In the region of MENA (Middle East and North Africa), dictators and tyrants have for long committed countless crimes against their own people without eliciting much attention from most people living in that region or elsewhere. During the 42 years of his dictatorship, Qaddafi murdered thousands upon thousands of Libyan civilians, some of whom were publicly hanged in public squares, football stadiums, and even on university campuses. No public reaction anywhere. Saddam murdered thousands of Iraqi civilians, including Kurds in the infamous Halabja massacre in 1988. Very little public reaction anywhere. In 1982, Hafiz Al-Assad murdered tens of thousands of Syrian civilians in one month in what became known as the Hama massacre. Not much public reaction anywhere. Hundreds of thousands, mostly civilians, were killed in the Algerian Civil War between 1992 and 2002. Hundreds of thousands, mostly civilians, were killed in the Lebanese Civil War between 1975 and 1990. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in Darfur between 2003 and 2005 alone. At least tens of thousands of civilians were killed in sectarian violence in Iraq between 2006 and 2008. More recently, thousands of Yazidis were murdered and thousands of Yazidi women were raped by the Islamic State Group. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed in Syria. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed in Yemen. No large-scale public reaction amongst the world’s populations to any of those massacres, especially in MENA. None of the above-mentioned horrific crimes against humanity has provoked anywhere near the highly charged reaction to Israel’s response to the brutal crimes committed by Hamas on the 7th of October 2023. In fact, one remembers when details of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre became public, numerous people demonstrated against Israel in MENA and in some Western European countries, even though those Palestinian victims were murdered by Lebanese militias, not by Israelis. The 1983 Israeli Kahan Commission found that the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) was indirectly responsible for the massacre by not intervening to stop the killings. Ariel Sharon- who had been the Israeli defence minister at the time of the massacre- was forced to resign. While hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested in Tel Aviv alone against Israel’s failure to stop that crime, hardly anyone in Arabic-speaking and/ or Muslim-majority countries demonstrated against the Lebanese militias who had actually committed those murders. What is the reason for that glaring inconsistency, especially among Muslims? To find the answer, one has to delve into the history and content of Islam.
Not many nations have endured persistent and pervasive antipathy throughout history as the Jews. The hostility towards them over the past 2,000 years seems to be motivated mostly by religious reasons. Although some Muslims deny that their opposition to Israel is based on any religiously inspired aversion to Jews and point to what they regard as settler colonialism as the real reason for their antagonism to Israel, they appear to gloss over the fact that the area we now call Israel/ Palestinian territories had experienced settler colonialism when the Arabs invaded it in the 7th century AD under the banner of religion. Prior to that time, none of the countries in MENA had been Arabic-speaking (with the exception of the Arabian peninsula) or Muslim-majority lands. It is also worthy of note that Muslims by and large do not seem to have the same strong feelings about other countries that are the product of settler colonialism, such as those of the New World. In fact, Muslims from all over the world leave their countries in droves every year to go and permanently settle in places like the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and they even become citizens of those countries at a later stage without batting an eyelid. It is, therefore, more reasonable to look for the motives behind what has become known as antisemitism in religion, especially in Christianity and Islam. One does not hear much about anti-Jewish feelings among followers of other religions, such as Buddhism or Hinduism. Historically, Christians were hostile to Jews because of two major reasons: Jewish rejection of Jesus as the Messiah and, more importantly, the accusation- now officially retracted by the Vatican- that Jesus was killed by Jews (e.g., 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15). Although the Gospels appear to indicate that the Roman governor Pilate was reluctant to execute Jesus and that it was the Jewish community there that pushed him to change his mind (e.g., Matthew 27:22-25), one is inclined to suspect that that allegation might have been motivated by resentment towards that Jewish community for their rejection of Jesus, as well as by fear of Roman retribution should the Gospel writers have accused the Romans instead of killing Jesus. At all events, the consequences for Jews became dire in subsequent centuries when widespread Christian hatred of Jews resulted in their extensive persecution, especially in the Middle Ages (500-1500 AD). Besides, Martin Luther’s rabid antisemitism added more fuel to the fire by strongly influencing the attitude of German-speaking peoples in particular towards Jews, something which ultimately culminated in the Holocaust. But what about Arab/ Muslim attitudes towards Jews?
