Jewish ethics

The Character of the Jews

By this we mean the character of the deviant among them. As for those who became Muslims and were good Muslims, and they are, alas, a small group, they are our brothers who preceded us in faith, of whom the Qur'an said:

And among the people of Moses is a community who guide by the truth and by it act justly. (24)

As for the deviant, it is enough to leaf through the sacred books of the Jews to see how they stood at the opposite extreme from their messengers and the values and virtuous character those messengers represented, and how hard their hearts were, never softening to good, never answering to the truth and never humbled by the remembrance of God, as though they were:

like stones, or harder still; for there are stones from which rivers gush forth, and there are some that split open so that water comes out of them, and there are some that fall down for fear of God; and God is not unaware of what you do. (25)

But nothing gushed forth from the hearts of these people except black rancour against other believing and good peoples. And God Almighty spoke the truth:

You will surely find the most intense of people in enmity towards those who believe to be the Jews and those who associate partners with God. (26)

They altered, among the many things they altered, God's favour to them in the messengers and books He sent to guide them to the truth and to acting upon it. Their sick souls altered those favours

(24) Al-A'raf 7:159.

(25) Al-Baqara 2:74.

(26) Al-Ma'ida 5:82.

into a racial privilege, and their devil made it seem fair to them that they are God's chosen people, whom He chose for their own selves and persons. Yet God often reminded them that His honouring of them was only in proportion to their honouring of the truth, their exalting of the Word of God in their souls and their complete submission to God's command and prohibition; otherwise they are like cattle, or even further astray. Let us read these verses, which set out their false claims and then refute them:

And they said: "The Fire will not touch us except for a number of days." Say: "Have you taken a covenant from God, so that God will not break His covenant? Or do you say about God what you do not know?" (80) Not so! Whoever earns an evil deed and is encompassed by his sin, those are the companions of the Fire; in it they will abide for ever. (81) (27)

And they said: "None shall enter Paradise except one who is a Jew or a Christian." Those are their wishful fancies. Say: "Bring your proof, if you are truthful." (111) Not so! Whoever submits his face to God while doing good, he shall have his reward with his Lord; no fear shall be upon them, nor shall they grieve. (112) (28)

And they said: "Be Jews or Christians and you will be rightly guided." Say: "Rather, the religion of Abraham, the upright in faith, and he was not of those who associate partners with God." (135) Say: "We believe in God and in what has been sent down to us, and what was sent down to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and the Tribes, and what was given to Moses and Jesus, and what was given to the prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction

(27) Al-Baqara 2:80-81. (28) Al-Baqara 2:111-112.

between any of them, and to Him we submit." (136) (29)

They said: "We are under no obligation towards the unlettered (gentiles)." And they speak falsehood about God while they know. (75) Not so! Whoever fulfils his covenant and is God-fearing, surely God loves the God-fearing. (76) (30)

And the Jews and the Christians said: "We are the sons of God and His beloved." Say: "Then why does He punish you for your sins? No, you are human beings among those He created. He forgives whom He wills and punishes whom He wills, and to God belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and what lies between them, and to Him is the final return." (31)

Then God shows them the true measure of distinction and merit, saying:

Say: "O People of the Book, you stand on nothing until you uphold the Torah and the Gospel and what has been sent down to you from your Lord." (32)

This false belief in their racial and religious distinction, and that they are God's chosen people, has deposited in their souls a kind of deviation and a feeling that they are a special kind of human being, superior to other peoples in intelligence, wisdom and everything else, and that they alone have the right to dominion over all mankind.

(29) Al-Baqara 2:135-136.

(30) Al Imran 3:75-76.

(31) Al-Ma'ida 5:18.

(32) Al-Ma'ida 5:68.

This false belief led them to regard the rest of the peoples as unbelievers who deserve life only to serve them, and to regard their hatred and loathing of these peoples as a means of drawing near to God. Likewise, their belief that their religion is peculiar to them, a favour by which God preferred them over mankind as His only people whom He chose for Himself from among the peoples, led them to isolation, haughtiness and closing themselves off, and to blocking every path of cooperation and brotherhood with others. It raised a thick wall of hatred and intense rancour between them and the various peoples: an isolation founded on hatred and aggression, not on peaceableness, the isolation of one lying in wait for the chance to pounce on his enemy.

