Harry's Place

Bernard Lewis seems to share a definition of bigotry with Bernard Manning, who protested that he wasn’t a racist because he hated everyone pretty much equally. But at least Manning made you laugh.

How far do you see Islamic antisemitism being an import from the West Mikey? I think Malise Ruthven (for one) has suggested that Nazism was built into certain Islamist movements (whether through Afleq or the “Abu Ali cult”) Can this ever be removed?

How far do you see Islamic antisemitism being an import from the West

I realise that it’s a knee-jerk reaction amongst the Left to obsessively try to blame all the world’s problems on “the West”, but given the hair-splitting that seems to be the raison d’etre of this post, could you please try to acknowledge that there’s a bit more to “the West” than anti-Semitism, and indeed anti-Semitism might even be a betrayal of the values of “the West” and something which originated before “the West” was ever conceived of?

Please?

could you please try to acknowledge that there’s a bit more to “the West” than anti-Semitism

Since I never at any time indicated there wasn’t then why on earth would I need to acknowledge there was?

Let’s try and put it into easier words for you. Nazi antisemitism was something unique which originated in the west but which was seized upon by certain Islamist groups. I am just wondering if Mikey (a known hater of totalitarianism) thinks this stain can ever be removed from islamist politics.

Get it?

The point I am trying to make which I hope is clear is that there was not a history in the Islamic world of antisemitism as we understand the term today. It is a relatively recent (19th century) phenomenon there.

Whilst it is true that the Koran has some negative comments about Jews, from the time it was written until the 19th century, antisemitism,, as we understand it, was not a noted Islamic quality. What was more noted was opposition to any religion apart from the Muslim one. Persecution of Jews in the Islamic world until the nineteenth century must be seen in this light.

Graham, there was nothing unique about Nazi antisemitism. What was unique was the scale on which Jews were murdered.

Nazi antisemitism was something unique which originated in the west …

Nazi anti-Semitism originated in Germany. I don’t think Canada or New Zealand had much to do with it, frankly.

Whilst it is true that the Koran has some negative comments about Jews, from the time it was written until the 19th century, antisemitism,, as we understand it, was not a noted Islamic quality. What was more noted was opposition to any religion apart from the Muslim one. Persecution of Jews in the Islamic world until the nineteenth century must be seen in this light.

Thanks for telling us what “we” must understand, and the light in which things “must” be seen. Perhaps you should explain why it’s legitimate to distinguish Muslim practices before and after the 19th century, but imply the lumping together of the practices of “the West” in the 19th and 20th centuries (not to mention the 21st)?

There is indeed nothing unique about Nazi antisemitism. Like other nineteenth and twentieth century antisemitisms, it is biological rather than religious. On the other hand, Christian and Islamic antisemitisms are religious – Aflaq’s antisemitism is firmly modern and twentieth century.

A Muslim believes so confidently in the perfection of Islam that he cannot quite comprehend why Jews and Christians continue to follow their outmoded and imperfect versions of the truth.

There is nothing remarkable in this; it is pretty similar to traditional Christian belief about Judaism.

Nazi anti-Semitism originated in Germany. I don’t think Canada or New Zealand had much to do with it, frankly

germany is a western country, the only person bringing Canada or NZ into this is yourself!

Graham, there was nothing unique about Nazi antisemitism.

Well although we are moving away from the subject of the post (and although I seem to have mislaid my copy of “antisemitism in the modern world” in which I could swear that Richard Levy makes some very good points about how unique the nazis were I would have to suggest that he linking of anti-Semitism to race struggle was fairly unique.

It is hard to make a simple point here these days!

Mikey

Why do you think it matters that the ideologies of Islamic, Christian and European anti-semitism only coalesced in the Islamic world in the 19th century?

I do accept that the rationale for treating Jews badly pre 19th century might have been different in various parts of the world.

However, so what?

Like other nineteenth and twentieth century antisemitisms, it is biological rather than religious.

Actually I think I would argue that it was both. From our perspective Nazism can be seen as an attempt at a doctrine of world salvation to redeem humanity from Judeo-Bolshevism. Hitlerism WAS a religion and I wonder if that is why it has been picked up by fundamentalists of all kinds.

germany is a western country, the only person bringing Canada or NZ into this is yourself!

No, you are bring Canada and New Zealand into it when you blame Nazi anti-Semitism on “the West”, in just the same way that some people blame Al Qaeda on “the Muslims” rather than a few ideologues and their evil followers. Geddit?

From our perspective …

Just who does this “we” and “our” refer to in Mikey’s post and your comments?

It is hard to make a simple point here these days!

Perhaps because whatever point you are making is being obscured by your pompous use of inaccurate and presumptuous terms.

Oops ruined the quote. Will try again:

David,

Good question. In your thread on anti Muslim bigotry, Josh Scholar commented that Muhammad

wrote saying that God will not bring the end of times until Muslims do their duty and slaughter the Jews who are described as hated by almost all of creation.

