The Koran on the Jews
“Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews…” (5:82).
“Curses were pronounced on those among the Children of Israel who rejected Faith, by the tongue of David and of Jesus the son of Mary: because they disobeyed and persisted in excesses.” (5:78).
“Is it ever so that when they make a covenant a party of them set it aside? The truth is, most of them believe not. And when there came to them a messenger from Allah [Muhammad], confirming what was with them [the Torah], a party of the people of the Book threw away the Book of Allah behind their backs, as if (it had been something) they did not know!” (2:100-101).
“The People of the Book know well that that is the truth from their Lord. Nor is Allah unmindful of what they do” (2:143-144).
“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (9:29).
“And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah. That is their saying with their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved of old. Allah (Himself) fighteth against them. How perverse are they!” (9:30)
The Jews killed their prophets (2:61; 2:87; 2:91; 3:21; 3:112; 3:181; 3:183; 4:155; 5:70), and boast “we killed the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary” (4:157).
“Allah hath heard the taunt of those who say: ‘Truly, Allah is indigent and we are rich!’ We shall certainly record their word and (their act) of slaying the prophets in defiance of right, and We shall say: ‘Taste ye the penalty of the Scorching Fire!’” (3:181)
“Why do not the rabbis and the doctors of Law forbid them from their (habit of) uttering sinful words and eating things forbidden? Evil indeed are their works.” (5:63)
“The Jews say: ‘Allah’s hand is tied up.’ Be their hands tied up and be they accursed for the (blasphemy) they utter. Nay, both His hands are widely outstretched: He giveth and spendeth (of His bounty) as He pleaseth. But the revelation that cometh to thee from Allah increaseth in most of them their obstinate rebellion and blasphemy. Amongst them we have placed enmity and hatred till the Day of Judgment. Every time they kindle the fire of war, Allah doth extinguish it; but they (ever) strive to do mischief on earth. And Allah loveth not those who do mischief” (5:64).
The Jews “strive to do mischief on earth” – that is, fasaad, for which the punishment is specified in 5:33: “they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land.”
“Ye are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah. If only the People of the Book had faith, it were best for them: among them are some who have faith, but most of them are perverted transgressors. They will do you no harm, barring a trifling annoyance; if they come out to fight you, they will show you their backs, and no help shall they get. Shame is pitched over them (like a tent) wherever they are found, except when under a covenant (of protection) from Allah and from men; they draw on themselves wrath from Allah, and pitched over them is (the tent of) destitution. This because they rejected the Signs of Allah, and slew the prophets in defiance of right; this because they rebelled and transgressed beyond bounds.” (3:110-112)
“And because of their breaking their covenant, We have cursed them and made hard their hearts. They change words from their context and forget a part of that whereof they were admonished. Thou wilt not cease to discover treachery from all save a few of them. But bear with them and pardon them. Lo! Allah loveth the kindly (5:13).
“Among the People of the Book are some who, if entrusted with a hoard of gold, will (readily) pay it back; others, who, if entrusted with a single silver coin, will not repay it unless thou constantly stoodest demanding, because, they say, ‘there is no call on us (to keep faith) with these ignorant (Pagans).’ but they tell a lie against Allah, and (well) they know it.” (3:75)
“O Messenger! let not those grieve thee, who race each other into unbelief: (whether it be) among those who say ‘We believe’ with their lips but whose hearts have no faith; or it be among the Jews — men who will listen to any lie — will listen even to others who have never so much as come to thee. They change the words from their (right) times and places: they say, ‘If ye are given this, take it, but if not, beware!’ If any one’s trial is intended by Allah, thou hast no authority in the least for him against Allah. For such – it is not Allah’s will to purify their hearts. For them there is disgrace in this world, and in the Hereafter a heavy punishment.” (5:41)
“There is a party of them who distort the Scripture with their tongues, that ye may think that what they say is from the Scripture, when it is not from the Scripture. And they say: It is from Allah, when it is not from Allah; and they speak a lie concerning Allah knowingly” (3:78).
