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Antisemitism in Islam: Difference between revisions
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What can be termed "Islamic antisemitism" is in part similar and in part different from the legacy of antisemitism found in the West. Islamic antisemitism shares in common with its Christian counterpart a vague reliance on the religious failures of the ancient Hebrews as recorded in the Old Testament (and later the Quran) as well as on the failure of Jews to convert, en masse, to the follow-up religion (in this case Islam). Islam, however, lacks such an acute and and loaded accusation against the post-Islamic Jews as the Christian charge of deicide. Consequently, the Jews are perceived as having historically disappointed God but not as being uniquely sinful to an extent as extreme as deicide. Still, some would argue that where Islam lacks this sort of calamitous accusation against the Jews, it more than compensates in its depiction of Muhammad singling Jews out for persecution in the hadith literature. Whereas Jesus' victimhood to the Jews was the primary motivation of Christian antisemitism, Muhammad's (perhaps mythical) victimization of the Jews can be understood as the primary motivation of Islamic antisemitism. | What can be termed "Islamic antisemitism" is in part similar and in part different from the legacy of antisemitism found in the West. Islamic antisemitism shares in common with its Christian counterpart a vague reliance on the religious failures of the ancient Hebrews as recorded in the Old Testament (and later the Quran) as well as on the failure of Jews to convert, en masse, to the follow-up religion (in this case Islam). Islam, however, lacks such an acute and and loaded accusation against the post-Islamic Jews as the Christian charge of deicide. Consequently, the Jews are perceived as having historically disappointed God but not as being uniquely sinful to an extent as extreme as deicide. Still, some would argue that where Islam lacks this sort of calamitous accusation against the Jews, it more than compensates in its depiction of Muhammad singling Jews out for persecution in the hadith literature. Whereas Jesus' victimhood to the Jews was the primary motivation of Christian antisemitism, Muhammad's (perhaps mythical) victimization of the Jews can be understood as the primary motivation of Islamic antisemitism. | ||
More important today than the historical origins and constitution of either form of antisemitism, however, is how they responded to the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. In the West, the manifestation and consequences of Nazi Ideology threw the incompatibility of Christian antisemitism and Enlightenment values into excruciating sharp relief. Western nations, faced with this fork in the road, decided to marshal popular spirit against Nazi ideology in the name of human rights. By contrast, much of the Muslim world, already at loggerheads with the West due to recent and ongoing struggles against colonialism, positioned itself against the Nazi's enemy's and thus behind the Nazis. Henceforth, what were once somewhat vaguer notions of anti-Jewish sentiment based largely in Islamic scripture now incorporated much of the pseudo-scientific and rationalized nature of German antisemitism. The expression of Islamic antisemitism in the modern world, while still couched in religious terminology and religiously justified as fundamentally Islamic, often employs the symbolic and practical methods of the Nazis. In summary, the phenomenon of Nazi Germany placed both Western and Islamic antisemitism at a cross roads. And while the West decided at this point in history to overcome its past and begin a secular crusade against antisemitism and other forms of discrimination (with the Civil Rights Movement), the Islamic world found new fuel for antisemitism that would enable it to take its antisemitism to new and previously unknown heights. | |||
===Defining Semites=== | ===Defining Semites=== | ||
The Arabs, Ethiopians, and Assyrians are considered as comprising the Semitic people. However, in the context of "Anti-Semitism", it is commonly understood to refer to people who identify as Jewish. Indeed, the Princeton dictionary explicitly defines antisemitism as an "intense dislike for and prejudice against Jewish people".<ref>[http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=antisemitism Definition - Antisemitism] | |||
Princeton University's WordNet</ref> And Merriam-Webster defines it as "hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group".<ref>[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-Semitism Definition - Anti-Semitism] | |||
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary</ref> | |||
Recent scientific studies have also shown that Jews, unlike Muslims or Christians, are reliably identifiable as an ethnic group with unique genes, many of whom also share a common language and culture.<ref>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/04/jews-genetics-make-them-a_n_600384.html Jews' Genetics Make Them A 'Distinct Population': NYU/Yeshiva Study] - The Huffington Post, June 4, 2010</ref> As a result, the Jewish people are increasingly recognized as not only a distinct religious group, but also an ethnic minority. | |||
==Islamic scripture and antisemitism== | ==Islamic scripture and antisemitism== | ||