Muslims can't go on seeing Jews as enemies

On October 6, the Australian government expelled leading Pakistani cleric Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai for advocating that all Jews should be killed to establish world peace.

Mustafai has said the following on record: "Jews are the enemies of Islam… The guarantee of world peace is when the last Jew is killed… As long as there are Jews in this world, peace cannot be established in the whole world."

Mustafai is not alone. Hatred of Jews is rooted in Islamic history. It is also taught by Islamic clerics in India.

History

A new book, Understanding Islam, by BB Kumar, carries four chapters on Islam's experience with Jews.

In the book devoted to the early Islamic era, he argues that Prophet Muhammad "expected not only the assent, but the enthusiastic support of the Jews" for Islam but the Jews "stubbornly resisted every attempt… to convert them to Islam".

When "repeated attempts to convert (them)… failed," Kumar writes, "There was parting of the ways between the two. The ouster and destruction of the Jews followed."

When the Prophet migrated to Medina, three Jewish tribes - Al-Nadir, Banu Qaynuqa and Banu Qurayza - lived in the city's neighbourhood.

Two of them were expelled while up to 900 adult members of Banu Qurayza were massacred despite having surrendered.

The author notes how numerous Quranic verses disparaged Jews in the eyes of Muslims.

Citing Sahih Muslim, a book of Hadiths (sayings of the Prophet), Kumar quotes the Prophet as saying: "I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim(s)."

Kumar, whose book is based on Islamic sources and the works of reputed authors, cites six reasons for the enmity that ensued between Muslims and Jews:

I) Refusal to recognise Muhammad as the Prophet,

II) Inconvenient questions asked by Jewish rabbis,

III) Resurgent Islam was not ready to accept any other creed,

IV) The expulsion and destruction of Jews was politically needed by the Prophet,

V) Jews' unsympathetic behaviour towards poor Meccan refugees; and

VI) Expulsion of Jews made local resources available for war and for the Muslims who came from Mecca.

Enmity

Over the past centuries, this enmity between Muslims and Jews has developed into lasting hatred that has become part of the global Muslim consciousness, despite the fact that there have been times when Jews were treated well by some Muslim rulers.

In present times, Morocco treats its Jews well. However, overall it will not be inaccurate to say that Muslim children grow up nursing a negative view of Jews.

In present times, Muslim politicians and Islamic clerics in India nurse a hatred of Jews, often also failing to distinguish between Jews, Israel and Zionism.

On September 12, leading the Eid-ul-Azha (Feast of the Sacrifice) prayers at Marine Drive in Kochi, Islamic cleric Ismail Kangarappady blamed "imperialists, Zionists and fascists" of creating the Islamic State (ISIS) to defame Islam.

"One cannot even regard the ISIS as an Islamic terrorist outfit. The ideals they propagate have nothing to do with real Islam," Ismail Kangarappady told the worshippers.

Coverage

According to Roznama Urdu Times of July 24, Rashtriya Janata Dal politician Ashfaqur Rahman, speaking in Patna, blamed the "Zionist secret agency Mossad and self-proclaimed domestic nationalist RSS" for the Indian media's reports on Zakir Naik's role in radicalisation of Muslims.

Roznama Inquilab of August 8 carried a four-column report titled: "ISIS is an anti-Islam mischief birthed by the Jews."

As per the report, Islamic cleric Maulana Mustaqeem Ahsan Azmi described the Jews as "the world's most devious nation".

Of the three Jewish tribes, the massacre of Banu Qurayza is barbaric. The fighters had laid siege to the Banu Qurayza for 25 days due to which their children and women were hungry, thirsty and distressed.

They surrendered, offered to leave their property behind and begged to be allowed to leave. But 900 of their adult men were massacred after verifying that they had grown pubic hair.

This massacre is justified by Islamists even now by saying that Judaic laws also prescribed such punishment.

For example, Roznama Urdu Times of August 26 gave a laudatory headline marking the massacre and described it as a "Ghazwa" (holy war) - "Ghazwa-e-Banu Qurayza - When Muslims for the first time sent Jews to the guillotine."

We must keep in mind that we cannot live by the religious laws of the seventh century.

Therefore, all religious codes must be evaluated on the basis of modern-era democratic tenets to give us a new definition of who we are.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)

Also read - What do we talk about when we talk about Indian Muslims?