This rancour, this wall of hatred founded on haughtiness and on religious and racial chauvinism, offers sufficient explanation for the disturbance of the Jewish psyche, its intense tension and its constant feeling of anxiety and alienation. Its effect was reflected not only in their relations with other peoples but also in their internal relations among themselves, and what their own books relate confirms the truth of what we say. They are always, as the Noble Qur'an says:

Their hostility among themselves is severe. You think them united, but their hearts are divided. (33)

Spinoza, the Jewish philosopher, gives us a precise analysis that helps us see the effect of the racial tendency on the psychological and moral make-up of the Jews. He says: "The joy a man feels from believing himself superior to others, if it is not a childish feeling, arises only from envy or from a rancorous heart. For example, true well-being and the happiness of man lie in wisdom alone and in the knowledge of what is true, and not at all in being wiser than others, or in others being deprived of wisdom; for that will never increase his own pure wisdom or his true well-being. Whoever rejoices in that rejoices in the misfortune of others, and is envious and wicked, knowing neither true wisdom nor true peace of soul." (34)

Dr. Fouad Zakariya likewise analyses the kind of fanaticism peculiar to the Jews and its effect in shaping their psyche and their relations with others. Having defined negative fanaticism

(33) Al-Hashr 59:14.

(34) Risala fi al-Lahut wa al-Siyasa (Theological-Political Treatise), p. 171, translated by Hasan Hanafi, Egyptian General Authority for Authorship and Publishing, 1971.

as "at bottom a negative view of others; the fanatic's thinking is directed towards causing harm to others more than it inclines to asserting his own merits or gaining some benefit for himself" (35), he says:

"It is common, in analysing the structure of fanaticism, to say that fanaticism arises first in the majority against the minority, and that the fanaticism of the latter is merely a defensive reaction by which it protects itself from the persecution that the majority inflicts on it ... But there are a few cases which dialectical analysis shows to depart from this familiar pattern, that is, cases in which fanaticism begins in the minority, and the majority is forced into defensive reactions against it, or into practising a counter-fanaticism harsher and more violent than the original. Our present age has seen a unique example of this kind of fanaticism in Rhodesia and South Africa ...

"The history of Judaism, however, may be counted a glaring example, stretching over many long centuries, of this unique kind of minority fanaticism against the majority. It is worth mentioning that the Jewish minority was never in any case a ruling minority in control of the state, as is the case with the Europeans in Rhodesia and South Africa; it was a politically weak minority. Even so, at the very depth of its weakness it practised a kind of provocation that drove the society in which it lived to persecute it against that society's will.

"For the myth of God's chosen people, whatever may be said of it, plays a real role in the Jewish heritage. It is true that the enlightened among the heirs of this heritage try to interpret it in non-racial senses, but there is conclusive evidence that this myth forms an inseparable part of the psychological make-up of the ordinary Jew, and drives him to kinds of behaviour that must in the end lead to a clash between him and his society ...

"Perhaps the most telling proof of what we say is that the Jews, however weak they may be in a given society, refuse to integrate into that society and regard such integration as a sign of their collapse, and so they work to resist this collapse with all the strength they have. Yet integration into the majority, and obtaining the same rights on an equal footing, is the distant dream

(35) Ara' Naqdiyya fi Mushkilat al-Fikr wa al-Thaqafa (Critical Views on Problems of Thought and Culture), p. 50, Egyptian General Book Authority, 1975.

for which persecuted minorities struggle in every part of the world ... In the case of the Jewish minority, however, integration is regarded as the most heinous crime it could commit against itself: it is a betrayal of the Jewish heritage and the loss of everything that distinguishes [the chosen people]. Hence the difficulty of dealing with Jewish minorities, and the inevitability that such dealing turns into persecution even in societies that had no original intention of practising it. For if these societies granted the Jewish minority equal rights and worked to integrate it and dissolve it completely, this integration would be met with violent resistance from it; and if they left it to live on the margin of the larger community, its cries of complaint about persecution would rise.

"In truth, a certain feeling of injustice and persecution was, and still is, an inseparable part of the driving force that helped the Jews hold together and preserve their heritage through the ages. If we grasp this fact well, it becomes clear to us that reaching a final settlement on the basis of peaceful coexistence with a state founded on a racial basis, such as Israel, is something that comes close to the impossible." (36)

It is enough for us here to present some of the episodes of the Jews as the Qur'an mentions them, as a model from which the characteristics of the Jewish psyche and character become clear. We have taken care that these episodes agree with what their own books mention, which are in fact more expansive in drawing a dark and frightening picture of the character and nature of the Jews.

