Is Islam Inherently Anti-Jewish?

Henry Srebrnik, [Toronto] Jewish Tribune

Certainly, in comparison with classical Christianity, the answer is no. There is less of a theological basis for opposition to Judaism. Islam does not see itself as being the successor to the covenant between G-d and the children of Israel, as the Church did. Nor, of course, were “the Jews” ever considered responsible for deicide.

Still, long before the birth of the modern Zionist movement, there was already a centuries-old tradition in Islam of treating Jews in a subservient, even derogatory manner – although this was true of the way a triumphalist Islam deal with other faiths as well.

During the Muslim prophet Muhammad’s life, thousands of Jews lived in the Arabian peninsula, especially in and around Medina, the city to which in 622 Muhammad was forced to migrate from Mecca.

Muhammad’s early teachings appeared to borrow from Jewish tradition. However, once it became clear the Jews would not accept him, Muhammad began to minimize or eliminate the Jewish influence on his beliefs.

In fact, campaigns against Jews would become part of the very genesis of Islam. One of the first examples was the murder of Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf, a Jewish poet who lived near Medina. He wrote verses satirizing Muhammad and incited Meccans against the new faith, and as a consequence was assassinated in 624 by followers of Muhammad.

In 627, the Muslim armies defeated a tribe of Jews, the Banu Qurayza, following the Battle of the Trench between the followers of Islam in Medina and their opponents. The bulk of the tribe’s men, apart from a few who converted to Islam, were killed, while the women and children were enslaved.

Two years later, the Battle of Khaybar was fought between Muhammad’s followers and the Jews living in the oasis of Khaybar, 150 kilometres from Medina.

Khaybar’s Jews made their living growing date palm trees, as well as through commerce and craftsmanship, accumulating considerable wealth.

The Muslims won, and the victory in Khaybar greatly raised the status of Muhammad among his followers and local Bedouin tribes, who, seeing his power, swore allegiance to the new prophet and converted to Islam.

The captured booty and weapons strengthened his army, and he captured Mecca in 630, two years before his death.

The story includes an example of “Jewish treachery.” As the Jewish leaders of Khaybar went to Muhammad to negotiate the terms of surrender, Zeynab bint al-Harith, a Jewish woman whose husband had been killed in the battle, enquired about Muhammad’s favourite food. Hearing that it was shoulder of lamb, she offered him a poisoned meal. A companion died, but Muhammad did not; Zeynab was executed.

The Jewish community in Khaybar was eventually expelled by Caliph Umar in 642.

In succeeding centuries, Jews were periodically the victims of mob violence against their communities in the Arab world.

The conquest of Morocco and Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) by the Muslim Berber Almoravids in 1040 and by the Almohades 81 years later, caused destruction and suffering to their Jewish communities. In 1066, a massacre of the Jewish population of Granada saw thousands killed. In Fez, 6,000 Jews were massacred in 1035 and mobs slaughtered thousands more in 1465. There were pogroms in Tetuan in 1790 and 1792.

In the 16th century, the Jews of Tunis were subjected to anti-Jewish policies and forced to live in ghettos. In 1869 anti-Jewish riots broke out, and the rabbis and leaders of the community of Tunis appealed desperately to French officials, informing them that “in the face of Muslim ferocity, 18 Jews have fallen to the knives of the fanatical murderers.” (Tunisia became a French protectorate in 1881.)

Elsewhere in North Africa, Ali Burzi Pasha murdered hundreds of Jews in Libya in 1785. Jews were also massacred in Algiers in 1805, 1815 and 1830.

Things did not improve in the 20th century. As H.E.W. Young, the British Vice-Consul in Mosul, present-day Iraq, wrote in 1909, “The attitude of the Muslims toward the Christians and the Jews is that of a master towards slaves, whom he treats with a certain lordly tolerance so long as they keep their place. Any sign of pretension to equality is promptly repressed.”

More than 1,000 Jews were killed in anti-Jewish rioting during the 1940s in Arab countries.

On June 1-2, 1941, during Shavuot, riots against Jews in Baghdad, Iraq, resulted in about 180 Jews killed and 1,000 injured, in what became known as the farhud (Arabic for “violent dispossession”). Looting of Jewish property took place and 900 Jewish homes were destroyed.

This followed the April 1941 coup that temporarily overthrew the pro-Western regime and installed Rashid Ali al-Gaylani as prime minister, with Nazi support and financing. He was finally ousted by British forces by the end of May.

On Nov. 2, 1945, anti-Jewish riots broke out in Egypt. Organized by the ‘Young Egypt’ group, Jewish-owned department stores in Cairo were looted, and a synagogue, Jewish hospital, and old-age home were set on fire. In Alexandria, six Jews were killed and 200 wounded.

Three days later, in a two-day pogrom, more than 140 Jews, including 36 children, were killed and many more injured in Tripoli, Libya.

On Dec. 2, 1947, Arab rioters, assisted by the local police force, engaged in a bloody pogrom in Aden, in today’s Yemen, that killed 82 Jews. Four synagogues were burnt to the ground and 220 Jewish houses were burned and looted or damaged.

All of this, of course, preceded the creation of Israel. No wonder hundreds of thousands of Jews fled these countries in the decades that followed.