It is an autumn month of 30 days...
), and most famously the fact that until 623 Muslims prayed toward Jerusalem
Qibla
The Qiblah , also transliterated as Qibla, Kiblah or Kibla, is the direction that should be faced when a Muslim prays during salah...
, not Mecca. After his flight (al-hijra
Hijra (Islam)
The Hijra is the migration or journey of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE. Alternate spellings of this Arabic word are Hijrah, Hijrat or Hegira, the latter following the spelling rules of Latin.- Hijra of Muhammad :In September 622, warned of a plot to...
) from Mecca, where religious intolerance reigned, in 622 Mohammad with his followers settled in Yathrib
Medina
Medina , or ; also transliterated as Madinah, or madinat al-nabi "the city of the prophet") is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province. It is the second holiest city in Islam, and the burial place of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and...
, subsequently renamed Medina al-Nabi (‘City of the Prophet’) where he managed to draw up a ‘social contract’, widely referred to as the 'Constitution of Medina'. This contract, known as the Leaf (ṣaḥīfa) upheld the peaceful coexistence between Muslims, Jews and Christians, defining them all, under given conditions, as constituting the umma
Umma
Umma was an ancient city in Sumer. Note that there is some scholarly debateabout the Sumerian and Akkadian names for this site.-History:...
, or community of that city, and granting the latter freedom of religious thought and practice. Yathrib/Medina was not homogeneous. Alongside the 200 odd emigrants from Mecca (the Muhājirūn), who had followed Mohammad, its population consisted of the Faithful of Medina (Anṣār, ‘the helpers’), Arab pagans, three Jewish tribes and some Christians. The foundational 'constitution' sought to establish, for the first time in history according to Ali Khan, a formal agreement guaranteeing interfaith conviviality, albeit ringed with articles emphasizing strategic cooperation in the defense of the city.
In paragraph 16 of this document, it states that:'Those Jews who follow us are entitled to our aid and support so long as they shall not have wronged us or lent assistance (to any enemies) against us'.
Paragraph 37 has it that 'To the Jews their own expenses and to the Muslims theirs. They shall help one another in the event of any attack on the people covered by this document. There shall be sincere friendship, exchange of good counsel, fair conduct and no treachery between them.'. The three local Jewish tribes were the Banu Nadir
Banu Nadir
The Banu Nadir were a Jewish tribe who lived in northern Arabia until the 7th century at the oasis of Yathrib . The tribe challenged Muhammad as the leader of Medina. and planned along with allied nomads to attack Muhammad and were expelled from Medina as a result. The Banu Nadir then planned the...
, the Banu Qurayza
Banu Qurayza
The Banu Qurayza were a Jewish tribe which lived in northern Arabia, at the oasis of Yathrib , until the 7th century, when their conflict with Muhammad led to their demise, after the Invasion of Banu Qurayza, took place in the Dhul Qa‘dah, 5 A.H i.e. in February/March, 627 AD...
, and the Banu Qaynuqa
Banu Qaynuqa
The Banu Qaynuqa was one of the three main Jewish tribes living in the 7th century of Medina, now in Saudi Arabia...
. While Mohammad clearly had no prejudice against them, and appears to have regarded his own message as substantially the same as that received by Jews on Sinai, tribal politics, and Mohammad's deep frustration at Jewish refusals to accept his prophethood, quickly led to a break with all three. unfortunate linguistic misunderstandings may also have given the impression, evidenced in the Qur'an, that the Jewish community was publicly humiliating Mohammad. One clan was evicted from Medina in 624. In 625, the Banu Nadir Jewish tribe was evicted from Medina
Medina
Medina , or ; also transliterated as Madinah, or madinat al-nabi "the city of the prophet") is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province. It is the second holiest city in Islam, and the burial place of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and...
. Lastly, in the Mecca siege of Medina in 627, the last major Jewish tribe initially helped the Muslims in fortifying the back portions of Medina
Medina
Medina , or ; also transliterated as Madinah, or madinat al-nabi "the city of the prophet") is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province. It is the second holiest city in Islam, and the burial place of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and...
, but due to their later exposed treachery in trying to assist the pagan Meccan army, the Muslims laid siege to this last group of Jews. Since the Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
prescribes the death penalty for treachery, the adult males of this last Jewish tribe were killed, and the women and children were taken into slavery (but later freed). The direction of prayer was shifted towards Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
from Jerusalem and the most negative verses about Jews were set down after this time.
According to Laqueur, conflicting statements about Jews in the Qur'an have affected Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
attitudes towards Jews to this day, especially during periods of rising Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism is a term used to describe religious ideologies seen as advocating a return to the "fundamentals" of Islam: the Quran and the Sunnah. Definitions of the term vary. According to Christine L...
.
Judaism in theology
According to Bernard LewisBernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis, FBA is a British-American historian, scholar in Oriental studies, and political commentator. He is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University...
, there is nothing in Muslim theology (with a single exception) that can be considered refutations of Judaism or ferocious anti-Jewish diatribes. Lewis and Chanes suggest that, for a variety of reasons, Muslims were not antisemitic for the most part. The Qur'an, like Judaism, orders Muslims to profess strict monotheism. It also rejects the stories of Jewish deicide
Jewish deicide
Jewish deicide is a belief that places the responsibility for the death of Jesus on the Jewish people as a whole.This deicide accusation is expressed in the ethnoreligious slur "Christ-killer." As a part of Second Vatican Council , the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Paul VI issued a declaration...
as a blasphemous absurdity, and other similar stories in the Gospels play no part in the Muslim educational system The Qur'an does not present itself as a fulfillment of the Hebrew Bible but rather a restoration of its original message - thus, no clash of interpretations between Judaism and Islam can arise.
In addition Lewis argues that the Qur'an lacks popular western traditions of 'guilt and betrayal'. Rosenblatt and Pinson suggest that the Qur'an teaches toleration of Judaism as a fellow monotheistic faith.
Lewis adds, negative attributes ascribed to subject religions (in this case Judaism and Christianity) are usually expressed in religious and social terms, but only very rarely in ethnic or racial terms. However, this does sometimes occur. The language of abuse is often quite strong. It has been argued that the conventional Muslim epithets for Jews, apes, and Christians, pigs derive from Qu'ranic usage. Lewis adduces three passages in the Qu’ran used to ground this view. The interpretation of these 'enigmatic' passages in Islamic exegetics is highly complex, dealing as they do with infractions like breaking the Sabbath,. According to Goitein, the idea of Jewish Sabbath breakers turning into apes may reflect the influence of Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
i midrash
Midrash
The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....
im. Firestone notes that the Qurayza tribe itself is described in Muslim sources as using the trope of being turned into apes if one breaks the Sabbath to justify not exploiting the Sabbath in order to attack Mohammad, when they were under siege.
According to Stillman, the Qur'an praises Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
, and depicts the Israelites as the recipients of divine favour. The Qur'an dedicates many verses to the glorification of Hebrew prophets, says Leon Poliakov. He quotes verse as an example,
We gave him Isaac and Jacob: all (three) guided: and before him, We guided Noah, and among his progeny, David, Solomon, Job, Joseph, Moses, and Aaron: thus do We reward those who do good: And Zakariya and John, and Jesus and Elias: all in the ranks of the righteous: And Isma'il and Elisha, and Jonas, and Lot: and to all We gave favour above the nations.
(Note the 'We' refers to a royal plural meaning I. Similar to How the British royalty spoke to crowds.)
Remarks on Jews
Leon PoliakovLeon Poliakov
Léon Poliakov was a French historian who wrote extensively on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism.Born into a Russian Jewish family, Poliakov lived in Italy and Germany until he settled in France....
, Walter Laqueur
Walter Laqueur
Walter Zeev Laqueur is an American historian and political commentator. He was born in Breslau, Germany , to a Jewish family. In 1938, Laqueur left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents, who were unable to leave, became victims of the Holocaust...
, and Jane Gerber
Jane Gerber
Jane S. Gerber is a professor of Jewish history and the director of the Institute for Sephardic Studies at City University of New York. She is also the author of many books, including Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience, and other books. Gerber was formerly the president of the...
, argue that passages in the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
reproach Jews for their refusal to recognize Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
as a prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
of God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
. "The Quran is engaged mainly in dealing with the sinners among the Jews and the attack on them is shaped according to models that one encounters in the New Testament." The Muslim holy text defined the Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
and Muslim attitude towards Jews to this day, especially in the periods when Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism is a term used to describe religious ideologies seen as advocating a return to the "fundamentals" of Islam: the Quran and the Sunnah. Definitions of the term vary. According to Christine L...
was on the rise.
Walter Laqueur states that the Qur'an and its interpreters has a great many conflicting things to say about the Jews. Jews are said to be treacherous and hypocritical and could never be friends with a Muslim.
Frederick M. Schweitzer and Marvin Perry state that references to Jews in the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
are mostly negative. The Qur'an states that wretchedness and baseness were stamped upon the Jews, and they were visited with wrath from Allah, that was because they disbelieved in Allah's revelations and slew the prophets wrongfully. And for their taking usury, which was prohibited for them, and because of their consuming people's wealth under false pretense, a painful punishment was prepared for them. The Qur'an requires their "abasement and poverty" in the form of the poll tax jizya
Jizya
Under Islamic law, jizya or jizyah is a per capita tax levied on a section of an Islamic state's non-Muslim citizens, who meet certain criteria...
. In his "wrath" God has "cursed" the Jews and will turn them into apes/monkeys and swine and idol worshipers because they are "infidels".
According to Martin Kramer, the Qur'an speaks of Jews in a negative way and reports instances of Jewish treachery against the Islamic prophet Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
. However, Islam didn't hold up those Jews who practiced treachery against Muhammad as archetypes nor did it portray treachery as the embodiment of Jews in all times and places. The Qur'an also attests to Muhammad's amicable relations with Jews.
While traditional religious supremacism played a role in the Islamic view of Jews, the same attitude applied to Christians and other non-Muslims. Islamic tradition regards Jews as a legitimate community of believers in God (called "people of the Book") legally
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
entitled to sufferance.
The Qur'an clears Jews from the accusation of deicide
Deicide
Deicide is the killing of a god. The term deicide was coined in the 17th century from medieval Latin *deicidium, from de-us "god" and -cidium "cutting, killing")...
, and states "they [Jews] killed him [Jesus] not". They also argue that the Jewish Bible has not been incorporated in the Islamic text, and "virtuous Muslims" are not contrasted with "stiff-necked, criminal Jews".
The standard Qur'anic reference to Jews is the verse . It says:
And abasement and poverty were pitched upon them, and they were laden with the burden of God's anger; that, because they had disbelieved the signs of God and slain the Prophets unrightfully; that, because they disobeyed, and were transgressors.