Pharaoh had been killing their sons and sparing their women, and inflicting on them the worst torment, abasement and humiliation. When God saved them from all of this, and before their sandals had dried from the wet floor of the sea that God had parted to save them, they wished that Moses would make them an idol to worship:

And We brought the Children of Israel across the sea, and they came upon a people devoted to idols of theirs. They said: "O Moses, make for us a god just as they have gods." He said: "You are indeed an ignorant people. (138) As for these, what they are engaged in is doomed to destruction, and vain is what they have been doing." (139) He said: "Shall I seek for you a god other than God

...a god, when He has favoured you above all the worlds?" And [recall] when We delivered you from the people of Pharaoh, who inflicted on you the worst of torment, slaying your sons and sparing your women; and in that was a mighty trial from your Lord. (37)

God accepted their repentance for the sin of their hearts and the corruption of their wishes. But hardly had Moses (peace be upon him) left them to receive the revelation that would guide them and bring them happiness than they passed from wishing to doing. They fashioned a calf with their own hands and fell down prostrate before it:

And the people of Moses, after him, took from their ornaments a calf, a body that lowed. Did they not see that it did not speak to them nor guide them to any path? They took it [for worship], and they were wrongdoers. And when they were struck with remorse and saw that they had gone astray, they said: "If our Lord does not have mercy on us and forgive us, we shall surely be among the losers." (38)

No sooner were they enjoying God's mercy than their doubts and their materialist nature overcame them, and they said to Moses: we will not believe you until we see [God] with our own eyes:

And [recall] when you said: "O Moses, we will not believe you until we see God plainly," and the thunderbolt seized you while you looked on. Then We raised you up after your death, that you might give thanks. (39)

(37) Al-A'raf 138-141.

(38) Al-A'raf 148-149.

(39) Al-Baqara: 55-56.

But they did not give thanks. Indeed, they could not even bear the freedom God had granted them by delivering them from Pharaoh's bondage, since it came with a little hardship, and they cried out in the face of Moses and Aaron: "Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness" (40).

God had mercy on their weakness: He made springs gush forth for them from the rocks and sent down upon them manna and quails:

And We revealed to Moses, when his people asked him for water: "Strike the rock with your staff." And there gushed forth from it twelve springs; each people knew its drinking place. And We shaded them with clouds and sent down upon them manna and quails: "Eat of the good things We have provided for you." And they did not wrong Us, but it was themselves they wronged. (160) (41)

Yes, they wronged themselves. Just as they could not endure affliction, they could not endure blessing. When they had eaten and drunk their fill, insolence filled their souls, and they sought to exchange what is better for what is lower:

And [recall] when you said: "O Moses, we cannot endure one kind of food, so call upon your Lord for us to bring forth for us of what the earth grows: its herbs, its cucumbers, its garlic, its lentils and its onions." He said: "Would you exchange what is lower for what is better? Go down to any town (misr), and you shall have what you have asked for." And humiliation and wretchedness were stamped upon them, and they incurred wrath from

(40) Exodus 16: 2-3.

(41) Al-A'raf: 160.

God. That was because they used to disbelieve in the signs of God and slay the prophets without right. That was because they disobeyed and used to transgress. (42)

The humiliation and wretchedness that possessed their hearts were stamped upon them at the gates of the land (misr) that God had promised them, in which was all they desired. No sooner had they seen its inhabitants than they said to Moses: go, you and your Lord, and fight; we shall sit here:

And [recall] when Moses said to his people: "O my people, remember God's favour upon you when He placed prophets among you and made you kings, and gave you what He had not given anyone among the worlds. O my people, enter the Holy Land which God has ordained for you, and do not turn back on your heels, lest you turn back as losers." They said: "O Moses, in it is a people of tyrants, and we shall not enter it until they leave it; if they leave it, then we shall enter." Two men among those who feared [God], upon whom God had bestowed His favour, said: "Enter upon them through the gate; once you have entered it, you will be victorious. And put your trust in God, if you are believers." They said: "O Moses, we shall never enter it as long as they are in it. So go, you and your Lord, and fight; we shall sit right here." He said: "My Lord, I have power over none but myself and my brother, so separate us from the rebellious people." He said: "Then it shall be forbidden to them for forty years; they shall wander in the land. So do not grieve over

the rebellious people." (43)

At last they entered Palestine, though faith had not yet entered their hearts. Blessing only increased them in insolence and corruption, and there befell them, at the hands of the Philistines, the same humiliation and degradation that had befallen them at the hands of the Egyptians. When their own souls grew narrow upon them through the evil they had earned, and the earth grew narrow upon them through the wickedness they had wrought in it, and their end came into view, they ran in alarm to a prophet of theirs, asking him to set over them one who would rescue them from the depths of vice and degradation, and they pledged to God obedience and loyalty. But when God chose the rescuer for them, their souls could not refrain from disputation and obstinacy, and they said: this is no king; he is not the greatest of us in wealth or standing. When their prophet showed the folly of their materialist measures of things, they would not accept until he brought them a sign from God that their eyes could witness and by which their hearts could be reassured. And when God supported the one He had chosen as their king with what they had asked for, they marched with him unwillingly, and at the very first test of their resolve and sincerity in fighting they fell away, all but the few who believed and were true to what they had pledged to God:

