Jewish
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The Koran is part of my story. We Jews have known it well. Those who lived within the reach of the vast Muslim lands knew that not only their Jewish culture but their very lives depended on how the Koran was interpreted. Preeminent Jewish teachers and scholars, as well as merchants and traders, periodically expected to move from one side of the Islamic empire to another as extremist understandings of the Koran cropped up in one place or another.

The Koran is a book of 400 or so pages, consisting of 114 surahs or chapters, some of them 30 pages in length, some of them only a few lines. These surahs usually deal with many subjects, one after another, from points of religious law (pertaining to charity, divorce, inheritance and much else) to beautiful prayers, from retellings of biblical stories in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures to vivid calls to war. The surahs may have been the speeches of Muhammed, whom Muslims regard as the greatest and last of the prophets of God or Allah (Arabic for "El" or "Elohim").

Muhammed (570-632) was a merchant, a gifted speaker and a thinker who could neither read nor write. He was nonetheless deeply interested in the religious narratives of Jews and Christians whom he had met in the marketplace. He felt called by God to reveal certain words, in beautiful Arabic, to his people and to all pagan nations, urging them to submit to the will of the One God and to worship only God. (The word, "Muslim," means one who submits to God; Islam is the name of the religion of such submission.) Muhammeds inspired words became the surahs that were gathered into a single book, much like the gatherings of speeches from the Hebrew Prophets.

The word Koran recalls the Hebrew koreh, to read. Koran means sacred reading, much like the Hebrew word for scripture, Mikra, and such expressions as Keriat Shema (the reading of the Shema) and Keriat Ha-Torah (the reading of the Torah), terms for scriptural passages read at Jewish services. Muslim services consist largely of readings from the Koran.

The Koran has been a most effective book, to say the least. Between the time of Muhammed's death at age 60, in 632, and, within just over a hundred years, by 750, Islam had spread from the Middle East to Afghanistan and even to Spain, beginning with Muhammed's conquest of Mecca and then with a series of leaders, caliphs, and generals who followed in his wake, all inspired by the Koran. By the tenth century, Islamic culture had encouraged Jews to refine their way of reading the Torah with respect to grammar and musical notations (or tropes) and develop an intellectual tradition that actively competed with the Koran-inspired Arab interest in poetry and philosophy.

My first encounter with the Koran occurred during Hebrew High School in a class in comparative religion. The teacher showed enormous respect for Islam, thus giving us a deeper appreciation of it. For background he used as his textbook an introduction to Islam by Abraham 1. Katsch ofDropsie College. Years later, at the Jewish Theological Seminary, I and my fellow students learned much about the history of the Jews under Islam and how Jews had thrived during the Golden Age of Spain. One of the great scholars, Professor Moshe Zucker, was an expert in tenth- and eleventh-century Jewish philosophy under Arab influence and Jewish culture in Arab lands. He pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle fragments found in the Cairo Geniza ofSaadia Gaon, the first major Jewish philosopher after antiquity, who wrote in Arabic. In light of his research, Professor Zucker argued forcibly that "You can't be a scholar of Judaism without knowing Arabic."

One must acknowledge at the outset that Muslim nations and provinces were among the kindest to and most tolerant of Jews during the medieval era. Some countries, like Turkey, became veritable havens for Jews. Arabic culture in medieval Spain enabled and inspired Hebrew culture to flourish. Even so, life in the Muslim world proved at best a mixed blessing. While respected and tolerated alongside Christians as "People of the Book," their Muslim hosts also treated Jews as secondclass citizens, often resenting them for their "stubbornness" in clinging to their peculiar covenant with God.

JEWS: BELIEVERS OR INFIDELS?

So what does the Koran, in fact, say about Jews? This is a pressing question in today's climate and justifiably deserves some scrutiny.

Muslim countries typically imposed restrictions and special taxes on Jews. More crushing still was the judgment, based on passages in the Koran, that Jews are unbelievers and hypocrites, betrayers and plotters, even against God (3:34). They were also less capable of friendship and good will than the Christians (5:82). The Koran furthers adds that Muslim believers should not take either Jews or Christians as friends because "they are but one another's friends" (5:51). All of this sounds a lot like the problem of three friends constantly playing one against the other. But there is something reassuring about it because we recognize the kind of contradictions that Jews and Christians have in their holy books, too. And sacred oral traditions teach all three faiths that the seeming contradictions are an opportunity given by God to interpret the sacred book in a holy way, to advance peace and to exalt God's name.