However, due to the Qur'an's timely process of story-telling, a majority of scholars agree that all references to Jews or other groups within the Qu'ran refers to only certain populations at a certain point in history and bare any racial profiling or religious profiling, it also gives some legitimacy to their religion in
"Those who believe, and the Jews, and the Sabi'un, and the Christians, who believe in God and the Last Day and do good, there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve."
The Qur'an gives credence to the Christian claim of Jews scheming against Jesus, " ... but God also schemed, and God is the best of schemers."(Qur'an ) In the Muslim view, the crucifixion of Jesus
Crucifixion of Jesus
The crucifixion of Jesus and his ensuing death is an event that occurred during the 1st century AD. Jesus, who Christians believe is the Son of God as well as the Messiah, was arrested, tried, and sentenced by Pontius Pilate to be scourged, and finally executed on a cross...
was an illusion, and thus the Jewish plots against him ended in failure. According to Gerber, in numerous verses the Qur'an accuses Jews of altering the Scripture
Tahrif
Taḥrīf is an Arabic term used by Muslims with regard to irreparable alterations Islamic tradition claims Jews and Christians have made to Biblical manuscripts, specifically those that make up the Tawrat , Zabur and Injil .Traditional Muslim scholars, based on Qur'anic and other traditions, maintain...
.
But the Qur'an differentiates between "good and bad" Jews, adding to the idea that the Jewish people or their religion itself are not the target of the story-telling process. The criticisms deal mainly "with the sinners among the Jews and the attack on them is shaped according to models that one encounters in the New Testament."
The Qur'an also speaks favorably of Jews. Though it also criticizes them for not being grateful of God's blessing on them, the harsh criticisms, are only addressed towards a particular group of Jews, as it is clear from the context of the Qur'anic verses, but the translations usually confuse this by using the general term "Jews". To judge Jews based on the deeds of some of their ancestors is an anti-Qur'anic idea.
Ali S. Asani
Ali S. Asani
Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Ali S. Asani is Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures and Associate Director of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University. After completing his high school education in Kenya, he attended Harvard College, with a...
suggests that the Qur'an endorses the establishment of religiously and culturally plural societies and this endorsement has affected the treatment of religious minorities in Muslim lands throughout history. He cites the endorsement of pluralism to explain why violent forms of anti-Semitism generated in medieval and modern Europe, culminating in the Holocaust, never occurred in regions under Muslim rule.
Some verses of the Qur'an, notably , preach tolerance towards members of the Jewish faith. According to Kramer, Jews are regarded as members of a legitimate community of believers in God, "people of the Book
People of the Book
People of the Book is a term used to designate non-Muslim adherents to faiths which have a revealed scripture called, in Arabic, Al-Kitab . The three types of adherents to faiths that the Qur'an mentions as people of the book are the Jews, Sabians and Christians.In Islam, the Muslim scripture, the...
", and therefore legally
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
entitled to sufferance.
Distortion
Martin KramerMartin Kramer
Martin Seth Kramer is an American scholar of the Middle East at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Shalem Center. His focus is on Islam and Arab politics.-Education:...
argues that for Muslims to arrive at the concept of the "eternal Jew", there must be more at work than the Islamic tradition. Islamic tradition does, however, provide the sources for islamic antisemitism. The fact that many Islamic thinkers have spent time in the West has resulted in the absorption of antisemitism, he says. Modern texts further distort the Qur'an by quoting it besides texts such as the Protocols of Zion. Thus, Kramer concludes that there is no doubt modern Muslims effectively make use of the Qur'an, using Islamic tradition as a source on which antisemitism today feeds, but it is also a selective and distorting use.
Muhammad
During Muhammad's life, Jews lived in the Arabian PeninsulaArabian Peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula is a land mass situated north-east of Africa. Also known as Arabia or the Arabian subcontinent, it is the world's largest peninsula and covers 3,237,500 km2...
, especially in and around Medina
Medina
Medina , or ; also transliterated as Madinah, or madinat al-nabi "the city of the prophet") is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province. It is the second holiest city in Islam, and the burial place of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and...
. Muhammad is also known to have Jewish friends, and had a Jewish wife (Safiyya). According to Poliakov, "the degree to which Muhammad shows his respect for each religion [Jews and Christians] is remarkable".
The Jews reportedly refused Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
's offer for them to convert and accept him as the Prophet. According to Koppel Pinson and Samuel Rosenblatt, although the Jews initially swore friendship and peace with Muhammad, they later taunted and mocked him, charging him with ignorance.
According to Pinson, Rosenblatt and F.E. Peters, they also began to connive with Muhammad's enemies in Mecca to overthrow him (despite having signed a peace treaty). According to F.E. Peters, they also began to secretly to conspire with Muhammad's enemies in Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
to overthrow him (despite having been forced by their conquerors to sign a peace treaty.) After each major battle, Muhammad accused one of the Jewish tribes of treachery and attacked it. Two Jewish tribes were expelled and the last one, the Banu Qurayza
Banu Qurayza
The Banu Qurayza were a Jewish tribe which lived in northern Arabia, at the oasis of Yathrib , until the 7th century, when their conflict with Muhammad led to their demise, after the Invasion of Banu Qurayza, took place in the Dhul Qa‘dah, 5 A.H i.e. in February/March, 627 AD...
, was wiped out after it threw itself on Muhammad's mercy.
Samuel Rosenblatt states that these incidents were not part of policies directed exclusively against Jews, and Muhammad was more severe with his pagan Arab kinsmen than foreigner monotheists. In addition Muhammad's conflict with Jews was considered of rather minor importance. According to Lewis, since the clash of Judaism and Islam was resolved and ended during Muhammad's lifetime with Muslim victory, no Muslim equivalent of the still unresolved theological dispute between Church and Israel fueled antisemitism. There is also a difference between Jewish denial of Christian and Muslim messages, since Muhammad never claimed to be a Messiah or Son of God. It is significant that the death of Muhammad was not caused by Jews.
The attitude towards Jews changed in the course of Muhammad's career, as expressed in more positive teachings in the earlier Qur'anic surahs, from the Mecca period, to increasingly hostile and negative ones, characterizing Jews as such, in Medina as the Jewish tribes there refused to submit completely to Muhammad's authority and claims. This distinction of periods is crucial to assess the weight of Qur'anic passages.
Muhammad's disputes with his neighboring Jewish tribes left no marked traces on his immediate successors (known as Caliphs). The first Caliphs based their treatment upon the Qur'anic verses encouraging tolerance.
Classical commentators viewed Muhammad's struggle with Jews as a minor episode in his career, but this has changed in modern times due to external influences. Poliakov opines that Muhammad's actions and teachings gave rise to an open and more conciliatory society, where the Muslims were compelled to protect the lives and religion of the Jews.
Hadith
The hadithHadith
The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
(recordings of deeds and sayings attributed to Muhammad) use both the terms Banu Israil and Yahud in relation to Jews, the latter term becoming ever more frequent and appearing mostly in negative context. According to Norman Stillman
Norman Stillman
Norman Arthur Stillman, also Noam , b. 1945, is the Schusterman-Josey Professor and Chair of Judaic History at the University of Oklahoma. He specializes in the intersection of Jewish and Islamic culture and history, and in Oriental and Sephardi Jewry, with special interest in the Jewish...
:
Jews in Medina are singled out as "men whose malice and enmity was aimed at the Apostle of God". The Yahūd in this literature appear not only as malicious, but also deceitful, cowardly and totally lacking resolve. However, they have none of the demonic qualities attributed to them in mediaeval Christian literature, neither is there anything comparable to the overwhelming preoccupation with Jews and Judaism (except perhaps in the narratives on Muhammad's encounters with Medinan Jewry) in Muslim traditional literature. Except for a few notable exceptions... the Jews in the Sira and the Maghazi are even heroic villains. Their ignominy stands in marked contrast to Muslim heroism, and in general, conforms to the Qura'nic image of "wretchedness and baseness stamped upon them"
He said:
This hadith has been quoted countless times, and it has become a part of the charter of Hamas
Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
.
According to Schweitzer and Perry, the hadith are "even more scathing (than the Qur'an) in attacking the Jews":
They are debased, cursed, anathematized forever by God and so can never repent and be forgiven; they are cheats and traitors; defiant and stubborn; they killed the prophets; they are liars who falsify scripture and take bribes; as infidels they are ritually unclean, a foul odor emanating from them - such is the image of the Jew in classical Islam, degraded and malevolent.
It is important to note though, that many hadith have unverifiable sources - Reza Aslan
Reza Aslan
Reza Aslan is an Iranian-American activist, a nationally acclaimed writer of religions. He is on the faculty at the University of California, Riverside, and is a contributing editor for The Daily Beast...
, a noted Islamic scholar and commentator, claims that more than 700,000 hadith of dubious origin had emerged by the end of the 10th Century. Many hadith may also reflect the culture and perception of societies at the time.
Quran
The words "humility" and "humiliation" occur frequently in the Qur'an and later Muslim literature in relation to Jews. According to Lewis, "This, in Islamic view, is their just punishment for their past rebelliousness, and is manifested in their present impotence between the mighty powers of Christendom and Islam." The standard Quranic reference to Jews is verse : "And remember ye said: "O MosesMoses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
! we cannot endure one kind of food (always); so beseech thy Lord for us to produce for us of what the earth groweth, -its pot-herbs, and cucumbers, Itsgarlic
Garlic
Allium sativum, commonly known as garlic, is a species in the onion genus, Allium. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, and rakkyo. Dating back over 6,000 years, garlic is native to central Asia, and has long been a staple in the Mediterranean region, as well as a frequent...
, lentil
Lentil
The lentil is an edible pulse. It is a bushy annual plant of the legume family, grown for its lens-shaped seeds...
s, and onion
Onion
The onion , also known as the bulb onion, common onion and garden onion, is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium. The genus Allium also contains a number of other species variously referred to as onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion The onion...
s." He said: "Will ye exchange the better for the worse? Go ye down to any town, and ye shall find what ye want!" They were covered with humiliation and misery; they drew on themselves the wrath of Allah. This because they went on rejecting the Signs of Allah and slaying His Messengers without just cause. This because they rebelled and went on transgressing."
Two verses later we read: "And remember, Children of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, when We made a covenant with you and raised Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai , also known as Mount Horeb, Mount Musa, Gabal Musa , Jabal Musa meaning "Moses' Mountain", is a mountain near Saint Catherine in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. A mountain called Mount Sinai is mentioned many times in the Book of Exodus in the Torah and the Bible as well as the Quran...
before you saying, "Hold tightly to what We have revealed to you and keep it in mind so that you may guard against evil." But then you turned away, and if it had not been for Allah
Allah
Allah is a word for God used in the context of Islam. In Arabic, the word means simply "God". It is used primarily by Muslims and Bahá'ís, and often, albeit not exclusively, used by Arabic-speaking Eastern Catholic Christians, Maltese Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Mizrahi Jews and...
