Book Club Session With President & Author Mustafa Akyol
Hamza Yusuf – Jews And The Quran
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the Bible's historical significance and its influence on society, particularly on the western world. They touch on controversy surrounding the claims that the Bible is correcting the biblical narrative and the use of "everlasting," which indicates a culture that lasts for a long time. They emphasize the importance of creating a culture of good character and avoiding negative comments, as well as the shrewd conditions of the persecution of Shia and the Prophet's teachings.
AI: Summary ©
With that said, we're excited to begin. Thank you so much for joining us. And thank you to our gracious hosts.
This
or salatu salam ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa Salam. Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah Ramadan mubarak. pallino added modern Muslim in a subtle line you have a fan and Muslim you'd hate for your honeymoon, when you bought it for lineitem own
Inshallah, we're gonna we're going to have an interesting discussion I think I foresee, but this this book, Jews and the Quran was given to me by Zhi Shan Zafar last year, and I went through it, I was just very struck by it. And I thought it would be a really useful
exploration for the book club for a number of reasons. One, I think there's an extraordinary amount of
content in the Quran that deals with Benny Sri eel, there's an entire chapter called Benny aside. So we're fortunate to have two people today, who won most of Akil, who is a
fellow at the Cato Institute. That's true. And, and has written a lot of things, you know, we he and I disagree on some things, but we also just recognize work and effort. And so we can, you know, part of the problem with the modern world is everybody wants to just agree, is this kind of groupthink, and it's very important, groupthink is that one of the dangers of groupthink is, is you actually
fall into there's actually eight problems that were identified in social science with groups sake, but one of the worst ones is just believing that you're always right. And want in our tradition, there was always Assura you know, this idea? Well, I'm gonna, I'm sure I've no one, that you listen to alternative perspectives. And sometimes, you recognize, wow, I didn't think of that, or I didn't look at it that way. Or, here's another way to look at it. But one of the important things, and it's why I appreciate most of one of the important things is that, you know, those of us who really love this religion are committed to it, we have to think deeply about a lot of the problems that have
happened in the muscle more more wider, and the conditions were in why we fallen on such hard times. And, and, and, and then how to remedy that. And so we're going to, we're going to come up with different perspectives and solutions, but hopefully, if there is a kind of recognition that we're all trying to get to the same thing, which is to restore this amazing tradition that guides people really genuinely guys people but also unifies people. And one of the things about Benny Assata Ian in the Quran, it says decibel hum. Jimmy and we'll put Google Home shelter, you know, in a wash is taxable, have taxable, but you deemed them all united, but their hearts are, are
are fragmented, that it could be at home at home and lay our pillow because they're not reasoning, right. In other words, there's power in Unity. But it says that they show an outward kind of unity was we don't even show on our units, which is a real problem in our community that we were not in unity and uniformity, just in unity, like uniformity is group thing, but unity is just recognizing we're all in this together. And we're and we're all working to try to work out, you know, this is the issue ahead of our time of just trying to work out what do we do as muslims? What do we do visa vie Palestine and we we have a huge crisis there. What can we do? What are the things and people
need to think about these things and, and deliberate but also be able just to sit with other people who might have different opinions than you have? The second person we have is Dr. Alia Thai, who I think a lot of people know already from his work, but Dr. Ali Hamdulillah, I've had the good fortune of knowing him for many, many years. Dr. Ali is a comment about credit force. You know, he's from these Persian intellects. But he he's very gifted, a scholar, gifted linguist, a very serious student of comparative religion. And we're very fortunate to have him as eterna teaching, comparative religions, one of the favorite courses of the students so I asked him to read the book
because partly because of my inability to really assess some of what was in the book because it's I'm not an expert by any stretch. So
but
before I asked Dr. Ali, his question what I want to ask you just to at the outset,
CD Mustafa is, first of all,
what how did it
Talk about that you actually wrote this, obviously an Israeli professor. But how did it come about that you wrote the foreword? And then what? What did you see in the book that was useful for you?
smilodon, when there are human Salam aleikum, Sheikh Hamza and Dr. Tay and all our friends here? And, first of all, thank you for your kind words, and indeed, the needs to have different perspectives and different ways of thinking about the issues of our Ummah without respecting each other without respecting our different ideas. I think it's crucial. For us, it's a very important value we should uphold and you know, thank you for stressing that. Thank you for reminding our brothers and sisters in Palestine. I mean, this Ramadan has been particularly hard. I mean, we put on the food on the table, but 2 million people there cannot. And I pray for this ruthless campaign
to come to an end soon and
to be peace and justice to be established in Palestine. And elsewhere, of course, in the region and the world. Now, coming to your question, I didn't know the author as well. I mean, I the the publisher approached me and they said, there's this interesting book, would you like to write a foreword for it? I think it was made possible by our common friend Jack miles, you may know him. He's in California. He's a very prominent author, wonderful human being. He's writing Protestant in terms of his background, very respectful to Islam. He wrote a wonderful book to actually God in the Quran, which is also I think, worthy of looking into. So Jack knew my work. And probably they asked
him and they said, Can you write a foreword to the Senate? And I looked into the book, as you did. And I said, Wow, this is a thoughtful book. It is nuanced. It's it is factual. I mean, it's objective here and there. And if I write a book, as forward as a Muslim, maybe I can add some few thoughts that might help. So it's not a very long forward, but that's how I came to write the foreword to the book. Okay, well, yeah, it's a short book, and Jack Miles has done some stuff for us. I wanted to ask Dr. Ali, two questions, the first question,
he throws out a lot of terms that are used in in the, in the Jewish tradition, like Midrash and Midrash, which is related to madrasa.
There was a Midrash, in Medina that the precise and actually visited and used to talk with the rabbis, but, but he talks about the Sanhedrin, the Babylonian Talmud, you know, the Mishnah, that Gomorrah? Could you just flesh out those terms first? And then second? Could you just give us you know, a brief summary of some of the salient points that you saw in them, and then also, maybe some of the critiques that you had, because you've done
a lot of thinking shape? Thank you, Mustafa.
So, a lot of people don't know this. But in the Orthodox Jewish tradition, it is believed that Moses DSP upon him, he received in addition to the five books in oral law, right? So there's the written Penta two, or the full mesh. So the word torah is a bit ambiguous. It has different sort of meanings. the narrowest meaning is the five books in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, but also on Sinai, he received an oral law that was meant to be passed from teacher to student. Now, when the temple was destroyed by the Romans, and 70 of the Common Era, the rabbi's kind of went into panic mode, and they began to write down the oral law.
And that group of scribes first and second century Palestinian scribes called the tena, and okay, so this was at a, at a, an academy, right on the Mediterranean at a place called the ARPANET.
So this became sort of the first rabbinical Academy. And so Judah HaNasi, one of the today and he, he compiled all of these writings from basically the Pharisees
tonight and, and this became known as the missionary. Right. So the Mishnah is essentially the oral law given to Moses, the teachings that were given to Moses on Sinai
with some commentary from the tonight.
Okay, so then from the third to the sixth century, in two places now, not only in Palestine, but in Iraq or in Babylon. You have these two major rabbinical academies, right. So from the third to the sixth century, you have another group of scribes called the Amerasian who are now writing commentaries on the mission. Okay. So these commentaries are called the Gomorrah which means completion. Okay. So you have you have the, the Five Books of Moses, the, the Written Torah, then you have the Mishnah right. Then you have
of the Gomorrah in the Mishnah and Gomorrah together, these make the Talmud and Talmud is related to the word Maeve. So it's kind of like the little, the little student of the Torah, if you will. Now, all of this is sacred literature according to traditional Judaism, right? So you have the turnoff, right? So that the Tao stands for Torah. These are the five books, right? So in this, in this instance, I'm referring to the Five Books of Moses, also called the Pentateuch, the homage really is the word comes up. And then you have the writings, right. So these are books in the Bible. The Old Testament, of course, Old Testament is Christian terminology. It's a bit offensive to traditional
Jews refer to the Hebrew Bible as the as the Old Testament. But basically books named after prophets are part of the beam. So Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, etc, Hosea Amos, and then you have the Kitchel beam, which is the hagiography of the writings. These are like Psalms, these are First and Second Kings.