“Then woe to those who write the Book with their own hands, and then say: ‘This is from Allah,’ to traffic with it for miserable price! Woe to them for what their hands do write, and for the gain they make thereby.” (2:79)
“But because of their breach of their covenant, We cursed them, and made their hearts grow hard; they change the words from their (right) places and forget a good part of the message that was sent them, nor wilt thou cease to find them- barring a few – ever bent on (new) deceits: but forgive them, and overlook (their misdeeds): for Allah loveth those who are kind.” (5:13)
“Many of the People of the Scripture long to make you disbelievers after your belief, through envy on their own account, after the truth hath become manifest unto them’” (2:109).
“And when there comes to them a Book from Allah, confirming what is with them, although from of old they had prayed for victory against those without Faith, when there comes to them that which they (should) have recognised, they refuse to believe in it but the curse of Allah is on those without Faith. “ (2:89)
“For the iniquity of the Jews We made unlawful for them certain (foods) good and wholesome which had been lawful for them; in that they hindered many from Allah’s Way; that they took usury, though they were forbidden; and that they devoured men’s substance wrongfully; we have prepared for those among them who reject faith a grievous punishment.” (4:160-161)
“Thou wilt indeed find them, of all people, most greedy of life,-even more than the idolaters: Each one of them wishes He could be given a life of a thousand years: But the grant of such life will not save him from (due) punishment. For Allah sees well all that they do.” (2:96)
From Robert Spencer’s book, “The Religion of Peace”:
The Koran puts forward a clear, consistent image of the Jews: they are scheming, treacherous liars and the most dangerous enemies of the Muslims. This theological tenet provides a basis for Islam’s deeply-rooted anti-Semitism. Regardless of the actions of Jewish individuals today, and regardless of what policies the State of Israel follows, the Koran justifies an unrelenting form of anti-Semitism that will be extremely difficult to root out from the Muslim world.
And this is by no means confined to an “extremist” fringe. The Koranic impulse toward anti-Semitism is evident in the attacks on Jews emanating from Islamic preachers and scholars worldwide. Take, for example, “Jews as Depicted in the Qur’an,”an article posted in 2004 on the website Islam Online. The website’s founders include the prominent Islamic theologian Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is hailed as a moderate reformist by Western Islamic apologistsThe article, written by Sheikh ‘Atiyyah Saqr, formerly of Al-Azhar University, copiously cites the Koran in depicting the Jews as a gang of corrupt, deceitful cut-throats.
The Jews, he says, “used to fabricate things and falsely ascribe them to Allah.” Supporting this, he quotes the verse condemning Jews for claiming Allah’s hand was fettered (5:64) and another asserting that some People of the Book say “we have no duty to the Gentiles” and in doing so, “speak a lie concerning Allah knowingly” (3:75). He adds a third verse in which some Jews, asked for money, scoff that “Allah, forsooth, is poor, and we are rich!” (3:181)
The Jews, continues Saqr, “love to listen to lies.” This is essentially a straight rendering of the Koran’s claim that the Jews are “men who will listen to any lie” (5:41). They also spread them: “There is a party of them who distort the Scripture with their tongues, that ye may think that what they say is from the Scripture, when it is not from the Scripture. And they say: It is from Allah, when it is not from Allah; and they speak a lie concerning Allah knowingly” (3:78). They dare to distort “Divine Revelation and Allah’s Sacred Books. Allah says in this regard: ‘Therefore woe be unto those who write the Scripture with their hands and then say, ‘This is from Allah,’ that they may purchase a small gain therewith. Woe unto them for that their hands have written, and woe unto them for that they earn thereby’” (2:79).
Saqr also notes that in the Koran Allah says the Jews have broken “their covenant,” and consequently he has “cursed them and made hard their hearts” (5:13). Indeed, says Saqr, “they never keep their promises or fulfill their words” – to demonstrate this, he quotes this Koranic passage: “Is it ever so that when ye make a covenant a party of you set it aside? The truth is, most of them believe not.” (2:100).