's grace and merecy, you surely would have been among the lost. And you know those among who sinned on the Sabbath
Shabbat
Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...
. We said to them, "You will be transformed into despised apes." So we used them as a warning to their people and to the following generations, as well as a lesson for the Allah-fearing."(Qur'an ) The accusation that Jews will ultimately be transformed into apes and pigs is traditionally understood literally and is derived from such Qur'anic and other early Muslim sources.
The Qur'an associates Jews above all with rejection of God's prophets including Jesus and Muhammad, thus explaining their resistance to him personally. (Cf. Surah 2:87–91; 5:59, 61, 70, and 82.) It states that they are, together with outright idolators, the worst and most inveterate enemies of Islam, and thus will not only suffer eternally in Hell but in this world will be the most degraded of the Peoples of the Book, below even Christians, everywhere. (Cf. Surah 5:82; 3:54–56.) It also asserts that Jews believe that they are the sole children of God (Surah 5:18), and that only they will achieve salvation (Surah 2:111). According to the Qur'an, Jews blasphemously claim that Ezra
Ezra
Ezra , also called Ezra the Scribe and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible he returned from the Babylonian exile and reintroduced the Torah in Jerusalem...
is the son of God, as Christians claim Jesus is, (Surah 9:30) and that God's hand is fettered (Surah 5:64 – i.e., that they can freely defy God). Some of those who are Jews, "pervert words from their meanings", (Surah 4:44), and because they have committed wrongdoing, God has "forbidden some good things that were previously permitted them", thus explaining Jewish commandments regarding food, Sabbath restrictions on work, and other rulings as a punishment from God (Surah 4:160). They listen for the sake of mendacity (Surah 5:41), twisting the truth, and practice forbidden usury, and therefore they will receive "a painful doom" (Surah 4:161). The Qur'an gives credence to the Christian claim of Jews scheming against Jesus, "...but God also schemed, and God is the best of schemers"(Surah 3:54). In the Muslim view, the crucifixion of Jesus
Crucifixion of Jesus
The crucifixion of Jesus and his ensuing death is an event that occurred during the 1st century AD. Jesus, who Christians believe is the Son of God as well as the Messiah, was arrested, tried, and sentenced by Pontius Pilate to be scourged, and finally executed on a cross...
was an illusion, and thus the supposed Jewish plots against him ended in complete failure. In numerous verses (Surah 3:63, 71; 4:46, 160–161; 5:41–44, 63–64, 82; 6:92) the Qur'an accuses Jews of deliberately obscuring and perverting scripture
Tahrif
Taḥrīf is an Arabic term used by Muslims with regard to irreparable alterations Islamic tradition claims Jews and Christians have made to Biblical manuscripts, specifically those that make up the Tawrat , Zabur and Injil .Traditional Muslim scholars, based on Qur'anic and other traditions, maintain...
.
Pre-modern Islam
Jerome Chanes, Pinson, Rosenblatt, Mark CohenMark R. Cohen
Mark R. Cohen is a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University specializing in Jews in the Muslim world. He is a leading scholar of the history of Jews in the Middle Ages under Islam. His research relies greatly on documents from the Cairo Geniza...
, Norman Stillman
Norman Stillman
Norman Arthur Stillman, also Noam , b. 1945, is the Schusterman-Josey Professor and Chair of Judaic History at the University of Oklahoma. He specializes in the intersection of Jewish and Islamic culture and history, and in Oriental and Sephardi Jewry, with special interest in the Jewish...
, Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement.A member of the Irgun as a teenager, Avnery sat in the Knesset from 1965–74 and 1979–81...
, M. Klien and Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis, FBA is a British-American historian, scholar in Oriental studies, and political commentator. He is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University...
argue that antisemitism in pre-modern Islam is rare, and did not emerge until modern times. Lewis argues that there is little sign any deep-rooted emotional hostility directed against Jews, or any other group, that can be characterized as antisemitism. There were, however, clearly negative attitudes, which were in part the "normal" feelings of a dominant group towards subject groups (which exists in virtually any society). More specifically, the contempt consisted of Muslim contempt for disbelievers.
Literature
According to Lewis, the outstanding characteristic of the classical Islamic view of Jews is their unimportance. The religious, philosophical, and literary Islamic writings tended to ignore Jews and focused more on Christianity. Although, the Jews received little praise or even respect, and were sometimes blamed for various misdeed but there were no fears of Jewish conspiracy and domination, nor any charges of diabolic evil nor accusations of poisoning the wells nor spreading the plague nor were even accused of engaging in blood libelsBlood Libels
Blood Libels is the third full-length album by French black metal band Antaeus.-Track listing:# Rot - 5:36# Cyklik Torture - 3:40# Control and Abuse - 5:34# Colliding in Ashes - 5:10# Words as Weapons - 6:27# Here is Punishment - 3:29...
until Ottomans learned the concept from their Greek subjects in 15th century.
Poliakov writes that various examples of medieval Muslim literature portray Judaism as an exemplary pinnacle of faith, and Israel being destined by this virtue. He quotes stories from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights
The Book of One Thousand and One Nights
One Thousand and One Nights is a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age...
that portray Jews as pious, virtuous and devoted to God, and seem to borrow plots from midrashim. However, Poliakov writes that treatment of Jews in Muslim literature varies, and the tales are meant for pure entertainment, with no didactic aim.
After Ibn Nagraela, a Jew, attacked the Quran by alleging various contradictions in it, Ibn Hazm, a Moor, criticized him furiously. Ibn Hazm wrote that Ibn Nagraela was "filled with hatred" and "conceited in his vile soul."
According to Schweitzer and Perry, some literature during the tenth and eleventh century "made Jews out to be untrustworthy, treacherous oppressors, and exploiters of Muslims". This propaganda sometimes even resulted in outbreaks of violence against the Jews. An eleventh century Moorish poem describes Jews as "a criminal people" and blames them for causing social decay, betraying Muslims and poisoning food and water.
Martin Kramer writes that in Islamic tradition, in striking contrast with the Christian concept of the eternal Jew, the contemporary Jews were not presented as archetypes—as the embodiment of Jews in all times and places.
Life under Muslim rule
Jews and Christians living under early Muslim rule were known as dhimmiDhimmi
A , is a non-Muslim subject of a state governed in accordance with sharia law. Linguistically, the word means "one whose responsibility has been taken". This has to be understood in the context of the definition of state in Islam...
s, a status that was later also extended to other non-Muslims like Sikhs. As dhimmis they were to be tolerated, and entitled to the protection and resources of the Ummah, the Muslim commonwealth. In return they had to pay a tax known as the jizya
Jizya
Under Islamic law, jizya or jizyah is a per capita tax levied on a section of an Islamic state's non-Muslim citizens, who meet certain criteria...
in accordance with Qur'an. Lewis and Poliakov argue that Jewish communities enjoyed toleration and limited rights as long as they accepted Muslim superiority. These rights were legally established and enforced. The restrictions on dhimmis included: payment of higher taxes; at some locations, being forced to wear clothing or some othe insignia distinguishing them from Muslims; sometimes barred from holding public office, bearing arms or riding a horse; disqualified as witnesses in litigation involving Muslims; at some locations and times, dhimmis were prevented from repairing existing or erecting new places of worship. Proselytizing on behalf of any faith but Islam was barred.
Later additions to the code included prohibitions on adopting Arab names, studying the Qur'an, selling alcoholic beverages. Abdul Aziz Said writes that the Islamic concept of dhimmi
Dhimmi
A , is a non-Muslim subject of a state governed in accordance with sharia law. Linguistically, the word means "one whose responsibility has been taken". This has to be understood in the context of the definition of state in Islam...
, when applied, allowed other cultures to flourish and prevented the general rise of antisemitism.
Schweitzer and Perry give as examples of early Muslim antisemitism: 9th century "persecution and outbreaks of violence"; 10th and 11th century antisemitic propaganda that "made Jews out to be untrustworthy, treacherous oppressors, and exploiters of Muslims". This propaganda "inspired outbreaks of violence and caused many casualties in Egypt". An eleventh century Moorish poem describes Jews as "a criminal people" and alleges that "society is nearing collapse on account of Jewish wealth and domination, their exploitation and betrayal of Muslims; that Jews worship the devil, physicians poison their patients, and Jews poison food and water as required by Judaism, and so on."
Jews under the Muslim rule rarely faced martyrdom or exile, or forced conversion and they were fairly free to choose their residence and profession. Their freedom and economic condition varied from time to time and place to place. Forced conversions occurred mostly in the Maghreb, especially under the Almohads, a militant dynasty with messianic claims, as well as in Persia, where Shi'a Muslims were generally less tolerant than their Sunni counterparts. Notable examples of the cases where the choice of residence was taken away from them includes confining Jews to walled quarters (mellah
Mellah
A mellah is a walled Jewish quarter of a city in Morocco, an analogue of the European ghetto...
s) in Morocco beginning from the 15th century and especially since the early 19th century.
Egypt
The caliphs of FatimidFatimid
The Fatimid Islamic Caliphate or al-Fāṭimiyyūn was a Berber Shia Muslim caliphate first centered in Tunisia and later in Egypt that ruled over varying areas of the Maghreb, Sudan, Sicily, the Levant, and Hijaz from 5 January 909 to 1171.The caliphate was ruled by the Fatimids, who established the...
dynasty in Egypt were known to be Judeophiles
Philo-Semitism
Philo-Semitism or Judeophilia is an interest in, respect for, and appreciation of the Jewish people, their historical significance and the positive impacts of Judaism in the history of the western world, in particular, generally on the part of a gentile...
, according to Leon Poliakov. They paid regularly to support the Jewish institutions (such as the rabbinical academy of Jerusalem). A significant number of their ministers and counselors were Jews. Benjamin of Tuleda, a famous 12th century Jewish explorer, described the Caliph al Abbasi as a "great king...kind unto Israel". He further mentions Muslims and Jews being involved in common devotions, such as visiting the grave of Ezekiel
Ezekiel
Ezekiel , "God will strengthen" , is the central protagonist of the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Ezekiel is acknowledged as a Hebrew prophet...
, whom both religions regard as a prophet.
Iberian Peninsula
With the Muslim conquest of the Iberian PeninsulaAl-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
, Spanish Judaism flourished for several centuries. Thus, what some refer to as the "golden age" for Jews began. During this period the Muslims (at least in Spain) tolerated other religions, including Judaism, and created a heterodox society.
