The Qur'an does not teach hatred of Jews, Part II

Jihad Watch loves to quote the verse of the Qur'an I explained in the post below as an example of how Islam teaches the hatred of Jews. They quoted it again today. But in light of the exegesis about that verse it becomes clear that the verse in question, from Surah 5, verse 82, refers specifically to the Jews living at the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him.

"Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews and Pagans..." Interestingly enough, the Qur'an doesn't say that "Muslims will be the strongest in enmity to the Jews and Pagans." Instead, God simply warns the Muslims that the Jews and Pagans will show the most hatred towards them. God doesn't even say that Muslims should show the same hostility back to the Jews and Pagans. He could have if He wanted.

But JW goes a step further today by quoting a hadith that they have claimed is genocidal. David Horowitz and Robert Spencer have crusaded against this hadith demanding that Muslims who claim to be against genocide repudiate this hadith. The hadith is quoted in the news article at JW today as a means of suggesting that a French youth of African origin who murdered a Jewish man in France probably got his ideas about killing Jews directly from the Qur'an and the hadith of the Prophet, peace and prayers be upon him. That may be true, but such an interpretation is not orthodox within Islam, and there is no justification within Islamic law for killing an innocent Jewish person.

Well, interestingly enough there are various versions of this "genocidal" hadith in Sahih Muslim, where JW gets it from. The obvious import of the hadiths on this topic of Muslims and Jews fighting each other is that the Prophet was prophesizing about the future and that one of the signs of the Day of Judgment would be a fight between Jews and Muslims. This hadith is quoted in ibn Kathir's book, coincedentally called The Signs Before the Day of Judgment!

See this hadith for example, which clearly shows that the Prophet was prophesizing a sign before the final hour: "Abdullah b. 'Umar reported that Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: 'The Jews will fight against you and you will gain victory over them until the stone would say: Muslim, here is a Jew behind me; kill him.'" Sahih Muslim, 6984. This is the hadith that comes right before the one JW quotes. Notice that it doesn't say that the Muslims will fight the Jews, but it is the exact opposite (the Jews will fight the Muslims). It also doesn't say that the Muslims will kill all the Jews, but only that the two will fight and the Muslims will win. It is not clear what exactly is going on in this battle, whether it's a small group of Muslims and Jews, or all Muslims and Jews. It would be nice to know if Spencer or someone else can look up the hadith commentary on these hadith and see what classical Muslim scholars have said about them.

Muslims, theologically, do not believe that they can bring the final hour into being on their own. Some Christians think they can do this, but Muslims have typically not been into the movement of trying to manufacture the final hour. Islamic theology on the final hour teaches that all of the power belongs to God alone. Only He can bring the signs of the final hour and the final hour itself into being.

As for the extremist Muslim youth who murdered that poor Jewish man, he was probably taught by other extremists an interpretation of Islam that is not orthodox, that is not really Islam. He is a murderer, plain and simple, under any school of Islamic law. Abu Hanifa, one of the great early Muslim scholars, considered acts done by Muslims in non-Muslim lands that violated the latter's laws as acts of banditry. Islam does not teach the murder of Jews and Christians simply because they are Jewish or Christian. This has no basis within the Qur'an or the teachings of the Prophet.