In Islam, as in Judaism, certain passages have been interpreted to refer to one period in history only and not to all time, just as Christian churches have interpreted certain verses as referring to some Jews in Jesus' time, but not to Jews for all time. There is a very powerful passage in the New Testament in which a Jewish mob is depicted as taking upon themselves and their descendants all culpability for the death of Jesus (Matthew 27:25). Many modern Christian scholars regard this verse as added later by a disgruntled early Church. The Catholic and other churches absolved contemporary Jews of the sin of deicide. And yet this verse will always be taken literally by pious Christians somewhere.

Similarly, the Koran refers to the "wickedness of certain Jews... [who] turn many from the way of God" (4:160). Such passages can be disastrous once interpreters arrogate to themselves the power to decide which are the "certain Jews." The good news is that the Koran also describes a "certain number" of "the people of Moses" who guide others with truth, and who practice what is right according to it" (7:159). So Muslims are told to expect to encounter a number of righteous and inspiring Jews whom they can admire.

Criticism of Jews in the Koran is more complex still. It describes Jewish tribes that conspired against Muhammed and provoked violence against him out of objection to his teachings. But one wonders whether the Jews ever had that kind of power. Muhammed quotes extensively from biblical stories and rabbinic legends that he had heard from Jews. But he became angry at the Jewish community when it would not trade in its religion to follow his teachings. His complaints against Jews run the gamut from their not embracing his revelation as God's last word to their not accepting the miracles attributed to Jesus. The Koran accepts the virgin birth through Mary as a "sign" and test of belief, but denies that Jesus is anything but an "apostle" or "messenger." "Believe in God and His apostles," the Koran teaches, "but say not, 'Three' [that there is a Trinity].' Far be it from His glory that He should have a son! His, whatever is in the heavens, and whatever is in the earth! And God is a sufficient guardian" (4:171).

As a Jew, I admire the Koran for defending pure monotheism. But must such affirmation of the One God of Abraham and Moses go along with condemnation of Jews for believing that their covenant with God is full and binding and not in need of Islam to complete it? Sometimes Muslims use Koranic passages to criticize Christianity's concept of God, defending, in essence, the beliefs of Judaism, only to cast Jews as "unbelievers" in relation to Christians. Yet this view need not bind the Muslim since the Koran itself recognizes that Jews have a Book by which they are to be judged — what the Koran calls the "portion of the Book of God of which they [the Jews] were the keepers and the witnesses" (5:44).

The purpose of the Koran is to establish a monotheistic faith intent on converting the world. The Koran does not dote over the Jewish people, nor ought we expect it to do so. Implied in its very program is a call to all the families of the earth to join a universal beliefs/stem that has expanded the playing field far beyond Jews or Christians.

The Koran insists that Abraham was not really a Jew, nor were the Hebrew Prophets. They were, in fact, Muslims, namely, those who submit their wills to God as guided by the Koran. Muslims thus regard the Koran as having remained in Heaven as a Divine blueprint until it was given to the last and greatest of the Prophets, Muhammed. "Abraham was neither Jew nor Christian," said Muhammed. "But he was sound in the faith, a Muslim; and not of those who add gods to God" (3:67). Ironically, some of these beliefs adapt the rabbinic teaching of 2,000 years ago that the Torah had been created before the world came into existence as a blueprint and remained in Heaven until it was delivered to Moses at Mount Sinai.

The Koran allows the Jews to persist in their beliefs but stops short of endorsing Judaism. It sighs that the "People of the Book" — Jews and Christians — will be stubborn until God's Day of Resurrection (4:159). Yet it also says that "they who believe, and the Jews, and the Sabeites, and the Christians — whoever of them believeth in God and in the Last Day, and does what is right, on them shall come no fear, neither shall they be put to grief" (5:69). This latter passage does give hope for peace and understanding, though the political and ideological outlook and systems of most Islamic countries have yet to exemplify it in discernable ways.

VIOLENCE OR WARNING

Having looked at the Koran's attitude toward Jews (and Christians), one can't help asking what it teaches about a society like America, where there are many monotheistic non-Muslims as well as Muslims, and many who have other beliefs or no belief. Is the Koran inexorably hostile and murderous as some have charged?