The Jews also refuse to believe in the prophets Allah has sent them, even Moses, telling him: “O Moses! We will not believe in thee till we see Allah plainly” (2:55). They are hypocrites (2:14; 2:44) who “grow arrogant” before the messengers of Allah, refusing to believe in some and killing others (2:87). They are so arrogant and haughty that they “claimed to be the sons and of Allah and His beloved ones” – a fault they share with the Christians: “The Jews and Christians say: We are sons of Allah and His loved ones” (5:18).
All that represents damage the Jews do to their own souls, but Saqr — and the Koran itself – doesn’t stop there. The Jews also wish “evil for people” and try to “mislead” them. “This is clear,” says Saqr, “in the verse that reads: ‘Many of the People of the Scripture long to make you disbelievers after your belief, through envy on their own account, after the truth hath become manifest unto them’” (2:109). They “feel pain to see others in happiness and are gleeful when others are afflicted with a calamity,” as is demonstrated, according to Saqr, by this verse: “If a lucky chance befall you, it is evil unto them, and if disaster strike you they rejoice thereat” (3:120). The Koran, Saqr points out, accuses them of “taking usury when they were forbidden it, and of their devouring people’s wealth by false pretences” (4:161).
Even worse, “it is easy for them to slay people and kill innocents,” for “nothing in the world is dear to their hearts than shedding blood and murdering human beings.” Saqr grounds this on the Koran’s assertion that the Jews “slew the prophets wrongfully” (2:61). The Jews are characterized, says Saqr, by “cowardice. . . . To this, the Qur’an refers when saying: ‘Ye are more awful as a fear in their bosoms than Allah. That is because they are a folk who understand not. They will not fight against you in a body save in fortified villages or from behind walls” (59:14). Saqr also excoriates the Jews for their “love for this worldly life” – as does the Koran: “And thou wilt find them greediest of mankind for life and (greedier) than the idolaters” (2:96).
Saqr concludes on an optimistic note, voicing hopes that some day Muslims will be able to mete out punishment to their enemies; “Almighty Allah told us that He’d send to them people who’d pour on them rain of severe punishment that would last till the Day of Resurrection. All this gives us glad tidings of the coming victory of Muslims over them once Muslims stick to strong faith and belief in Allah and adopt the modern means of technology.”
One should consider Saqr’s interpretation in light of Iran’s feverish attempts to acquire a nuclear bomb, alongside the repeated vows by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to wipe Israel off the map. For Ahmadinejad and his ilk, eliminating the Jewish state is not just a foreign policy goal; it is a religious imperative.
Jewish apes and pigs
Oddly, Saqr is silent about the famous Koranic passages in which Allah transforms disobedient Jews into apes and pigs (2:63-66; 5:59-60; 7:166). The practice of calling the Jews of today “apes and pigs” has become a staple of jihadist discourse. Although Saudi authorities promised after 9/11 to revise textbooks that taught hatred against Jews and Christians, as late as 2006 Saudi texts still referred to Jews as “apes” and Christians as “swine.”
And in April 2008 a British employment tribunal awarded 70,000 pounds to a teacher who had been fired from a Saudi-funded Islamic school for exposing the fact that the school used textbooks that spoke of “the repugnant characteristics of the Jews” and asserted: “Those whom God has cursed and with whom he is angry, he has turned into monkeys and pigs. They worship Satan.”
In March 2004 Sheikh Ibrahim Mudayris, speaking on official Palestinian Authority television, railed against “the Jews today taking revenge for their grandfathers and ancestors, the sons of apes and pigs.”
And during the swine flu scare in May 2009, Sheikh Ahmad ‘Ali ‘Othman, the superintendent of da’wa [Islamic proselytizing] affairs at the Egyptian Ministry of Religious Endowments, declared, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, that “all pigs are descended from the Jews whom Allah transformed into apes, swine and worshippers of Satan, and must therefore be slaughtered.” Othman based his argument on Koran 5:60, one of the notorious “apes and pigs” passages of the Koran.
