How did Muslims treat Jews and Christians?

Answer 1

Since the Muslims believe that Jews and Christians were "People of the book", they received special treatment.

Answer 2

Islam generally holds that Judaism and Christianity are acceptable religions, even though Islam is preferred, since those two religions came out of the same Divine Revelations that form the core of Islam. As a result, Jews and Christians are accepted to a certain degree as "People of the Book". Most Muslims would argue that they respect Jews and Christians and treat them as fellow human beings. However, this rosy view of equality does not accord with reality. Muslim-majority societies have discriminated against and have continued to discriminate against Non-Muslim members of their society, including Jews and Christians.

As concerns the discrimination against Non-Muslims, the majority Muslims continue to refuse to listen to the claims of these minority religions that they are being discriminated against and that all they want is fair treatment under the law. They accuse these people of being Anti-Muslim and wishing to denigrate Islam without cause, even when nearly every Human Rights group agrees that the situation for these minorities is problematic or dire. Some Muslims have protested this treatment, but they have often been branded as traitors, secret Zionists, and crypto-Non-Muslims. Therefore, it must be assumed that most Muslims support this type of discrimination.

Anti-Semitism is especially common in Muslim communities and many (but not all) Muslims believe that the Jews are eternal enemies of Muslims, are descended from apes and pigs, kill Muslims for enjoyment, and many other commonplace Anti-Semitic rhetoric. There are numerous rallies where Muslims declare their unending support to the eradication of the Jewish people and will occasionally praise Hitler's "achievements" in this regard. There are some center-line Muslims (in addition to more liberal Muslims) who oppose this like Yusuf Hamza and Tariq Ramadan, but polls among Muslim communities show deeply-ingrained Anti-Semitic attitudes and a lack of knowledge about actual Jewish customs, beliefs, and history.

For a more complete discussion of Muslims' intolerance of Judaism and Christianity, please see the Related Question: Why are Muslims intolerant of other religions?

Answer 3

Another view Muslims treated Jews and Christians kindly, justly, and with tolerance and full respect so far Muslims where neither fought by them nor fought by others who were supported by them. This treatment was according to Allah (god in English) command in Quran. that says:

Meaning English Translation:

" God does not forbid you from showing kindness and dealing justly with those who have not fought you about religion and have not driven you out of your homes. God loves just dealers."(Quran, chapter 60/ verse 8)

Prophet Muhammad married two Jewish women. He bought stuff from them and borrowed money from them. It is narrated that prophet Muhammad used every morning to find garbage and dirt thrown in front of his home by a Jewish neighbor. However, once he did not find this garbage and dirt in front of his door. He went to visit the Jewish neighbor and found he was ill. However, Muslims treatment to the Jews in Medina changed to the worse only when the Jews tried twice to kill the prophet and they betrayed Muslims and cooperated with the attackers to Muslims in Medina.

Muslims believe in Jewish holy book; the Torah. Jews and Christians were living in peace and equal rights as Muslims when Muslims were controlling Spain. However, when Christians conquered Muslims in Spain and controlled the country, they committed massacres against both Muslims and Jews, destroyed their properties, and forced them either to convert to Christianity or to leave the country (mostly to the currently called Morocco). This explains that until present the percentage of Jews in Morocco is much higher than the percentage in Spain or any other Arab country.

Refer to questions below for more information.

Answer 4

It would be wrong to say that Muslims treated Jews and Christians well in the early years of Islam, but they did treat Christians far better than Christians treated Muslims in later centuries. Furthermore, they treated Jews much better than Christians treated Jews throughout most of history.

Perhaps the treatment of Jews and Christians in Islamic Spain was the high point of religious tolerance. For centuries, until the Muslims were driven out of Spain by the Christian armies, both Jews and Christians were treated very much as equals and allowed to participate in every aspect of public life.

Until at least 1948, Jews were treated well in countries with a Muslim majority and some even achieved high political office.