Topic: Jews

2:62, 67; 5:61; 7:168.

2:62, 92; 3:22.

Important Words:

حبل (protection). See 3:104.

المسکنة (wretchedness) is derived from سکن i.e. he or it was or became still or silent or motionless. مسکنة means, the state of مسکین; lowliness or submissiveness; lowness, abasement or humiliation; paucity of property; evil state or condition; weakness; poverty of mind, etc. (Lane). It also means disgrace and wretchedness (Aqrab) also loss of the power of movement (Mufradat).

Commentary:

This verse contains an important and far-reaching prophecy regarding Jews. They are forever doomed to disgrace and humiliation. They have ever to live in subjection to other powers. The history of the Jewish people from the time of the Holy Prophet up to the present day bears woeful testimony to the truth of this awful prophecy. In all countries and in all ages, the present age of enlightenment and toleration not being excepted, they have been the victims of bitter persecution and have been subjected to diverse kinds of disgrace and humiliation. Their practice of usury has also made them the hated of all nations.

The word حبل rendered here as "protection" is full of significance and is applicable in almost all its different meanings, for which see 3:104. Generally speaking, the divine rope, or in other words, "protection from Allah", refers to Islam; and "protection from men" refers to the protection of non-Muslim powers. The latter may be illustrated by the Treaty of Versailles, which afforded the Jews a temporary protection, while the former was made possible through a section of them accepting the Holy Prophet. In the present age, the Promised Messiah (Holy Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam), whom God has raised as the saviour of mankind, is the emblem of protection for the Jews. They can save themselves by accepting him.

The word مسکنة rendered as "wretchedness" also signifies, humiliation, disgrace, and loss of the power of movement. All these have been the fate of the Jews. They have often been expelled from countries, and even today in Russia there are certain districts which they are not permitted to enter. The recent persecution of the Jews in Germany and other countries of Europe is only too well-known to need a reference.

The clause, kill the Prophets unjustly, refers not only to the attempt of the Jews to crucify Jesus, but also to their plots to kill the Holy Prophet of Islam.

The verse also serves as a warning to Muslims that if they rejected the Promised Messiah, who has come in the spirit and power of Jesus as well as of the Holy Prophet, and whose duty it is to preach and rejuvenate Islam, they would also be smitten with the same disgrace which has been the lot of the Jews for their rejection of Jesus and the Holy Prophet.

2:62; 3:113.

Commentary:

The reference in the memorable words, those who would afflict them with grievous torment, is to those people who throughout the ages have persecuted and tormented the Jews. The degradation of the Jews holds a lesson for us. Those who neither act righteously nor try to reform their environment gradually drift more and more into evil practices, with the result that finally they lose their independence and are subjugated by other nations who trample them under their feet.

This and the following verses also show that the people who are spoken of as "apes despised" in the preceding verse were not actually transformed into apes but continued as human beings, though they led a miserable existence and were looked down upon by others. See also 2:66.

4:124-125; 6:161; 28:85; 41:47; 99:8-9.

Commentary:

This verse speaks of the Jews’ second relapse into iniquitous and evil ways and of the punishment which befell them in consequence. They persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him on the cross and stamp out his Movement. So God afflicted them with a terrible punishment when in 70 A. D. the Roman forces under Titus swept the country and, amid circumstances of unparalleled horror, Jerusalem was destroyed and the Temple of Solomon was burnt down (Enc. Bib., under Jerusalem). This disaster took place when Jesus was yet living in Kashmir. It was also foretold by Moses. The Bible says:

Of the rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee. And when the Lord saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters. And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very forward generation, children in whom is no faith. They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them. They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of grey hair. I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among them (Deut. 32:18-26).

It may be noted here that this prophecy about the second punishment is mentioned in the Bible after the prophecy which spoke of the first punishment (Deut. 28). More than that, it is mentioned even after the prophecy which speaks of the return of the Jews to Jerusalem (Deut. 30:1-5). This shows that this prophecy (Deut. 32:18-26) refers to the second punishment, to which reference has been made in the words of the Quran, in v. 5, viz. You will surely do mischief in the land twice.