Have you not considered the chiefs of the Children of Israel after Moses, when they said to a prophet of theirs: "Raise up for us a king, and we shall fight in the way of God"? He said: "Might it be that, if fighting were prescribed for you, you would not fight?" They said: "And why should we not fight in the way of God, when we have been driven from our homes and our children?" But when fighting was prescribed for them, they turned away, all but a few of them; and God knows the wrongdoers. (246) And their prophet said to them: "God has raised up Talut (Saul) for you as king." They said: "How can he have kingship over us, when we are more entitled to kingship than he, and he has not been given abundance of wealth?" He said: "God has chosen him over you and has increased him abundantly in knowledge and in stature. And God gives His kingship

(43) Al-Ma'ida: 20-26; and see the Book of Numbers 13, 14.

to whom He wills; and God is All-Encompassing, All-Knowing." (247) And their prophet said to them: "The sign of his kingship is that the Ark will come to you, in which is tranquillity from your Lord and a remnant of what the family of Moses and the family of Aaron left behind, borne by the angels. In that is a sign for you, if you are believers." (248) And when Talut set out with the troops, he said: "God will test you with a river. Whoever drinks from it is not of me, and whoever does not taste it is of me, except one who scoops up a handful with his hand." But they drank from it, all but a few of them. And when he had crossed it, he and those who believed with him, they said: "We have no strength today against Jalut (Goliath) and his troops." Those who were certain that they would meet God said: "How many a small band has overcome a large band by God's leave! And God is with the steadfast." (249) (44)

These are some of the pictures the Qur'an has drawn of the morals and beliefs of the Jews. After them we present a final picture, drawn by the Talmud, which in their eyes is holier than the Torah, and in which the psychological, moral and doctrinal dimension of the Jewish character becomes clear. The Talmud says:

"The day is twelve hours. In the first three of them God sits and studies the Law; in the second three He judges; in the third three He feeds the world; and in the last three He sits and plays with the whale.

God repents of having left the Jews in a state of misery, so much so that He strikes His face and weeps every day, and two tears fall from His eyes into the sea, whose roar is heard from the beginning of the world to its end. The waters are troubled and the earth trembles most of the time, and so earthquakes occur.

(44) Al-Baqara: 246-249.

God created the devils on Friday when darkness fell, and created for them neither bodies nor clothing, because the Sabbath was near and He did not have enough time to make all that.

The souls of the Jews are distinguished from all other souls in being part of God, as the son is part of his father; hence the souls of the Jews are dearer to God than all other souls. None enters Paradise but the Jews. As for the Fire, it is the abode of the unbelievers, and they have no portion in it but weeping, because of the darkness, stench and mud in it.

The difference between the rank of man and that of the animal is like the difference between the Jews and the other peoples. The world and all that is in it belongs to the Jews; they have the right to dominate it and absolute disposal over everything.

It is permitted to cheat a non-Jew and take his money by means of exorbitant usury; but if you sell anything to your Jewish brother or buy anything from him, do not deceive him or cheat him.

God does not forgive the sin of a Jew who returns to a gentile his lost property, and it is not permissible to return things lost by foreigners. A Jew is not permitted to lend to a foreigner except at usury.

A Jew does no wrong if he violates the honour of a foreign woman, for every woman who is not of the Children of Israel is a beast. Everyone who is not a Jew is a foreigner. Every marriage contract of non-Jews is void. If a Jew commits adultery with a Christian woman, he has not committed anything forbidden; indeed the Jews have the right to rape non-Jewish women. A Jewish wife may make no complaint if her husband commits adultery with a foreign woman in the dwelling where he lives with his wife.

A Jew must swear twenty false oaths rather than expose any of his Jewish brethren to any harm.

The Jews must treat the Christians as base, irrational animals.

Those outside the religion of the Jews are unclean swine. God created the foreigner in human form so that he might be fit to serve the Jews, for whose sake the world was created.

It is not just for a Jew to pity his enemies and show them mercy.

A Jew is not permitted to greet an unbeliever with peace unless he fears harm or enmity from him. Hypocrisy is permitted, and there is no harm in feigning love for the unbeliever if the

Jew fears harm from him (45)."

These, then, are the morals of the Jews. They rest on one fundamental foundation: excessive materialism and self-love. This is the basis of all the vices that have marked their morals, whether towards their prophets, in themselves, or towards other peoples.

• Towards their prophets: injury and killing, doubt and disobedience, an inclination to idolatry and unbelief, and the alteration (tahrif) of God's law.

• In themselves: cowardice, anxiety, hesitation, a sense of alienation and fear of others.

• Towards other peoples: rancour and hatred, unjust arrogance, lying in wait, and an unwillingness to live in peace.

(45) Siyasat al-Isti'mar wa al-Sahyuniyya (The Policy of Colonialism and Zionism), p. 7, note 5, Hasan Sabri al-Khuli, Dar al-Ma'arif, Cairo, 1973.