Link/Source: HUDSON NEW YORK
By:
Hagai MazuzJuly 28, 2010 at 4:30 am
From the day Israel was established, the Muslim world has been hostile towards the State of Israel. This has been increasing over the years, despite the efforts of so many to settle the conflict. Although Israel signed Peace Agreements with Egypt and Jordan, nevertheless, many leaders in the Arab world, including Egyptian and Jordanian officials, make anti-Zionist and even anti-Semitic statements, and oppose normalization with Israel. When asked why, they answer that this peace is between governments, and not between the people of their countries.
Trying to find solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict, politicians and statesmen have spent endless hours with experts on Islam to understand the roots of the conflict. They have usually heard two answers: "The root of the problem is territorial," and "The root of the problem is religious; it stems from the classic Islamic view of Jews as evil."
Muslims often accuse Jews of harassing and plotting against Muhammad, Islam's founder and prophet, a charge abundantly clear since the start of classic Islamic writings, which are filled with anti-Jewish imagery.
In our "post-modern" age, most Western scholars, who are secular, find it difficult to accept the idea that medieval texts can dictate the lives of, or even inspire, people today. They criticize those who see the conflict as religious, arguing that scholars who see the conflict as religious, place too much emphasis on these ancient texts, as both the times and circumstances have changed. For them, these texts are outdated. In short, secular scholars find it difficult to believe that people even still regard religious ideas as relevant.
In talking with the common people in the Arab and Muslim world, however, it becomes clear that for them, these classical texts are as relevant today as when they were written. For the overwhelmingly majority of Muslims, these texts indicate that the conflict is indeed religious, not territorial.
As Muslims view the world, Muhammad was the ideal Muslim. How he acted is how all Muslims should act. So how Muhammad acted towards the Jews in Medina and Khaybar is how Muslims should act towards Jews.
How, then, did Muhammad act?
In 622 CE, Muhammad asked the Jews to recognize him as a prophet and join Islam. When they refused, he turned against them. After Muhammad became stronger in Medina, he instructed the Muslims to terrorize the Jews. Muhammad's first victim was Ka'ab bin al-Ashraf, the leader of one of the three Jewish tribes in Medina. After the Muslims decapitated him, they brought his head to Muhammad who took it and said, "Praise G-d for the death of Ka'ab." (Source: Kitab al-Maghazi [The Book of Muslim Raids Against the non-Muslims], Vol. 1, pages 184-190).
Immediately thereafter, Muslim tradition talks about the murder of the Jewish trader ibn Sunayna by the Muslim, Muhaysa bin Mas'ud. When Muhaysa's brother Huwaysa, heard about the murder, Huwaysa beat his brother mercilessly and said to him: "Much of the fat in your stomach is due the man (i.e., the Jew) you just murdered." Muhaysa responded, "If the one who commanded me (i.e., Muhammad) to slaughter ibn Sunayna would ask me to kill you – my own brother – I would do so." His brother responded, "a religion that can make a brother kill his own brother is a wonderful/amazing religion." Huwaysa immediately converted to Islam. (Source: Kitab al-Maghazi, Vol. 1, pages 190-192). Simultaneously, the Muslims murdered many more Jews in the back alleys of Medina.
In 624, when the Muslims besieged another Jewish tribe in Medina, the Jews gave up. Muhammad wanted to execute them, but one of the powerful non-Muslim allies of the Jews prevented Muhammad from doing so. Muhammad gave in, but exiled the Jews and expropriated their property and agricultural lands. A year later, Muhammad did the same thing to another Medinan Jewish tribe. (Source: Kitab al-Maghazi, Vol. 1, pages 176-180 & pages 363-380).
In 627, Muhammad besieged the last Jewish tribe in Medina. Their powerful non-Muslim ally had by that time died; the Jews had no one to protect them. The Jews then sent a messenger to Muhammad and expressed their willingness to surrender and leave the city. Muhammad said no and told them that if they agreed to surrender, he would appoint a negotiator who would settle the issue. When the Jews agreed. the negotiator Muhammad appointed was the man who had organized the murder of the above-mentioned Ka'ab, and who passionately hated the Jews. He decided that the Jewish men would be executed, and that their women and children would be distributed among the Muslims. About 750 Jews were then murdered in the marketplace in Medina, and heaped into a common grave. Muslim tradition teaches that Jewish blood flowed like a river through the market. (Source: Kitab al-Maghazi, Vol. 2, pages 496-520).
Interestingly, this image has been used over and over again throughout Muslim history. In 2004, for example, when Nick Berg, an American Jew working in Iraq, was kidnapped and then murdered by the Iraqi al-Qaida leader al-Zarqawi, as Zarqawi was about to behead Berg, he said: "I will do to you what Muhammad did to the Jews in Medina."