Whether this is true or not is not the point that I want to make. Between the 7th century and the 19th century, there was not specific muslim antisemitism as a trait over and above the treatment of them as dhimmis which also applied to Christians. As Bernard Lewis notes in his essay, there is nothing in Islamic history to compare to the Spanish expulsion and inquisition or the Russian pogroms.
The linkage between quotes from the Koran and modern antisemitism is often made, but if that were necessarily the case, then those that argue it have to explain why Jews were not demonised in the Muslim world for numerous centuries.

No, you are bring Canada and New Zealand into it when you blame Nazi anti-Semitism on “the West”, in just the same way that some people blame Al Qaeda on “the Muslims” rather than a few ideologues and their evil followers. Geddit?

Oh don’t be so bloody ridiculous!

Just who does this “we” and “our” refer to in Mikey’s post and your comments?

Well I can speak for Mikey but the “our” in my comment quite obviously refers to anyone living in the present day!

Perhaps because whatever point you are making is being obscured by your pompous use of inaccurate and presumptuous terms.

Or perhaps by your inability to read anything without resorting to a context-free literalism not found in even first-year undergrads (are you “Nearly Oxfordian” by any chance?)

“All these scholars note that Muslim antisemitism became rife in the 20th century.”
Odd to find a post of this nature without even a passing reference to Kunzel’s thesis that takes it far further back:
“As far back as 1894, before a Zionist movement even existed, the first translation of the German antisemite August Rohling’s The Talmud Jew appeared in Arabic. The publication of this book – which popularized the concept of the “Jewish threat” – can be considered as the starting point of modern Arab antisemitism.In 1920, there followed the first Arabic translation of one of the most repugnant anti-Jewish publication, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”

Also observations by e.g Bat Ye’or that the full brunt of dhimmi persecution of Christians was often ameliorated by the exertion of powerful Christian influences such as the Pope, whereas the Jews had no external leverage or advocates to intervene on their behalf.

http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/antisemitism-in-the-middle-east-abbas-and-hamas

Thanks for that reminder Ami – I believe that Rohling actually derived much of his antisemitic writings from an older source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Andreas_Eisenmenger

ami,

I have seen Kunzel’s thesis. But you have mentioned “As far back as 1894….” My post is specifically about the period prior to the nineteenth century. All the scholars I have referred to provide examples of 19th and 20th century antisemitism in the Middle East. What I am trying to point out is that unlike Christian antisemitism, antisemitism from the Muslim world, in the sense of demonisation of Jews etc is a new phenomenon dating back to the 19th century.

Mikey

I think your thesis is that:

- bad treatment of Jews in the Islamic world should be understood, not as a function of anti-semitism in a classical European sense, but as something sui generis to the Islamic world.

- bad treatment of Jews was a reflection of the inferiority of non-Muslims generally, and was not directed specifically at Jews.

- Jews may appear in Islamic scripture as violators of promises, attempted murderers of Mohammed, people who betray God and become pigs and monkeys, and as people who will all be killed when the End Times come. However, this did not translate into a general bad treatment of Jews, that was any worse than the bad treatment of other religious minorities.

Well, this is all well and good.

However, there were periodic assaults on and expulsions of Jews in the Islamic world, all the way through history. There wasn’t a Holocaust of Jews, true. Christiains were also badly treated.

However, what’s the point here?

Or perhaps by your inability to read anything without resorting to a context-free literalism …

It’s “context-free literalism” to point out that Nazi anti-Semitism originated in Germany and emerged from a long intellectual tradition specific to that part of Europe, and had nothing at all to do with the tradition of rationalism and liberal democracy that define the political entity known as “the West”?

Umm, OK.

Well it’s all academic now, isn’t it?
Anti Semitism is firmly entrenched in the Islamic world now.

No, the Nazi antisemitism was not unique, nor was it a “Western” thing.
Have none of you heard of the Pogroms in Russia in the late 19th century? And Russia considers itself East not West.
The Protocols were a Russian forgery, to justify those Pogroms.

It’s “context-free literalism” to point out that Nazi anti-Semitism originated in Germany” …etc etc etc

No. That would be just adding unasked for and uneeded info to the context of my saying that what we were actually talking about was an import (not an export) from “The West” (Germany being a part of the West) this does not mean that all Germans (never mind all westerners) are Nazis and nor does it negate the “tradition of rationalism and liberal democracy that define the political entity known as “the West” any more than suggesting that ecstacy imported from France negates the acheivements of the enlightenment.

For crying out loud!

“there is nothing in Islamic history to compare to the Spanish expulsion and inquisition or the Russian pogroms.”

pre-1948 perhaps

Also, I believe there were mass slaughters of Jews during the crusades perpetrated by Muslims, although not to the same extent as committed by Christians.

