Apes and pigs and the Jews in the Quran and hadith: 6 facts

Three verses speak of a transformation. Quran 2:65 and 7:166 say of a group who broke the Sabbath: “Be apes, despised.” Quran 7:163 sets the scene in a town by the sea whose people were tested over fishing on that day, and 2:66 calls the event an example and a lesson for the God-fearing.^[1]

Quran 5:60 speaks of those whom God cursed and with whom He was angry, and “made among them apes and swine.” It follows a rebuke of some of the People of the Book who mocked the Muslim call to prayer.^[2]

The language is harsh, and a critic is right to say so. Read in sequence, though, all three verses describe a punishment that fell on identified wrongdoers in the past. The phrase “among them” in 5:60 marks a part of a community. No verse applies the words to Jews of a later age.

The commentators did not agree on whether the transformation was physical. Al-Tabari reports on 2:65 that Mujahid took it as a change of hearts and a parable, so that the sinners kept their human form. He also reports the view, attributed to Ibn Abbas, that they were changed in body, and he prefers it himself, holding that the plain wording of the Quran requires it.^[3]

The sources also record a limit on how far the event reaches. A report in Sahih Muslim has the Prophet saying that God does not give a people He has transformed any descendants.^[4] On that report the transformed people left no line, so the verses give no ground for describing later Jews in those terms.

Both readings treat the verses as a warning drawn from the history of one group. The Quran says as much about the event itself, calling it a lesson for those who fear God.

The Quran does criticise Jewish groups, and the criticism is real. It charges some with killing prophets without right, with breaking the covenant and with distorting the scripture.^[5] It quotes the saying “God’s hand is tied” and the claim that Ezra is the son of God, and it rejects both.^[6] The verse on Ezra goes on to criticise Christian belief about the Messiah in the same breath.

Each charge is attached to a deed, a statement or “a party of them” (2:75). The same passages draw lines. Quran 3:113 says “they are not all alike” and describes a community among the People of the Book who recite God’s verses at night, and 3:115 promises that no good they do will be denied.^[7] Quran 5:69 gives the assurance of no fear and no grief to Jews, Christians and Sabians who believe in God and the Last Day and do good. Quran 7:159 speaks of a community among the people of Moses who guide by the truth.

Some early commentators held that 2:62, which has the same wording as 5:69, was limited by 3:85; others read it as standing.^[8] The Quran never judges Jews as one body.

The sentence “just issue orders to kill every Jew present in the country” is real. It stands in Sahih al-Bukhari, in the opening report of the collection, the account of Heraclius and Abu Sufyan.^[9] The speakers are Heraclius’s courtiers. They observe that only Jews practise circumcision and urge him to order the killing of Jews in his realm. A messenger then tells him that the Arabs also circumcise, and the plan is dropped. Muhammad is absent from the scene, and no Muslim speaks the line.

The closest report that does concern Muhammad is Abu Dawud 3002. It has him say, “If you gain victory over the men of the Jews, kill them,” and ties the words to the killing of a Jewish merchant by a Muslim named Muhayyisa.^[10] It comes from Ibn Ishaq through an unnamed client of Zayd ibn Thabit, and it is graded weak (daif). Ibn Ishaq’s account sets it after the killing of Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf, in the fighting at Medina. For peaceful non-Muslims the Quran sets another rule: God does not forbid kindness and justice toward those who have not fought you over religion (60:8).^[11]

Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim both record that the Hour will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews, and that a Jew will hide behind a stone or tree, which will call to the Muslim to kill him, except the gharqad tree.^[12] A critic who quotes it has invented nothing. It has been cited in modern political texts, including the 1988 charter of Hamas, and that use is a reason to read it with care.^[13]

The text carries several qualifications. It is a prediction placed among the signs of the Hour, and it gives no instruction to anyone now. It describes a war, with fighting on both sides. The Quran meanwhile tells Muslims to be just even toward a people they dislike (5:8) and allows kindness toward those who do not fight them (60:8).^[11] The classical rules for Jews and Christians living under Muslim rule were built on the Quran and on the Prophet’s treaties and practice, and this report is no basis for them.

On reaching Medina, Muhammad made a written agreement, preserved in Ibn Ishaq’s biography, that joined the Muslims and the Jewish clans of the city as one community for the defence of the town. It states that the Jews have their religion and the Muslims theirs.^[14]

The relationship later broke down, and the record says so. The Banu Qaynuqa and the Banu Nadir were expelled after what the sources describe as breaches of the agreement. The men of the Banu Qurayza were put to death after the Battle of the Trench, by the judgment of Sa’d ibn Muadh, whose ruling the tribe had agreed to accept.^[15] That is the hardest event in the record. The questions it raises concern the process, the numbers, which the sources and modern historians dispute, and the law applied. It was a verdict on one tribe accused of treachery in wartime and carried no general rule about Jews.

Ordinary dealings are also recorded. When Muhammad died, his armour was pledged to a Jewish man in return for grain bought on credit.^[16]