Celebrating our First Quarter Century, 5742-5767 (1982-2007)
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"MUHAMMED ADMIRED THE JEWS"
CHRISTIANITY, ISLAM AND THE JEWS:
JERUSALEM, Yom Sheini (Second Day - "Monday"), 17 Shvat, 5760, (Christian Date: January 24, 2000) (Muslim Date: 17 Shawal, 1420), Root & Branch: Malcolm Lowe Comments: These writers [Mark Aarons and John Loftus] state in the excerpt that was distributed through the Root & Branch Information Services, "Muhammed treated the Jews with a modicum of tolerance that put the Christian attitude to shame." Apparently, they [Aarons and Loftus] do not know that Muhammad made war upon the three Jewish tribes of Medina. Muhammad expelled two of those Jewish tribes and slaughtered the third Jewish tribe. Later, Muhammed made war on the Jews of Khaybar and expelled them from their fertile oasis. These events are fundamental to the anti-Jewish ideologies found among Muslims to this day. What faith can one have in a book ["The Secret War Against the Jews"] that ignores, or is ignorant of, such basic facts known to every educated Muslim? Sheikh Professor Palazzi Responds: We should be very careful, in reflecting on historical events, to consider them in the cultural context of the times when they occurred. The Prophet Muhammad never "waged war against the three Jewish tribes of Medina". Muhammad waged war against the pagan gentile tribe of Quraish from Mecca, those who had expelled him from his town and persecuted his followers in the worst way for ten years. When a war was about to start, every tribe in the area where hostilities would take place had to take a stand. Most Jewish tribes declared themselves neutral, and were not involved in the war, and received neither benefit nor harm from it. Two Jewish tribes sided with the Quraish. After the pagan, gentile Quraish were defeated, these two Jewish tribes were deprived of their goods and lands (as was customary in wars in Arabia during that period). One Jewish tribe signed an agreement with the Prophet Muhammad. This Jewish tribe broke its agreement with Muhammed, after the war had already begun, by suddenly opening the gates of Medina to the enemy (who nevertheless lost the battle). In retaliation for that betrayal, members of that Jewish tribe were put to death by Muhammed. The number of four thousand dead has no basis in historical sources, which refer to eight hundred persons killed. Muhammad's retribution against this Jewish tribe which broke its agreement with him during a war has nothing to do with "hostility" or "envy" toward Jews. This retribution was a severe punishment for a severe betrayal that could have led to the slaughter of Muhammed and his forces. Those Jews who had no part in the betrayal of Muhammed initiated by this one Jewish tribe were not put to death, nor were their goods and lands confiscated. Following the Sunnah (teachings) of the Prophet Muhammad is the basis of our Islamic faith. Had hostility toward Jews been a part of Muhammed's character, Muslims would have reflected that hostility in their relations with Jews during the past 1300 years. On the contrary, Jew-hatred among Muslims [primarily] dates back to the beginning of this century. Muslim rulers always welcomed those Jews who sought refuge in Muslim countries when they fled Jew-hatred and persecution in the lands of Christian Europe. Today, Wahhabis and "fundamentalist" Muslims strive to write a revisionist
version of Islamic history. They want to convince Muslims that hostility
toward Jews is a basic part of the Muslim religion. Well-meaning Jews and
Christians should not fall into the trap of unwittingly helping them
rewrite the basically philo-semitic history of Islam.
Malcolm Lowe Responds: I always read your comments with interest and appreciation and have learnt much of importance from them. Nor do I intend to take issue with your explanation of the conduct of Muhammad toward Jews. But your reply does not really contradict what I wrote, since I chose my words with great care. 1. I did not accuse all Muslims, or specifically Muhammad, of being anti-Jewish. I said that Muhammed's conflicts with Jews were "fundamental to the anti-Jewish ideologies found among Muslims to this day". Your reply confirms this as regards "Wahhabis and fundamentalist" Muslims. 2. I wrote that Muhammad "made war upon the three Jewish tribes of Medina". You replied that Muhammed made war upon the Quraish, with which Jewish tribes were allied. What is the difference? In those days, few tribes could repel all potential enemies alone. They had to form alliances, sometimes temporarily and sometimes for generations. A tribe would come to its allies' help irrespective of the rights of the dispute, since it hoped for such unconditional assistance whenever it was attacked itself. 3. You may well be correct in stating that the reprisals of Muhammad against the Jewish tribes conformed to the normal practice of warfare in his days. However, this kind of explanation has its limitations. By the standards of those days, the Serbian government could advance a justification for its recent reprisals against the Kosovars: their armed rebellion was punished with selective executions, seizure or destruction of property and exile. But we, in our days, no longer tolerate such behavior. Likewise, we have to say that Muhammad's behavior, though perhaps unexceptional in his time, was cruel by the standards that we demand today. 4. This brings me back to my main point, which you may have overlooked. I objected to the claim of John Loftus and Mark Aarons, in their book, that "Muhammed treated the Jews with a modicum of tolerance that put the Christian attitude to shame". That is, Muhammad's treatment of the Jews was, they proclaim, vastly better than that of any Christians ever in past centuries. What you write about Muhammad confirms my claim that the comparison drawn by Loftus and Aarons is false. In many cases, the by-our-standards intolerable treatment of Jews by Christians in the past can be explained in the same way as you explain Muhammad's behavior: that was how everyone behaved in those days. Many of the atrocities, by our standards, committed by the Crusaders can be explained as what all governments and armies considered acceptable in those days. Similar atrocities, by our standards, were committed by non-Christian governments and armies, including Muslim ones. Also, much of the anti-Jewish polemic in certain Church Fathers can be explained as merely the usual devices employed by ancient rhetoricians, whether Christian or not. Cicero himself, in a passage that everyone had read in those days, wrote that the abuse that he showered upon opponents often did not represent his private opinion, but was simply a device for getting his message across. Today, however, we consider such behavior disgusting (and rightly so, in my opinion), although mendacious politicians still win elections and even Nobel prizes. 5. In the Christian world, during the last half century, many groups, including national and worldwide churches, have begun to apologize and express penitence for the cruelty of their forebears toward Jews and Muslims. Recently, a large Christian group traveled, largly on foot, to Jerusalem to apologize for the cruelties practiced by the Crusaders. Unfortunately, no group of Muslims has yet offered similar apologies for the persecutions of Christians and Jews by the Fatimids, including the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. These persecutions started long before the Crusades and were one of the main causes of the Crusades. Likewise, many churches have issued official statements repudiating the "teaching of contempt" against Jews. Yet I continue to come across articles and letters disparaging Christianity in respectable Jewish media. If these come sometimes from Jewish teachers who are otherwise admirable people, it is because, on the Jewish side, there has not yet been a widespread reconsideration of the habitual ways in which Jews have spoken about Christians, or even about other Jews. I could mention some individual Jews who are now aware of this need, as I am also happy to cite you to show that complete faithfulness to Islam is possible without fanaticism. However, it seems to me that, at present, consciousness of the need to watch our words in talking about others is somewhat more widespread among Christians. |