The book of Proverbs. So tonight is an acronym, tau for Torah, noon, for the beam, and the calf for kitto beam. So that's enough, also known as the Old Testament amongst the Christians, Hebrew Bible, right? That all by itself, the turnoff is sometimes referred to by the rabbi's as the Written Torah, they use that word, Torah, this is a broader sense of the term.
And then you have the Talmud, the Mishnah, and Gomorrah, right? And this the Talmud is sometimes referred to as the Oral Torah, the entire Talmud. And then both of these components put together which is a huge corpus of writings, you know, multi volumes, millions and millions of words. All of that the tunnel and the Talmud together is called Hartswood. Amina Szalai. In the Torah, the instruction from heaven, right? That's the broadest usage of the word torah. So I mean, one and then Midrash is like the teaching the middle. Yeah, the Midrash. The Midrash. Simply exegesis. Yeah, right. So you have Midrash in the missionary, Mrs. Tafseer, or Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Teaching.
Yeah. So what you mentioned to me, you know, you there were some things that you wanted to flesh out a little bit. So yeah, just curious about Yeah. So it's a really big topic. I mean, Jews in the Koran. I think he did a pretty good job for us short, 140 pages. Yeah. I think there are some problems with the text. I mean, he raises several Shubo hat, I think.
So the issues that cause a doubt that I wanted to talk about a little bit, I mean, several times, but Asher, he says that the Quran displays direct textual dependence upon the tongue mode. Yeah. Right. So he says, yeah, he says, extensive borrowing from post biblical Jewish literature. So you know, what he means by that kind of a sanitized way of saying that the Quran sort of the author of the Quran plagiarized? Well, also, I think it's good point, you're bringing that up? Because when he see I thought that was a little tricky for me to say, post biblical, because it's really the oral tradition. It's their rabbis considered revelation. It is so so I thought, what really? That was one
of the things that really struck me was this stuff all has sources. Yeah. And I mean, I thought it was fair and mentioning that, but I thought he was unfair in making it sound like these were things that came later, whereas in their tradition, now they're part of the revelation. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So yeah, just want to say a few things that relate to this issue. In case people were wondering about this. So first of all, the dating of the Talmud is not definitive. Okay, so the Tomblin was being compiled between the third and sixth centuries of the Common Era. That's sort of the traditional dating. However, according to the Jewish Historical Institute, it's more like the third to the eighth centuries. So that's actually after after Islam. Yeah. So in other words, the Talmud remained an open text to a certain degree. So yes, the bulk of it was written between the third and the sixth centuries, like Wikipedia. Yeah, keep adding, just keep adding on exactly. But there were
very likely later editions. Also the oldest complete, oldest, complete extant manuscripts of the Babylonian Talmud is dated to the 14th century. So there's nothing extant that's before Islam. So in this vein, I want to quote a few academic papers here. So Norman Stillman, he says in his articles articles called the story of Cain and Abel in the Quran, and listen commentators so this appeared in The Journal of Semitic languages in 1974. So this is what he says. Stillman says a great deal has been written about the Judeo Christian elements of Islam and its scripture ever since Abraham Geiger and this is a book that that Barbash reports extensively Abraham guiders text and he gives the he
gives the German title there's very long it basically in English it's called Islam and Judaism.
So Geiger is book made a profound impression in its day, although it did tend to give an exaggerated view of the Jew
contribution in the Quran, or chronology of rabbinic literature is better today than in guiders. And many more texts Muslim, Jewish and Christian have since been published. In the light of this we know now that in some instances what was thought to be Jewish hotdogs or exegetical influence, in an Islamic text, might well be quite the reverse. In other words, the Quran influenced the Hagia haggadah. The Quran is influencing the Jewish exegesis amazing the Midrashim in the in the Talmud, who said that this is Norman Stillman. Amazing. Yeah, I presented a paper years ago AAR with a Jewish convert to Islam. He was at Yale at the time, and he said this is an ongoing debate amongst
Judeo Islamic scholars, as to which came first right stories in the Koran or the convent.
Another source here, Michael pregnyl. He says in his article, the Hebrew Bible and the Quran, the problem with the Jewish influence on Islam, and this is an a journal called religion compass. So he says careful analysis of particular narratives may show that, in contrast to the assertions of previous generations of scholars, the Quran simply does not consistently reflect the direct derivation of biblical data from Jews or a straightforward assimilation of rabbinic Midrash. Rather, the opposite may be the case, mainly that Jews quite likely borrowed from the Quran, or even from later Islamic literature. And just one more here, Nikolai Sinai wrote a book on the Israel Jewish.
Yeah, yeah. So Nikolai Sinai, he's his essays called Pharaoh submission to God in the Quran and rabbinic literature a case study boronic intertextuality. And this is part of a compendium published by root legend 2019, called the Koran formation of Judaism, Christianity returned to the origins. So basically a paraphrasing Sinai says that there's much rabbinical literature that parallels the Quran, but that the former was very plausibly written in the eighth or ninth century rabbinical literature, and that, quote, the ladder that we're on, maybe the source of the former needs to be taken very seriously. Right? Because I think it's important to remember the incredible influence
because they were the diaspora. So they were already extremely beleaguered community. And then Islam comes and, and in essence liberates them from I mean, I'm sure a lot of Jews would, would not
accept that. But but the reality of it is they were grossly oppressed by the presenting, they were kicked out of Jerusalem, you know, they were allowed back in by all might have been a kebab on the lawn. And they were a protected minority in the Muslim world. I mean, even Bernard Lewis admits that and use of Islam that they just the situation was much better. It wasn't. It's not America, in the 21st century, you know, by any stretch, but but they had often positions, ministerial positions in the government, I mean, but the prime minister of St. Lucia, under the OMA, it was a Jew, some of the top the physician, which have been Momo became the Fidget physician of solidarity. You know, I
mean, they really had a very different experience under Muslims. But but one of the things that, that really struck me and I'm curious, your experience with this also, Mustafa, one of the things that really struck me was, you know, you you read the stories because we read the Quran, a lot of Muslims are not familiar with the Bible. You know, I was, I read the Bible a lot. When I was young, I studied New Testament Greek. I spent a lot of time with the Bible. So what the, you know, when I read the Quran, Allah these stories were familiar, but I could see the differences in the and I always told people, the thing that most struck me about the Quran is that if, quote, unquote, it was
plagiarized. What an extraordinary editor, you know, the consistency of the editing, like, Why didn't why didn't they take any of the, you know, the stuff in the Bible that, I mean, it's very interesting, you know, so So, I was just struck by the, these stories that he's pulling out of from, from their own teaching, that
are pretty accurately represented, you know, the Quran does not distort them, even by his, you know, to use that his a word that he would have used, you know, it's very, so I was just curious how you what was your experience with that?
I agree with you on that. And also, I'm glad we did with Dr. ArtEZ comments, we entered into the broader picture of Islam and Judaism in history. I mean, I myself have a forthcoming book on that titled Islamic the Islamic Moses how Jews and Muslims flourished together in history. It is indeed true that the Islamic civilization saved Judaism and Jews from big persecution by Christians at the time.