Various media discussions have made Westerners familiar with the frightening words in the Koran: "Take therefore none of them [the infidels] as friends, till they have fled their homes for the cause of God. If they turn back, then seize them, and slay them wherever ye find them; but take none of them as friends or helpers" (4:91); "When ye encounter the infidels, strike off their heads till ye have made a great slaughter among them, and of the rest make fast the fetters" (47:4).

As many pundits have rushed to point out, the Hebrew Bible also has several passages about holy war against the Canaanites and others, and in the Christian scriptures Jesus speaks of having come to bring a sword when necessary (Matthew 10:34). Are all scriptures potentially an incitement to violence? Is the Koran more violent than the others?

It all depends upon how scriptures are interpreted. Judaism is not a religion that believes in conquering other peoples, either spiritually or politically. The lorah has no mandate to spread Judaism to the nations, whether by gentle persuasion or by violence. Yet there are many passages in our Scriptures that speak of the need to destroy the nations who have been in the Promised Land, and to take the land from them. The Hebrew Bible argues that the original residents lost their right to the land through idolatry and were to be wiped out. This even holds true, however, for the Israelites, who are to lose the land, to be "vomited out," as the Torah puts it, if they do not follow God's teachings: "In the towns...which the Lord your God is giving you as a heritage, you shall not let a soul remain alive. No, you must proscribe them [wipe them out; the term is herem, holy war] — the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites — as the Lord your God has commanded you, lest they mislead you into doing all the abhorrent things that they have done for their gods and you stand guilty before the Lord your God" (Deut. 20:16-18); "Remember what Amaiek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt — how, undeterred by the fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear....Therefore...you shall blot out the memory of Amaiek from under heaven. Do not forget!" (Deut. 25:17-19).

Does that mean that I, as a Jew, am obligated to open my telephone directory and look up "Amaiek," and "Jebusite," and, if I find a Joe Amaiek or a Joanie Jebusite I am obligated to ring that persons door bell and then kill him? Not at all. The rabbis decreed two thousand and more years ago that these laws applied to the time of Moses alone. Furthermore, the Bible itself provides an out. It explains why those people were always around, even after the Israelites, who were commanded to wipe them out, were long settled in the Promised Land. Two reasons are given. These nations could be evicted only "little by little," lest the Israelites be invaded by wild beasts (Dent. 7:22), and they were to be kept around to test the loyalty of the Israelites to their own religion (2:22-23; 3:1,4).

Jewish scriptures and Jewish history have designs for one land. But they also allow for that land to be occupied by others while Jews are living there. Our interpreters have, in the main, by and large, read the commandment to displace the nations around Israel as limited to biblical times. But in a growing haredi or fundamentalist population in Israel, these verses are being interpreted as a call to physically remove the Palestinians. These voices are still those of a minority, but it is a growing group, fueled by tensions in the region.

The question now is whether the Koran will be interpreted in such a way as to fuel further fundamentalist attacks against Israel and the West. Like Judaism, Islam believes in the importance of an oral tradition in the interpretation and application of Gods revelation in sacred scriptures. Most of the classic interpreters of the Koran have said that the calls to war that appear in many a surah were limited to the time of the prophet. Indeed the reader of the Koran comes across eye-catching and noteworthy statements over and over again. For the Koran describes itself, its purpose, in a most remarkable and instructive way: "This Koran is a manifesto to man, and a guidance, and a warning to the God-fearing" (3:138). "In truth the Koran is no other than a warning or reminder to all creatures" (38:88; see also 16:43-44 and 50:2). The Koran is an "easy" warning because it was given in a tongue understood by its people (44:58); it is "no other than a warning for all creatures" (68:52). The Koran is most impressed with the story of Noah, at least as it was related by the Rabbis. For Noah was seen as building the ark to warn the people of God's judgment for nearly a thousand years, according to the Koran (29:14). Thus the Koran regards itself, as scripture, to be a warning to humanity, and not necessarily a war cry to destroy others. Many passages in the Koran do leave the final judgment to God, and to God alone. "As to those who believe, and the Jews, and the Sabeites, and the Christians, and the Magians, and those who join other gods with God, of a truth, God shall decide between them on the Day of Resurrection; for God is witness of all things" (22:17).

