Quran and Jews (II)

As our discussion about Ethics ended unexpectedly, we started a new route concerning the position of Islam and Quran on Jews. It started with Lord's reference to a verse of Quran which states that the worst enemies of Islam & Muslims are Jews. I gave an explanation of that verse, based on some interpreters' ideas. In his recent post, Lord posed several questions which may be formed into 2 main arguments: one concerns the very basis of interpretation of Quran; and the other asks of my own attitude towards Jews & Zionism, which he finds contradictory.

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Let me begin with second problem, which seems much easier to answer. 3 simple principles may describe my view in details:
a) Not every anti-Zionist person/movement is necessarily anti-Semitic.
b) Still, anti-Semitism is in the root of some anti-Zionist movements.
c) I think that Quran seems to be against political movements of radical Jews, not against Judaism itself.

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Now, let's consider the case of interpretation of Quran. You are completely true when you say: “Quran is not just for interpreters, it’s for everyone, everywhere and every time.” But notice that:
1) This Book was revealed in the context of time and a 25-years-history.
2) The language used in Quran is somehow mysterious, full of metaphors, etc.
3) Quran does not give a detailed explanation of its content, and Tradition (Word and Deed of Holy Prophet) is a proper mean to understand the exact meaning of some verses, in addition to the fact that even the details of some important practices of Islam (like daily prayers) is not given in Quran.
This way, interpretation is sometimes a mean to get the meaning of the verse, not sub-layers of its content.
Lat me clarify this position (behind which there is an important philosophy) a bit more: Some of the Muslim scholars believe that when we open Quran and read it, we should pay attention to the fact that this Book was revealed 14 centuries ago to the people of then Arabia, and every word/phrase of this Book had a special meaning to them. We have to understand ‘that’ meaning, not the contemporary meaning of a word/phrase. 2 factors are important here:
* The meaning of a word/phrase itself: As you well know, a special Term or Word in for example Persian may mean differently to people who live in different cities. You may dig the history of Persian Literature and find that there are many words which their meanings were somehow different in the Iran of 100 years ago. The same applies to other languages. Then, Language evolves throughout history, and words may get different meanings during a period of about 14 centuries.
* The socio-political context of the verse: Suppose that we are watching news, and it states that “2 criminals executed in Iran.” Then I say: “Thugs!” You may know from the previous chats we had that I am a fanatic fan of the current regime, then, ‘thugs’ refer to the executed criminals. On the other hand, you may know that I am strongly against the current regime, and I think that they execute opposition leaders under the name of ‘criminals’, then you know that my word refers to the leaders of IRI, not to those executed. This example shows what I mean by ‘socio-political context’.
This way, an interpreter’s role is sometimes to tell us what a word had meant to the audience of Muhammad (PBUH). One interpreter says that Yahud & Sons of Israel had completely different meanings to those people. If this idea is true, we should consider it.
I hope that this post helps you get my point better.
Good Luck

Quran and Jews

[O, Messenger!]Verily you will find the Jews and the pagans the strongest among mankind in enmity to the believers; and you will find that the closest to the believers in friendship are those who say: “we are Nasara [Christians].” That is because among them are learned priests and devoted monks and they are not arrogant [against the truth].
Quran, 5-82

My friend mentioned the above verse in his weblog and asked of others’ idea that why God revealed such verses against Jews. Here is my explanation.

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Once Islam appeared, Mohammad’s position was strong enough (due to his grand father’s and uncle’s support, who were prominent figures in Mecca) to keep him away from the persecution by pagans, but his followers suffered a lot in the first 10 years of his career, when he was in Mecca.
As you well know, since the very beginning of its advent, Islam recognized followers of 3 religions as ‘the people of the book’, who were Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians (there was no Zoroastrian in then Arabia). These people had the right to still practice their faith, but after Muhammad immigrated to Medina and established a Muslim Rule, ‘People of the Book’ were supposed to pay a tax called ‘Jezyeh’.
In that time, Muhammad signed several peace agreements with other tribes who didn’t convert to Islam, asked them not to help pagans in war against Islam and on the hand undertook to protect their rights.
Indeed, Muslims rarely had any problem with Christians, for they (due to their principles and faith, which is known for being kind and tolerant, and also for their religious leaders, who are known for leaving joys of the world and just paying attention to God) were not used to get involved in ruling.
But Jews were else. In one of the most important wars of Pagans against Muhammad (called ‘Trench War’, for a trench around the city of Medina helped Muslims get rid off the great army of enemies), it was a Jewish tribe who provoked Pagans to begin war; and while Medina and Muslims were surrounded by the army of Pagans, another Jewish tribe (one of those tribes who were living inside Medina and signed a peace agreement with Muslims) betrayed Muslims and started a civil war. Actually one may trace the conspiracies of some Jews against Muhammad and Islam, back to the time when Muhammad was in Mecca and Islam was just a newborn.
Keep the above history lessons in mind, and let me refer you to a quote by an interpreter of Quran, who said once that: “Quran has 2 words for those who follow Moses: one is Yahud and the other is Sons of Israel (both of them equal to Jews). Whenever Quran uses the latter it means Jews in a general sense, but when it uses the former it means a special group of Jews, a group who are seeking for political and ruling power and even in some cases are not obedient to their own prophets”.
In this sense, according to the fact that Muslims had few problems (if any) with individual Jews who were living in the Muslim society, and the other fact that the only People of Book which made problems for Islam was Jews, one may conclude that what that verse is saying, and what Quran is dissatisfied of, is the Political Jewish Movements, not Jews themselves.

Anti-Semitism vs. Anti-Zionism

As you well know, there is not a good attitude to Israel within Muslim societies. Here I don’t want to enter this debate, explore the roots of the problem or propose any solution; but I want to focus my attention on something which came to me as a surprise.

I used to believe that all of those Muslim analysts, who oppose Zionism, don’t offend Jews as a whole (i.e. are not anti-Semitic). Now I'm not that sure of this idea. You may want to know why; if so, follow this post.

Since about 7 years ago, by the beginning of my university studies, I was obsessed with Mideast conflict. Reading the articles and analysis of both sides (if we assume that there are only two sides in this conflict, which may be rather simplistic) and following the news, was part of my routine program. You know, there are too many groups in Iran (mostly, if not wholly, related to hardliners) which are bonded to this subject, and I have attended some of their seminars, meetings and workshops.

As said above, most of the anti-Zionist analysts (either in Iran or else) claim that they respect Jews, but the only thing they can never stand is Zionism. Yeah, it may be possible in theory, for we see even some Jews (some orthodox ones) who oppose Zionism. (Again, this is not my aim to judge if they are sincere, if such a thing is rational, etc).

Meeting some of these so-called Iranian anti-Zionist analysts helped me get a better grasp of their actual beliefs. Yeah, one may refuse to state his innermost feelings and thoughts in a public seminar, for reports and reporters may make many problems. Then when you get into the depth of his mind, you may find something completely different from what gets out of his mouth. Without referring to any special figure or case (for it may make problems), now I think that anti-Semitism is in the root of some of these anti-Zionism movements.

How can we find such an argument in their statements? It's not that complicated. Though they first claim that 'respectable Jews also do exist' and divide Jews as being 'bad' or 'good' (a completely black and white view indeed), after a while they (either implicitly or explicitly) state that 'if a Jew is a True Jew, he/she is bad'. Believe it or not, I saw some of them who even try to find a historical pattern of conspiracy done by (true) Jews to eliminate Islam. This kind of conspiracy theory is what I call anti-Semitism.