Their beliefs

Their Beliefs (20)

The beliefs of the Jews revolve around the following matters:

First: The impermissibility of abrogation (naskh)

They claim that there can be only one law, which began with Moses and was completed by him; no law came down from heaven before him, and no law will come down after him.

On this basis abrogation is impermissible in their view. They argue that abrogation means turning away from an earlier command to a command that has appeared to God to be better than it; and since such a change of mind (bada') is impossible for God, abrogation is impossible.

They hold fast to this ruling in order to take it as proof that the law of Moses is the only divine law, before and after which no other law has been sent down. Yet this belief is refuted by explicit texts in the Torah and their other books which lifted many rulings that had previously been commanded, or permitted or forbidden things contrary to what had previously been commanded. Ibn Hazm cited numerous examples of these. (21)

Second: Anthropomorphism (tashbih)

They hold that God has a body, and they take literally everything in the verses of the Torah such as "the image", "speaking face to face", "speaking aloud", the descent upon Mount Sinai and other such texts. They believe that God has an image, a shape, a body and attributes resembling those of man, except that they distinguish between God, exalted be He above what they say, and man by the enormity of His size, which they imagine so vast and huge as far to exceed that of man. Yet He is liable, in their view, to what man is liable to: forgetfulness, grief, regret, weariness, the need for rest and other such accidents that befall man. The texts of the Torah and their other books fashion of God a human image that is explicit in its corporealism

(20) Al-Milal wa al-Nihal (Religions and Sects), 1/192 ff.

(21) Al-Fasl fi al-Milal wa al-Ahwa' wa al-Nihal (The Decisive Word on Religions, Heresies and Sects), vol. 1, pp. 103-105, Maktabat al-Muthanna, Baghdad.

and anthropomorphism. Space does not permit listing the texts on this subject, so many and widespread are they; among them, for example:

"And God said: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness ... So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him." [Genesis 1:26-27]

"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image." [Genesis 9:6]

"In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God He made him." [Genesis 5:1]

"And on the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. And He blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work that God had created and made." [Genesis 2:2-3]

"And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth ... And the Lord was grieved that He had made man on the earth, and He was sorry in His heart." [Genesis 6:5-6]

The Talmud, which is their sacred book after the Torah and is regarded as a commentary, exposition and interpretation of the Torah, confirms this anthropomorphism and corporealism, saying: (The breadth of their Creator's forehead, from its top to His nose, is five thousand cubits; on His head is a crown containing a thousand qintars of gold, and on His finger a ring from which the sun and the stars shine.) See Al-Fasl, vol. 1, p. 221.

Third: Predestination and free will

On this they hold two doctrines.

One group affirms the freedom of the human will and its independence of the divine will: man creates his own acts, good and evil, and is responsible for them, and God the Exalted neither wills evil nor does it. The doctrine of this group is close to the position of the Mu'tazila in Islam.

These are called the "Rationalists" or the "Rabbanites", and they are the class of thinkers among the Jews.

The other group, the majority of the Jews, holds to predestination: all action is in God's hand, and there is no turning back His decree, His destiny or His will. Man has neither will nor choice before the Lord, in whose hand is everything; man's life and death, his misery and happiness, his good and his evil, are all the work of God.

This group is called the "Karaites" or the "Textualists". They have a counterpart among the schools of the theologians in Islam, such as the Jabriyya, who say that man is like a feather hanging in the air, swayed by the wind wherever it blows.

Fourth: The Return (raj'a)

This means the belief that a person will return after his death or his disappearance. The Jews believe in it, and they rely in this on two things:

The first: the story of ('Uzayr), whom God caused to die for a hundred years and then raised up.

The second: the story of Aaron (peace be upon him), who died in the wilderness during the lifetime of Moses. They have attributed to Moses, falsely and slanderously, that he killed him with the tablets out of envy and jealousy, because Aaron was dearer to the Jews than he was. Indeed the Jews, in their accounts of Aaron, revere him and incline to him more than to Moses (peace be upon him).

They differed over the manner of his death.

Some of them said that he truly died and will live again and return to them. Others said that he only disappeared and will return.

The roots of this belief may go back to the early beginnings of Jewish thought, for we find the Torah saying of "Enoch", the fifth descendant of Adam (peace be upon him), that his life did not end in death like that of his fathers and brothers, but that he disappeared or was taken up. It says:

"And Enoch lived sixty-five years and begot Methuselah. And Enoch walked, after he begot Methuselah, three hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." [Genesis 5:21-24]

We find a claim of return like this among many sects of the Shia. The first to profess it and spread it among the Muslims was Abdullah ibn Saba', who had been a Jew and became a Muslim in the time of Uthman ibn Affan (may God be pleased with him).

Fifth: The awaited Messiah

Al-Shahrastani says that the Jews are agreed: (that in the Torah there is good tidings of one who will come after Moses; they differ only in identifying that one, or in adding to that one.

The coming forth of one at the end of time, who is the shining star by whose light the earth will be illumined, is likewise agreed upon; the Jews await him, and the Sabbath is that man's day.) (22)

(22) Al-Milal wa al-Nihal 1/200.