Mostly, first the Byzantine Empire and the sonnet, sorry Sassanians, but also Byzantine and later the Visigoths in Spain. And it is little known that Muslim conquests were aided by Jews in the in Syria and Palestine and later in Spain, because Muslims only wanted some Jizya and allowed us to practice their religion, the persecution Jews went through in the Byzantine lands. And later in Visigothic, Catholic Spain was incomparable. And there is a literature medieval Christian literature which sees Jews as the fifth column of the Muslims was was preferred among Jews preferred Muslims because Muslims are more tolerant and, and more magnanimous, generally. And that indeed is accurate,
it says, lead to textual exchanges as well. And I mean, we got Israeli apps from the Jewish tradition. So they have in that sense, a historical contribution but also our teachings influenced Shlomo they go Tane calls it a creative symbiosis between Islam and Judaism throughout the Middle Ages, and indeed Islamic sources influenced them his doctoral thesis, one more thing in there are flot our theology influenced Judaism. Interestingly, especially the Morteza interestingly influenced Jewish theologians, saga that goes on. He's considered as the greatest
theologian of the Middle Ages. I mean, he really borrowed Islamic ideas, especially from the Methuselah impoverished became very influential among Jews. So there is a very big forgotten ally. Sorry, Ali's MacAskill philosopher was translated into Hebrew. And it was on one of those influential books. Exactly, exactly. Definitely. The former head of of the home Homeland Security, what's his name? Oh, sure. Sure, Tov Chertoff. I have his father's PhD from Columbia University on Ghazali. His influence on medieval Judaism? Yeah, amazing. For sure. Yeah, exactly. Because I was at this, this man Muslim man's house in Virginia after you know, 911 or they showed off was in in the
audience with his with his wife and his son. And I said, you know, the Jews of all people know that Islam is not a religion of terror.
And I sit in fact, Mr. Choate offs, father wrote a very interesting PhD at Columbia University. And Saratov was really surprised, but his wife came up to me after with tears in her eyes, and says, Thank you so much for mentioning that because my grandma hit when my son doesn't know anything about his grandfather. So it was just amazing to hear that. But, you know, it's, it's fascinating. I think that we just forget the extraordinary,
the globalized reality of the Islamic ethos, and the fact that these minorities, they were really flourishing. They learned the Jews learned. lexicography from the Muslims, they had no dictionaries before. The 18th is the first Semitic dictionary, right? They can say, they realize, Oh, that's a good idea. They didn't porosity, all of these things that they got and which is why they were writing even though they wrote with the Hebrew alphabet, many of them were writing in Arabic, because it's a richer language, and commodities, Arabic Judeo Arabic, Judeo Arabic, we write in Arabic, and also they use fake terms, my monitors, and before him Sadia go on they actually start to
discuss what we call my Casa del Sharia. In Judaism, it's called Tommy Hamid Swat, the reason behind the commandment and my Monica says commandments has a reason and the word he uses is Illa. He directly takes it from Arabic. I mean, from our terminology, Saudi Golan says commandments include some of them are are cleared, some are some yet these are terminologies, I mean, revelational, and intelligible. And so there is a huge creative symbiosis, coexistence between Islam and Judaism, which unfortunately got shattered in the past 100 years with what's happening in, in Palestine. But before that, we didn't have a problem with the Jews. Jews didn't have a problem with Islam, even
until the very end of the Ottoman Empire. I mean, entry ages prayed for the victory of Muslims over Christians. Yeah, exactly. You have a book called Jewish theology, by George Koehler, who was a reformed Jew from from Boston. He was at the Jewish Seminary in Boston, but he has a chapter in Islam and Judaism. And he says in there, the great enlightened rabbis
I always considered Islam, full proselytizers of the Noahide laws and had a correct understanding of God. Whereas they always considered the Christians only half proselytizers because they had a corrupt understanding of God. No. Jews confirmed always Islam is monotheism. I mean, my monitors is very clear about that. By the way, some of my monitors the big monitors, we know Moses ever had my monitor these he became a Sufi in Egypt. He went to Sufi tariqas. And he, he actually practiced with his music tried to bring it into Judaism. And his argument was at some of Islamic practices, where ancient Jewish practices that Jews forgot, but Islam kept and preserved. So now Jews can learn from
Islam. So there is really a fascinating history there.
So I mean, this book is not about that history, this book about the textual issues in Islam. So if you want I can say a few things about them what I found interesting in the book, or we can speak of other things.
Go ahead. Yeah. Okay. I mean, to me, as a Muslim, one of the most interesting things in the book that I've learned is this interpretation, the writer speaks about the issue of Hosea being the Son of God, the Quran, that was the most interesting for me to be to Okay, so
wonderful. So it because that's a constant issue, and you know, people who may not know,
the Koran criticizes for Christians for saying, Jesus is the Son of God. And then it says, Jews say Hosea is the Son of God. And it's been for centuries I mean, still today, if you look at missionary or anti Islamic polemics as websites, they will say, there is no such belief in Judaism what what you know what the Quran is speaking here. You know, Prophet Muhammad misunderstood Judaism. So people kind of bring these accusations they assuming that he's the author of the Quran. Now,
he tells about an interesting belief among Jews and apocryphal not not mainstream,
that some Jews, and it was areas that Ezra but in this case, Enoch, there's a pretty nice no height profit called Enoch. Some Jews actually believe that he became an angel Metatron. And they call them little Jaqua. So he's almost defined there. And he says, maybe it's possible that this could be in Arabia. And which means, so the Colosseum, and God said that through so this was there, it's not a misconception of Judaism. However, I think this also reminds us that if that interpretation is true, when the Quran is speaking about Jews and Christians, I think it is also it is speaking about their beliefs and behaviors. That might not be always the case from time immemorial to today. But it might
be in this particular context, then there are many there's an example of that even about Christianity in Exactly, yeah. In Christianity, as well. So one thing that I wanted to ask both of you, if you could enlighten us about this, you know, he, he, and I've seen this before, because I actually read guiders book.
Many years ago, I had that it was at dollar slums library. But you know, this idea that Gideon was the one that tested, you know, because in the Bible, it says, getting tested with the drinking from the river, whereas in our church, and it's, it's solid does that. So so? Any thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, something like that, I would probably just say that the Quran is correcting the biblical narrative. There are contradictions in the biblical narrative. In Second Samuel, it says that the Lord provoked David to number Israel. And then the chronicler is basically repeating much of that, but he makes a slight adjustment and says Satan ordered David to number Israel, so God or Satan, so
there's a clear contract contradiction here. But something like that, I mean, just a minor thing. I would say that, that Yeah. The Quran and this is basically based on my obviously, my faith commitment. Sure. Is that Allah subhanaw taala is for us. It's yeah, I'm correct. It's more Haman added. Yeah, so yeah, exactly. So there's almost no depth, there's a there's a steep aspect to it. But in this case, it's correcting the biblical narrative. And I would say that's the same with, with, with New Testament with with the Christology of the polis, obviously correcting the Christology of Christianity and the normative and there's proof. So there's a lot of historical
evidence now for that, Bart Ehrman Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Let me ask you about because I was curious, also, you know, the DeLeeuw that they sent him, I mean, he's just attacked. And you know, that there was this conflict between people that the you know, the line of kings through the Davidic line, and then this other line and
So how even the slander against owed in the Bible is corrected in light. So it's very interesting that they're saying these are lies. He doesn't mention he skips over those chapters that David and Bathsheba. Yeah. Very interesting. Yeah. You know, and I thought also, you know, the idea that he was hinting at that in that. I mean, I just don't think that was a fair, that was one of the dudes I thought with the with that would it son and the two that come about the 99. Us and the one, you know, yeah, there were some of our exigence, who mentioned that there would it is, and I was reading the Psalms, and his glands sort of went to his neighbor's wife, and then he may Toba. And then that
incident happened, but there was no there's nothing mentioned, obviously, in our sources of any type of sexual violence or anything like that. Or killing neurotic. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, we got. Yeah, yeah.