Graham, I meant Nazi antisemitism was biological rather than religious in the sense that a Jew cannot save her or himself by adopting another religion, even Nazism. By contrast, Christianity and Islam, at least officially, are not antisemitic towards Jewish converts.

Bat Ye’Or is right, though it should be remembered that the Ottoman Concessions backed the words of the Pope with the threat of military force, particularly in the Balkans. This sort of power, as ami says, was not at the disposition of the Jews.

“Whilst it is true that the Koran has some negative comments about Jews”… Only ’some’, Mikey?

In your eagerness to differentiate between Christian and islamic anti-Semitism, you try too hard to minimise the anti-Semitism of the latter. Why not ask Jews who lived in arab lands to describe the anti-Semitism they experienced? For those at the receiving end, the differences are academic. Significantly, today’s historians have a vast store of archives to draw on when examining western anti-Semitism – but very little recorded history from arab lands.

Maimonides is one source. He wrote that muslim anti-Semitism is based on their conviction that Jews had altered and distorted the Bible to erase references to their prophet. They could not otherwise adequately explain why there are no allusions to him in the Bible, as Christians believe they have found for Jesus.

As a general rule, the expression of anti-Semitism in arab lands waxed and waned according to the whim of the ruler at the time. This explains why there were ‘good’ times too – ‘good’ in quotes because even during the better times, Jews remained subject to the onerous jizya taxation and humiliating regulations reserved for dhimmis. (The yellow star to identify Jews did not originate with hitler – but by a Muslim ruler in North Africa in the twelfth century.)

That would be just adding unasked for and uneeded info to the context of my saying that what we were actually talking about was an import (not an export) from “The West” (Germany being a part of the West)

So why say “the West” instead of the more precise and historically accurate “Germany”?

Other than, you know, to jump on the cultural relativist bandwagon with the rest of your Lefty mates?

So why say “the West” instead of the more precise and historically accurate “Germany”?

If you go back to what you started whining about I think you will see that I was asking a question not making a statement. Had Mikey decided to answer that question you might have had something to moan about….

Other than, you know, to jump on the cultural relativist bandwagon with the rest of your Lefty mates?

Bwhahahahahaha!

David

I think your thesis is that:
- bad treatment of Jews in the Islamic world should be understood, not as a function of anti-semitism in a classical European sense, but as something sui generis to the Islamic world.
- bad treatment of Jews was a reflection of the inferiority of non-Muslims generally, and was not directed specifically at Jews.
- Jews may appear in Islamic scripture as violators of promises, attempted murderers of Mohammed, people who betray God and become pigs and monkeys, and as people who will all be killed when the End Times come. However, this did not translate into a general bad treatment of Jews, that was any worse than the bad treatment of other religious minorities.

You have it exactly.

However, there were periodic assaults on and expulsions of Jews in the Islamic world, all the way through history.

Can you provide a number of examples? I am not denying what you say, but I have quoted from papers from Lewis, Pipes, Karsh and Wistrich. I have also read Karsh’s excellent book Islamic Imperialism: A History Updated Edition (New Have and London: Yale University Press, 2007. In none of these sources have I found continual examples of systematic antisemitism. Given that the authors are not necessarily known to be hugely sympathetic to the Muslim cause, one would have thought they would have included a number of these examples. I can’t find them. Any comment?

Mikey

For example, when the relatively tolerant Almoravids in Spain were overthrown by the Almohads the scholar Maimonides fled to Fez and ultimately to Egypt. The reason was that Jews and Christians in Spain were offered the option of conversion or death.

Now, Maimonides life turned out pretty well, despite the fact that he spent much of it running away from religious persecution. He found in Saladin, a Muslim protector.

However, what is the point here?

- That some attempts to rule according to Islamic precepts have resulted in persecution but others have resulted in good treatment? Absolutely – that is the point I have been making for some time.

- That Maimonides’ persecution was not the same thing as the Nazi persecution of Jews? I agree.

- that both Jews and Christians were persecuted by the Almohads. Yes, that is true. No doubt, ordinary working Muslims in 12 century Spain didn’t have a wonderful life either.

But so what?

I should clarify – Systematic antisemitism in the way we understand it and up and until the 19th century.

I see that a group of attackers have sprayed acid in the faces of 15 Afghan school girls. That must be the “glorious resistance” George Galloway talks of….

The Almoravids were only in control of Andalusia for 60 years. Before that fairly regular pogroms against Jews occured, as in Cordoba in 1011 and Granada in 1066.

I readily accept that the prevalent view of Jews in the Islamic word was not classical 19th century, Protocols style anti-semitism.

12th C Almohads did not believe that that Jews drank the blood of Muslim children, controlled the banking system, were the secret power behind the Crusades, were over-represented in TV sitcom writing, etc.. Absolutely. Spot on.

12 C Almohads will certainly have thought of Jews as inferior to them. They’ll have thought the same thing about Christians too. However, they will have been likely to have regarded Jews as breakers of promises to God and to Mohammed, killers of prophets, attempted murderers of Mohammed, and so on.