Muslim relations with Jews in Spain were not always peaceful, however. The eleventh century saw Muslim pogroms against Jews in Spain; those occurred in Córdoba
Córdoba, Spain
-History:The first trace of human presence in the area are remains of a Neanderthal Man, dating to c. 32,000 BC. In the 8th century BC, during the ancient Tartessos period, a pre-urban settlement existed. The population gradually learned copper and silver metallurgy...
in 1011 and in Granada
Granada
Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil. It sits at an elevation of 738 metres above sea...
in 1066. In the 1066 Granada massacre
1066 Granada massacre
The 1066 Granada massacre took place on 30 December 1066 when a Muslim mob stormed the royal palace in Granada, which was at that time in Muslim-ruled al-Andalus, assassinated the Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred many of the Jewish population of the city.-Joseph ibn Naghrela:Joseph...
, a Muslim mob crucified the Jewish vizier
Vizier
A vizier or in Arabic script ; ; sometimes spelled vazir, vizir, vasir, wazir, vesir, or vezir) is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in a Muslim government....
Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred about 4,000 Jews. The Muslim grievance involved was that some Jews had become wealthy, and others had advanced to positions of power.
The Almohad
Almohad
The Almohad Dynasty , was a Moroccan Berber-Muslim dynasty founded in the 12th century that established a Berber state in Tinmel in the Atlas Mountains in roughly 1120.The movement was started by Ibn Tumart in the Masmuda tribe, followed by Abd al-Mu'min al-Gumi between 1130 and his...
dynasty, which overthrew the dynasty that ran Spain during the early Muslim era, offered Christians and Jews the choice of conversion or expulsion; in 1165, one of their rulers ordered that all Jews in the country convert on pain of death (forcing the Jewish rabbi, theologian, philosopher, and physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
Maimonides
Maimonides
Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn in Arabic, or Rambam , was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages...
to feign conversion to Islam before fleeing the country). In Egypt, Maimonides resumed practicing Judaism openly only to be accused of apostasy
Apostasy
Apostasy , 'a defection or revolt', from ἀπό, apo, 'away, apart', στάσις, stasis, 'stand, 'standing') is the formal disaffiliation from or abandonment or renunciation of a religion by a person. One who commits apostasy is known as an apostate. These terms have a pejorative implication in everyday...
. He was saved from death by Saladin
Saladin
Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb , better known in the Western world as Saladin, was an Arabized Kurdish Muslim, who became the first Sultan of Egypt and Syria, and founded the Ayyubid dynasty. He led Muslim and Arab opposition to the Franks and other European Crusaders in the Levant...
's chief administrator, who held that conversion under coercion is invalid.
During his wanderings, Maimonides also wrote The Yemen Epistle
The Yemen Epistle
The Epistle to Yemen or Yemen Epistle was an important communication written by Maimonides and sent to the Yemenite Jews. It is estimated to have been written in 1172....
, a famous letter to the Jews of Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
, who were then experiencing severe persecution at the hands of their Muslim rulers. In it, Maimonides describes his assessment of the treatment of the Jews at the hands of Muslims:
... on account of our sins God has cast us into the midst of this people, the nation of IshmaelIshmaelIshmael is a figure in the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an, and was Abraham's first born child according to Jews, Christians and Muslims. Ishmael was born of Abraham's marriage to Sarah's handmaiden Hagar...
[that is, Muslims], who persecute us severely, and who devise ways to harm us and to debase us.... No nation has ever done more harm to Israel. None has matched it in debasing and humiliating us. None has been able to reduce us as they have.... We have borne their imposed degradation, their lies, their absurdities, which are beyond human power to bear.... We have done as our sages of blessed memory have instructed us, bearing the lies and absurdities of Ishmael.... In spite of all this, we are not spared from the ferocity of their wickedness and their outbursts at any time. On the contrary, the more we suffer and choose to conciliate them, the more they choose to act belligerently toward us.
Mark Cohen
Mark R. Cohen
Mark R. Cohen is a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University specializing in Jews in the Muslim world. He is a leading scholar of the history of Jews in the Middle Ages under Islam. His research relies greatly on documents from the Cairo Geniza...
quotes Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, a specialist in medieval European Jewish history, who cautioned that Maimonides' condemnation of Islam should be understood "in the context of the harsh persecutions of the twelfth century and that furthermore one may say that he was insufficiently aware of the status of the Jews in Christian lands, or did not pay attention to this, when he wrote the letter." Cohen continues by quoting Ben-Sasson, who argues that Jews generally had a better legal and security situation in the Muslim countries than in Christendom
Christendom
Christendom, or the Christian world, has several meanings. In a cultural sense it refers to the worldwide community of Christians, adherents of Christianity...
.
Ottoman Empire
While some Muslim states declined, the Ottoman EmpireOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
rose as the "greatest Muslim state in history". As long as the empire flourished, the Jews did as well, according to Schweitzer and Perry. The Ottomans were more tolerant of Jews and promoted their economic development. The Jews flourished as great merchants, financiers, government officials, traders and artisan
Artisan
An artisan is a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewellery, household items, and tools...
s.
Contrast with Christian Europe
Lewis states that in contrast to Christian antisemitism, the attitude of Muslims toward non-Muslims is not one of hate, fear, or envy, but rather simply contempt. This contempt is expressed in various ways, such as abundance of polemicPolemic
A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...
literature attacking the Christians and occasionally also the Jews. "The negative attributes ascribed to the subject religions and their followers are usually expressed in religious and social terms, very rarely in ethnic or racial terms, though this does sometimes occur." The language of abuse is often quite strong. The conventional epithets are apes for Jews, and pigs for Christians. Lewis continues with several examples of regulations which were symbolizing the inferiority that non-Muslims living under Muslim rule had to live with, such as different formulae of greeting when addressing Jews and Christians than when addressing Muslims (both in conversations or correspondences), and forbidding Jews and Christians to choose names used by Muslims for their children by the Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
times.
Schweitzer and Perry argue that there are two general views of the status of Jews under Islam, the traditional "golden age" and the revisionist "persecution and pogrom" interpretations. The former was first promulgated by Jewish historians in the 19th century as a rebuke of the Christian treatment of Jews, and taken up by Arab Muslims
Arab Muslims
Arab Muslims are adherents of the religion of Islam who identify linguistically, culturally, or genealogically as Arabs. They greatly outnumber other ethnic groups in the Middle East. Muslims who are not Arabs are called mawali by Arab Muslims....
after 1948 as "an Arab-Islamist weapon in what is primarily an ideological and political struggle against Israel". The revisionists argue that this idealized view ignores "a catalog of lesser-known hatred and massacres". Mark Cohen concurs with this view, arguing that the "myth of an interfaith utopia" went unchallenged until it was adopted by Arabs as a "propaganda weapon against Zionism", and that this "Arab polemical exploitation" was met with the "counter-myth" of the "neo-lachrymose conception of Jewish-Arab history", which also "cannot be maintained in the light of historical reality".
Antisemitism in the Islamic Middle East
Antisemitism has increased in the Muslim world during modern times. While Bernard Lewis and Uri Avnery date the rise of antisemitism to the establishment of IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, M. Klein suggests the antisemitism could have been present in the mid-19th century.
Scholars point out European influence, including that of Nazis, and the establishment of Israel as the root causes for antisemitism. Norman Stillman
Norman Stillman
Norman Arthur Stillman, also Noam , b. 1945, is the Schusterman-Josey Professor and Chair of Judaic History at the University of Oklahoma. He specializes in the intersection of Jewish and Islamic culture and history, and in Oriental and Sephardi Jewry, with special interest in the Jewish...
explains that increased European commercial, missionary and imperialist activities during the 19th and 20th centuries brought anti-Semitic ideas to the Muslim world. Initially these prejudices only found a reception among Arab Christians and were too foreign for any widespread acceptance among Muslims. However, with the rise of the Arab-Israeli conflict, European anti-Semitism began to gain acceptance in modern literature.
Nineteenth century
According to Mark CohenMark R. Cohen
Mark R. Cohen is a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University specializing in Jews in the Muslim world. He is a leading scholar of the history of Jews in the Middle Ages under Islam. His research relies greatly on documents from the Cairo Geniza...
, Arab anti-Semitism in the modern world arose relatively recently, in the nineteenth century, against the backdrop of conflicting Jewish and Arab nationalism, and was imported into the Arab world primarily by nationalistically minded Christian Arabs (and only subsequently was it "Islamized").
The Damascus affair
Damascus affair
The Damascus affair was an 1840 incident in which the accusation of ritual murder was brought against members of the Jewish community of Damascus. Eight notable Jews of Damascus were falsely accused of murdering a Christian monk, imprisoned and tortured. Several of the imprisoned died of torture,...
occurred in 1840, when an Italian monk and his servant disappeared in Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
. Immediately following, a charge of ritual murder was brought against a large number of Jews in the city. All were found guilty. The consuls of England, France and Austria
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
as well as Ottoman authorities, Christians, Muslims and Jews all played a great role in this affair.
Following the Damascus affair, Pogroms spread through the Middle East and North Africa. Pogroms occurred in: Aleppo (1850, 1875), Damascus (1840, 1848, 1890), Beirut (1862, 1874), Dayr al-Qamar (1847), Jerusalem (1847), Cairo (1844, 1890, 1901–02), Mansura (1877), Alexandria (1870, 1882, 1901–07), Port Said (1903, 1908), Damanhur (1871, 1873, 1877, 1891), Istanbul (1870, 1874), Buyukdere (1864), Kuzguncuk (1866), Eyub (1868), Edirne (1872), Izmir (1872, 1874).
There was a massacre of Jews in Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
in 1828. There was another massacre in Barfurush in 1867.
In 1839, in the eastern Persian city of Meshed, a mob burst into the Jewish Quarter
Jewish quarter (diaspora)
In the Jewish Diaspora, a Jewish quarter is the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews. Jewish quarters, like the Jewish ghettos in Europe, were often the outgrowths of segregated ghettos instituted by the surrounding Christian authorities. A Yiddish term for a Jewish quarter or...
, burned the synagogue, and destroyed the Torah scrolls
Sefer Torah
A Sefer Torah of Torah” or “Torah scroll”) is a handwritten copy of the Torah or Pentateuch, the holiest book within Judaism. It must meet extremely strict standards of production. The Torah scroll is mainly used in the ritual of Torah reading during Jewish services...
. This is known as the Allahdad incident
Allahdad incident
In the 1839 Allahdad incident, the Jews of Mashhad, Iran, now known as the Mashhadi Jews, were coerced into converting to Islam.Mashhad's ruler had ordered his men to enter Jewish homes and mobs attacked the Jewish Community, burning down the synagogue, looting homes, abducting girls, and killing...