7:138.

Important Words:

لفیفا (together) is derived from لف i.e. he folded up or wrapped up a thing in another thing. لف العدو means, he involved the enemy in difficulty. لف و نشر in rhetoric means, involution and evolution or complication and explication. لفیفا means, wrapped up under an envelope; mixed; mixed crowd; intimate friend (Lane & Aqrab).

Commentary:

The words "the land" do not refer to Egypt, where the Israelites never dwelt after Pharaoh had been drowned. They refer to Canaan, the land which was promised to them.

It is worthy of note that whereas Moses could never settle the Israelites in Egypt where he was born and brought up and got only Canaan as a substitute for it, the Holy Prophet not only regained Mecca, the land of his birth and the cradle of his Faith, but many other countries also fell into the hands of his followers.

The present verse read along with verses 17:6-8 & 1:6-7 may be explained as follows:

After the destruction of Pharaoh Jews would go and dwell in Canaan from where after sometime they would be driven away but would later return to it. In consequence, however, of their misdeeds they would again be visited with Divine punishment and be banished from their hearths and homes and would live in exile till the time when the second of the two punishments would overtake another people (Muslims) who would succeed them (the Jews) as their counterparts. It is then that they (the Jews) will be gathered from the ends of the earth and brought back to their Holy Land. But with the regeneration of Muslims through the Promised Messiah the latter would again come into their own.

The verse also implies that, like Jews, the Muslims would suffer- national disaster twice. As mentioned in vv. 6-8 Divine punishment befell the Jews twice. They suffered terribly first at the hands of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, when they were carried away into captivity, and then a second time at the hands of the Emperor Titus of Rome. On both these occasions the Jews were driven away from their native land and were scattered all over the world. In the present verse a promise has been held out to them that they will be gathered in the Holy Land at the time of the fulfilment of "the promise of the latter days" (وعدالاخرة). This fulfilment of "the promise of the latter days" must have reference to some other incident than the twofold national disaster that overtook the Jews. Elsewhere (73:16) the Quran has compared the Holy Prophet to Moses and 1:7 implies that a section of Muslims would follow in the footsteps of Jews. It can therefore be reasonably concluded that, like Jews, Muslims also were destined to be smitten twice with national disaster. The first of these two disasters befell Muslims at the time of the Crusades when for a time the Holy Land was lost to them and later when Baghdad fell to the arms of the Tartars under Hulagu Khan. They were to be visited with Divine punishment for the second time in the time of the Promised Messiah just as the Jews were punished in that of the first Messiah—Jesus. In the present verse we are told that when Muslims are punished for the second time which means the fulfilment of "the promise of the latter days" the Jews would be brought back to their Holy Land from all parts of the world. This is what is happening now in Palestine.

According to Fat’hul-Bayan some very prominent Muslim religious scholars hold the view that وعدالاخرة (the promise of the latter days) applies to the time of the Promised Messiah. This interpretation supports our view.

3:53; 5:112.

Commentary:

Of the three religious groups among the Jews to whom Jesus preached his Message—the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes—Jesus belonged to the last, while he had not yet been commissioned as a Divine Preacher. The Essenes were a highly religious and righteous people who lived away from the world’s hustle and bustle, passing their time in meditation and prayer and in the service of humanity. It was from these people that most of Jesus’s early followers came ("The Dead Sea Community" by Kurt Schubert and "The Crucifixion by an Eye-Witness"). They have been called "Helpers" by Eusephus.

The concluding words of the Surah are indeed very prophetic. Throughout the ages the followers of Jesus have enjoyed power and precedence over their enemies—the Jews. They have founded and ruled over vast and powerful empires while the Jews have been a dispersed people so much so that "The Wandering Jew" has become a byword.