So yes, they had a different set of anti-Jewish myths.

David,

When expelled from Spain by the Christians, those Jews travelled where? To England? To the new country of America? Some surely did – but many went to Iraq. When one thinks of sephardi Jews, they often think of them coming from the Middle East. This ignores the fact that the term “sepharad” translates as “Spain.” I am not denying that there were examples of antisemitism in the Muslim world. What I am saying is that it was nowhere near as bad as it was in the Christian world!

One can look at modern day Islamism and note that much of what comes from it reeks of antisemitism. The point I am trying to make and repeat is that it was not always the case.

Bernard Lewis has written some good books the history of the Middle East … unfortunately, his position on the genocide against the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire is dangerous and weird: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis#Denial_of_the_Armenian_Genocide

Could you people stop linking to Wikipedia? The other day I received from a teacher in a Jewish school a lesson plan to evaluate about the Rotschild Family. The lesson plan used Wikipedia as a source for the activity. The whole bloody page (Spanish edition) was written following the book The Illuminati by the nutter Paul H. Koch.

What you mean is that you find Western anti-semitism more familiar than Islamic anti-semitism, and so you pick up on the peculiarly “Western” tropes in contemporary Islamist anti-semitism: holocaust denial, world jewish conspiracism, etc..

There were certainly times in which living in a particular part of the Islamic world was better than living in a particular part of the Christian world.

But, again, so what?

I agree with David T.
Muslim antisemitism was not theological in the same way as Christian but the belief in the supremacy of Islam meant a system of humiliations and handicaps was in place reminiscent of the treatment of slaves. Jews had to comply with restrictions on their freedom of movement. They had no redress under the law, except if it was an intra-Jewish case that could be settled by the Beth Din. Jews could not testify against a Muslim. The inheritance laws favoured converts to Islam. A Muslim murderer of a Jew could get off scot free. This is in fact what happened as late as 1931 in Iraq (when Jews nominally had equal rights with Muslims) when my great-grandfather was assassinated by a Muslim. The authorities soon released the murderer. The victim was after all just a Jew. I think this testifies to a deep-seated anti-dhimmi prejudice.

Bataween

This is the point is it not? You comment upon “deep-seated anti-dhimmi prejudice.” I am not denying this. What I am interested to know is was the prejudice against Jews because they were Jews or was it because they were not Muslim and were dhimmis?

From what I have read it seems the latter and not the former.

I’m not sure what difference it makes why the Muslim world is so intensely anti-Semitic. Certainly the propensity for rabid anti-Semitism, even if not a carbon copy of that found in the West, always was there. This article talks about pogroms in the Muslim world in the 18th century, as an example of Muslim Jew-hatred way before Zionism. The Koran devotes quite a bit of space to fomenting hatred of Jews; in any event, it is enshrined as a principle there, so there is no getting around it no matter how much our resident multi-cultis would like to pretend we are all one.

I also don’t understand the point of this article rather than as a high-level ‘refresher’.

European anti-semitism simply added a new channel or vision of the Jews which certain sectors of the Muslim and Christian Arab world used in addition to existing social prejudice.

Both are ultimately routed in prejudice and both committed documented gross injustices against the Jews.

What I am saying is that it was nowhere near as bad as it was in the Christian world!

Never saw that one coming!

I think that Mikey’s point is that, horrid though this was, it wasn’t the same phenomenon as Western anti-semitism.

I agree. He’s right.

So what?

Meir,

The point of the article was that in an earlier thread by David T I noticed certain comments about Muslim antisemitism that I thought were based on ignorance of the history. I was going to respond as a comment there, but as I had quite a bit to say, I thought I would make a “guest post” of it.

Wouldn’t it be true to say that (despite its restrictions) the Islamic empire had a universal set of laws for its Jewish minorities whilst because of the collapse of the Roman legal system the west (not including Canada or New Zealand – or even Byzantium for that matter) did not and therefore anti-semitism in western countries developed in different ways?

David,

You keep asking “so what”? I think it is valid. But maybe the answer is that it may correct a few misconceptions about the history of Jews in Muslim lands. In fact in the Daniel Pipes article that I linked to he comments that Jews had, in some examples, a better time of it than Christians in the Muslim world as the Muslims did not see the Jews as a threat. He therefore comments, due to this, that in countries such as Yemen and North Africa, Christianity died out by Judaism persisted.

Mikey: ‘When expelled from Spain by the Christians, those Jews travelled where? To England? To the new country of America? Some surely did – but many went to Iraq … ‘

- actually Mikey hardly any went to England, and very few to the Americas. In Europe most went to what is now Germany, northen Italy and Poland. But far the greatest number went to the Ottoman Empire (particularly Thessalonica).

Which does bear out your main point.

But what you fail to do is distinguish between the treatment of Jews in the Christian world according to the various denominations – Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox. Not to mention the offshoots of mainstream Protestantism.