. It was only by forcible conversion that a massacre was averted.
Benny Morris
Benny Morris
Benny Morris is professor of History in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Be'er Sheva, Israel...
writes that one symbol of Jewish degradation was the phenomenon of stone-throwing at Jews by Muslim children. Morris quotes a 19th century traveler: "I have seen a little fellow of six years old, with a troop of fat toddlers of only three and four, teaching [them] to throw stones at a Jew, and one little urchin would, with the greatest coolness, waddle up to the man and literally spit upon his Jewish gaberdine
Gaberdine
A gaberdine or gabardine is a long, loose gown or cloak with wide sleeves, worn by men in the later Middle Ages and into the 16th century....
. To all this the Jew is obliged to submit; it would be more than his life was worth to offer to strike a Mahommedan."
Twentieth century
The massacres of Jews in Muslim countries continued into the 20th century. The Jewish quarter in Fez was almost destroyed by a Muslim mob in 1912. There were NaziNazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
-inspired pogroms in Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
in the 1930s, and massive attacks on the Jews in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
and Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
in the 1940s (see Farhud
Farhud
Farhud refers to the pogrom or "violent dispossession" carried out against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on June 1-2, 1941 during the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. The riots occurred in a power vacuum following the collapse of the pro-Nazi government of Rashid Ali while the city was in a...
). Pro-Nazi Muslims slaughtered dozens of Jews in Baghdad in 1941.
American academic Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis, FBA is a British-American historian, scholar in Oriental studies, and political commentator. He is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University...
and others have charged that standard antisemitic themes have become commonplace in the publications of Arab Islamic movements such as Hizbullah and Hamas
Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
, in the pronouncements of various agencies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and even in the newspapers and other publications of Refah Partisi, the Turkish Islamic party whose head served as prime minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
in 1996-97." Lewis has also written that the language of abuse is often quite strong, arguing that the conventional epithets for Jews and Christians are apes and pigs, respectively.
Connections between Nazi Germany and Muslim countries
Despite the fact that an estimated 100,000 Muslims (primarily of Bosniak descent) were murdered during the HolocaustThe Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
, the first attempts at an Arab Nazi movement occurred in 1933, when a Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
correspondent of the Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
newspaper Al-Ahram
Al-Ahram
Al-Ahram , founded in 1875, is the most widely circulating Egyptian daily newspaper, and the second oldest after al-Waqa'i`al-Masriya . It is majority owned by the Egyptian government....
applied to the German council for help. Many of the Arabs were in full support of Nazi Germany, and believed that if Hitler won the war, the Arab cause would prosper. The influence of the Nazis in the Arab world continued to grow though the 1930s. Nazi influenced political parties arose in the 1930s and 1940s, many of which played an important role in the leadership of the Arab world post-World War II. Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, and Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
are believed to have harbored Nazi war criminals, though they have rejected the charge. Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
has been published and, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute
Middle East Media Research Institute
The Middle East Media Research Institute is a Middle Eastern not for profit press monitoring organization with headquarters located in Washington, DC. MEMRI was co-founded in 1998 by Yigal Carmon, a former colonel in the Israeli military intelligence and Meyrav Wurmser, an Israeli-born, American...
(MEMRI), was 6th on the Palestinian best-seller list in 1999.
Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
The Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in the British Mandate of Palestine. From as early as 1920, in order to secure the independence of Palestine as an Arab state he actively opposed Zionism, and was implicated as a leader of a violent riot...
attempted to create an alliance with Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
against the Jews.
Historians debate to what extent al-Husayni's fierce opposition to Zionism was grounded in nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
or antisemitism or a combination of both.
On March 31, 1933, within weeks of Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's rise to power in Germany, al-Husayni sent a telegram to Berlin addressed to the German Consul-General in the British Mandate of Palestine saying Muslims in Palestine and elsewhere looked forward to spreading their ideology in the Middle East. Al-Husayni secretly met the German Consul-General near the Dead Sea
Dead Sea
The Dead Sea , also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world...
in 1933 and expressed his approval of the anti-Jewish boycott in Germany and asked him not to send any Jews to Palestine. Later that year, the Mufti's assistants approached Wolff, seeking his help in establishing an Arab National Socialist party in Palestine. Reports reaching the foreign offices in Berlin showed high levels of Arab admiration of Hitler.
Al-Husayni met the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop
Joachim von Ribbentrop
Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.-Early life:...
on November 20, 1941 and was officially received by Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
on November 30, 1941 in Berlin. He asked Hitler for a public declaration that "recognized and sympathized with the Arab struggles for independence and liberation, and that it would support the elimination of a national Jewish homeland", and he submitted to the German government a draft of such a declaration, containing the clause.
Al-Husayni was involved in the organization and recruitment of Bosnian
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
Muslims into several divisions of the Waffen SS and other units. and also blessed sabotage teams trained by Germans before they were dispatched to Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
, Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
, and Transjordan
Transjordan
The Emirate of Transjordan was a former Ottoman territory in the Southern Levant that was part of the British Mandate of Palestine...
.
Iraq
In March 1940, General Rashid Ali, a nationalist Iraqi officer forced the pro-British Iraqi Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
Nuri Said Pasha, to resign. In May, he declared jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
against Great Britain. Forty days later, British troops occupied the country. The 1941 Iraqi coup d'état occurred on April 3, 1941 when the regime of the Regent 'Abd al-Ilah
'Abd al-Ilah
Crown Prince Abd al-Ilāh of Hejaz, GCB, GCMG, GCVO was a cousin and brother-in-law of King Ghazi of the Kingdom of Iraq. Abdul Ilah served as Regent for King Faisal II from April 4, 1939 to May 2, 1953, when Faisal came of age...
was overthrown, and Rashid Ali was installed as Prime Minister.
In 1941, following Rashid Ali's pro-Axis
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
coup, riots known as the Farhud
Farhud
Farhud refers to the pogrom or "violent dispossession" carried out against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on June 1-2, 1941 during the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. The riots occurred in a power vacuum following the collapse of the pro-Nazi government of Rashid Ali while the city was in a...
broke out in Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
in which approximately 180 Jews were killed and about 240 were wounded, 586 Jewish-owned businesses were looted and 99 Jewish houses were destroyed.
Iraq initially forbade the emigration of its Jews after the 1948 war on the grounds that allowing them to go to Israel would strengthen that state, but they were allowed to emigrate again after 1950, if they agreed to forgo their assets.
Jews and Assyrian Christians forced migrations between 1843 and the 21at century
In his recent PhD thesis and in his recent book the Israeli scholar Mordechai Zaken discussed the history of the Assyrian Christians of Turkey and Iraq (in the Kurdish vicinity) during the last 180 years, from 1843 onwards. In his studies Zaken outlines three major eruptions that took place between 1843 and 1933 during which the Assyrian Christians lost their land and hegemony in their habitat in the Hakkārī (or Julamerk) region in southeastern Turkey and became refugees in other lands, notably Iran and Iraq, and ultimately in exiled communities in European and western countries (the USA, Canada, Australia, New-Zealand, Sweden, France, to mention some of these countries). Mordechai Zaken wrote this important study from an analytical and comparative point of view, comparing the Assyrian Christians experience with the experience of the Kurdish Jews who had been dwelling in Kurdistan for two thousands years or so, but were forced to migrate the land to Israel in the early 1950s. The Jews of Kurdistan were forced to leave and migrate as a result of the Arab-Israeli war, as a result of the increasing hostility and acts of violence against Jews in Iraq and Kurdish towns and villages, and as a result of a new situation that had been built up during the 1940s in Iraq and Kurdistan in which the ability of Jews to live in relative comfort and relative tolerance (that was erupted from time to time prior to that period) with their Arab and Muslim neighbors, as they did for many years, practically came to an end. At the end, the Jews of Kurdistan had to leave their Kurdish habitat en masse and migrate into Israel. The Assyrian Christians on the other hand, came to similar conclusion but migrated in stages following each and every eruption of a political crisis with the regime in which boundaries they lived or following each conflict with their Muslim, Turkish, Arabs or Kurdish neighbors, or following the departure or expulsion of their patriarch Mar Shimon in 1933, first to Cyprus and then to the United States. Consequently, indeed there is still a small and fragile community of Assyrians in Iraq, however, millions of Assyrian Christians live today in exiled and prosperous communities in the west.Iran
In Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, Reza Shah
Reza Shah
Rezā Shāh, also known as Rezā Shāh Pahlavi and Rezā Shāh Kabir , , was the Shah of the Imperial State of Iran from December 15, 1925, until he was forced to abdicate by the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran on September 16, 1941.In 1925, Reza Shah overthrew Ahmad Shah Qajar, the last Shah of the Qajar...
sympathized with Nazi Germany, making the Jewish community fearful of possible persecutions. Although these fears did not materialise, anti-Jewish articles were published in the Iranian media. A rumor that Hitler converted to Islam led to a marriage between the Shia clergy and the nascent, ultra-nationalist secularized prejudices in Iran.
Egypt
In Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Ahmad Husayn founded the Young Egypt Party in 1934. He immediately expressed his sympathy for Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
to the German ambassador to Egypt. Husayn sent a delegation to the Nuremberg rally
Nuremberg Rally
The Nuremberg Rally was the annual rally of the NSDAP in Germany, held from 1923 to 1938. Especially after Hitler's rise to power in 1933, they were large Nazi propaganda events...
and returned with enthusiasm. After the Sudeten Crisis, the party leaders denounced Germany for aggression against small nations, but nonetheless retained elements similar to Nazism or Fascism, e.g. salutes, torchlight parades, leader worship, and antisemitism and racism. The party's impact before 1939 was minimal, and their espionage efforts were of little value to the Germans.
During World War II, Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
was a haven for agents and spies throughout the war. Egyptian nationalists were active, with many Egyptians, including Farouk of Egypt
Farouk of Egypt
Farouk I of Egypt , was the tenth ruler from the Muhammad Ali Dynasty and the penultimate King of Egypt and Sudan, succeeding his father, Fuad I, in 1936....
and prime minister Ali Mahir Pasha
Ali Mahir Pasha
Ali Mahir Pasha was an Egyptian political figure. He served as Prime Minister of Egypt from 30 January 1936 to 9 May 1936, a second term from 18 August 1939 to 28 June 1940, a third term from 27 January 1952 to 2 March 1952 and a final fourth term from 23 July 1952 to 7 September 1952...
, all of whom hoped for an Axis victory, and full independence of Egypt from Britain.