If you questions are coming on the chats. And can I say one thing on that?
Yeah. One of the one of our colleagues or guests or participants here, he or she asks about the
Pact of Omar, the conditions of Omar and the dummy status in classical Islam. And the book has a chapter on that. Now, there's a shooter, Omar, I mean, are the conditions or the how do you say the rules brought by supposedly by Caleb Omar, however, that is typically generally now considered as a set of rules coming from not the second Caleb Omar, but to me at paleo former that came several generations later. And this developed in Islamic time. This is the me law and it has a sense of Muslims are superior, they are ruling Christians and Jews, and they have some limitations. Now, is this based on the Quran? One verse In surah. Tober refers to this, by whether that worst was about
all Jews and Christians or the ones that were aggressive in the first place. I think there's room to
Yeah, she has written on that extensively and shown how that's one option. There are others she had that that were done, even at the early period of the self. There were periods where they actually paid the the Byzantines
to monitor when they didn't have the military ability. So, you know, the those things are all open for, you know, these are the fault they can, you know, rely on? They're not they're a completely separate aspect in our juridical tradition.
So, and also, I think he was fair in pointing out that they, you know, he pointed out that thing, Bernard Lewis is point about the two stereotypes, you know, the, or America's, you know, and I think, you know, his point was well taken, that we have a checkered past, because history is the history of human beings interacting with other human beings. So there's times of enlightenment, and then there's times of in darkened men, and depending on which time you lived in is going to color your perspective. Exactly. And most of those details of the me laws were actually acquired from Byzantine and Sassanid. Presidents,
as historians show, so I don't think they should be the eternal unchanging principles of Islam, but for its time, they were actually quite compared comparable, that better than what the alternatives are. So we're speaking about history, in its own conditions, and many Jewish historians would testify today. And finally, the Ottoman Empire abolished that the mistake was in the middle of 18th century, the caliphate, you know, gave equal citizenship to Jews and Christians with the constitution of 1876. Yeah, but it was even done before that, because before it began with Tanzimat, Eddic, 1856 1870.
I mean, there were several steps. Basically, Jews and Christians became equal citizens of the Islamic Caliphate before decades before its demolition, and
that was done with the Incas consortium with
the shareholders now and the OMA and it was done long before. They were calling I don't know, of, you know, a recognition that these were no longer appropriate. As we moved into this new era, in 1876, the Ottoman Empire opened the parliament and elected parliament 1/3 of which was non Muslim, either Jew or Christian or Armenians and so on so forth. The otter and bars collapse, unfortunately, in a very tragic way, but due to nationalism, and we're still seeing nationalist wars, I mean, it's just a continuation of that, but
I think the evolution I mean, the development, political development in late Ottoman Empire is, I think, very interesting and brought a lot of answers to these issues. And other guest asks about the massacre of Jews in Granada INS 1066. That is a sad incident in Cordoba. But that was an exception. There was a rumor that the Jewish was here collaborated with the enemy, and there was an uproar. These things happen again, this was not America. Even these things unfortunately happened in American history, you probably know better than, but I mean, terrible sometimes. Case of violence happened, but this was an exception. And that's why Jews migrated from Christian lands repeatedly
from Spain, from Europe, to the Ottoman Empire to North Africa, where they found more freedom and there are many testimonies to that in the Jewish
tradition in historical records. You know, the the Prophet SAW Isilon, I mean, one of the things that I wanted to talk about was very interesting for me, is we have a problem with with Judaism. I recently translated the Hamza, and there's a whole section on, it's a real strong polemic against Judaism. And it made me think a lot about, about this issue and what and what my conclusion was one, truth claims have to be open to criticism, any tweet, whether it's Islam, or whether it's Judaism, or Christianity, or Marxism or secular humanism, whatever it is, if it's a truth claim, human beings have to be able to challenge it.
And, and, and and question whether it stands up to it.
But one of the problems in with Judaism is it's been conflated with an ethnicity.
And so what happens is, when you attack Judaism, you're being quote unquote, anti semitic. Which which is really unfair, I think in terms and which is why I prefer the term that I used in in the in the hub Xia was Judas. And I actually thought I made it up. And I looked and found it was in the Oxford Dictionary, because Judy asked is one who practices Judaism, as opposed to a Jewish person who's ethnically Jewish, and that Semites. And one of the things I think people forget is a lot of the air and he mentioned is this, a lot of the Arabs were converts to Judaism. So so the so called Jews in Medina, many were actually originally Arabs, but they had converted, and many would raise
their children, even though they were Arab themselves, they would raise their children as Jews, as opposed to. So I think that that problem and obviously, in our community, we we grapple with this, you know, because I think sometimes our community can easily fall into a really anti Jewish ethnic, kind of mentality, not everybody, but there are there is a segment and and there's a lot of things about what he brings out that children of pigs and apes and things like that which are totally inappropriate to talk about other human beings like that to dehumanize them in that way. And I think we've seen especially with the Palestinian issue, that there has been so many and largely secular,
but not always, I mean, some of them are liberal, in that liberal end, but certainly with the exception of the rabbi Tito balms group, because Rabbi Tito mom's group has always stood by the Muslims, visa vie, Palestine. But you know, we've really seen a lot of support from the conscientious Jewish community that recognizes that this has gone on too long. And it's just, it's just the brutality, the inhumanity. I mean, I mentioned to one of the rabbis who, you know, because initially, we tried to get a coalition of rabbis to call for a ceasefire, and it was very difficult getting them, you know, when this event first started going crazy.
Dr. Senussi and I are working on this, you know, we contacted people in the White House.
And, and, you know, the, the tragedy of it is one of one of them just said to me, Well, you know, Hamas, and as I said, as I said, most of the people in HERSA, weren't even born when they became when they were elected in 2006. You cannot collectively punish an entire people for what, you know, the government did I mean that if you can't see the moral wrongness in that, and he said, Well, you know, look at the, you know, the behavior of what happened on October 7, I said, Well, you know, and this is what I challenged him to think about this, and he actually did concede that it was an important point.
I said there are over 3000 3000 Travel locks in the 19th century of Europeans and Americans going to Palestine. None of them talk about the belligerence of the Palestinian people.
None of that.
And so what is it? What are the conditions
that have come about, you know, that have made people react in certain ways that maybe, you know, aren't even to their best advantage? But what, you know, what is that, like, if you don't recognize something's really deeply wrong with this situation? And I think, you know, I think it's, you know, it's a powerful testimony to just that there are a lot of people that are starting to recognize and the other thing that's really been stunning about this event for me, is, people aren't realizing that there are really insane Jewish sectarianism. I mean, some of these, like these, these settlers that just, you know, death to Arabs, and, you know, they make these genocidal statements.
You know, it's, I mean, I don't know how you can square that, just to see that because this stuff's coming out on YouTube and things of, of some of these statements spitting on nuns, you know,
the idea that's like this, I don't know what it is a snuff channel or something on Tik Tok, or they're just like, they're completely tone deaf, like they don't even realize what they're doing, how that how it's going to make them proceed be perceived by the public. It's very strange. I mean, I agree. And I think the Jewish community, after all, this will probably look itself in the mirror and see how this could be justified. I mean, this kind of attack ruthless attack over 1,000,002 million people with women and children.