WHO FEARS GOD?

Having outlined what the Koran says about Jews and about battling the world, we might ask what religious insights it offers to those of other faiths. When it speaks of the heart and soul of religion, it speaks beautifully. It echoes the words of the Hebrew prophets and even of the rabbinic traditions. It has prayers for "the patient, and the truthful, the lowly, and the charitable, and they who seek pardon at each daybreak" (3:17). "And who has a better religion," says the Koran, "than he who resigns himself to God, who does what is good, and follows the faith of Abraham in all sincerity" (4:125).

But if it reverberates with the familiar words of Hebrew Prophets, it also resonates for many Americans who read it now with the sounds and images of September 11: "And how many cities which had been ungodly, and whose roofs are now laid low in ruin, have We destroyed! And wells have been abandoned and lofty castles" (22:45). "We will strike them with terror" (17:60). It should be noted that the "We" referred to here is God in the divine royal plural, which is common in the Koran and found in the opening chapters of Genesis. These passages are not a call to human terrorism and destruction of buildings and cities and airplanes. They affirm that God will ultimately judge and punish.

How will the leaders of Islam, in the academies and in the mosques, interpret these passages? The Koran commands believers not to treat individuals or their property with disrespect; believers are not to commit suicide or, as some have read the passage, not to kill one another (4:29). Can this be applied to treatment of nonislamic nations? Does it explicitly prohibit suicide bombing? Does Islam have a concept akin to the Hebrew Bible's notion of "fearing God," of having a basic respect for life, the term applied to the Egyptian midwives who would not kill babies when Pharaoh commanded them to do so (Exodus 1:17)?

I would suggest that Islam has this concept because it has the Hebrew Bible behind it. The Koran affirms and cites the Hebrew (and Christian) scriptures repeatedly. And yet, my personal experiences have led me to wonder whether rank-and-file Muslims in the United States and around the world have a contempt for and hatred of Hebrew scripture. When I was chairman of the Broadcasting Commission of the Chicago Board of Rabbis, I was involved in the production of an interfaith talk show, called The Sunday Chronicles. During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, we called together Jewish, Christian, and Muslim clergy and congregants to discuss the situation. Each group invited rank-and-file members from its churches, synagogues, or mosques to speak.

While I expected some of the usual anti-Israel and proPalestinian rhetoric from the liberal Christians and Muslims, and the old Christian canard about Old Testament justice versus New Testament love, I was taken aback at the utter, unmitigated contempt for the Hebrew Bible and for Judaism shown by the Muslim representatives, who were not extremist spokespeople but your typical congregant at an American mosque. They nodded in approval as one of their members said that Islam is the most peace-loving of religions and that Jews are a bloodthirsty, tribal people who have no sense of peace, and that the Hebrew Bible is a "bloody" and base book.

But that Hebrew Bible is the basis of many of the teachings of the Koran, including a fundamental principle that one does not "fear God" unless one has an underlying respect for human life and an unshakable aversion to taking human life. To trash the Hebrew Bible as antipeace is, for Muslims, to scrap the very concepts and concerns in that revered Book to which the Koran constantly refers. It is to bloody — or to dismiss as bloody — the living waters of reverence for life that flow into the Koran from Hebrew scriptures.

The Koran itself understands this. It refers to the biblical story of the sons of Adam, Cain, and Abel. It envisions Cain, angry that God did not accept his offering, threatening to slay his brother Abel. Abel replies: "God only accepts from those that fear Him." He goes on to explain what he means by "fearing" God: "Even if thou stretch forth thy hand against me to slay me, I will not stretch forth my hand against thee to slay thee. Truly I fear God, the Lord of all worlds" (5:27-28). Here, as in the Hebrew Bible, being "God-fearing" means anything but acting murderously.

Indeed, the well-being of the entire world may depend on whether a reverence for the Hebrew Bible will inform interpretation of the Koran with respect to Jews, the modern State of Israel, warfare, and the spreading of the faith. In the words of my favorite passage from the Koran, a prayer attributed to Abraham: "My Lord! Make this a region of security and bestow upon it its fruits, such of them as believe in Allah and in the Final Judgment" (2:126).

Elliot B. Gertel is rabbi of Congregation Rodfei Zedek in Chicago and the author of a new book, What Jews Know About Salvation (Eakin Press, Austin, Texas).