Q & A (2)

These questions I've received way back in 2010. Back at that time I was very active writing in forums and I've seen many interesting questions. The below is a conversation between me and anonymous person who I believe is a Jew. Well, from how he speak it tells me he must be a Jew.

So here I would like to share with our readers on this very interesting topic. The below questions was actually the last 2 questions addressed to me which both are the most interesting questions from the whole conversation.

Question:

"Anyway, for any command of killing the disbelievers only to be used during battlefield and towards the war prisoners"

Where is this stated? Or are you just assuming that's what it means?

Oh, and one more question--I know that in the Hadith (I forget which verse specifically but I believe it is Sahih Muslim--"The last hour will not come before the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them, so that Jews will hide behind stones and trees and the Stone and the tree will say, O Muslim, O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me; come and kill him.") Does it make it difficult for you to be friends with Jews when, presumably, you believe that you must kill them when/if the time arises? It seems that it would be a bit difficult to make friends with Jews under this circumstance, yes?

Answer:

Salam,

1) As I said, if you want to understand it you got to read the whole book. At least read the whole surah. To make it easy for you to understand you may get your self the Quran with translation and commentary by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. With the help of the commentary you will be able to understand the verse better as it will explains about the verse. For me, it really helps me to understand the Quran better. Here is the commentary for the 2 surahs that you have mentioned earlier:

For Surah Al-Maidah Verse 51, the commentary by Abdullah Yusuf Ali:

That is, look not to them for help and comfort. They are more likely to combine against you than to help you. And this happened more than once in the lifetime of the Prophet, and in after-ages again and again.

He who associates with them and shares their counsels must be counted as of them. The trimmer loses whichever way the wheel of fortune turns.

For Surah At-Tawbah Verse 29, the commentary by Abdullah Yusuf Ali:

Jizyah: the root meaning is compensation.

The derived meaning, which became the technical meaning, was a poll-tax levied from those who did not accept Islam, but were willing to live under the protection of Islam, and were thus tacitly willing to submit to its ideals being enforced in the Muslim State.

There are no amount permanently fixed for it. It was in acknowledgement that those whose religion was tolerated would in their turn not interfere with the preaching and progress of Islam. Imam Shafi’i suggests one dinar per year, which would be the Arabian gold dinar of the Muslim States.

The tax varied in amount, and there were exemptions for the poor, for females and children (according to Abu Hanifa), for slaves, and for monks and hermits. Being a tax on able-bodied males of military age, it was in a sense a commutation for military service.

In the last line of the verse it says - عَن يَدٍ وَهُمْ صَاغِرُونَ It reads: AAan yadin wahum saghiroon.

AAan Yadin – literally, from the hand, has been variously interpreted. The hand being the symbol of power and authority. I accept the interpretation ‘in token of willing submission.’

The Jizya was thus partly symbolic and partly a commutation for military service, but as the amount was insignificant and the exemptions numerous, its symbolic character predominated.

Answering to this question: Where is this stated? Or are you just assuming that's what it means?

Answer: I have already explained it to you. Refer to Surah Al-Baqarah Verse 190-194

In Surah Al-Baqarah Chapter 2 Verse 190-194:

Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not like transgressors. And kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you, and fitnah is worse than killing. And do not fight them at al-Masjid al- Haram until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers. And if they cease, then indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. Fight them until there is no [more] fitnah and [until] worship is [acknowledged to be] for Allah . But if they cease, then there is to be no aggression except against the oppressors. [Fighting in] the sacred month is for [aggression committed in] the sacred month, and for [all] violations is legal retribution. So whoever has assaulted you, then assault him in the same way that he has assaulted you. And fear Allah and know that Allah is with those who fear Him.

The Muslims are only allowed to fight against those who intend to harm them (for self-defense) and that if their enemies surrender, they must also stop because God does not like those who transgress limits.

For your information, Islam tells the us to avoid any kind of assumptions. So I do not assume or interpret the Quran according to my preference. Quran was sent down to Prophet Muhammad s.a.w so that he can teach and guide mankind to the right path. It is not for anyone to assume or interpret it according to their own preference. The meaning of every verse has been explained by the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. The commentary that I told you earlier, is to explained the meaning of the verses of the Quran following the teaching of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w through the book of Hadeeth. 

2) “The last hour will not come before the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them, so that Jews will hide behind stones and trees and the Stone and the tree will say, O Muslim, O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me; come and kill him."

- This hadeeth is a prophecy mentioned by Prophet Muhammad s.a.w about the sign of Qiamat under the topic of Sign of Qiamat. In the Quran mentioned many times about there is no one would know about the coming of Qiamat except Allah Ta’ala and only Him who knows about it. Somehow the sign was given to us to warn us. The Hadeeth above, some Ulama and Scholars say that the Prophet was speaking in metaphorically.

As you can see today the Jews are scattered around the western world. For instance: In America. It is hard for you to recognize them. You can’t tell if they are Jews or not, they mixed and live in the western society. It is hard for us to differentiate between Jews and the whites as many Jews already adopted the identity of the whites. They have English-sounds name, the looks like them, they sound and speak like them (whites). Today we may find big name Hollywood Celebrities, or big-guys from Wallstreet and the government of America are Jews. If no one ever mentioned about their blood-line, nobody can tell that they are Jews. The Jews are hiding behind the identity of the westerners.