Islamist groups
Many Islamic terrorist groups have openly expressed anti-Semitic views.Lashkar-e-Toiba
Lashkar-e-Toiba
Lashkar-e-Taiba – also transliterated as Lashkar-i-Tayyaba, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Lashkar-i-Taiba, Lashkar Taiba or LeT – is one of the largest and most active militant Islamist terrorist organizations in South Asia, operating mainly from Pakistan.It was founded by Hafiz Muhammad...
's propaganda arm has declared the Jews to be "Enemies of Islam", and Israel to be the "Enemy of Pakistan".
Hamas has been widely described as antisemitic. It has issued antisemitic leaflets, and its writings and manifestos rely upon antisemitic documents (the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and other European Christian literature), exhibiting antisemitic themes. In 1998, Esther Webman of the Project for the Study of Anti-Semitism at the Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University is a public university located in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. With nearly 30,000 students, TAU is Israel's largest university.-History:...
wrote that although the above is true, anti-Semitism was not the main tenet of Hamas ideology.
In an editorial in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
in January 2006, Khaled Meshaal, the chief of Hamas's political bureau denied antisemitism, on Hamas' part, and said that the nature of Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
was not religious but political. He also said that Hamas has "no problem with Jews who have not attacked us."
Amal Saad-Ghorayeb
Amal Saad-Ghorayeb
Amal Abdo Saad-Ghorayeb is a Lebanese writer and political analyst known for her writings on the Israeli-Lebanese conflict and Hezbollah.-Life:...
, a Shiite scholar and assistant professor at the Lebanese American University
Lebanese American University
The Lebanese American University is a secular, private and independent American university located in Lebanon...
has written that Hezbollah is not Anti-Zionist, but rather Anti-Jewish. She quoted Hassan Nasrallah
Hassan Nasrallah
Hasan Nasrallah, became the third Secretary General of the Lebanese political and paramilitary organization Hezbollah after Israel assassinated the previous leader, Abbas al-Musawi, in 1992. Hezbollah in its entirety is considered a terrorist organization by The United States, the Netherlands,...
as saying: "If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli." Regarding the official public stance of Hezbollah as a whole, she said that while Hezbollah, "tries to mask its anti-Judaism for public-relations reasons ... a study of its language, spoken and written, reveals an underlying truth." In her book, Hezbollah: Politics & Religion, she explored the anti-Jewish roots of Hezbollah ideology, arguing that Hezbollah "believes that Jews, by the nature of Judaism, possess fatal character flaws." Saad-Ghorayeb also said that "Hezbollah's Quranic reading of Jewish history has led its leaders to believe that Jewish theology is evil."
21st century
France is home to Europe's largest population of Muslims — about 6 million — as well as the continent's largest community of Jews, about 600,000. In 2000, Muslims attacked synagogues in retaliation for damage done to their Muslim brethren in the Palestinian territories. (See also: Second Intifada) Many Jews protested, the acts were declared "Muslim antisemitism". By 2007, however, attacks were much less severe, and an "all-clear" was perceived. However, during the 2008-2009 Gaza War, tensions between the two communities increased and there were several dozen reported instances of violence such as arson and assaults. French Jewish leaders complained of "a diffuse kind of anti-Semitism becoming entrenched in the Muslim community" while Muslim leaders responded that the issues were "political rather than religious" and that Muslim anger is "not against Jews, it's against Israel."On July 28, 2006, at around 4:00 p.m. Pacific time
Pacific Time
Pacific Time may refer to:* Pacific Time Zone , a time zone on the west coast of the United States, Canada and Mexico* Pacific Time , a radio program produced by KQED and carried on several other NPR stations...
, the Seattle Jewish Federation shooting occurred when Naveed Afzal Haq
Naveed Afzal Haq
Naveed Afzal Haq is a convicted murderer who was convicted for the July 2006 Seattle Jewish Federation shooting.- Murder and hate crime conviction :...
shot six women, one fatally, at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle building in the Belltown
Belltown, Seattle, Washington
Belltown is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, United States, in the 98121 Zip Code, located on the city's downtown waterfront, on land that was artificially flattened as part of a regrading project...
neighborhood of Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
, United States. He shouted, "I'm a Muslim American; I'm angry at Israel" before he began his shooting spree. Police have classified the shooting as a hate crime
Hate crime
In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status or...
based on what Haq said during a 9-1-1
9-1-1
9-1-1 is the emergency telephone number for the North American Numbering Plan .It is one of eight N11 codes.The use of this number is for emergency circumstances only, and to use it for any other purpose can be a crime.-History:In the earliest days of telephone technology, prior to the...
call.
In Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Dar al-Fadhilah published a translation of Henry Ford
Henry Ford
Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...
's antisemitic treatise, The International Jew
The International Jew
The International Jew is a four volume set of booklets or pamphlets originally published and distributed in the early 1920s by Henry Ford, an American industrialist and automobile manufacturer....
, complete with distinctly antisemitic imagery on the cover.
Antisemitic comments by Muslim Leaders and Scholars
Yusuf al-Qaradawi
In a sermon, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on January 9, 2009 (as translated by MEMRI), Egyptian Muslim scholar and preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi
Yusuf al-Qaradawi
Yusuf al-Qaradawi is a controversial Egyptian Islamic theologian. He is best known for his programme, ash-Shariah wal-Hayat , broadcast on Al Jazeera, which has an estimated audience of 60 million worldwide...
stated:
"Oh Allah, take your enemies, the enemies of Islam. Oh Allah, take the Jews, the treacherous aggressors. Oh Allah, take this profligate, cunning, arrogant band of people. Oh Allah, they have spread much tyranny and corruption in the land. Pour Your wrath upon them, oh our God. Lie in wait for them. Oh Allah, You annihilated the people of Thamoud at the hand of a tyrant, and You annihilated the people of 'Aad with a fierce, icy gale. Oh Allah, You annihilated the people Thamoud at the hand of a tyrant, You annihilated the people of 'Aad with a fierce, icy gale, and You destroyed the Pharaoh and his soldiers — oh Allah, take this oppressive, tyrannical band of people. Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one."
In a subsequent speech on Al-Jazeera on January 30, 2009, al-Qaradawi expressed his views on Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and the Holocaust, stating (as translated by MEMRI):
"Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by HitlerAdolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers".
Muhammad Hussein Yacoub
In a speech delivered by Egyptian Salafi islamic scholar Muhammad Hussein Yacoub
Muhammad Hussein Yacoub
Muhammad Hussein Yacoub Yacoub is a Salafi islamic scholar in Egypt, who has given hundreds of lectures in Da’wah. A number of his books are currently being published...
which aired on Al-Rahma TV on January 17, 2009, he stated (as translated by MEMRI):
"We must believe that our fighting with the Jews is eternal, and it will not end until the final battle...You must believe that we will fight, defeat, and annihilate them, until not a single Jew remains on the face of the Earth...As for you Jews - the curse of Allah upon you. The curse of Allah upon you, whose ancestors were apes and pigs. You Jews have sown hatred in our hearts, and we have bequeathed it to our children and grandchildren. You will not survive as long as a single one of us remains...Oh Jews, may the curse of Allah be upon you. Oh Jews... Oh Allah, bring Your wrath, punishment, and torment down upon them. Allah, we pray that you transform them again, and make the Muslims rejoice again in seeing them as apes and pigs. You pigs of the earth! You pigs of the earth! You kill the Muslims with that cold pig [blood] of yours."
Ibrahim Mahdi
Palestinian preacher Ibrahim Mahdi said in a sermon:
"PalestinePalestinePalestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
will be, as it was in the past, a graveyard for the invaders - just as it was a graveyard for the Tatars and to the Crusader invaders, [and for the invaders] of the old and new colonialism... A reliable Hadith [tradition] says: 'The Jews will fight you, but you will be set to rule over them.' What could be more beautiful than this tradition? 'The Jews will fight you' - that is, the Jews have begun to fight us. 'You will be set to rule over them' - Who will set the Muslim to rule over the Jew? Allah... Until the Jew hides behind the rock and the tree. But the rock and tree will say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, a Jew hides behind me, come and kill him.' Except for the Gharqad tree, which is the tree of the Jews. We believe in this Hadith. We are convinced also that this Hadith heralds the spread of Islam and its rule over all the land... Oh Allah, accept our martyrMartyrA martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
s in the highest heavens... Oh Allah, show the Jews a black day... Oh Allah, annihilate the Jews and their supporters... Oh Allah, raise the flag of Jihad across the land... Oh Allah, forgive our sins..."
On another occasion, Sheikh
Sheikh
Not to be confused with sikhSheikh — also spelled Sheik or Shaikh, or transliterated as Shaykh — is an honorific in the Arabic language that literally means "elder" and carries the meaning "leader and/or governor"...
Madhi added:
"Oh beloved of Allah... One of the Jews' evil deeds is what has come to be called 'the Holocaust,' that is, the slaughter of the Jews by Nazism. However, revisionistHistorical revisionism (negationism)Historical revisionism is either the legitimate scholastic re-examination of existing knowledge about a historical event, or the illegitimate distortion of the historical record such that certain events appear in a more or less favourable light. For the former, i.e. the academic pursuit, see...
[historians] have proven that this crime, carried out against some of the Jews, was planned by the Jews' leaders, and was part of their policy... These are the Jews against whom we fight, oh beloved of Allah. On the other hand, [what is our belief] about the Jews? Allah has described them as donkeys."
Sami Al-Arian
Sami Al-Arian
Sami Al-Arian
Dr. Sami Amin Al-Arian , is a former resident of Temple Terrace, Florida, now living in Northern Virginia, who is a Muslim activist, and former University of South Florida professor of computer engineering...
, a leading Muslim speaker in the U.S. until his arrest and conviction for funding an Islamist terrorist organization, on September 29, 1991, said in a speech at a Chicago conference that "God cursed those who are the sons of Israel", and that Allah
Allah
Allah is a word for God used in the context of Islam. In Arabic, the word means simply "God". It is used primarily by Muslims and Bahá'ís, and often, albeit not exclusively, used by Arabic-speaking Eastern Catholic Christians, Maltese Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Mizrahi Jews and...
had made Jews "monkeys and swine", and damned them in this world and the afterworld.
Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais
Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais
Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais
Abdul Rahman Ibn Abdul Aziz as-Sudais is the imam of the Grand mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and the "Islamic Personality Of the Year" 2005. In some of his sermons, al-Sudais has vilified non-Muslims and has called for the annihilation of Jews.-Life:Al-Sudais comes from the Anza clan...
is the leading imam
Imam
An imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question...
of the Grand mosque
Masjid al-Haram
Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām is the largest mosque in the world. Located in the city of Mecca, it surrounds the Kaaba, the place which Muslims worldwide turn towards while performing daily prayers and is Islam's holiest place...
located in the Islamic holy city of Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
, Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
. The BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
aired a Panorama
Panorama (TV series)
Panorama is a BBC Television current affairs documentary programme, which was first broadcast in 1953, and is the longest-running public affairs television programme in the world. Panorama has been presented by many well known BBC presenters, including Richard Dimbleby, Robin Day, David Dimbleby...
episode, entitled A Question of Leadership, which reported that al-Sudais referred to Jews as "the scum of the human race" and "offspring of apes and pigs", and stated, "the worst ... of the enemies of Islam are those ... whom he ... made monkeys and pigs, the aggressive Jews and oppressive Zionists and those that follow them ... Monkeys and pigs and worshippers of false Gods who are the Jews and the Zionists."