In 628, Muhammad besieged the Jewish city Khaybar. Before doing so, he sent in assassins to murder the Jewish leaders of the city, thereby terrifying the rest of the people. A bloody battle ensued; the Jews surrendered. Muhammad imposed on them the Jizya tax [for non-Muslims], and they thus became "dhimmis" [officially second-class citizens]. Muhammed also demanded that the Jews turn over to the Muslims half of their crops (note: the Muslims did not know how to raise crops). On the day that the Jews of Khaybar surrendered, Muhammad married to Jewish wife of the leader of the city, whose father Muhammad had previously killed. At the same time, her husband was tortured to death so he would tell the Muslims where he had hidden his treasure. (Source: Kitab al-Maghazi, Vol. 2, pages 440-479).
The victory against the Jews in Khaybar is deeply etched in the Muslim historical memory; it has become a source for mockery of the Jews so much so that it is constantly invoked at every opportunity when discussing the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is very common to hear Palestinians, when demonstrating against Israel, shout "Khaybar Khaybar Ya Yahud Jaish Muhammad sa-Ya'ud, (Khaybar Khaybar, Oh Jews, Muhammad's army shall return!") -- as the Turkish terrorists on board the Flotilla headed towards Gaza shouted just a few months ago.
There is also another version of this slogan - "Khaybar Khaybar Ya Yahud, ila Falastin na'ud, (Khaybar Khaybar, Oh Jews, We Shall Return to Palestine). In this context, the message is to return to "all of Palestine," including Israel's pre-1967 borders, as can been seen on virtually every Palestinian and Arab map.
The Muslim victory at Khaybar also serves as an inspiration for Hizbullah, the Shiite terrorist organization. Its spokesmen constantly invoke the imagery of Khaybar regarding their struggle against Israel, for example, calling the Fajar 5 rockets they fired at Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War "Khaybar Rockets;" and in 2002, the Iranians developed a rifle they named "Khaybar 2002."
Among the Palestinians, it is now an essential and integral part of the education system throughout most of the Muslim world, most notably in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and among Israel's Arabs as well.
Throughout the centuries, these stories have been passed down from father to son, and have become deeply rooted in the Muslim psyche. These images are constantly also used in Friday sermons in mosques, and are a deep source of inspiration for the Islamic terrorist organizations.
This, in short, is the source of the Muslim-Jewish and, therefore, the Arab-Israeli conflict .
and
The Root of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Classic Islamic View of Jews, Part II
by Hagai Mazuz
September 1, 2010 at 5:30 am
September 1, 2010 at 5:30 am
Kitāb al-Maghāzī, however, is just one of the many religious Islamic source books which contains anti-Jewish material. The most well known Muslim book is the Quran, which itself is filled with vehemently anti-Jewish material. Muslim sources explain that the Quran is a collection of revelations that Allah gave to Muhammad through the Angel Gabriel. When Muhammad encountered difficulties, Allah told him how to solve these problems via revelations; Uthman, the 3rd Caliph, collected all of them, and that is how the Quran was created.
The Quran is filled with a large amount of material regarding the Jews, most of which labels them as cold-hearted and evil. From this we learn that Muhammad had a lot of dealings with Jews, as Allah "provided" Muhammed with many verses which deal with them. There are also many verses which deal with biblical stories and the history of the Children of Israel (called Isrā'īlīyāt).
There is also a type of Islamic literature called "The Circumstances of Revelation" (in Arabic: Asbāb al-Nuzūl), that details the circumstances in which Allah revealed each and every verse in the Quran to Muhammad. It is clear from this literature that even in many of the verses in which the Jews and Christians are not mentioned, the Quranic scholars, in their explanation of these verses, tell us that this or that verse was "revealed" because of something the Jews or Christians did.
In the opening chapter of the Quran, for example, in verse 7, we find: "The path which You have blessed (i.e., the Muslims; not those for whom Allah has felt wrath (in Arabic: al-Maghḍūb 'alayhim)) and those who went astray (in Arabic: al-Ḍālin)." The Quranic commentators explain the former as the Jews, and the latter as the Christians. Further, whereas Muslim commentators often give several explanations for many verses, in this case, every commentator agrees with this interpretation. Muhammad uses this imagery to describe the Jews in other places in the Quran as well (Quran: 2:159, 6:64, 58:14). This, according to Muhammad, is because the Jews perverted God's words by altering their meanings (Quran: 2:75, 2:79, 3:87, 4:64. 5:13), and hid the true copy of the Torah (Quran: 2:76, 2:140, 2:159, 2:174, 4:37). According to the Muslim understanding, Jews fabricated many of their laws and customs that were not in the original Torah that God gave them, so it follows that believers should not follow the ways of the Jews.
