Why didn't the Jews accept Islam while they were waiting for the last Prophet?

Answer 1

Muslim Answer

the Jews didn't accept Islam while they were waiting for the last Prophet because they wanted to harm our Prophet.

Jewish Answer

This question approaches Judaism from an Islamic perspective, not a Jewish one. Jews were not waiting for any prophet (other than Elijah) when Mohammed arrived and are still not waiting for any prophet (other than said Elijah). The person that Jews are waiting for is the Messiah. In order to show why Judaism is quite sure that Mohammed is not Elijah, there are important things worth noting about Mohammed. Unlike Christianity and Islam, Judaism rejects the claim that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. Elijah was to proceed the Messiah and announce his future coming (much in the way that John the Baptist announced Jesus). Mohammed came after Jesus, which would betray the pre-ordained order. Furthermore, Judaism claims that no prophet (other than Elijah) can exist after the death of Malachi in Babylon almost 1000 years before Mohammed was born. Therefore, if Mohammed was not Elijah, he could not be a prophet at all. This does not mean that Jews may not respect Mohammed, and many Jews do, but it is the same sort of respect afforded to Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. (a respect for a person's intelligence, character, and fortitude, but dismissing his prophetic ability).

As for the Jews adopting Islam in the interim, this is a ludicrous notion and any religious person would be offended by such an assertion. Why don't Muslims convert to the Baha'i religion (which is a newer religion that came out of Islam) while they wait for the Return of Jesus and the Mahdi? The answer for both is simple; each group believes that they and they alone are the possessors of the real Truth and that everyone else has had it corrupted or misunderstood what they saw. Many precepts in Islam are fundamentally different from Judaism, such as militant jihad, the concept of Paradise/Jenna, the existence of the Devil/Ibliss, many of the various spirits like the efrits, the ghouls, the marids, and the qarins, the fasting of Ramadan, the requirement to perform a pilgrimage, etc. The only argument that could be used to sway Jews to become Muslims was if Jews were shown that these differences come from better interpretations of the Jewish Holy Books and the Rabbinic Law. Muslims have consistently failed to bring Islam in line with these texts and this failure has actually predicated the Islamic belief that Jews have corrupted their historical texts in order to make argument with them impossible. Considering that we have versions of the Bible that are incredibly old with no changes in the places of most Jewish-Islamic contention, this claim is not supported archaeologically. There is no genuine reason for Jews en masse to accept Islam as the proper faith.