In another sermon, on April 19, 2002, he declared:
Sheikh Ba'd bin Abdallah Al-Ajameh Al-Ghamidi
According to Dr. Leah Kinberg, "Saudi Sheikh Ba'd bin Abdallah Al-Ajameh Al-Ghamidi, in a sermon in Taif, explained":
He also said Jews are "the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs." Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy
Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy
Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy was an influential Islamic scholar in Egypt. From 1986 to 1996, he was the grand Mufti of Egypt...
, Grand Imam
Imam
An imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question...
of Al-Azhar Mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
and Grand Sheikh
Sheikh
Not to be confused with sikhSheikh — also spelled Sheik or Shaikh, or transliterated as Shaykh — is an honorific in the Arabic language that literally means "elder" and carries the meaning "leader and/or governor"...
of Al-Azhar University
Al-Azhar University
Al-Azhar University is an educational institute in Cairo, Egypt. Founded in 970~972 as a madrasa, it is the chief centre of Arabic literature and Islamic learning in the world. It is the oldest degree-granting university in Egypt. In 1961 non-religious subjects were added to its curriculum.It is...
, and "perhaps the foremost Sunni Arab authority", has been criticized for remarks made in April 2002, described Jews in his weekly sermon as "the enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs."
Mahathir bin Muhammad
Mahathir bin Mohamad
Mahathir bin Mohamad
Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad . is a Malaysian politician who was the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia. He held the post for 22 years from 1981 to 2003, making him Malaysia's longest serving Prime Minister. His political career spanned almost 40 years.Born and raised in Alor Setar, Kedah, Mahathir...
, who served as Prime Minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003, has made a number of public remarks about Jews.
In 1970, he wrote in his controversial book The Malay Dilemma
The Malay Dilemma
The Malay Dilemma is a controversial book written by Mahathir bin Mohamad in 1970, 11 years before he became Malaysia's 4th Prime Minister.At the time of publication, Mahathir had just lost his parliamentary seat, been expelled from the ruling party UMNO and Malaysia had recently been rocked by the...
: "The Jews for example are not merely hook-nosed, but understand money instinctively."
In a statement made prior to hosting an international meeting of Muslim countries on terrorism, Mahathir said of terrorism:
Mahathir address at a United Nations symposium on Islam at UN University in Tokyo:
On 16 October 2003, shortly before he stepped down as prime minister, Mahathir Muhammad said during a summit for the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Putrajaya
Putrajaya
Putrajaya is a planned city, located 25km south of Kuala Lumpur, that serves as the federal administrative centre of Malaysia. The seat of government was shifted in 1999 from Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya, due to the overcrowding and congestion in the Kuala Lumpur areas...
, that:
Saudi School Books
A May 2006 study of Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
's revised schoolbook curriculum discovered that the eighth grade books included the following statements,
Other Statements
On May 5, 2001, after Shimon Peres
Shimon Peres
GCMG is the ninth President of the State of Israel. Peres served twice as the eighth Prime Minister of Israel and once as Interim Prime Minister, and has been a member of 12 cabinets in a political career spanning over 66 years...
visited Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, the Egyptian al-Akhbar internet paper stated that: "lies and deceit are not foreign to Jews.... For this reason, Allah changed their shape and made them into monkeys and pigs."
Author Erel Shalit has written that Jews must listen to statements made about them from the Arab world, regardless of whether they are positive or negative. He cited the following example:
The Jews of yesterday are the evil fathers of the Jews of today, who are evil offspring ... the scum of the human race 'whom Allah cursed and turned into apes and pigs...' These are the Jews, an ongoing continuum of deceit, obstinacy, licentiousness, evil, and corruption... (The Imam of the Al-Haraam mosque in Mecca; the same words of incitement repeated time and again in the mosques of Gaza and Ramallah.)
Reconciliation efforts
In Western countries, some Islamic groups and individual Muslims have made scattered efforts to reconcile with the Jewish community through dialogue and to oppose Antisemitism. For instance, in Britain there is the group Muslims Against Anti-Semitism. Islamic studies scholar Tariq RamadanTariq Ramadan
Tariq Ramadan is a Swiss academic, poet and writer. He is also a Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University...
has been outspoken against Anti-Semitism, stating: "In the name of their faith and conscience, Muslims must take a clear position so that a pernicious atmosphere does not take hold in the Western countries. Nothing in Islam can legitimize xenophobia or the rejection of a human being due to his/her religious creed or ethnicity. One must say unequivocally, with force, that anti-Semitism is unacceptable and indefensible." Mohammad Khatami
Mohammad Khatami
Sayyid Mohammad Khātamī is an Iranian scholar, philosopher, Shiite theologian and Reformist politician. He served as the fifth President of Iran from August 2, 1997 to August 3, 2005. He also served as Iran's Minister of Culture in both the 1980s and 1990s...
, former president of Iran, declared antisemitism to be a "Western phenomena", having no precedents in Islam and stating the Muslims and Jews had lived harmoniously in the past. An Iranian newspaper stated that has been hatred and hostility in history, but conceded that one must distinguish Jews from Zionists.
In North America, the Council on American-Islamic Relations
Council on American-Islamic Relations
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is America's largest Muslim civil liberties advocacy organization that deals with civil advocacy and promotes human rights...
has spoken against some antisemitic violence, such as the 2006 Seattle Jewish Federation shooting. According to the Anti-Defamation League
Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects...
, CAIR has also been affiliated with antisemitic organizations such as Hamas
Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
and Hizbollah.
The Saudi mufti, Shaykh Abd al-Aziz Bin Baz, gave a fatwa ruling that negotiating peace with Israel is permissible, as is the cist to Jerusalem by Muslims. He specifically said:
The Prophet made absolute peace with the Jews of Medina when he went there as an immigrant. That did not entail any love for them or amiability with them. But the Prophet dealt with them, buying from them, talking to them, calling them to God and Islam. When he died, his shield was mortgaged to a Jew, for he had mortgaged it to buy food for his family.
Martin Kramer considers that as "an explicit endorsement of normal relations with Jews".
Trends
According to Norman StillmanNorman Stillman
Norman Arthur Stillman, also Noam , b. 1945, is the Schusterman-Josey Professor and Chair of Judaic History at the University of Oklahoma. He specializes in the intersection of Jewish and Islamic culture and history, and in Oriental and Sephardi Jewry, with special interest in the Jewish...
, Antisemitism in Muslim world increased greatly for more than two decades following 1948 but "peaked by the 1970s, and declined somewhat as the slow process of rapprochement between the Arab world and the state of Israel evolved in the 1980s and 1990s." Johannes J. G. Jansen believes that antisemitism will have no future in the Arab world in the long run. In his view, like other imports from the Western World
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
, antisemitism is unable to establish itself in the private lives of Muslims. In 2004 Khaleel Mohammed
Khaleel Mohammed
Khaleel Mohammed is associate professor of Religion at San Diego State University , in San Diego, California, and a core faculty member of SDSU's .- Specialties and research interests :...
said that "Anti-Semitism has become an entrenched tenet of Muslim theology, taught to 95 per cent of the religion's adherents in the Islamic world", a claim immediately dismissed as false and racist by Muslim leaders, who accused Mohammed of destroying efforts at relationship building between Jews and Muslims.
According to the Pew Global Attitudes Project released on August 14, 2005, high percentages of the populations of six Muslim-majority countries have negative views of Jews. To a questionnaire asking respondents to give their views of members of various religions along a spectrum from "very favorable" to "very unfavorable", 60% of Turks
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, 74% of Pakistanis, 76% of Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
ns, 88% of Moroccans
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
, 99% of Lebanese
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
Muslims and 100% of Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
ians checked either "somewhat unfavorable" or "very unfavorable" for Jews.
In the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
anti-semitic incidents, from verbal abuse to violence, are reported, allegedly connected with islamic youth, mostly boys from Moroccan
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
descent. According to the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel, a pro-Israel lobby group in the Netherlands, in 2009, the number of anti-Semite incidents in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, the city that is home to most of the approximately 40,000 Dutch Jews
History of the Jews in the Netherlands
Most history of the Jews in the Netherlands was generated between the end of the 16th century and World War II.The area now known as the Netherlands was once part of the Spanish Empire but in 1581, the northern Dutch provinces declared independence...
, was said to be doubled compared to 2008.
The Netherlands
In the NetherlandsNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
anti-semitic incidents, from verbal abuse to violence, are reported, allegedly connected with islamic youth, mostly boys from Moroccan
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
descent. According to the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel, a pro-Israel lobby group in the Netherlands, in 2009, the number of anti-Semite incidents in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, the city that is home to most of the approximately 40,000 Dutch Jews
History of the Jews in the Netherlands
Most history of the Jews in the Netherlands was generated between the end of the 16th century and World War II.The area now known as the Netherlands was once part of the Spanish Empire but in 1581, the northern Dutch provinces declared independence...
, was said to be doubled compared to 2008. In 2010, Raphaël Evers, an orthodox
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
rabbi in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, told the Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
newspaper Aftenposten
Aftenposten
Aftenposten is Norway's largest newspaper. It retook this position in 2010, taking it from the tabloid Verdens Gang which had been the largest newspaper for several decades. It is based in Oslo. The morning edition, which is distributed across all of Norway, had a circulation of 250,179 in 2007...
that jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
can no longer be safe in the city anymore due to the risk of violent assaults. "Jews no longer feel at home in the city. Many are considering aliyah
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
."
Belgium
There were recorded well over a hundred antisemitic attacks in BelgiumBelgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
in 2009. This was a 100% increase from the year before. The perpetrators were usually young males of immigrant background from the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
. In 2009, the Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
city of Antwerp, often referred to as Europe's
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
last shtetl
Shtetl
A shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in Central and Eastern Europe until The Holocaust. Shtetls were mainly found in the areas which constituted the 19th century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Galicia and Romania...
, experienced a surge in antisemitic violence. Bloeme Evers-Emden
Bloeme Evers-Emden
Bloeme Evers-Emden is a Dutch Jewish teacher and child psychologist who extensively researched the phenomenon of "hidden children" during World War II and wrote four books on the subject in the 1990s...
