page_title: Antisemitism in Islam
section_title: Literature
hierarchical_section_title: Antisemitism in Islam / Pre-modern Islam / Literature
caption_attribution_description: English: The execution of the Banu Qurayza. Detail from miniature painting The Prophet, Ali, and the Companions at the execution of the Prisoners of the Jewish Tribe of Beni Qurayzah, illustration of a 19th century text by Muhammad Rafi Bazil. Manuscript (17 folio 108b) now housed in the British Library. Taken from the cover of The Legacy of Jihad by Andrew Bostom.
context_page_description: Islam and antisemitism relates to Islamic theological teachings against Jews and Judaism and the treatment of Jews in Muslim communities.
  With the origin of Islam in the 7th century and its rapid spread on the Arabian peninsula and beyond, Jews became subject to the rule of Muslim rulers. The quality of the rule varied considerably in different periods, as did the attitudes of the rulers, government officials, clergy and general population toward various subject peoples from time to time, which was reflected in their treatment of these subjects. Reuven Firestone says, "negative assessments and even condemnation of prior religions and their adherents occur in all three scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam." Scholars have studied and debated Muslim attitudes toward, and treatment of, Jews in Islamic thought and societies throughout history.
context_section_description: According to Lewis, the outstanding characteristic of the classical Islamic view of Jews is their unimportance. The religious, philosophical, and literary Islamic writings tended to ignore Jews and focused more on Christianity. Although the Jews received little praise or even respect and were sometimes blamed for various misdeeds, there were no fears of Jewish conspiracy and domination, nor any charges of diabolic evil, nor accusations of poisoning the wells nor spreading the plague nor were they even accused of engaging in blood libels until Ottomans learned the concept from their Greek subjects in the 15th century.
  Poliakov writes that various examples of medieval Muslim literature portray Judaism as an exemplary pinnacle of faith, and Israel being destined by this virtue. He quotes stories from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights that portray Jews as pious, virtuous and devoted to God, and seem to borrow plots from midrashim. However, Poliakov writes that treatment of Jews in Muslim literature varies, and the tales are meant for pure entertainment, with no didactic aim.
  After Ibn Nagraela, a Jew, attacked the Quran by alleging various contradictions in it, Ibn Hazm, a Moor, criticized him furiously. Ibn Hazm wrote that Ibn Nagraela was "filled with hatred" and "conceited in his vile soul".
  According to Schweitzer and Perry, some literature during the 10th and 11th century "made Jews out to be untrustworthy, treacherous oppressors, and exploiters of Muslims". This propaganda sometimes even resulted in outbreaks of violence against the Jews. An 11th-century Moorish poem describes Jews as "a criminal people" and blames them for causing social decay, betraying Muslims and poisoning food and water.
  Martin Kramer writes that in Islamic tradition, in striking contrast with the Christian concept of the eternal Jew, the contemporary Jews were not presented as archetypes—as the embodiment of Jews in all times and places.
caption: The massacre of the Banu Qurayza. Detail from miniature painting The Prophet, Ali, and the Companions at the Massacre of the Prisoners of the Jewish Tribe of Beni Qurayzah, illustration of a 19th-century text by Muhammad Rafi Bazil.
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