The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History » (Reprint)

Andrew G. Bostom is the author of the highly acclaimed The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims. He has published articles and commentary on Islam in the Washington Times, National Review Online, Revue Politique, FrontPage Magazine.com, American Thinker, and other print and online publications. More on Andrew Bostom's work can be found at andrewbostom.org.

This comprehensive, meticulously documented collection of scholarly articles presents indisputable evidence that a readily discernible, uniquely Islamic antisemitism-a specific Muslim hatred of Jews-has been expressed continuously since the advent of Islam. Debunking the conventional wisdom, which continues to assert that Muslim animosity toward Jews is entirely a 20th-century phenomenon fueled mainly by the protracted Arab-Israeli conflict, leading scholars provide example after example of antisemitic motifs in Muslim documents reaching back to the beginnings of Islam.
The contributors show that the Koran itself is a significant source of hostility toward Jews, as well as other foundational Muslim texts including the hadith (the words and deeds of Muhammad as recorded by pious Muslim transmitters) and the sira (the earliest Muslim biographies of Muhammad). Many other examples are adduced in the writings of influential Muslim jurists, theologians, and scholars, from the Middle Ages through the contemporary era.
These primary sources, and seminal secondary analyses translated here for the first time into English-such as Hartwig Hirschfeld's mid-1880s essays on Muhammad's subjugation of the Jews of Medina and George Vajda's elegant, comprehensive 1937 study of the hadith-detail the sacralized rationale for Islam's anti-Jewish bigotry. Numerous complementary historical accounts illustrate the resulting plight of Jewish communities in the Muslim world across space and time, culminating in the genocidal threat posed to the Jews of Israel today.
Scholars, educators, and interested lay readers will find this collection an invaluable resource for understanding the phenomenon ofMuslim antisemitism, past and present.

John Jaeger

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. - School Library Journal

Is Islamic anti-Semitism a recent phenomenon, brought about by the creation of Israel in 1948, or is it a deeply imbedded element of the religion itself, dating back to its very origins? This is the key question Bostom addresses in his latest book, which is similar in approach to his powerful earlier work The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims(reprinting in March), in which he used Islam's own texts and recorded history to show violence as central to the sacred writings and long history of Islam. This anthology, too, uses sacred texts and statements from authoritative Islamic scholars to show that anti-Semitism was present in the earliest stages of the religion and is not just a phenomenon of the past 60 years. By gathering these various resources, Bostom persuasively-almost overwhelmingly-demonstrates the anti-Semitic tendencies in Islam, presenting his case like a prosecuting attorney. What is lacking, however, is any argument for the defense. Libraries purchasing this book should balance it with another offering an alternate argument. Highly recommended for all libraries.

