Bigotry: The Dark Danger

Chapter 5: Jews and Christians in the Religion of the Fanatics

The fanatics’ terrifying way of thinking, that we have particularly seen in the context of war and women, can also be observed in their attitudes toward the People of the Book, Jews and Christians. It is once again the fabricated hadiths that have for years poisoned Muslim societies that have harbored intense enmities toward Christians and Jews. On account of these false hadiths, related as if they were said by the Prophet (pbuh) himself, Muslim communities have ignored righteous Jews and Christians, who are praised in the Qur’an, and have lived in literal ignorance of the fact that Jews and Christians must remain under the protection of Muslims. On account of this mistaken way of thinking they have come to deny those verses of the Qur’an in which sincere Christians and Jews are described. In the view of Islam, denying any verses of the Qur’an means to abjure the faith, and they have even managed to underestimate that.

This section discusses the true meaning of verses of the Qur’an that the fanatics and some opponents of Islam seek to use as evidence for hostility toward the People of the Book in Islam, as well as the fabricated hadiths that are the real cause of the enmity toward Jews and Christians that has been encouraged down the years. We also need to remember the following very important fact; Christianity and Judaism are true faiths that were sent down before Islam, and according to the Qur’an, all Muslims have a responsibility to accept all the true faiths and true prophets. One verse states:

Say, “We have faith in God and what has been sent down to us and what was sent down to Abraham and Ishma‘el and Isaac and Jacob and the Tribes, and what Moses and Jesus were given, and what all the prophets were given by their Lord. We do not differentiate between any of them.” (Qur'an, 2:136)

There is no doubt that these true faiths have gradually been misinterpreted by fanatical mindsets, and that this distortion has been extended to the sacred scriptures themselves. However, when we look at the Qur’an, which will remain uncorrupted until the Day of Reckoning, we understand that we must believe in Christianity and Judaism in their first and original forms, and act accordingly.

Some Muslim communities that still harbor policies of enmity of frightening dimensions toward Christians and Jews, despite the above verse and other verses of the Qur’an that praise the People of the Book, are representatives of this fabricated fanatical faith, not of the Islam of the Qur’an.

Some people fall into this error knowingly, and others unknowingly. The purpose of this book is to warn those who do fall into this error and to show some opponents of Islam that the religion they are against is not the true Islam.

In contrast to all the claims made by the fanatics, the Qur’an curses enmity toward the People of the Book and advises love for them. Let us now look at the evidence for this: