What is Islamic Anti-Semitism?

Answer 1

Islamic Anti-Semitism is the history of and "positive" views toward Jew-hatred supported, condoned, and politically promulgated by Muslims in accordance with the values, either real or perceived, that Islam has on the issue of Jews. (To note, a "real reason" is one based in the Qur'an and exegetical texts, whereas a "perceived reason" is one based on cultural attitudes believed to have religious sanction.) This answer will not discriminate between "real reasons" and "perceived reasons" since there is an incredible amount of controversy as to where to draw the line between those reasons and rather than be caught up in that debate, simply discuss the information.

Origins
Historically, the earliest forms of Anti-Semitism are to be found in the Qur'an. Of course, different Muslims interpret the Qur'an differently, but there are certainly Qur'anic verses that can be read by those seeking to be intolerant of good grounds to do so. Q: 3:19 claims that the only religion that is acceptable to God is Islam. Q: 3:110 claims that Muslims are the best people in all history. Q: 8:55 claims that those who disbelieve are the worst of animals. Q: 9:29 argues for the repression and inequality of Jews and Christians before Muslims. -- There are numerous other verses that promote the view that intolerance and inequality between Muslims and Non-Muslims is Divinely Supported, creating difficulty in rejecting it. Additionally, the Qur'an has numerous verses that are Anti-Semitic specifically, arguing that Jews are cursed, usually for either (1) rejecting elements that the Qur'an ascribes to Jewish tradition, (2) being devious in some fashion, or (3) failing to recognize the truth of Islam. While there are interpretations that seek to minimize or remove these verses, it is important to remember that a significant percentage of Muslims and Islamic leaders do accept their veracity.

Some additional Islamic Anti-Semitism comes from the confrontations between Muhammad and Muslims of Medina with the Jewish Tribes of Medina (Banu Qurayza, Banu Qaynuqa, and the Banu Nadir). Muhammad was angered that these tribes would not convert to his religion and began to preach against them, arguing that they were traitorous in the various conflagrations with Mecca and killing off all of the males of Banu Qurayza. It is not surprising that there are a number of Hadiths from this period that have a strongly Anti-Semitic bent.

Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages, the discrimination that Jews faced under Islam was generally preferable to the far worse discrimination under Christendom. This resulted in Jews assisting Muslims in their conquests throughout the Rise of Islam period. A great example of this was when the Muslims captured the city of Cordoba. They approached the Jewish community, gave them weapons, and asked them to be the stewards of the city until the Conquest of Spain was complete. During this period, a number of key Islamic Jurists like al-Tirmidhi and Ibn Kathir wrote quite scathingly of Jews and made it clear that they were not to be trusted. These two authors used Qur'anic and exegetical sources to argue that Jews were devious, making this a key pillar in Islamic Anti-Semitism, e.g. that Jews are deceivers. There were occasional pogroms in the Islamic World, especially in the more fundamentalist states like the Almohad Caliphate, but these were far less than in Europe. Far more damaging to the Jews were the higher and more insulting tax rates of the jizya and kharaj, inequality before the law, and construction or improvement of synagogues.

Modern Era
Islamic Anti-Semitism has fully blossomed in the Modern Era, copying a number of European Anti-Semitic motifs from translated copies of Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. There is also a feedback loop between Islamic Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism where Israeli actions "reaffirm" a Muslim's previous belief that Jews are evil and that belief that Jews are evil makes the Jewish State illegitimate. Most Jews from the Islamic World have since fled to Israel, France, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Only four countries in the Islamic World have Jewish populations of more than 1,000 people, whereas over a dozen had that many less than a century ago. The remaining Jews are subject to violent threats. This type of violence is now becoming prevalent in Europe as Muslim communities begin to become more prominent in Europe.

Some forms of particular Islamic Anti-Semitism include.

1) Anti-Semitism: There are six major reasons that people and countries harbor Anti-Semitic views and often these exist in contradictions (i.e. one group will hate them for one side of this reason and another group at a different place and time will hate them for the exact opposite reason): (1) Perceptions of Jewish Economic Power, (2) Perceptions of Jewish Ethnocentrism/Chosen-ness, (3) Religious motivations for Jew-hatred (both in Christianity and Islam), (4) Otherness, (5) Genetic/Racial Inferiority, and (6) Perceptions of Disloyalty. It is worth noting that the seventh most common reason, Ease of Scapegoating, only makes sense if at least one of the other six is in play, otherwise we could simply scapegoat the unicyclists for the world's ills. These issues and views are not unique to Muslims but embraced by many Muslims.

1A) Jewish Economic Power: The common Anti-Semitic canard here is that Jews control the banks. Of course, this is not true as most banks are not chaired or owned or controlled by Jews; many banks operate independently or are controlled by Non-Jews. For example the Big Four US Banks are all run by Non-Jews: Jaime Dimon (JP Morgan Chase), Chad Holliday (Bank of America), Michael O'Neill (Citigroup), and John Stumpf (Wells Fargo).