Also using the 19th century as a cut-off point is rather arbitrary; and you haven’t explained adequately your reasons for accepting this date.

Who is suggesting that:

- Only Jews, and not Christians, were persecuted in Muslim lands?

- there were never any “good times” for Jews, ever, under the rule of benevolent local Muslim rulers?

- Islamic mistreatment of Jews took the same ideological form as Christian mistreament of Jews?

Meir: And some difference nowadays is that many Christian (and national) groups have apologized for their past misdeeds and actively work to eliminate anti-Semitism (many but not all, of course); exactly the opposite is occurring in the Muslim world where, of course, no apology or even hint of regret for past bad deeds has been forthcoming (at least, I haven’t heard of any).

I was wrong, this “is” the peoples front of judea, so tell me stan, sorry loretta, do you really think, really? that i should now go back to sleep and not worry about all the carnage because islam is not really anti-semitic or does not have imperialist ambitions to concur all the world for allah.

Oh and by the way didnt Bernard Lewis recently say that ” Either we reform the world of islam or they will destroy us” probably from fox news, so it may carefuly edited, maybe he didnt say it, it could just have been taken out of context i suppose. One thing you might be able to help me with though, that bit in the Qur’an or was it in ahaddith, about the jew hiding behind the rock or the tree? and the rock or the tree calls out “oh muslim etc etc.. there is a jew behind me etc, etc…” would you say that was anti-semitic or is just misunderstood by people like me.

“What I am saying is that it was nowhere near as bad as it was in the Christian world!” I know that is what you are saying, but why are you saying it, as David T asks. It was a delayed process for the Holocaust survivors to feel able to articulate their experience, for various reasons, which only really took off after the Eichman trial.
For the Jews from the Arab lands, their experience has been delayed for much longer. Bat Ye’or suggests some of the reasons in her book in the chapter on the dhimmi syndrome, where dhimmis have been denied their history by the dominant group. She cites the particular instance of the refusal to accept the dhimmi’s testimony in court which symbolises the greater refusal -the denial of suffering and suppression of speech which reduces the witness to historic silence.

This possibly internalised reticence was reinforced after the Holocaust where these Jews remained silent out of deference to the greater suffering of the Jews of the West. It is only in the past decade that their narrative has begun to be heard, and only now really begun to be acknowledged, but not in the main by the Arab countries themselves.
I fear your comments are not helpful to this healing process. I know you do not intend it, but the constant comparison of how it was nowhere near as bad, has the effect of perpetuating the perception that their experience is demeaned and relegated to a level of lesser regard.

Whether Jews are hated because of our religion, otherness, alleged race, nationalism et al, the end is invariably the same – dead Jews. Rather than making a distinction between antisemitism in the Islamic/non-Islamic world a more illuminating difference might be between religious Jew hatred and modern antisemitism.

Ah boys so much for anti-Muslim bigotry, your new leaf lasted one day!

Ah boys so much for anti-Muslim bigotry, your new leaf lasted one day!

Yet another confused nutter alert!

Richard Farnos

Perhaps you could explain to Mikey why you think he is an anti-Muslim bigot.

Mikey: Thanks.

I guess one answer or variant is that Islamic prejudice is ‘positivist’ ie. derived (partially at least) from Qu’ranic (and by extension Sharia) injunction and legislation or Hadith of the Prophet, whereby it can be divorced somewhat from objective or subjective (ie. Islamic) morality.

In other words, it’s prescribed by Allah – we implement it and control it.

Christian (or Catholic if you prefer) persecution and anti-semitism was a far broader attempt to punish and ostracize Jews for their perceived slights and this was initiated (and later legislated) by the Church leaders themselves rather than having as its source any specific injunction. Certainly Jesus never requested it (to the best of my knowledge). It was an expression of moral and religious outrage against the Jews, rather than a more sterile implementation of law.

Again, this is very broad and not without faults (indeed I could easily argue against it!) but from the perspective of Islam itself, I think it stands fairly strongly.

It is sad but true that Muslim ‘tolerance’ towards Jews and other ethno-religious groups in the ME/NA and the parts of Europe they occupied was largely a Turkish thing in the Uthman Empire. An entity that Lewis does not attempt to hide his admiration of. The Arabs, Berbers and Persians found it good for business and even entertaining to murder and rob Jews from the period of the Arab Conquest and the colonisation of the ‘House of Islam’ up till the terminal decline that set in after the ‘House of Islam’ and everyone else who got in the way had their arses trammelled by the Mongol Khans.

The C19th saw a resurgence of ‘Muslim’ antisemitism that went hand in hand and step by step with the re-creation of Arab Nationalism and Pan-Arabism of which Islamism was always present but not clearly delineated. This predates the popularisation of Zionism amongst the Jewish Nation (but not of eternal religious zionism of course) that has many similiarities but several important differences to Islamism and Pan-Arabism. Liberal Democracy written in stone being one of them.