It cannot be justified, I think, any any perspective, any human perspective, but this is what nationalism really does. I mean, I've seen the evils of nationalism throughout, you know, first in the Balkans, and then the Turks and Armenians 100 years ago. And, and now it's another So, but religious, our religious traditions should be able to rise above that, right? I mean, there is a beautiful verse in the Quran, I always, you know, remind fellow Muslims, like, do not let the hatred of people lead you to injustice, you know, be just, you know, that is that is closer to righteousness. So, I think in Jewish tradition, there is a beautiful saying in the
Torah, which says, I mean, you were strangers in Egypt, so you will not oppress a stranger. So that's the beautiful message there. And I think there are Jews who uphold that, and we deeply respect them. But others just get into this, no matter what it takes, no matter what it takes, we will defeat the enemy mood and without thinking of the harm that they're giving to innocent people, definitely in indeed, there are some terrible teachings. I mean, we've seen the Comelec reference in the past couple of months. And I it was chilling for me and thank god, there's nothing like that in the Koran as a Muslim, I can proudly say that, that that could sort of terrible reference, go and
kill women and children. And historically, Jews in the modern era, at least, you know, put this saying that this is metaphorical. It's about killing bad ideas. It's not about people. But you see some people who literally believe in this now and kind of cheering with us. They have their literalist as well.
There's rom bomb was my manatees. And then those Ramadan, nuff commodities, quantities is in the minority. But his opinion is that it's an everlasting statute for Jews to go and seize the holy land in every generation. And the kind of seizure that he's talking about is outlined in Deuteronomy 21, this type of hidden, or this type of extermination of the indigenous population? Do you consider that an everlasting mitzvah? It's, in my mind, it says, No, it's not everlasting. It happened once it's one and done. Or it could happen again, but the coming of the Messiah, but the Messiah will have wisdom the way they will do it. Who wins the hearts of the people or something supernatural?
What happened? Which gets to the importance of normative tradition? Yeah, you know, just and this is the problem, and a lot of Muslims don't understand this, in attacking meth heads, you know, that they're opening the door to all this non normative tradition, because there's so many opinions because we, in our tradition, we have opinions that are just really, you know, they're they're out there. And you can find that all these religious traditions these, but the normative tradition was always, you know, it just found a balance. And, and I think that's, that's really important.
You know, one of my favorite Hadees about is the one Sophia, you know, Mohamed Buhari has, I think that regime will open ended when when
But the province is Sofia, he visited because he married her to, even though you know she was taken as a prisoner of war. But he spent a good deal of time with her, convincing her because she said that when he came in he, he was the most odious person to her because her father had been killed in her husband. But she said that when he explained everything,
she said he was the most beloved person to her. So amazing story. But, yeah, when she, he came, he visited her and she was crying. And he said, Why are you crying? And she said, You know, I shot and some of the other women, they said that they were better than me, because they were Bananarama Yasuda, was valuable. You know, they were like his cousins, and also his wives. And so, he said, and I put the one that would that you would have said to them,
Abby Harun what Romney Musa was OG
like, How could get Cuba to talk on Hanuman? How could you be better than me when my father is Aaron because he was an errand I, my uncle was Moses, and my husband is more homeless.
So he was saying, Be proud of your Jewish
and I remember I'm Morty tangent that Abdullah with that madness that if any Jewish person because most of them you should consider them or worry about law.
But that's also interesting, too. And Medina you have a concentration of Cohanim. This is kind of like Athan bait status. And what are they all doing it and Medina Medina. He explains
that they were they were not farmers. They were like, they were studying. Yeah, bar Astra. He says, Well, they they, they stopped the protection of the human right kings, but the human rights and to become Jewish until like 370 of the Common Era. So they were in the hijas numbers of yours. Are that Yeah. So I think there's a I think there's a biblical reason why they're there. I think it's based on texts and the turnoff, maybe Isaiah 42. Also, I didn't like did you notice that with Isaiah, because he used that one that's used as a proof of the Prophet to kind of he's like He did. There was no reason to mention that. Yeah, yeah. About the same party I can't read. Did you notice that?
Oh, yeah. 2012 Isaiah. Yeah, try not too often. Yeah. But he puts it out like a like as a negative is a negative, as opposed to being a prophecy and then he does put Isaiah nine six, but this is not really. I mean, although anime Deuteronomy 1818, Isaiah 42, Genesis 49, these are really the swirls
are prevalent. I would say the prophecies of the Prophet sallallahu sallam, but Isaiah nine, six. I mean, again, the book is very concise. But, you know, traditionally Jews have different ways of looking at these texts. So they, I mean, traditionally, Jews believe that
verses have eaten off at four levels of meaning. Right, so there's the pitch shot, which is like the forehead without hitting meaning. And then there's either rum as like something that points to the future. There's something called the Drush, which is like, a lesson in Eberl, you pull out from the text, and then there's a sword, which is like a secret of the text. So this is a totally normal way of reading the text. So I can imagine that's very similar to
literally I marketable bathroom, what we're had to provide, or whether or not there's a Jafra saw the pieces, there's a there's a lot and there's there's the shot. And then there's the what is the subtleties LaTonya? If and how it but but I can imagine, like Jewish people reading that verse and say, well, that's that's talking about Hezekiah that the that the missile out shimbo is shapeable. In Hebrew, it says, It's a symbol of dominion shall be on his shoulder, which means he's going to shoulder you know, he's going to shoulder something great, some responsibility. So Well, that's the the context. It's not about Hezekiah. But again, traditional Jews, they read these texts at
different levels. So this text could be called diagramas or ROMs, something that points like a typology, but it's pointing to the future. And Matthew does this in the New Testament, and it's totally normal Jewish exegesis of the most Jewish Oh, yeah. So Matthew says, for example, Jesus wants to Egypt peace be upon him, because the Old Testament says out of Egypt that called my son right well, out of Egypt, call my son that's, that's Israel, but it's also pointing to the Messiah going to Matthew in a totally normal way to read the text. And so this idea that yes, this could indicate that someone great in the future will come who's going to literally have some kind of
symbol on his shoulder interest and that's a totally normal way of reading the tech it's not it's not twisting or turning or you know, it's what they say waterboarding the text dimension, it'll say what you want
Yeah.
Well, that's the other question. What are all these Kohanim doing it? Why are they there? And they mean induce?
Yeah. You mean the median Jews? Yeah. Jews. Yeah. I mean, Abdullah bin Salam, you know, he became Awesome. Yeah, there's Robbie highridge who fought with the Muslims or battle. The prophets praised him. Yeah, the best of the Jews, the prophet call them. Now, there's an interesting angle about that. And I mentioned that in my book and now
here's a question we made the Muslims didn't ask too much. Why did the house and Hazaragi the Arabs of Medina, were open to accepting Islam? While the Qureshi wasn't a Meccans Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him was among them their own people, but they refused to heed monotheism that's been discussed. There's been a schism I mean, even a shock. I mean, says that I mean, in common narrative, you've knee shock says something very interesting. He says, because there were Jews in Medina, Elling them Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's there in the sources, but maybe it's not uncommon imagination that'd be don't the fact that they were using Medina made Medina and Arabs more
interested in monotheism about a book about a scripture about one and God so all them a prophet was coming soon and he would come to that place. Yeah, exactly. So I mean,
shows us as God paved the way with the presence of Jews in Medina for Islam, because in Mecca Mecca was the that was the tea Jarrah was in Mecca.