1B) Jewish Chosen-ness: The common Anti-Semitic canard here is that Jews believe themselves to be a superior ethnicity in the vein of the ubermensch or "White Pride". This is contrary to the Jewish understanding is that the Jewish people were charged with a distinct mission/task that the rest of the world was not assigned and this is to elevate the spiritual character of the world. The Anti-Semites then argue that because Jews believe themselves superior to Non-Jews that Jews take advantage of Non-Jews and feel no remorse for it.

1C) Religious Anti-Semitism: While Christianity and Islam are not inherently Anti-Semitism, their doctrines are easily to meld to an Anti-Semitic world vision and historically have been melded in such ways. Islam has several Anti-Semitic thrusts. In addition to the crucifixion of Jesus the Messiah (which is not deicide in Islam since Jesus is not God in Islamic theology and because Jesus eluded the attempt to crucify him), Muslims have made the argument that Jews are the killers of the Prophets plural, even though Jesus was the only one of the 35 prophets in the Qur'an who Jews attempted to kill (per Islamic teachings). Additionally, Muhammad and the early Muslims had negative political and military relationships with Arabian Jews which led to Anti-Semitism having a greater prominence in the early Islamic tradition.

1D) Otherness: The common Anti-Semitic canard here is that Jews are somehow different from other people and are, therefore, incapable of properly assimilating into the dominant culture. The argument went that their culture and beliefs were too odd for civil society and the Jews needed to be removed due to this customs incongruence. In the Islamic World, since Jewish Emancipation came hand-in-hand with Imperialism, the Jews who assimilated were deemed to be imperialist infiltrators.

1E) Racial Inferiority: The common Anti-Semitic canard here is that Jews are somehow genetically inferior or lesser than other humans. Interestingly, in Arab and African-American communities who practice this form of Anti-Semitism by arguing that Jews are a European offshoot of Khazaria and not as racially developed as Semites or Africans.

1F) Disloyalty: The common Anti-Semitic canard here is that Jews harbor more loyalty to each other (or, since 1948 to Israel) than to their fellow countrymen. Military defeats have been framed on Jews, such as the Ottoman defeat in the Egyptian-Ottoman War in 1831-1833, even though Jews did not even fight in this war. The evidence, however, is to the contrary. In nearly every case where Jews have been permitted to join the militaries of their host countries, they have enlisted in excess of their percentage. Throughout the Middle Ages, Jews were more loyal to the sovereign, especially since the sovereign would protect the Jews from rabid Anti-Semitic hordes of peasants.

2) Facelessness: Most people around the world, and especially in the Islamic World, have never met a Jew and only see Jews through the media portrayals of Israeli military actions or Jewish politicians in Western countries. As a result, "the Jews" are a people upon whom any claim of impropriety can be laid without a counterfactual relationship to see a Jew's humanity.

3) Israel's International Legal Violations: Israel has engaged in a number of policies in violation of international law, such as the unification of Jerusalem, the settlements in the West Bank, the annexation of the Golan Heights, etc.. Israel is not reticent for performing such acts and claims that it violates those laws because they are prejudicial to its rights and interests. If other countries did the same, (Iran is a great example), they are sternly reprimanded by the international community and forced to toe the line. The argument is often that because the Jews have control of international politics, that they are able to commit these violations with impunity while other countries cannot.

4) Anti-Colonialism: While Arab Nationalism was an anti-colonial movement, the general principles of the anti-colonialism led to a rejection of States based on European values in non-European locations with a large number of non-European (ethnically speaking) inhabitants. This sentiment was felt most strongly towards (South) Rhodesia, South Africa, and what would become Israel. Anti-colonialists believe that Asians and Africans had the right to Self-Determination pursuant to their cultures. However, Rhodesian and South African institutions could and did eventually convert to being African nations (in the true sense of the term) because their racist infrastructure could be reformed. Zionism is by default a government by the Jews and would cease to be Zionist if the Jews were taken out of the leadership position. Thus Zionism catches the ire of anti-colonialists.

5) Palestinian Indigenous Rights: The indigenous Palestinians and their descendants are aggrieved that people from abroad would come to the land that their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents had lived on and worked for as long as they could remember and buy that land from the Ottomans without consulting them. Moreover, these people had a particular agenda to establish a state on the land they called their own. Understandably, the Palestinians, and those who support them, are opposed to the Zionist project and the Jews who realized it for these emotional and political considerations. Additionally, the Israeli Military Occupation of the West Bank Territories and the Blockade of Gaza represents a true legal and humanitarian crisis for Supporters of an Independent Palestine and the Palestinian People. To many in the world community, the Palestinians must have the right to go back to their homes (although it is doubtful that the Arabs would have permitted that right to the Jews should the Arabs have been victorious in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-9).

