Judaism

 comparitive.gif (2947 bytes) 

What is it that Islam finds fault with in the Jewish faith (not the people or history)?
From Minha Hussaini, minha@scf-fs.usc.edu

I have asked myself this question regarding Islam and Judaism, as well as Islam and Christianity, for an uncountable number of years. But it is only now, very recently, that I believe that I finally understand the answer to your question, Minha. After all is said and done, the answer is a very clear and simple one, so simple that I should have seen it years ago. But then, the East and the West are two different consciousnesses; and it takes a while to develop a double consciousness. And, of course, others might have other responses for you.
The Qur’an was given by Heaven to mankind through a prophet, who was called to be a messenger of Allah’s Divine Discourse. Hence, Islam begins with a very special human being, made special by Allah’s anointing attention. We are called upon, therefore, not only to understand the capabilities of human nature through the example of a prophet, but also the nature and character of the human being of prophecy.
Through Islam, Allah has given us the Seal of Rasuls. So we need to pay special attention to that last experience offered us. Is it no wonder that those who denigrate Islam and Muslims often do so by denigrating the Prophet first? (May Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him Forever.)
Judaism also has had prophets, so we are told. But we are faced with two different telling: the biblical one as found in the Jewish texts (The Hebrew Bible and the Talmud) and the Islamic one as found in the Qur’an.
And when we examine the Jewish prophets as portrayed in the Hebrew bible in light of how the Qur’an presents prophets to us, we must unabashedly conclude that the two religions teach us two mutually exclusive versions of who prophets are as human beings and what a prophet’s behavior has been like in the world. We are then pulled immediately back to the Qur’anic surahs that inform us that the Jewish texts have been altered, which, once you read the Jewish narratives, must mean fictionalized for ethnocentric purposes.
Would a prophet--* a real prophet *--do what Lot does in the Jewish narratives? Would a real prophet arrange for a certain general to be killed so that he might have the man’s wife for himself, as David does in the Jewish texts? Would a real prophet use the basest of sexual language to describe a sinful and idolatrous nation as Eziekiel does in the Jewish texts?
You must remember that a prophet is someone through whom Allah’s word passes. To say that a real prophet would act the way many of the so-called Jewish prophets have acted amounts to saying that Allah acts in that manner. Hence, the Muslim must conclude that the Jewish texts, ultimately, are not "the word of God."
From Dr. Mackie Blanton, mjvbeg@uno.edu:

 muntadalogo.gif (2234 bytes)This
Page was last updated on Tuesday, June 16, 1998
Islamic Information Office Comparitive Religion WebSite - isa@iio.org

Hosted by Muntada Computer Services webmaster@muntada.com
 

Disclaimer: The file contained in the box above or displayed in a separate window from a link in the box above is NOT owned nor implied to be owned by BeYoND THe iLLuSioN. Most files at BeYoND THe iLLuSioN are originally from public Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) which were popular in the days before the Internet or from gopher, web, and FTP sites from the early days of the Internet which no longer exist today. Essentially, all files were acquired from the public domain in one for or another.

However, there have been occasions when copyright protected material has appeared on BeYoND THe iLLuSIoN without permission of the copyright holder. In these instances, we have and will continue to remove the copyright protected file as soon as it is brought to our attention. This can now be done using our Report Copyright Material form. Fill out the form, and the webmaster will be notified of the situation.

There are also times when files found on BeYoND THe iLLuSioN have a real home somewhere else on the Internet. In these instances, we will gladly replace the file with a link to its true home whenever it is brought to our attention. If you know of the true home of any of these files, you can use our Report Original URL form to bring it yo our attention.