Prior to Islam, Jews seemed to coexist peacefully with Arabs in the Arabian peninsula. Arabs tended to have positive opinions of Jews at that time. Although the Jews of Yathrib (aka Madina) were involved in some military battles, those were not based on a Jewish vs. Arab dichotomy. Instead, both of the major warring Arab tribes in that city had Jewish allies: Khazraj was allied with Banu Qaynuqa’, while Aws was allied with Banu An-Nadheer and Banu Quraytha. The Khazraj and Aws tribes regarded their Jewish allies as very loyal and dependable. Furthermore, before Islam, a Jewish man named As-Samaw’al (Samuel) Ibn Adiya’ was so highly regarded for his loyalty to the Arab poet Imru’u Al-Qays that Arabs back then considered his name to be the epitome of loyalty. In fact, seera (an account of Muhammad’s life) tells us that in the pre-Islamic era, some Arab women who lost a baby would vow to Judaize the next one if it survived, since Jews were respected as people “with knowledge and a holy scripture.” Why, then, did Arabs who converted to Islam (and, later, non-Arab Muslims) change their attitudes towards Jews? Muslim hostility towards Jews somewhat shares with historical Christianity one of the two above-mentioned factors, namely Jewish rejection of (in this case) Muhammad’s claim to prophethood. However, there is another reason that accounts for Muslim animosity towards Jews: Muslim-Jewish military confrontations during the time of Muhammad. Those clashes occurred after Muhammad’s emigration from Mecca to Madina. The first of those took place between Muslims and the tribe of Banu Qaynuqa’ as a result of a reportedly trivial prank played by a Jewish man on a Muslim woman in a Jewish jeweller’s shop. That caused an outraged Muslim man who was present at that time to kill the Jewish prankster, but he himself was then immediately killed by Jews in retaliation. Oddly enough, instead of penalizing only the murderers, Muhammad decided to kill all the adult males of that tribe. It was only after a major intervention was made by Abdullah ibn Ubay ibn Salool- who was the chief of the Arab tribe of Khazraj at that time and an ally of Banu Qaynuqa’s- that Muhammad relented and ordered their expulsion from Madina. Banu Qaynuqa left Madina shortly thereafter. The second confrontation happened with the tribe of Banu An-Nadheer. Muhammad had sought that tribe’s assistance in the payment of diyya (blood money) for a killing committed by a Muslim man. He went to visit Banu An-Nadheer in their neighbourhood. Shortly after his arrival, he abruptly left the area and rushed back to his home, claiming that Gabriel had informed him that Banu An-Nadheer were plotting to kill him. That claim was used by Muhammad as a casus belli. Muslims later prevailed in the conflict with that tribe and, through intervention by their Arab allies from the tribe of Aws, Banu An-Nadheer were allowed to leave Madina rather than face death. Like with Banu Qaynuqa’ before them, Muhammad permitted them to take with them only what could be carried on the backs of their camels, except for weapons, while their lands, buildings, businesses, and heavy equipment were appropriated by Muslims.
The third conflict took place between Muslims and the tribe of Banu Quraytha. Following the failure of Quraish (Muhammad’s tribe) and that of its allies to conquer Madina as a result of the deep trench Muslims had dug around that city to protect it, Muhammad accused Banu Quraytha of colluding with Quraish- for which he produced no clear evidence- and decided to do away with that tribe. He later gathered the adult males of Banu Quraytha, estimated to be between 600 and 1000 individuals, and gave orders mainly to Ali bin Abi Talib and Zubair bin Al-Awwam to behead all of them. The women were taken as female slaves. Although Muslim sources claim that Muhammad spared the children, the Muslim definition of a child vs. an adult at that time indicates otherwise, since adults back then were defined as those males who had developed pubic hair. Given that this happens on average around the age of 12 for males, it is safe to assume that many 12- to 17-year-old children were beheaded in that massacre. The fourth and last major confrontation between Muslims and Jews during Muhammad’s lifetime occurred with the Muslim invasion of the Jewish city of Khaybar. No credible casus belli was provided by Muhammad for that attack. Still, it ended with a Muslim victory. Muhammad seized the Jews’ material possessions, but he decided to spare their lives. He made an agreement with the Jews of Khaybar to the effect that he would allow them to work on those lands- which he now owned- in return for his receiving half of the produce, probably because his followers were not skilled in farming. He also reserved the right to expel those Jews anytime he wanted. The aforementioned military confrontations between Muslims and Jews, in addition to the Jewish rejection of Muhammad’s claim to prophethood, led to condemnation of Jews in many a Quranic verse. Although those verses by and large deal with the Jews of that time and place and with disobedient Jews of previous generations, most Muslims to this day mistakenly regard the content of those verses as eternal facts.