An Egyptian imam, Muhammad Hussein Ya’qoub, in January 2009 delivered a televised sermon in which he insisted that Muslim hatred of Jews had nothing to do with Israel, and everything to do with the Koran: “If the Jews left Palestine to us, would we start loving them? Of course not. We will never love them. Absolutely not. The Jews are infidels – not because I say so, and not because they are killing Muslims, but because Allah said: ‘The Jews say that Uzair is the son of Allah, and the Christians say that Christ is the son of Allah. These are the words from their mouths. They imitate the sayings of the disbelievers before. May Allah fight them. How deluded they are.’ [9:30]
It is Allah who said that they are infidels.” He also quoted Koran 5:82, the verse that says that the Jews are the Muslims’ worst enemies. His peroration: “As for you Jews – the curse of Allah upon you. The curse of Allah upon you, whose ancestors were apes and pigs…. 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.”
Saqr, for his part, asserted that because Jews “revolted against the Divine ordinances … they found no warm reception in all countries where they tried to reside. Rather, they would either be driven out or live in isolation.” Moreover, “Almighty Allah told us that He’d send to them people who’d pour on them rain of severe punishment that would last till the Day of Resurrection.”
Those people would be, by Saqr’s own account and that of other Islamic clerics, the Muslims.
Islam: Instigator, Originator, Collaborator of the Final Solution
MEF:
There are approximately seven hundred verses in more than fifty Qur’anic suras that have direct and explicit negative references to the Jews; together with the other major books of Islam, they comprise in total 9 percent of the total Shari’a.[38] The characterizations employed against Jews are situated in the attitude toward the “other” that al-Wala wal-Bara perpetuates.
Jews are cursed forever,[39] having been transformed into apes and swine[40] (or apes alone).[41] The ultimate sin committed by the Jews is that they are the devil’s minions,[42] and if they do not accept the true faith of Islam, they will burn in hellfire.[43] Jews conceal the truth, being “the vilest of all creatures,”[44] most wicked with hearts harder than stones.[45] By perverting the words of God, Jews corrupted the scriptures and killed the prophets.[46] Jews are “fond of lies,” “devour the forbidden,” and are “cowards, vulgar, and fools.”[47] They are the worst of God’s creation; rats are, in fact, “mutated Jews.”[48] From an operational standpoint, the Hadith takes these views and offers a prescription for their application (albeit sometime in the future):
The hour will not be established until you fight the Jews, and the stone and the tree behind which a Jew will be hiding will say: “O Muslim! O Servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding behind me, so come and kill him.”[49]
Harry de Quetteville, “Christians still ‘swine’ and Jews ‘apes’ in Saudi schools,” Telegraph, June 25, 2006.
Alexandra Frean, “Teacher accuses Islamic school of racism,” The Times, April 15, 2008.
“PA Supervised Sermon:Jews the sons of apes and pigs,” IMRA, March 15, 2004.
“Egyptian Religious Endowments Ministry Official: The Pigs Living Today Are Descended from Jews – And Must Be Slaughtered,” Middle East Media Research Institute Special Dispatch No. 2359, May 15, 2009.
“Egyptian Cleric Muhammad Hussein Ya’qoub: The Jews Are the Enemies of Muslims Regardless of the Occupation of Palestine,” MEMRITV Clip No. 2042, January 17, 2009.
John Esposito, “Practice and Theory: A response to ‘Islam and the Challenge of Democracy,’” Boston Review, April/May 2003; “Al-Qaradawi full transcript,” BBC News, July 8, 2004.
‘Atiyyah Saqr, “Jews as Depicted in the Qur’an,” Islam Online, March 23, 2004.
