The Islamic hadith stating that at the "End of Days" the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, which will call out to Muslims to come and kill them, is not anti-Semitic rather merely predictive, not prescriptive, according to prominent American Islamic scholar Sheikh Yasir Qadi.
The hadith (Arabic for "narrative") refers to the record of the words, actions, and the tacit approval of the Prophet Muhammad, and is considered "the backbone" of Islamic civilization. Moreover, it is considered a source for religious law and moral guidance second only to Islam's holy book, the Quran.
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A recent report by the Middle East Media Research Institute said that Qadhi, who made the remarks during lecture titled "The Signs of the End Times, Part 4" at the East Plano Islamic Center in Plano, Texas, where he is the resident scholar, went on to criticize organizations like Fox News, MEMRI and others for citing this hadith as ostensible proof of Muslim anti-Semitism.
The hadith, he explained, simply teaches that most of the Antichrist's followers will be Jews, and describes a struggle between good and evil. Even though it explicitly mentions killing Jews, said Qadhi, "These hadiths are predictions, not prescriptions. Big difference."
He went on to add that in any case, Muslims cannot be anti-Semitic since Abraham and the Prophet Muhammad were Semites, as are the majority of Muslims.
"First and foremost, as a matter of principle, these are traditions that are found in books authored 1,200 years ago – books of hadith. Censorship doesn't make any sense. Are you, oh you people who are criticizing books of the past, going to censor your own books and not teach them when they have misogyny, when they have race issues, and when they have issues that might be politically incorrect? There is hardly a classical book except that there are phrases or notions. ... Even Shakespeare has antisemitism. Read The Merchant of Venice – it is a purely anti-Semitic tract. Are you going to ban it? Are you going to stop it and strip it from being sold? Are you going to take it and make it non-available?
"The hypocrisy is ludicrous. You don't go back and sanitize history just because you don't like it. Even if you don't like it, it needs to be taught and explained and clarified. That is a matter of principle, and that is what liberalism stands on. When it comes to every faith other than Islam, they uphold it. When it comes to Islam we see the double standard."
Qadhi added that while Muslims cannot be anti-Semitic, "We can be anti-Zionists, and we are anti-Zionists."
"We need to stop being so defensive. Let us be frank and honest here. Study history, oh Muslims, be educated. Anti-Semitism is a European phenomenon, it is not a Muslim phenomenon. It never existed in Muslim lands up until 1947," he said, according to MEMRI.
Qadhi is a Texas-based Pakistani-American scholar who has studied at the University of Houston, Yale University, and the Islamic University of Madinah in Saudi Arabia.
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.