Muslims by and large hold the view that Jews are the objects of God’s wrath. The first sura (chapter) in the Quran is a prayer to God, asking him to guide Muslims to the Straight Path (of righteousness), the path of those whom God has favoured, not that of those who had incurred God’s wrath nor that of those who had strayed (Al-Fatiha 6-7). The majority of Muslim exegetes say that the people who had provoked God’s rage are the Jews, and those who had strayed are the Christians. They base their views on some Quranic verses that seemingly tell of how Jews had incurred God’s wrath (Aal ‘Imran 112; Al-Fath 6), and also on those that tell of Christians going astray (Al-Ma’idah 77). Nevertheless, the exegete Al-Qurtubi says that some Quranic exegetes have interpreted those who are the targets of God’s wrath as the polytheists, and those who have gone astray as the hypocrites. This view makes more sense, given that the Jews who provoked God’s anger in one of the two verses above (Aal ‘Imran 112) were only those who had allegedly disbelieved God’s signs and killed prophets. That condemnation could not reasonably have included all Jews, in view of the fact that there have been many devout Jews throughout history, and that those who had reportedly killed prophets could not possibly have been more than a very small fraction of all Jews. As for the other verse (Al-Fath 6), there is no indication here that God directed his anger at Jews; instead, hypocrites and polytheists are mentioned as the objects of God’s wrath.
A multitude of Muslims also believe that Jews are infidels because they allegedly regard Ezra as the Son of God. Those Muslims base their claim on a verse in the Quran that denounces Christians for maintaining that Jesus is the Son of God and castigates Jews for asserting that Ezra is the Son of God (At-Tawbah 30). While most Christians do believe that Jesus is the Son of God, Jews have vociferously objected to the claim that they regard Ezra as the Son of God. Their objection seems to be reasonable, for if Jews had believed in a man being the Son of God, Moses would surely have been that man, not Ezra. They also would not have been scathingly critical of the Christian view that God had a Son, given that that would have laid them open to the same criticism by Christians. Most importantly, Jewish scripture itself states that Ezra was descended from human beings and traces his ancestry to Aaron, the brother of Moses (The Book of Ezra 7:1-5). In fact, some Muslim exegetes like Az-Zamakhshari, At-Tabari, and Al-Qurtubi maintain that the verse in question refers to only four Jews who lived during the life of Muhammad, not to all Jews. Another accusation that many Muslims level at Jews is that they are killers of prophets. That is because the Quran appears to accuse Jews of killing prophets (Aal-‘Imran 181; An-Nissa’ 155). It is not entirely clear whom of those prophets Jews had killed. Different names have been given by various sources, especially Elijah, Zechariah, Isaiah, Jesus, and John the Baptist. However, Elijah supposedly went up into heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:11-12). The Zechariah who was killed was the priest Zechariah ben Jehoiada (2 Chronicles 24:20-21), not the prophet Zechariah ben Berechiah, a confusion reportedly experienced by Jesus himself (Matthew 23:35). And while Isaiah may have been killed by a Jew, King Manasseh, this seems to be mentioned only in the Talmud, not in the thirty-nine books of Jewish scripture included in what is known outside of the Jewish nation as the Old Testament. Yet, if true, that was only one man committing the act of murder. As mentioned previously, Jesus was killed by the Romans. As for John the Baptist, he was reportedly killed by Herod Antipas (Mark 6:27-28), but that was just one man fulfilling the wishes of his wife Herodias (formerly his brother’s wife). On the basis of the above, one cannot reasonably claim that Jews as a whole are killers of prophets. In fact, the exegetes At-Tabari and Al-Qurtubi suggest that the Quran may have been referring to those Jews who actually agreed with the alleged killing of prophets, not to all Jews regardless. It is also worthy of note that seera tells us that Arabs opposed to Muhammad tried to kill him on different occasions. But, we may ask, if those had succeeded, would all Arabs have reasonably been condemned as killers of a prophet?
(To be continued)
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Husam Dughman is a Libyan Canadian political scientist, religious thinker, linguist, and an expert on immigrants and refugees. He received his formal education in Libya and the UK. Mr. Dughman later worked as a university professor of political science in Libya. Due to confrontations with the Qaddafi regime, he resigned from his university position and subsequently worked in legal translation. Mr. Dughman has been working with new immigrant and refugee services in both Canada and the US since 2006.
Husam Dughman has published a book entitled Tête-à-tête with Muhammad. He has also written numerous articles on politics and religion. He has just completed the full manuscript of a book which he hopes to have published in the near future. The new book is an in-depth examination of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and the non-religious school of thought.