Now, courtesy of the Arab League and OIC, Muslims in Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, et al are joining in. That they use Jewish Power on the hand whilst attacking those weak and small in number Jews indigenous to their countries shows something.

It shows that they are craven of any kind of religious and/or intellectual and business competition perhaps because of the weakness inherent in Islam due to the lack of an Enlightenment. Reason, Skepticism, Doubt whatever you prefer to call it creates and forces a re-evaluation of fundamentals and such serious reflection upon faith and its MO only serves to give new strength to religions.

Of course to really get large-scale systematic antisemitism you had to wait for atheistic Communism and Neo-Pagan Nazism to come along. Which Adorno and Horkheimer argued was a link in the chain of C18th and C19th thought leading directly to Auschwitz I would add also to the show-trails and death-camps of Siberia.

Ami,

I see you mention Bat Ye’Or. For your information. When I quoted Wistrich, I said “Quoting the work of someone else, Wistrich states:….”

Wistrich’s quote was from

Bat Ye’or, Oriental Jewry and the Dhimmi Image in Contemporary
Nationalism (Geneva: Avenir-WOJAC, 1979), p. 3.

The point I am asking – by way of suggestion – is that is it antisemitism or is it anti-Dhimmis?

I do think this is a very relevant point.

What Monkey Boy said at 2:50. Mikey is a patronising idiot.

An expert scholar on the Islamic Middle East is Bernard Lewis

Is this absurd sentence written in German, using English words? This is not English syntax.

Arabs are Semitic.

Seymour Paine,

Thank you for the link to that article which I had not seen. I have also been emailed privately on the matter informing me of Andrew Bostom’s book, Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History that paints a different story. I understand, without having read Bostom’s book that he argues that Islam is inherently antisemitic. An article by him can be seen on this link.

Oops I will try again. Bostom’s article. Hopefully this works.

The point I am asking – by way of suggestion – is that is it antisemitism or is it anti-Dhimmis? I do think this is a very relevant point.

How about this: it was anti-Dhimmis, but Jews were regarded as dhimmis because of anti-Semitism. All bases covered, essay in on time, sufficient shit thrown at the society and culture you owe everything to. Everyone’s a winner!

Monkey Boy,

Jews were regarded as dhimmis because of anti Semitism

I do not think so. Dhimmi translates as “people of the book” and, along with Christians, were protected provided they paid the poll tax etc. I am arguing it is as much anti-Christian as it is anti-Jewish.

As far back as 1894, before a Zionist movement even existed

Oh, really? Hovevei Zion / Hibat Zion existed pre-1894. Rishon Le-Zion was founded before 1894.

Arabs are Semitic.

OMG, are we back to the nonsense that antisemitism includes hating Arabs?
Slowly:
There is NO SEMITIC RACE.

This seems to me a pretty balanced assessment, to which I’d add this – Jews in the Middle East are not foreigners – a foreign minority – as we are/were in the West, and this added to the antisemitism already implicit in the culture via the dominance of the official religion (Christianity). Indeed Middle Eastern Jews are an integral part of Middle Eastern culture, having affected it and been affected by it, and sharing it with other peoples, for thousands of years.

It’s easy to trace this via studies of music, calligraphy, language, dance, art – on the other hand Jews in Europe were really distanced not only by religion but seen as racially foreign.

This clearly added to our woes.

Unfortunately in the ME this same factor was added to the import of European and Nazi-type antisemitism, only in reverse, when Jews started to come home. People from Europe had very different customs and a different worldview from people living in the M.E., and in hindsight, we didn’t pay enough attention to these cultural conflicts at the time. I don’t think historically we’re paying enough attention to them now. An apparently minor matter like the fact that modern Jewish women wore shorts actually was a deep affront to and enraged local people especially if they were conservative.

I think things like this added both to antisemitism and to antiZionism in the M.E., just as our “alien” nature added to antisemitism in the West, and probably continues to do so today.

That said within the Jewish community itself there are conflicts reflecting cultural norms, there was/is a distance between Askenazim and Sephardim/Mizrachim in Israel, and there continues to be conflict between frum and secular Jews.

So by extension it isn’t hard to see that conflicts between modern European Jews and traditional local populations in the Mandate or Ottoman Palestine might erupt simply on the basis of external differences.

Those are the easiest to overcome though. I think these can be overcome by familiarity, communication, and reason.

Far harder to overcome are religiously based fears – either Christian or Muslim – especially if they’re reinforced by Naziesque or Eastern European political slanders like “The Protocols,” which are then reinforced in local media and also by the experience of war.

I think all of us, people of good will in Iran, the Arab world, the West, Israel, the P.A., must try and cut through the propaganda somehow and find our common ground. Recriminations for what has gone before are now not only useless but keep us in a state of turmoil. At some point we all need to try and stop reacting and move in a positive direction toward each other.

