Antisemitism in Islam

Islam and antisemitism relates to Islamic theological teaching against Jews and Judaism and the treatment of Jews in Muslim countries.

With the origin of Islam in the 7th century and its rapid spread in the Arabian peninsula and beyond, Jews (and many other peoples) came to be subject to the rule of Muslim rulers. The quality of the rule varied considerably in different periods, as did the attitudes of the rulers, government officials, clergy and general population to various subject peoples from time to time, which was reflected in their treatment of these subjects. Reuven Firestone says, "negative assessments and even condemnation of prior religions and their adherents occur in all three scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam." Scholars have studied and debated Muslim attitudes to, and treatment of, Jews in Islamic thought and societies throughout history.

The Quran makes forty-three specific references to "Bani Isrāʾīl" (meaning the Children of Israel). The Arabic term yahud, denoting Jews, and "yahudi" occur eleven times and the verbal form hāda (meaning "to be a Jew/Jewish") occurs ten times. According to Khalid Durán, the negative passages use Yahūd, while the positive references speak mainly of the Banī Isrā’īl. Jews are not mentioned at all in verses dating from the Meccan period. According to Bernard Lewis, the coverage given to Jews is relatively insignificant.

The references in the Quran to Jews are interpreted in different ways. According to Frederick M. Schweitzer and Marvin Perry, these references are "mostly negative" According to Tahir Abbas the general references to Jews are favorable, with only those addressed to particular groups of Jews containing harsh criticisms.

According to Bernard Lewis and other scholars, the earliest verses of the Quran were largely sympathetic to Jews. Mohammed admired them as monotheists and saw them as natural adherents to the new faith and Jewish practices helped model early Islamic behavior, such as midday prayer, prayers on Friday, Ramadan fasting (modelled after the Jewish Yom Kippur fast on the tenth of the month of Tishrei), and most famously the fact that until 623 Muslims prayed toward Jerusalem, not Mecca. After his flight (al-hijra) from Mecca in 622 Mohammad with his followers settled in Yathrib, subsequently renamed Medina al-Nabi ('City of the Prophet') where he managed to draw up a 'social contract', widely referred to as the 'Constitution of Medina'. This contract, known as the Leaf (ṣaḥīfa) upheld the peaceful coexistence between Muslims, Jews and Christians, defining them all, under given conditions, as constituting the umma, or community of that city, and granting the latter freedom of religious thought and practice. Yathrib/Medina was not homogeneous. Alongside the 200 odd emigrants from Mecca (the Muhājirūn), who had followed Mohammad, its population consisted of the Faithful of Medina (Anṣār, 'the helpers'), Arab pagans, three Jewish tribes and some Christians. The foundational 'constitution' sought to establish, for the first time in history according to Ali Khan, a formal agreement guaranteeing interfaith conviviality, albeit ringed with articles emphasizing strategic cooperation in the defense of the city.

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