Medina they were farmers. What is that? Well Olivia coulomb I attend a Roma
is it not a sign and this is sort of short ah, this is a Meccan surah is not as mature the keen that Allah ma Bani Israel believe in it or believe in him. So it seems like already in when the Prophet says Saddam was in Mecca, it seems like there are already Jewish scholars who didn't believe in Him. And this is this is pointed out to them by Allah. So kind of what the I mean, if this wasn't happening, if the promises on both the Quran, you want to make such a statement, because it'd be easily falsified. Obviously, this was happening. It's like reminding the Quraysh that there are Jewish or an ummah who have already accepted him as a prophet even before that. Yeah. And also the
Yemenis who came, like they had rabbis that came, who were expecting, like they were all they were expecting a prophet. And I mean, we know that the famous, you know, are you that prophet? I mean, the fact that that, you know, they asked, Are you Jesus? Are You the Messiah? Are you are you Isaiah, Elijah? You know, and then are you that prophet? Yeah. So so there were three out there. Yeah. The promise system is a bit tricky for the for the rabbis, because he's the greatest model theist in history. And that's the Jewish sort of claim to fame is Tawheed. Right. So they can easily dismiss like the Christian Jesus, not there really easily. Because the Christian Jesus, at least
that was the Trinitarian. Jesus. Oh, that's, that's a it's an easy case. But the problem is when I'm, you know, it's a bit tricky. So you have all these opinions. He's like, go and go, everything's like an agenda. He's like a Washington, but he's for you know, he's, he's not. Even some of them said, He's,
for You. Me. Yeah. He was a prophet of the Gentiles. In his Prasanna report, he mentioned that. He was a young Yemenite rabbi who said, he's a he's a nanny, and that he's a true prophet. But he's for the he's for the going in. So he's 499. No, I actually told me that, that he believed he was a prophet, but not for the Jews. Yeah.
Yeah. And it's primarily because he doesn't confirm all of the 613 myths of the smoke. But the thing about that is, and this is circumstantial evidence, but for the later but even abrogation, yeah, yeah. But for the majority of, of Jewish history, half of those mitzvah would have no application. Yeah. After the temple went down the priesthood, the sacrifices, so it's circumstantial evidence to me that that is that this is not meant to be the final secret law of God, if you will. That's why most of the laws Yeah, that's what a man bootable CD in the hands. Yeah, he because he says, you know, you claim that there's there's no obligation, and yet,
you know, the marriage of sisters, for Adam that was abrogated. He's like, what happened there?
Yeah, yeah. There's something that Shammi while multiple points out also the family who that's mentioned here, he mentioned. Yeah, I had that book years ago. It's pretty intense book. Yeah, it's pretty tough. But he mentioned that no abrogation, you have to have abrogation. You have to how he points that out. We
someone just wanted to note that we're approaching one hour, so we should probably shift
To q&a ahead of time. Yeah, that's fine. It's very curious to see the reaction from from the audience. Did they? You know, a lot of questions go, I couldn't catch up with them. So I'm looking at the end. Go ahead, if people want to ask verbally. All right, we have one lined up already. When did you ask to mute?
This one? This is Maria.
Macomb Am I audible?
Yes.
I wanted to share my experience when I lived in Rome for six months, especially when I journey through at least a maximum of bases of church over there, including the Vatican. And in the end of my stay, I visited synagogue over there with museum are all the Jewish history over there. And I can admit, by the end of the six months, that I could relate more to the Jewish tradition, in comparison to the Christians. And also in terms of their knowledge, the Jewish way of life.
It was a very much eye opening moment in a way that
Muslims can connect more with the Jewish tradition. And almost I felt like bringing that knowledge back into my country, which is Pakistan.
But obviously, given the lack of knowledge and the experience of it, and mostly, our knowledge of Jewish tradition is mostly to the stories of the Quran. That is a historical aspect of it. I mean, what I'm trying to ask is that,
over here, the stories that have been told to us is a bit into a negative light through the Quranic stories or other stories. So how do we convert that in a way that we can have not only good relations with the Jewish people? I don't know if there's much in the Pakistan locally, but just to have that tolerance of difference, and that we do share a lot of history and tradition has learned even in this time as well.
Yeah, that's a good question. I think concentrating on
most people don't know.
Like basics of another person's religion, right? I think you just maybe explain basic things that we haven't we have profits in common, right. I mean, I used to teach. I taught a class intro to Islam to M div students. And there was Christians and Jews. And, you know, I said, I said, you know, hoodoo Muslims believe built the Kaaba, and nope, nobody raised their hand. Nobody knew that. These are people that are going to, you know, lead congregations. And I said, Well, we believe it was Abraham. And they said, Well, that's, that's fascinating. And it's very basic. Right? So I mean, just introducing very basic things, having good character with people is extremely important. You
could have, you know, you can have someone that's brilliant, but if they show bad, it's really going to make a negative impression. Just to be you know, forbearing you know, merciful towards people.
That's why I like debate. I mean, is, uh, you know, it's, it's a dangerous thing, you really have to have a type of temperament to do it. You know, because you're gonna hear things that gonna upset you and you have to be able to deal with that. So I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend getting into, you know, these types of amateur debates, just kind of informed people and have good character.
That's a super linear development doing the official biller doing the video and, you know, lost his kinetic as a young dad equally omitted, I'm gonna have you know, we, we made each OMA think that that what they were doing was good. I mean, that's a zillion. I got it that so everybody's on there.
And I think it's important to distinguish also between
you know, just people that good decent people that are fair and balanced and honest. And then people that are whether they're Muslim or otherwise, that are just entrenched in a kind of, I think, what a kind of nationalistic etiology where my tribe right or wrong, because the Quran says, you know, be witnesses.
You know, for God shall have dialed in that. And then it's what oh, I learned physically, even if it means witnessing against yourselves. You
So I think people that are willing to do that, that are willing to recognize it in this situation at the Bay. And, you know,
it's
it's so clear
that what's happening is just wrong. Whatever caused it initially,
you know, set that aside that can't be that cannot justify what's happened. And, and so I think that's important. But also, one of the things that the Bravo's is one of the great of the many, many, the multitude of gifts that he was given one of his great gifts was making his enemies as allies. And he did that because he never demonized people. He always allowed. I mean,
again, one of my favorite points is when inequity, even Abby, John came to him. And well, John was his worst enemy.
And he said to him, I always knew good would come from your father. Like he had something good to say about his father. I mean, what what how soothing that must have been to the heart of equity man, who became a great Sahabi you know, so I think that's really important is just not falling into that kind of group mentality and taking people as individuals and not collectivizing we've all done it, and I've done it myself, but collectivizing is just a really dangerous and even the Quran. And one of the things about the rhetoric of the fun of politics, and you who they are the lie ally Magoo, Lulu, the Jews say that the hand of God is tied right? In the conversation say one Jew said that,
but in Arabic, it's, it's, you know, synecdoche. It's, it's it's, it's it's cool. And bow. And so
obviously
most Jews don't believe that who believe in that
is a very important point. You're right. There is a verse which emphasizes they're not all alike, you know, even as mood of conflict. On emphasizes that at a time you know, there was a conflict in Medina started. Yeah, although it started with a brilliant you know, pluralistic constitution, maybe that's a modern term but a charter. So he famous document, Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him sign with the Jews and to Jews, their religion to Muslims, their religion, it boiled down to conflict. Why is that a long story, but I think it's mostly political, rather than theological. But still it the Quran emphasizes they're not all the same. And that is, I think, the lesson for all of us. And I
think one MIDI mistake we did on our side in the past 100 years is that because of the conflict in Palestine, there has been a attitude of seeing all Jews as negative and created taking verses out of context, sloganeering them even you mentioned the apes and pigs, you know, classical exegesis didn't understood as you know, Jews are like that they understood as one miracle happened once back in time, so it's not a group definition. So there has been this sort of narrative, and it didn't show the Palestinian cause it didn't help on bringing built big building bridges, which we still need, I think. So in that sense, our principled stance is important so that we can have
peace, you know, with the people with principled stance, from the Jewish side, from Pro Israeli side, or however you call it, because, and also, I think we should not forget that these people went through a holocaust. And that's huge. And the memory of that is huge, huge tragedy, and everything comes back to that, right. And that's why we should be clear about that. You know, we are not against Jewish people, we're not against, you know, trying to destroy them as a people, we're not giving any credit to that sort of narrative. Here is a oppressed people, the Palestinians, they deserve justice, as everybody does. But we want other people, the Jewish people there to live in
peace to I mean, that's what I believe. Otherwise, it just comes into a zero sum game. And when it's a zero sum game, everyone, you know, just goes back to the trenches and becomes more and more radical, which is what we're seeing, I think, in the past couple of months.