6) Arab Nationalism: Arab Nationalism as a movement crystallized in the 1930s and came to the political fore in the 1960s. Arab Nationalism is a movement that seeks to create an Arab State or multiple Arab States based on common cultural and historical markers. This movement began to make a tether between Arab cultural identity and Islamic religious identity. This was especially keen in places with large non-Muslim communities because those communities typically worked closely with the European colonizers seen to be repressing the Arab identity. Zionism, which is a movement based on a European cultural identity and a Jewish religious identity was antithetical to the Arab Nationalist movement ideologically and claims territory that Arab Nationalists also claim putting them at odds politically.

7) Islamism: Islamism, the political philosophy that Shari'a or Islamic Religious Law should be the grounds upon which a state is ruled (as opposed to Islam, which is the religion), want to create a government that falls within their stringent and puritanical view of Islamic moral standards. In the Islamist conception, only Muslims should be in power in the State and any non-Muslim minorities should have a secondary role if they should have one at all, whereas Jews are too "uppity" in having created a state where they are in the dominant position. Second, Israel is situated in territory which used to be governed by Muslims for nearly 1300 years (with a century-long break under the Crusader States). As a result, Israel is considered a usurpation of historical Islamic authority whereas European countries (for example) never had Islamic authority before. Islamists have talked about reintroducing the jizya tax, a symbol of humiliation for Non-Muslims in both the Gaza Strip and in the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). At present, since no Jews live in either area, the primarily target of these laws would be Christians, but they do intend to subject the Jews to at least the jizya, if not outright execution and genocide, if they had the chance.

8) Systemic "Religionism": In the US South in the 1980s, segregation was no longer legal, but the imprint of segregation was still felt in the south. Miscegination between Blacks and Whites was not really accepted and Whites generally had a negative attitude toward Blacks, even though they were legally equal. This is called Systemic Racism. It is is much the same situation in most Islamic Countries, but with religion instead of race. Historically, Jews, Christians, Sikhs, and Hindus under Islamic governments were second-class citizens and so the transition to making them truly equal partners suffers from this history. Conversely, very few Muslims (prior to the last 50 years) lived in minority-Muslim countries, preventing the development of an Islam without Systemic Religionism.

9) Qur'anic Injunctions: In the introduction...

10) Denial of Intolerance: Most Muslims refuse to believe that they discriminate or harbor any animus towards individuals of different faiths. (There are some exceptions like Sheikh Hamza Yusuf who has noted that Muslim violence against Jews in the US is more common than all violence against Muslims, but he is rare in this respect.) Individuals who openly criticize and comment on the discrimination, both legal and systemic of religious minorities are given death threats and told to their faces that they are lying. Politicians who try to make laws that are more equal or less biased have been assassinated (especially in Pakistan). Non-Muslims are forced to apologize for "inciting" any rage that is manifested towards them. In a society where the discriminated cannot get their message into the open, people will not be able to realize what is happening.

11) Community Reinforcement: The Muslim Community generally has internal reinforcement of the notions that the Jews are eternal enemies of Muslims, are descended from apes and pigs, kill Muslims for enjoyment, and many other forms of 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.

12) Fifth Column: Jews, especially, but also Christians and Hindus are seen by many Muslims as fifth columns in Islamic countries supporting foreign powers. Jews are usually accused of being "Zionists", a term which is never properly defined, and supporting Israel. Christians are usually seen as supporting the West against the Islamic countries. Hindus are often seen as spies from India against Pakistan. This makes these minorities untrustworthy to the Muslim-majority unless they clearly disavow any association with the country/ies to which they supposedly have allegiance instead of the Islamic State.

13) Islamic Supremacism: Islam has several doctrines which are followed by a small radicalized minority that call for a continued conquest of Non-Islamic Countries to be ruled by Muslims and to become part of a worldwide Islamic Empire. These groups believe in using violence to as well as politics to overpower and frighten Non-Muslims into accepting their school of thinking.

14) Islamic Lies About Jews: Numerous Muslims have been improperly educated about their own past and fault the Jews for issues that arose within Islamic circles. For example, some Muslims argue that: "Some Jews pretended to be Muslims and diverted Muslims to two different groups, The Sunnis and the Shias." However, all of the Islamic leaders who were part of the divisive arguments between Sunni and Shiite Islam, such as Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman, Ali, Hassan, Hussein, Aisha, etc. were all Muslims who had converted from paganism to Islam. In fact, there would be no important Muslims who were converted Jews until midway through the 8th century (almost a century after the events that led to the Sunnis and Shiites separating). However, rather than give detailed explanations of the History of Islam to their youth, which would fault the divisions and problems in Islamic religious communities on internal struggles, issues of corruption, and personal motives within Islamic circles, they would rather blame some amorphous "Jewish conspiracy against Islam". Another reason this view is advocated is to lay Muhammad blameless for his numerous atrocities against the Jewish communities in Medina (such as the forcible ejection of Banu Qaynuqa, the slaughter of all the males of Banu Qurayza, and the hunting down and slaughtering of Banu Nadir at Khaybar). If there was a "Jewish conspiracy against Islam" these massacres of Jews suddenly become heroic in defense of Islam as opposed to vile religion-based ethnic cleansing.


Please see the Related Link below:

• Wikipedia: Islamic Anti-Semitism