The Jews became the source of all evil in Muhammad's eyes; and according to Islamic tradition, Allah revealed to Muhammad many verses which condemn the Jews and blame them for a large number of sins, notably religious skeptics (Quran: 5:64); "murderers of prophets" (Quran: 2:91, 3:112, 3:181, 3:183); deceivers; and interest- and bribe-takers (Quran 4:161, 5:42). The Quran also claims that Jews have no equal in their hatred of Muslims (5:82).
Besides the Quran and the Kitāb al-Maghāzī, there is also the Hadith [prophetic traditions], which describes Muhammad's customs and sayings. The Hadith, filling the void of what is missing in the Quran, is also known in Arabic as the Sunna, from which we get the word Sunnis -- those who followed Muhammad's example. Muhammad, for them, is the ideal Muslim whom Sunnis strive to imitate in every way possible.
Together, the Quran and the Hadith form the basis of the Shari'a – Islamic Holy Law. Apart from what is written in the Quran, Hadith literature goes into even greater detail than the Quran does about how and why the Jews are the greatest enemies and haters of Islam.
One Hadith blames the Jews for delaying the redemption of mankind, and explains why the Jews therefore should be killed: "As is it written: the hour (of Judgment Day) shall not arrive until the Muslims fight and kill the Jews. Who are hiding behind stones and trees; and (then) the stones and trees will say: 'Oh Muslim, be the servant of Allah, there is a Jews hiding (behind me). Come and kill him.'" Incidentally, this Hadith appears in Paragraph #7 of the Hamas Charter, and is often cited in mosque sermons and in Muslim theological conferences, most notably in Cairo's al-Azhar University, the most important Sunni seminary in the Sunni Muslim world.
Beyond Muhammad's raids on the Jews of Medina and Khaybar listed in the Kitāb al-Maghāzī, there are many other stories about how Muhammad and his followers dealt with non-Jews. Muhammad and his followers raided many other Arab tribes in the Hijaz, and made the Christian community of Najran (in southern Arabia north of Yemen) into dhmmis (protected people, though discriminated-against). There are also detailed descriptions about how many of Muhammad's followers sacrificed their souls for Allah in the battles against the infidels (a process called istishhād, which comes from the same Arabic root for the word shahīd [martyr], and about how the Muslim warriors shouted "Allahu Akbar" [Allah is the most great] as the swords of the infidels went straight through their bodies on their way to the 72 virgins awaiting them in the special chamber of heroes in Paradise.
The "dhimmitude" mentioned above became the model for the status of the non-Muslims in the Islamic State, who were thereafter to be regarding as inferior and second-class citizens because they are not members of the "true faith" Besides that, these dhimmis were forced to obey the rules of what later became known as the "Pact of 'Umar" (known as Shurūṭ 'Umar), which require them to wear specific garments to distinguish them from the Muslims (the Jews were obliged to wear a yellow star, from which the Nazis took their yellow star), not to build a place of worship higher than Muslim mosques; not to ride on saddled horses; to pay a special tax; to give way to Muslims on the street, and to follow various other laws which humiliate and point out their secondary status in relationship to the Muslims.
There are other important Islamic source books as well; for example, the biography of Muhammad (called the Sīra) which includes a summary of the stories that are mentioned in the Kitāb al-Maghāzī. All of these books are the basis of the Sunna.
After Muhammad's death, the Muslims rode out of Arabia and conquered a vast area extending from Spain to the borders of China: in 100 years, they went from being a small community to an imperial conqueror. The wars fought to capture this huge territory are described in minute detail in a book called "The Islamic Conquest of the Lands" (in Arabic: Futūḥ al-Buldān).
According to Muslim tradition, every land conquered by the Muslims becomes holy (called waqf) and must remain in perpetuity under Muslim control. If, however, some of these lands are taken back by the infidels, Muslims must do everything in their power to re-capture them. Today, there are at least two countries which fit this category: Spain and Israel.
There is, therefore, a whole collection of early and medieval Muslim works which lambast and denigrate Jews, Christians, and a myriad of other non-Muslim peoples – works which are still quoted widely throughout the Muslim world. The heroes of these books are virtually as alive today in the hearts and minds of the Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists as they were at the time that they were written -- which does not bode well for the future of Muslim/non-Muslim relations: what appear to us in the West to be territorial conflicts are, in fact, religious conflicts, which, sadly, do not lend themselves to simple solutions.
Note:
Hudson New York also can be found on its Facebook web page; a great site to save to "Favorites"!
And, after reading the information on Islam, do you honestly think that any so-called "talks of peace" between the Palestinians and Israel will succeed? Hardly! Not unless Israel wishes to walk away from the land and turn it over to the Arabs.