And, yeah, we have a Philippine one, Phillip, I'm putting you on.
Salam Alaikum.
So my question is kind of related to part of what we read. But the purpose was, and basically, when I was in school, there were a fair number of Jewish classmates and I would ask them about, you know, certain things because at the time, there I was the liable sort of middle class and so I felt
I was more similar to them than a lot of other people in the class. So I would ask them questions. And some of the things told me, I thought were a little strange. For example, they told me that
they're Jewish because their mother was Jewish. And so at the time, I just thought that was weird. But then afterwards, when I read more, and I started to see references to NES earlier, like the sons of Israel, and like their tribes, it didn't seem very matrilineal. And so there was kind of some confusion there. So I wanted to see if you could clarify, kind of history of that.
Yeah, so this is, as mentioned in the Torah,
that Jewish ethnicity is passed natural Lily, Lily elite who the mother, so if your mother is Jewish, okay, then you're considered a Jew. And also, this is a traditional understanding that all 613 of the mitzvot are binding upon you. Right? So, that's if you have a Jewish mother. So there's no, you can't be a Ben Nowalk. If you have a Jewish mother, you have to practice Judaism, and you have to basically uphold all of the 613 commandments.
But if you're a Gentile, then
your way to salvation is through the seven Noahide laws. Right? So these are basically, God has one don't blaspheme God and don't murder, don't steal, don't commit adultery, don't torture animals and set up courts for justice. And so yeah, so according to traditional Jewish theology, the Muslims are better off because we follow those seven. So we actually have a place in the lawn Papaw, what they say which the worlds to come, we have a stitch in there.
So we don't necessarily need to convert to Judaism, we can still convert to Judaism, according to the rabbis.
Scourge if they they're supposed to Yeah, yeah. It's much harder than 613 commandments become binding upon Us. So the matrilineal descent, the probably the origin of it is the sort of rationale behind it originally was to, you know, to grow the tribe to keep the tribe
to a certain number of of people
to ensure that it'll survive, because in the ancient world is basically a numbers game. And you know, you have
you know, invading empires and so on and so forth. And everything was strengthened numbers are lovano.
Thank you.
Next, we have summer, summer, I'm putting you on.
Go ahead
of summer, you need to unmute yourself again, you just muted yourself. So, Margaret, and Monica. I think obviously, Michelle, it's an honor to be with you this evening.
And then just Accola Pharisee Mustafa and Dr. Elliot was a very enlightening discussion. I just wanted to ask, it was kind of alluded to about the Pact of Senator Omar, there was a long passage that that he mentioned in the book, but it seemed that he, at least for a reader, who maybe wasn't paying attention too deeply. They would believe that this was these sorts of conditions were made by sending aroma and not rather not by the Christians, and then someone who would read the or know the history or return back to their original sources, they would see that those conditions were mentioned by the Christians for the Muslims, not the other way around. Could you perhaps discuss
maybe reasons why they weren't there, or the author might have attempted to
make it seem this way?
But yeah, I don't know. I mean, this of course, thank you so much for the question, brother. And what I know is that this condition comes as Yes, Christian says we will not spy on Muslims or allow people to spy on them, we will get up when they have they come and we will not write on forces. So there are impositions they bring on themselves so that they're saved. That's the structure of this letter. But the thing is, many scholars today, including Muslim scholars don't think that this was an authentic letter written during the time of kala Kumar, the second Caliph
right after the Prophet, so it was a later development and the way it is written this way, why it is written this way. It is like the Christians are taking the pledge that we're going to do this so that our churches will be free because there are also these kinds of
shows that their churches, their churches will be safe, their crosses will not be destroyed, their clergy will not be harmed. So it is. So a lot of people think it's actually a later invention to make to settle the conditions also like the Marquis of Andrew Sia, that even though the mature of the matter was they weren't, they could they could renovate their buildings, but they shouldn't build new ones. Yeah, that's a part of the conditions. Yeah. Yeah. But the Andrew sciennes Actually revoked that then Lucien Marquis permitted them because it wasn't fair if they if their numbers increased, because people forget that, you know, populations remained relatively stable because of
high infant mortality birth rates, you know, so but yeah, the monarchies in Andhra see a revolt that because they didn't think it was fair, that if they needed space to worship they should be allowed to build.
And I'll tell you something else. I read any mom Saudis commentary
of, of a bar cuts commentary on the idea that he was distraught too, so often hear Muslims say, I wish I was a Christian, for the perks they get. And that that was, you know, during the Mameluke, Egypt. So, you know, there were periods where they were very powerful. And then and that's why I think, Bernard loses point is really well taken, that that those two stereotypes, you know, they had elements of truth in though that there were times that where the minorities really had very high status, and then there were other times when they were clearly oppressed. And that's undeniable, biggest oppression is.
Yeah, go ahead. The biggest oppression Jews went through was under the ELMO he doing or Almohads as cold in Spain. Yeah, Moshe did Maamoun fled to Egypt. Exactly. They just canceled the conditions of Omar and they said, you know, actually everybody has to convert to Islam. They thought, you know, the end is near. So the fol Kitab al Azima status is now an old, but that's an exceptional case. And of course, Jews fled from there and that was persecution. Now, there is something very interesting, I loosely learned, I put my new book, there is a Jewish text discussing this Almohad persecution. And in this text, the Almohads are called Hawaii bridge. They they know that these are the fanatics
in Islam. And they're known as the cold as the Hawaii bridge, the heritage sites, you know, from Islamic tradition, definitely how the the Morabito viewed them in the the day. Okay, so it probably comes from that exactly. So I mean, Muslims probably use that, but the Jews use that but so this was an exceptional case. But regarding the shrewd the conditions of remark, it is a late text and not coming from the second Caleb fighting and how it came in that part is really structured. That's a good question. And I think historians have different views, but it was the way it was framed. It was of Christian taking these pledges. And of course, it was extended to Jews and other like
Zoroastrians or other people who are minorities as well.
Thank you. We are approaching Maghrib time. Should we take one more question? A few more. We have 10 minutes. Okay. I'm putting on Diana Diana.
Thank you, Salam aleikum,
esteemed guests, thank you for your time and for selecting this sound very interesting. And topical book, I would say, I found it really fascinating. In part because of my own background. I have a Jewish parent. So before I converted to Islam, 30 years ago, I actually spent a lot of time in Hebrew schools and learned all of the, you know, Orthodox Jewish stories and, you know, Torah readings and holidays. So I always felt, you know, upon converting that there was this kind of some tensions and some some negative aspects to how Jews were perceived in the Quran. So I actually found the reading very interesting, although, you know, some of the sections we've already talked about
were a little bit, I thought unfair. The part that I actually wanted to talk about which I found the most interesting and asked my question, was the very last chapter where he discusses the similarities between the
Shias and the Jews in terms of and I actually didn't know any of this just being Sunni. So I would really like to hear some, some of your impressions but how we talked about, you know, Shia doctrine of being the elected and
just that whole superiority,
I guess, perception of themselves as being unique. Cut from different or made from different clay
He even talked about, I just wasn't sure how accurate some of what he wrote in the book was because it was, you know, a little bit like, unbelievable. Specifically when he taught I wonder if you could comment if one of you could comment about page 131, where he actually talks about and I wasn't clear, if it was, like a hadith that Shia had deep, but when he talks about the Prophet, peace be upon him referring to himself saying, I am Abdullah, and my name is Achmed. And I am also the son of Abdullah and my name is Israel.