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And from the world’s leading scholar of Islamic antisemitism, Bat Ye’or:
Society was sharply divided along ethnic and religious lines, with the Arab tribes at the top of the hierarchy, followed by the Berbers who were never recognized as equals, despite their Islamization. Lower on the ladder came the mullawadun and, at the very bottom, the dhimmi Christians and Jews. — Bat Ye’or, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis. Teaneck, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005, page 166
As the dhimmis were forbidden to possess arms, they became totally dependent on the occupying power. In certain rural areas, the servile character of the dhimmi’s condition worsened with the passage of time. In 1884 Charles de Foucauld described areas in southern Morocco where the Jews and their families belonged body and soul to their Muslim master and were unable to leave him. Here the condition of serfdom was determined by religion and was passed on from generation to generation: these people were part of the master’s inheritance in exactly the same way as his lands and livestock. As late as 1913, the Jews of Dadès in the Greater Atlas of Morocco were serfs, the property of their Muslim master. – Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam. Teaneck, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985, pages 52-53
It is reported that, in 1033, between five and six thousand Jews were massacred in Fez, and in 1066 about three thousand in Granada. In Yemen the Jews were forced to choose between death and conversion in 1165 and 1678. The Almohad persecutions (1130-1212) in the Maghreb and in Muslim Spain put an end to what remained of the Christian population of North Africa. The Jews, who had been forced to accept Islam, formed a mass of “new converts” who practiced their former religion in secret. The Almohad inquisitors, doubting their sincerity, took away their children and raised them as Muslims. A similar law also existed in Yemen, where every Jewish orphan child had to be converted to Islam. Abrogated by the Turks during their brief occupation of the country after 1872, it was reintroduced by the Imam Yahya in 1922 and confirmed again in 1925….Records concerning Morocco, Algeria and Yemen reveal that during changes of reign and times of instability, the Jewish quarters were regularly pillaged, some of the menfolk massacred, and many women abducted and held for ransom by the soldiery or by tribes from the surrounding regions. Eyewitnesses have described the destruction of the Jewish quarter at Fez in 1912 at the beginning of the French protectorate, and at Sana’a in Yemen as late as 1948, after the assassination of the Imam Yahya. Such ordeals, over the centuries, resulted in many conversions to Islam. Thus a number of Judeo-Berber tribes of the Atlas, and Muslim families in Fez, are known to be descended from Jews who accepted Islam to save their lives in 1165, 1275, 1465, and 1790-92. There are Muslims in Tripolitania and elsewhere who are the descendants of Jews forcibly converted at different periods. The Jews of Tabriz were obliged to convert in 1291 and 1318, and those of Baghdad in 1333 and 1344. –Bat Ye’or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam. Teaneck, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985, page 61
A brief survey will illustrate the traditional condition of dhimmitude in Persia at this period. In 1866, the head of the Hamadan Jewish community was imprisoned, put in chains, and threatened with death. The same year in Balforuch (a province of Hamadan), the disappearance of a young Muslim provoked the forced Islamization of Jews: eighteen were killed and two burned alive. In Hamadan in 1875, a fanatic mullah preached the slaughter of the Jews; one of them, accused of blasphemy, was burned alive by the mob. In Teheran on 16 May 1877, the Jewish quarter was invaded and its inhabitants attacked, while a mullah published a fatwa forcing Jews to wear a distinctive badge.
In Isfahan in 1889 a ritual murder accusation unleashed several days of anti-Jewish violence and threats of extermination. On 10 August 1889 in the same town, Muslims accused Jewish pilgrims of throwing stones, of attacking a kadi, and of profaning a mosque with brandy. The mob immediately broke the hands and legs of some hundred pilgrims and injured all the others. Isfahan Jews were attacked in the streets the next day and had to hide in their homes; two who ventured out were killed. Their corpses were dragged through the streets and dumped in the Jewish quarter when night fell. On the morrow, some women were raped and the kadi signed a petition for the Jews to be exterminated. The shah’s son, Prince Zil-Sultan, hastened to protect the victims but the brutality continued. Two months later, on 5 October, a Muslim who had struck a Jew then accused him of the same offense; Jews were immediately beaten up and their quarter plundered. Only the arrival of Prince Zil-Sultan prevented a general massacre. This report also mentions efforts by “Christian priests,” Mirza Norollah in particular, to help the Jews, thereby saving a large number and constantly assisting them. — Bat Ye’or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide, Teaneck, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002, p. 125.