It isn’t easy because extreme positions are being deliberately reinforced. But it seems to me if we could break through some of these barriers between us we’d also have a chance to stop the violence, which is both feeding and being fed by numerous sources of bias and fear.

Monkey Boy: bravo.

we didn’t pay enough attention to these cultural conflicts at the time.

Who is ‘we’?

An apparently minor matter like the fact that modern Jewish women wore shorts actually was a deep affront to and enraged local people especially if they were conservative

I assume you are talking about 1900. This was an affront to many other (religious) ME Jews, both those in established communities and new arrivals. It would have been an affront in Eastern Europe, for Pete’s sake. It was not a Europe v. ME thing, but a revolutionary v. religious thing.

But ‘anti-semitism’ has always – since its first use in 19th century German political science – referred exclusively to discrimination or hostility towards Jews, not Semites. There is no reason to deny Jews the right to use the word to describe the historical phenomenon of the oppression facing them. So whenever I see someone going down the path you are alluding to, I wonder why they think the etymology and historical significance should be ignored in order to let the term also encapsualte those who are most often guilty of its original and only sense.

That was in response to Dan.

I think all of us, people of good will in Iran, the Arab world, the West, Israel, the P.A., must try and cut through the propaganda somehow and find our common ground.

I would caution anyone “of good will” from speaking out in Iran or in fact much of the Arab world, unless they don’t mind getting killed.

Mikey
Islamic prejudice was as bad against Jews as against Christians, but it is noteworthy that where Jews were the only non-Muslim minority (ie in North Africa) the prejudice was worse than it was where there were Christians and other minorities around. In Yemen where to my knowledge there were no Christians the Jews were very badly treated by Sh’ite tribes who banished them and massacred them in the 18th c.

Ultimately it is academic whether Jews or Christians suffered more under Islam. As Seymour Paine and ami have pointed out, the point is that the Christian West has acknowledged and recanted its antisemitism, whereas the Muslim world is still in deep denial, taking refuge in the ‘golden age’ tolerance myth and convincing themselves that life was so much better for non-Muslims than under Christendom. Until Islam comes to terms with the truth we are not likely to get reconciliation.

In Yemen where to my knowledge there were no Christians the Jews were very badly treated by Sh’ite tribes who banished them and massacred them in the 18th c.

There are still Jews in Yemen (go figure); only a few, perhaps 90 families, who are treated like crap, yet, they refuse to leave, even though passage out of Yemen has been offered to them.

Bataween,

I have not commented upon contemporary Islamic antisemitism in this thread. Robert Wistrich’s article that I linked to and is freely available on line is certainly worth a read. This article is more based on the historical period up to the 19th century.

I actually made a reference to Yemen earlier citing Daniel Pipes. The point he makes is that Jewish life persisted in Yemen whereas Christian life did not. Surely this says something about the respective treatment of Christians and Jews there.

Yes, there are also still a handful of Jews in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria (go figure) although the last Jew died in Libya a few years ago. Anyone in their right mind should have got out by now but it is a strange thing that makes people, even with children and other close relatives outside, want to die in the land of their birth.

People can be strange that way, Bataween. I had relatives in Argentina who were imprisoned by the junta. They were in jail for a year when, due to my family’s streneous efforts, they were released. They came to the USA about two days later, but almost immediately wanted to return to “clear up matters” (like selling the house, etc.). You just want to smack them, snap out of it.

Muslim anti-semitism is a drop in the ocean compared to the rampant Jewish Islamophobia we see in our mainstream media

Mikey you say:”I actually made a reference to Yemen earlier citing Daniel Pipes. The point he makes is that Jewish life persisted in Yemen whereas Christian life did not. Surely this says something about the respective treatment of Christians and Jews there.”
It doesn’t say too much, in my view. The Jews were still Jews, but what a wretched quality of life they had. Up until 1950 they were the public latrine cleaners among other menial jobs. A huge problem was the forcible abduction and conversion to Islam of Jewish orphans whose parents had died in the frequent plagues and famines. The scholar SD Goiten reckons this was the single biggest factor behind the mass exodus of the Jews of Yemen to Israel.

HPBNP:

“Muslim anti-semitism is a drop in the ocean compared to the rampant Jewish Islamophobia we see in our mainstream media”

So you are saying that Islamophobia is inspired by the Jewish religion or simply propagated by Jews?

This is very important. Do you believe that Judaism legislates for and encourages discrimination of Muslims?

Can you please identify the media channels and perpetrators of this Islamophobia?

Do you believe that gentiles do not share these values and that they are being manipulated by Jews and the Jewish religion?

Are the Jewish leaders behind this Islamophobia religious figureheads? Can you name a Rabbi who is behind all this?

Would you say, that say, Rabbi Jonathon Sacks is one of the ringleaders?