In that second paragraph on page 131, everything that God has commanded of Israel, he has also commanded of me, and everywhere, where he refers to it, he refers to me.
I just wasn't sure how accurate that was. I'd never heard anything like that before.
131 Is that what you're referring to? Yeah, page 131, the second paragraph where he talks about that particular quote?
Thank you.
First of all, thank you very much for your participation, and also your comments. And
yeah, great.
So 40, that's, let's see doesn't give us force word.
for it,
it's on page 140. Tradition refers to political figure for something. Yeah. He doesn't give a source for that. Very unusual. I don't know. Yeah. There are a few mistakes as it has. Yeah, I noticed that too. Yeah. There was some there were some mistakes. And also some, I think, misunderstandings. But overall, I mean, I have to say, I thought he was
seem very fair to me.
I mean, there were a few what I thought a little bit
they could have, I think they could have been presented in a way that that
that would have been more accurate, like the way he talks about the the the Midrash being this post biblical as opposed to being the oral tradition, and part of the revelation sacred, sacred writings of their tradition, which would mean that the fact that those things are in the Quran, there's the historical question, how, where did the prophesy said to get that from? Because we don't there's, I mean, the Jews would have been the first people to point that out, you know. So, the fact that these are in there to me are, strengthen the argument, because the province I sent him clearly was unlettered, he did not know these traditions and watercop, who didn't know something of the New
Testament, and didn't know Hebrew. What died almost immediately after he tells the Prophet This is the NAM was it's come to you. And he said, I wish I was a Jedi, like a young, you know, young man, according to the Jews, I mean, these statements in the missionary, they're not making them up. They come from Yeah, they're come from profits from
their turn for a Senate. Yeah. So something like
that, if you kill one person, it's like you've killed all that could have been uttered by Lusardi. Saddam, or one of the subsequent prophets after him that the Quran is confirming. Yeah, you know, so and also giving the right iteration of it because they changed it. Right? Because the Babylonian Talmud says one Jewish life.
And he actually admitted that, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, they changed it. Because the original the URL is one call in Renovatio. The article that he wrote, that was his argument that, that the original iteration was any life. But then the later they changed it to a Jewish life.
And so the Quran is actually citing the original gentleman revelation, even though it's in it's in the missionary, it's not in the it's not in the the by the the Pentateuch. Yeah.
There's something I wanted to point out also on page 66, here, this is at the bottom of the page. This is the longer version of the Arcada commandments. So this is God. Commanding Abraham to sacrifice 66 Isaac, yeah, the bottom of page 66. So this is he says, Genesis 35, seven is actually 39 Nine. So here, if you look at it says take please your Son, and God said to him, take a baby, please your son with son, I have two sons. He said, your only son replied this. One is the only one of his mother and this is the only one of his mother, the one you love. And then he says, Is there a limit to affections? So that's not Genesis rapa 55 755 Seven actually says something else. Now
there's now a Genesis Orapa, which is a very famous mentor Asha, the book of Genesis is also a very chic robot.
There are different versions of this story. But Rashi, who is probably the most celebrated Jewish exigent, maybe of all time, he actually quotes this Genesis rapa 55 Seven correctly and I looked it up in the Hebrew. So what it actually says is, he says, Which son and he says, Yes, He's your only son. And then he says, he says,
Z, I think Lee Moore was a fiddly mod. This is the only son of his mother. This is the only son of his mother. And then he says Asha Haftar, the one that you love. And then Jenna said, Robert 50 by seven says that Abraham said, and he always Shinae him. I love both of them. But he doesn't mention that here.
Like, so maybe this and God said in Genesis, we will make we have heard your call, we will make up him a great nation. Yeah. And how could a nation be great if it's not a religious nation? Exactly. This man, how could God call a nation great? If it wasn't okay? In God's eyes and
the Nasher? He actually says about that love that verse, he says that he says Allah Gore, that boy, God doll has a numerical value of 93 so they play with the gematria. And then he also says, that be more behold, an exceedingly great nation that also has a numerical value of 93 and then any Mohamed also has 90 did actually mention this in their in their mid off, we got celebrate but it's interesting because there are two versions of this story of the of the commandment that he that he mentioned is this one
you know, and some of the Jews did recognize the Prophet and some of them accepted him and some were envious and we know from the story views of it so now that and these were prophets you know, the Reuben right I mean, use of did not have offspring, right. So so the line would have naturally gone through use of, but it went to the other brother, but they envied his position with Ben you need because they were from Rohit or Rachel and the other sons were from Leia. So the fact that that's such a central story in the Quran,
that, you know, they're the prophets I sent him was clearly for us, it's, I don't know, it seems obvious to me, just seems obvious that his prophecy is so clear. And then the nation that came out of the Quran
I mean, I don't know how do you explain that? How do you explain you know, over 1000 years of,
of everything, literature, mathematics, science, great religious tradition, I mean, just the heck of it, but not a lie. That's all I'm ever produced in the post, revelatory period. And that's one of the greatest spiritual texts ever written. See? I'm gonna Where did that come from? Like, if it wasn't from, from inspiration and from you know, God, so, I haven't read that. But this is you know, this is done yet. And these are the you know, as the great poet as Emily Dickinson said, you know, this world is not conclusion a species stands behind beyond invisible is music but positive is sound it back ends and it baffles philosophy don't know and throw a riddle at the last case and T must go
to gain at
to know a trouble scholars to gain it men have born contempt of generations and crucifixion shown. Face slips and laughs and rallies. blushes event is blushes of any see.
plucks at a twig of evidence. And as a vein the way must gesture from the pulpit strong hallelujah is roll. Our Codex cannot steal the tooth that nibbles at the soul. So it's
this dunya
we're all gums.
Let's shake hands like can we do a closing job before?
This one?
First of all, I want to really thank everybody. Thank you so much, Diana. That was such an interesting
comments and, and really happy to have you in our face with us. I'm the last man I bless you and bless your family in sha Allah. Allah bless our brothers and sisters wherever they are those struggling those having difficulties. May Allah Subhana Allah to Allah provide those who need food with the food they need. May Allah subhana wa Tada. Forgive us for our shortcomings or incapacity, our inability to aid those who need aid. Allah Subhana Allah insha Allah guide these people who are empowered
are over us to do the right things. Maybe put in the hearts mercy and remove all of this cruelty and hatred. May Allah subhanaw taala inshallah make us people of light not people darkness made me make us people who who sow peace where there's conflict and and justice where there's oppression May Allah subhana wa Tada makers people have mercy and may Allah subhana wa jal and shall accept our Ramadan except as fasting. Forgive us our shortcomings, purify our tongues, purify our hearts, purify our eyes and ears. Make us people of the Quran min Adam phoron raise us with the light of the Quran. Give us the light of the Quran in our graves give us the blessing of our Prophet on the Day
of Judgment. We all of the prophets be gathered in His shade and recognize the glory of our prophets Elijah is on that amazing day when they all say enough's enough. See Ya Allah subhanaw taala give us the hand of the Prophet slice and come up with an idea in Old Testament Hey nama Jana, in sha Allah, may Allah we ask you to forgive any of our sins and shortcomings in this month and make us people of the there was a part of the shahada in sha Allah
shoulda made people who have as a find some solace
Sagara Alyansa the Prophet sallallahu sallam said in a more ethical agenda, they're more apt bgn and Chaga for those who are gone and may Allah subhanho data protect those who remain means how not to be corrupted. I sat down my OC from the cinema animal scene what I hadn't realized how proud of me