, an Amsterdam resident and Auschwitz survivor, was quoted in the newspaper Aftenposten
Aftenposten
Aftenposten is Norway's largest newspaper. It retook this position in 2010, taking it from the tabloid Verdens Gang which had been the largest newspaper for several decades. It is based in Oslo. The morning edition, which is distributed across all of Norway, had a circulation of 250,179 in 2007...
in 2010: "The antisemitism now is even worse than before the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
. The antisemitism has become more violent. Now they are threatening to kill us."
France
In 2004, France experienced rising levels of Islamic antisemitism and acts that were publicized around the world. In 2006, rising levels of antisemitism were recorded in French schools. Reports related to the tensions between the children of North African Muslim immigrants and North African Jewish children. The climax was reached when Ilan HalimiIlan Halimi
Ilan Halimi was a young French Jewish man kidnapped on 21 January 2006 by a gang called "the Gang of Barbarians" and subsequently tortured, over a period of three weeks, resulting in his death...
was tortured to death by the so-called "Barbarians gang", led by Youssouf Fofana. In 2007, over 7,000 members of the community petitioned for asylum in the United States, citing antisemitism in France.
Between 2001 and 2005, an estimated 12,000 French Jews took Aliyah
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
to Israel. Several émigrés cited anti-semitism and the growing Arab population as reasons for leaving. At a welcoming ceremony for French Jews in the summer of 2004, then Israeli Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Israel
The Prime Minister of Israel is the head of the Israeli government and the most powerful political figure in Israel . The prime minister is the country's chief executive. The official residence of the prime minister, Beit Rosh Hamemshala is in Jerusalem...
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon is an Israeli statesman and retired general, who served as Israel’s 11th Prime Minister. He has been in a permanent vegetative state since suffering a stroke on 4 January 2006....
caused controversy when he advised all French Jews to "move immediately" to Israel and escape what he coined "the wildest anti-semitism" in France.
In the first half of 2009, an estimated 631 recorded acts of antisemitism took place in France, more than the whole of 2008. Speaking to the World Jewish Congress
World Jewish Congress
The World Jewish Congress was founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in August 1936 as an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations...
in December 2009, the French Interior Minister Hortefeux described the acts of antisemitism as "a poison to our republic." He also announced that he would appoint a special coordinator for fighting racism and anti-Semitism.
Rises in antisemitism in modern France have been linked to the intensifying Israeli–Palestinian conflict
Israeli–Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
. Since the Gaza War in 2009, decreases in antisemitism have been reversed. A report compiled by the Coordination Forum for Countering Anti-Semitism singled out France in particular amongst Western countries for antisemitism. Between the start of the Israeli offensive in Gaza in late December and the end of it in January, an estimated hundred antisemitic acts were recorded in France. This compares with a total of 250 antisemitic acts in the whole of 2007.
Sweden
After GermanyGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Sweden has the highest rate of antisemitic incidents in Europe. A government study in 2006 estimated that 39% of the Muslim population, harbor strong and consistent antisemitic views. Former Prime Minister Göran Persson
Göran Persson
Hans Göran Persson was the Prime Minister of Sweden from 1996 to 2006 and the leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1996 to 2007. Conceding defeat in the September 2006 general election, he announced that he would resign as party leader, and Mona Sahlin was elected to succeed him as...
described these results as "surprising and terrifying". However, the Rabbi of Stockholm's Orthodox Jewish community, Meir Horden claimed that "It's not true to say that the Swedes are anti-Semitic. Some of them are hostile to Israel because they support the weak side, which they perceive the Palestinians to be."
In March 2010, Fredrik Sieradzk told Die Presse, an Austrian Internet publication, that Jews are being "harassed and physically attacked" by "people from the Middle East," although he added that only a small number of Malmo's 40,000 Muslims "exhibit hatred of Jews." Sieradzk also stated that approximately 30 Jewish families have emigrated from Malmo to Israel in the past year, specifically to escape from harassment. Also in March, the Swedish newspaper Skånska Dagbladet reported that attacks on Jews in Malmo totaled 79 in 2009, about twice as many as the previous year, according to police statistics.
In early 2010, the Swedish publication The Local published series of articles about the growing anti-Semitism in Malmö, Sweden. In an interview in January 2010, Fredrik Sieradzki of the Jewish Community of Malmö stated that “Threats against Jews have increased steadily in Malmö in recent years and many young Jewish families are choosing to leave the city. Many feel that the community and local politicians have shown a lack of understanding for how the city’s Jewish residents have been marginalized.” He also added that "right now many Jews in Malmö are really concerned about the situation here and don’t believe they have a future here.” The Local also reported that Jewish cemeteries and synagogues have repeatedly been defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti, and a chapel at another Jewish burial site in Malmö was firebombed in 2009. In 2009 the Malmö police received reports of 79 anti-Semitic incidents, double the number of the previous year (2008). Fredrik Sieradzki, spokesman for the Malmo Jewish community, estimated that the already small Jewish population is shrinking by 5% a year. “Malmo is a place to move away from,” he said, citing anti-Semitism as the primary reason.
In October 2010, The Forward reported on the current state of Jews and the level of Anti-semitism in Sweden. Henrik Bachner, a writer and professor of history at the University of Lund, claimed that members of the Swedish Parliament have attended anti-Israel rallies where the Israeli flag was burned while the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah were waved, and the rhetoric was often anti-Semitic—not just anti-Israel. But such public rhetoric is not branded hateful and denounced. Charles Small, director of the Yale University Initiative for the Study of Anti-Semitism, stated that “Sweden is a microcosm of contemporary anti-Semitism. It’s a form of acquiescence to radical Islam, which is diametrically opposed to everything Sweden stands for.” Per Gudmundson, chief editorial writer for Svenska Dagbladet, has sharply criticized politicians who him claims offer “weak excuses” for Muslims accused of anti-Semitic crimes. “Politicians say these kids are poor and oppressed, and we have made them hate. They are, in effect, saying the behavior of these kids is in some way our fault.” Judith Popinski, and 86-year-old Holocaust survivor, stated that she is no longer invited to schools that have a large Muslim presence to tell her story of surviving the Holocaust. Popinski, who found refuge in Malmo in 1945, stated that, until recently, she told her story in Malmo schools as part of their Holocaust studies program, but that now, many schools no longer ask Holocaust survivors to tell their stories, because Muslim students treat them with such disrespect, either ignoring the speakers or walking out of the class. She further stated that "Malmo reminds me of the anti-Semitism I felt as a child in Poland before the war. “I am not safe as a Jew in Sweden anymore.”
In December
December
December is the 12th and last month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of seven months with the length of 31 days.December starts on the same day as September every year and ends on the same day as April every year.-Etymology:...
2010, the Jewish
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
organization Simon Wiesenthal Center
Simon Wiesenthal Center
The Simon Wiesenthal Center , with headquarters in Los Angeles, California, was established in 1977 and named for Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter. According to its mission statement, it is "an international Jewish human rights organization dedicated to repairing the world one step at a time...
issued a travel advisory concerning Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, advising Jews to express "extreme caution" when visiting the southern parts of the country due to an increase in verbal and physical harassment of Jewish citizens by muslims in the city of Malmö
Malmö
Malmö , in the southernmost province of Scania, is the third most populous city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg.Malmö is the seat of Malmö Municipality and the capital of Skåne County...
.
Norway
In 2010, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation after one year of research, revealed that anti-semitismAnti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
was common among Norwegian muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s. Teachers at schools with large shares of muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s revealed that muslim students often "praise or admire Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
for his killing of Jews", that "Jew-hate is legitimate within vast groups of muslim students" and that "muslims laugh or command [teachers] to stop when trying to educate about the Holocaust". Additionally that "while some students might protest when some express support for terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
, none object when students express hate of Jews" and that it says in "the Quran that you shall kill Jews, all true muslims hate Jews". Most of these students were said to be born and raised in Norway. One Jewish father also told that his child after school had been taken by a muslim mob (though managed to escape), reportedly "to be taken out to the forest and hung
Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
because he was a Jew".
See also
- Anti-ZionismAnti-ZionismAnti-Zionism is opposition to Zionistic views or opposition to the state of Israel. The term is used to describe various religious, moral and political points of view in opposition to these, but their diversity of motivation and expression is sufficiently different that "anti-Zionism" cannot be...
- Christianity and antisemitism
- Holocaust denialHolocaust denialHolocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
- Islam and JudaismIslam and JudaismIslamic–Jewish relations started in the 7th century CE with the origin and spread of Islam in the Arabian peninsula. The two religions share similar values, guidelines, and principles. Islam also incorporates Jewish history as a part of its own. Muslims regard the Children of Israel as an important...
- IslamismIslamismIslamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
- New antisemitism
- QutbismQutbismQutbism is a strain of Sunni Islamist ideology and activism, based on the thought and writings of Sayyid Qutb, an Islamist and former leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood who was executed in 1966. It has been described as advancing the ideology of jihadism, i.e...
- Religious intoleranceReligious intoleranceReligious intolerance is intolerance against another's religious beliefs or practices.-Definition:The mere statement on the part of a religion that its own beliefs and practices are correct and any contrary beliefs incorrect does not in itself constitute intolerance...
- Racism in the Palestinian territoriesRacism in the Palestinian territoriesRacism in the Palestinian territories refers mainly to campaigns of discrimination and intolerance. According to many observers, racism and ethnic discrimination against Jews, Palestinians, Christians and blacks, have existed in the Palestinian territories, or in Palestine, from the mid-19th...
- The Legacy of Islamic AntisemitismThe Legacy of Islamic AntisemitismThe Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History is a 2008 book by Brown University professor of medicine Andrew Bostom...
External links
- http://news.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=168205"My fellow Muslims, we must fight anti-Semitism" 2002 interview with Tariq RamadanTariq RamadanTariq Ramadan is a Swiss academic, poet and writer. He is also a Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University...
in HaaretzHaaretzHaaretz is Israel's oldest daily newspaper. It was founded in 1918 and is now published in both Hebrew and English in Berliner format. The English edition is published and sold together with the International Herald Tribune. Both Hebrew and English editions can be read on the Internet...
] - Jews in the Koran and Early Islamic Traditions by Dr. Leah Kinberg
- "Why do jihadists love attacking Jews?"
- "The Arabs and the Holocaust": War of Narratives
- Jikeli, Günther; Stoller, Robin; Thoma, Hanne (2007): Strategies and Effective Practices for Fighting Antisemitism among People with a Muslim or Arab Background in Europe, Berlin
- Kashif Shahzada (2009): Why Islam is Against Antisemitism?, San Diego Jewish World, December, 2009