At the time of the revelation of the Qur’an, and for more than a thousand years thereafter, Christians and Jews were locked in a relationship of such mutual hatred that it was impossible to conceive of a future Christian-Jewish reconciliation, friendship and mutual alliance.

After all, the Gospel itself had recorded the exclusive Jewish role in the demand for Christ’s crucifixion, in addition to the fact that the Roman government had opposed it (John, 19:4-7). Christianity consistently, and quite correctly, blamed the Jews for demanding that crucifixion. It created eternal hostility between the two religious communities. 

However, this extraordinary verse of the Qur’an actually anticipated a time when the world would witness a strange and mysterious reconciliation between these two foes, and the emergence of a Judeo-Christian alliance. It is only in the modern age, when Gog and Magog have attacked Euro-Christianity and Euro-Judaism and have transformed Europe into an essentially godless secular society where men can legally marry men, that the world has witnessed the amazing fulfillment of the divine prophecy in this verse of the Qur’an (See chapter on Gog and Magog in ‘Jerusalem in the Qur’an’). 

It should be clear that the Qur’an has prohibited Muslims from maintaining friendly ties with only that Judeo-Christian alliance and not with all Christians and all Jews. The Qur’an has also warned those Muslims who established ties of friendship with that Judeo-Christian alliance that is now ruling the world, that Allah Most High would recognize them to be members of that alliance (rather than the Muslim community), and would thus consider such conduct the ultimate betrayal of Islam.

Euro-Christianity and Euro-Judaism have today joined in an unholy alliance in order to conquer and rule the world from London, Washington and Jerusalem while waging war on Islam. They do so in order to deliver the rule over the world to an imposter Euro-Jewish State of Israel - a state which they themselves created, and then seduced the oriental Jews (i.e., the Israelite Jews) into accepting. That alliance is also waging war on the religious way of life and in the process is transforming almost the whole world to a state of decadence and godlessness.

 – Taken from Neither Friends or Allies by Imran Nazar Hosein.

3) I do not have any Jewish friend. I am not being racist, but you cannot find Jews living here. But yes I have met them before. And they look like a normal white American. I only got to know when they told me that they are Jews. We speak like normal people and we have no problem whatsoever. The Quran say that there are good people amongst them. And we were only told to fight those who fight us. And also there are Jews who are Muslims and they believe in Islam but majority of them are not. If happen to be that I will have a Jewish friend, I will accept them for who they are. But if they join and attack the Muslims, I will fight them. If they’re not, then I will do no harm onto them. We were only told to fight those who fight us, not those who don’t. Since we are in this topic let me share with you one story:

Once I was told a story by a learned man, who have an experience living in the Jewish society. So one day he had a discussion of religious matters with his Jewish friends. He asked them: Do you believe that Muhammad s.a.w is the messenger of Allah? And they answer: Yes. So he was very surprise and asked again: If yes, then why don’t you follow his teaching and be Muslims? They answer: We are Jews, and Moses is for the people of Jews. So we only follow Moses and will not follow Muhammad because he’s an Arab, not Jews.

QUESTION:

I'm afraid your "learned friend" is lying. There is not a single Jew anywhere who believes that Mohammed was or is in any way divinely inspired or a prophet. If a Jew believed that then by definition he would not be a Jew anymore. And I'm sorry but I found your reply to me extremely anti-Semitic. Jews did not willingly "adopt" the identity of "whites". They were forced into Europe after the Romans sacked Israel and had to integrate into those societies. After thousands of years of oppression and persecution they have finally started to be seen as equals.

Oh, and as one final note--only half of Jews worldwide are "white". The rest are Mizrahi or Sephardic ("dark" or "tan"). These people are the descendents of those Jews who were driven out of Arab countries in the 20th century.

Thank you for answering my questions, anyway.

Answer:

Shalom,

First of all about the story that I shared with you, I wasn’t asking you to confirm if it’s true or if it’s a lie. You can think whatever you like, and you may accuse if he was lying. I don’t need you to believe in his story like I do. My intention was only sharing the knowledge and my points of view.

Me, anti-semite? I'm not surprised to hear that. It is very typical for everyone to label someone as anti-Semite whenever they speak about the Jews. It seems like Jews are very sensitive people. Anyway, it is up to you to think whatever you want. After all I was only answering your questions. If you’re not happy and couldn’t agree with my answer – it is your choice, your freedom. I have no rights to force you to accepting my point of views and make you confirming everything I said is true.

Oh another thing, if you think that Muslims were all trained to hate the Jews I can tell you that you are so wrong. Here I quoted you the verse from the Holy Quran. Allah said:

O Children of Israel, remember My favor that I have bestowed upon you and that I preferred you over the worlds. (Surah Al-Baqarah Chapter 2 Verse 47)

Ye are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah. If only the People of the Book had faith, it were best for them: among them are some who have faith, but most of them are perverted transgressors. (Surah Ali Imran Chapter 3 Verse 110)

Now compare it to this:

Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the LORD thy God to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the LORD.  Also in Horeb ye provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry with you to have destroyed you. (The Old Testament – Deuteronomy 9: 7-8) 

For the LORD had said unto Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiffnecked people: (The Old Testament – Exodus 33:5) 

So my question here - does this mean that Moses was anti-Semite? (You don't have to answer, I already know the answer - I was just trying to pull your leg [metaphorically] by asking you this question)

It is a pleasure to have a chance to discussing over these matters with you. And I am very grateful for this opportunity. You are most welcome.