Acknowledgments     9
Introductory Quotes     11
A Note on the Cover Art     13
Editor's Note on the Text     19
Foreword   Ibn Warraq     21
Islamic Antisemitism-Jew Hatred in Islam
A Survey of Its Theological-Juridical Origins and Historical Manifestations   Andrew G. Bostom     31
Anti-Jewish Motifs in the Qur'an and its Exegesis
Qur'anic Verses     209
Jew Hatred in the Islamic Tradition and the Koranic Exegesis   Haggai Ben-Shammai     221
Anti-Jewish Motifs in the Hadith
Excerpts from the Canonical Hadith Collections     229
Jews and Muslims according to the Hadith   Georges Vajda     235
Anti-Jewish Motifs in the Sira (Early Muslim Biographies of Muhammad)
Muhammad's Jewish Adversaries in Medina   Ibn Ishaq   Ibn Hisham     263
The Affair of the Banu Qaynuqa`   Ibn Ishaq   Ibn Hisham     265
The Assassination of Ka`b b. al-Ashraf   Ibn Ishaq   Ibn Hisham     267
The Brothers Muhayyisa and Huwayyisa   Ibn Ishaq   Ibn Hisham     269
The Raid against the Banu Nadir (AH 3/625)   Al-Wakidi     271
The Extermination of the Banu Qurayza (AH 5/627)   IbnIshaq   Ibn Hisham     275
Muhammad and the Jews of Khaybar (AH 7/628)   Ibn Ishaq   Ibn Hisham     279
Excerpts from the Sira of Ibn Sa'd   Ibn Sa'd     283
Muhammad at Khaybar   Al-Tabari     297
The History of the Jews of Medina   Hartwig Hirschfeld     299
Muslim Jurists, Theologians, and Scholars on the Jews: Classical and Premodern Era
The First Jews' Oath in Islam     315
Why the Muslims Prefer the Christians to the Jews   Al-Jahiz     317
A Renegade Jew as the Source of the Shi'ite "Heresy" and the "Conspiracy" to Destroy the Early Islamic Caliphate   Al-Tabari     319
"To Disclose the Fraudulence of the Jewish Men of Learning"   Al-Jaubari     321
A Collection of Legal Opinions Demonstrating the Attitudes of Muslim Jurists and Citizens toward the Jews of Muslim Spain and North Africa, Ninth-Fifteenth Centuries   Al-Wansharisi     323
Anti-Jewish Anecdotes from an Anti-Dhimmi Treatise   Ghazi al-Wasiti     327
On Killing a Jew   Sirhindi     329
Lightning Bolts against the Jews   Muhammad al-Majlisi     331
Eleventh-Century Andalusian Authors on the Jews of Granada   Moshe Perlmann      335
"Adversos Judaeos": A Treatise from Maghrib-"Ahkam ahl al-Dhimma" by Sayh Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Karim al-Magili   Georges Vajda     345
Muslim Jurists, Theologians, and Scholars on the Jews: Modern ERA
Our Struggle with the Jews   Sayyid Qutb     355
The Jews in the Qur'an   Abdul Sattar El Sayed     365
The Jewish Attitude toward Islam and Muslims in Early Islam   Abdul-Hamid 'Attiyah al-Dibani     371
Extracts from "Arab Theologians on Jews and Israel"   D. F. Green (David Littman and Yehoshafat Harkabi)     383
Extracts from The Children of Israel in the Qur'an and the Sunna   Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi     391
Extracts from The Jews in the Qur'an   'Afiif 'Abd al-Fattah Tabbara     403
Extracts from Qur'anic Truths regarding the Palestinian Issue   Salah 'Abd al-Fattah al-Khalidi     429
Our War with the Jews Is in the Name of Islam   Yusuf Al-Qaradawi     455
The Jews of Today Bear Responsibility for Their Forefathers' Crime against Jesus   Yusuf Al-Qaradawi     457
The Jews' Twenty Bad Traits as Described in the Qur'an   Sheikh 'Atiyyah Saqr     459
The Jews of Arab Muslim Lands: Historical Maps
Twelve Maps of the History of the Jews of the Islamic Near East   Martin Gilbert      465
The Dhimmi Condition for Jews, and Muslim Jew Hatred: Early Islam Through the Modern Era
Evidence on the Muslim Poll Tax from Non-Muslim Sources: A Geniza Study   Shlomo Dov Goitein     481
Concerning the Situation of Jews and Christians in Seville at the Beginning of the Twelfth Century   Georges Vajda     489
The Distinctive Sign of the Jews in Maghreb   Edmond Fagnan     491
The Origins of 'Obadyah, the Norman Proselyte-'Obadyah's Experiences in Baghdad, Early Twelfth Century   Alexander Scheiber     495
Moses b. Samuel, a Jewish Katib in Damascus, and His Pilgrimage to Medina and Mecca   Jacob Mann     499
The Destruction of the Kairouan, and the Almoravid and Almohad Persecutions   H. Z. Hirschberg     505
The Pact of 'Umar in Morocco: A Reappraisal of Muslim-Jewish Relations   Jane S. Gerber     519
New Documents regarding Attacks upon Jewish Religious Observance in Morocco during the Late Nineteenth Century   Eliezer Bashan     525
Jews under Muslim Rule-II: Morocco 1903-1912   David Littman     535
The Moroccan Jewish Experience: A Revisionist View   Norman A. Stillman     549
Excerpts from The Israelites of Tunisia: Their Civil and Political Condition   Jacques Chalom     557
"Outcaste": Shi'a Intolerance    Laurence Loeb     563
The Expulsion of Yemenite Jewry to Mawza' in 1679-80 in Light of Recently Discovered Sources   Yehuda Ratzaby     573
Conversion to Islam among Yemenite Jews under Zaydi Rule: The Positions of Zaydi Law, the Imam, and Muslim Society   Yosef Tobi     577
The Sephardim in Bosnia: A Contribution to the History of the Jews in the Balkans   Moritz Levy     589
Palestine under the Rule of Ibrahim Pasha   E. R. Malachi     593
The Dhimmi Factor in the Exodus of Jews from Arab Countries   Bat Ye'or     601
Endowing Denial   Andrew G. Bostom     611
Modern Egyptian Jew Hatred: Indigenous Elements and Foreign Influences   Bat Ye'or     613
Judaism and Islam as Opposites   Johann von Leers     619
Islamic Fundamentalism, Antisemitism, and Anti-Zionism   Emmanuel Sivan     627
Based on Qur'anic Verses, Interpretations, and Traditions, Muslim Clerics State: The Jews Are the Descendants of Apes, Pigs, and Other Animals   Aluma Solnick     633
Jews as "Christ-Killers" in Islam   Andrew G. Bostom     641
Antisemitism in (Contemporary) Islam: Europe in the Conflict between Tolerance and Ideology   Hans-Peter Raddatz     643
Documents and Eyewitness Accounts
Decrees of Dhimmitude, 850-1905     653
Jews as Dhimmis and Muslim Chattel, 1790-1949     655
Two Anti-Jewish Pogroms in the Modern Era before the Creation of Israel: Baghdad (1941) and Tripolitania (1945)     663
Light-Skinned Egyptian Muslim Repeatedly Beaten by His Co-religionists for "Looking Jewish" (1948)     669
"Jews in Grave Danger in All Moslem Lands"     671
New York Times Reports on the Exodus of Jews from the Arab Muslim Middle East, 1955-1962     673
An Eyewitness Account of the Anti-Jewish Riots in Tunis at the Outbreak of the Six-Day War (1967)     675
A Libyan Jew Breaks Her Silence Thirty-six Years after Surviving the 1967 Tripolitan Pogrom     677
The Modern Rhetoric of Antisemitic Jihad Genocide     679
Major Contributors     685
Muslim Jurists, Theologians, and Historians     691
Sources and Credits     695
Bibliography     699
Index of Places     733
Index of Persons, Peoples, Organizations, and Institutions     741