Graham

just commenting on the historical issue, Lewis’s The Jews of Islam is an excellent scholarly work, which points out the varied experiences of Jews under Islamic rule n the Middle Ages, it is balance and nuanced, pointing out that sometimes some Jews did rather well under Islamic rule when compared to parts of Europe, but not all and their position was very precarious, they were officially second class citizens paying a special tax for existing and often require to wear distinctive clothes, etc Lewis’s book explains that the Jew’s existence under Islam was NOT another Shangri-La but had highs and lows, changing over time, etc

Lewis’s Semites and Anti-Semites takes a different tack, if I remember part of Lewis’s argument, it was, that changing 19th European ideas were NOT just restricted to Europe they filtered across to the Levant, so the social Darwinism and specious notion of race came with it, and that lead to a gradual change in how Jews were viewed in the Middle East.

the globalisation of racism wasn’t limited to just Europe.

Now I might have got that all wrong, I read them ages ago and my memory and mind are none too good nowadays, so Mikey can fill in and correct my points if they’re wrong.

Meir, I was presuming HPBNP is a spoof, clue in the name?

Mikey to Dave T: “When expelled from Spain by the Christians, those Jews travelled where? To England? To the new country of America? Some surely did – but many went to Iraq. When one thinks of sephardi Jews, they often think of them coming from the Middle East.”
In fact very few Sephardim went to Iraq. The community there had been there since Babylonian times and was over 2,000 years old.The Sephardim were scattered all over the Mediterranean basin, but a large contingent settled in Salonica and Constantinople. There were so many Jews in Salonica that the main language was Judeo-Spanish. But I take your point, the Jews were given refuge by the Ottomans but as Norman Stillman says in his book, the Turks were often not very Muslim.

Ta Mod. I have “Semites and Anti-Semites” somewhere I think – too much to read, too little time.

Meir: You are wasting your time with HPBNP.

David/Seymour: Point taken. Thanks.

What a travesty! To claim that ‘European’ Christian anti-Semitism influenced Arab tropes…balderdash!

There is just no comparison: the hatred of the Jews as a race is sanctioned by the dual cannon of Islamic tradition (Qur’an and Sunnah); there are no anti-Semitic texts in the Biblical corpus or amongst the writings of Christianity’s foremost theologians and philosophers. Jesus was a Jew for chrissake! Must ALL Christians have their views tarred with the opinions and writings of an infinitessimally small minority who detested all Jews for the actions of an historical sanhedrin injunction?

No doubt this author considers Hitler to have been a Christian; or the legions of illiterate crusade chattel for whom the Bible was unavailable in their vernacular; or the White Knights perhaps?

I’m waiting for the follow up post on how ‘honoured’ Jews were to escape from the ‘tyranny’ of Ferdinand and Isabel…complete twaddle!

Yusuf Ibrahim Tadros:
‘there are no anti-Semitic texts in the Biblical corpus or amongst the writings of Christianity’s foremost theologians and philosophers.’

- you are completely wrong.
One example from the New Testament: Matthew 27:25

Patristics:
Try reading John Chrysostom

yeah Graham, I am reading Great Nation by Colin Jones (along with other things) and although he’s an excellent scholar on France and writes beautifully I am not getting thru it as quickly as I’d like. Lewis’s Jews of Islam is a small volume by comparison but well written and informative.

The last and most powerful Jewish tribe – Quraiza – suffered more profusely following the abortive Meccan siege of Medina in the spring of 627. Charged with collaboration with the enemy, the tribe’s 600–800 men were brought in small groups to trenches dug the previous day, seated on the edge, then beheaded one by one and thrown in. The women and children were sold into slavery and the money they fetched, together with the proceeds from the tribe’s possessions, was divided among the Muslims. This process was completed on Muhammad’s deathbed in the form of an injunction ordering the expulsion of Jews (and Christians) from the peninsula: ‘Two faiths will not live together in the land of the Arabs

:/

Nothing antisemitic in killing all the men, raping the women (nice to have left that out), making them slaves and ethnically cleaning Jews from the Gulf..

Nothing at all.

Damn us westerners for bringing antisemitism to those innocent, tolerant Arabs.

You really are a very sad man…and Baba Khrysutume’s sermons and homilies were conducted when exactly?

Matthew 27:25 – how truly sad, sad and more sad of you to see AS around every corner; like the author of this post, you must visualise gangs of ‘Christians’ working by candlelight, dreaming up ever more fanciful ways of demonising ‘the Other’.

Sleep well and peace

Yusuf Ibrahim Tadros,

Just to save everyone wasted time and effort, you wouldn’t also be “Ibrahim ibn Yusuf”, also known as “The Hasbara Buster”, also known as “Alberto José Miyara”, would you?

“The point I am asking – by way of suggestion – is that is it antisemitism or is it anti-Dhimmis?” My point is that your focusing on the taxonomy is at the expense of and to the detriment of the 1000 year and still ongoing effect this treatment had however you classify it, and the deleterious effect the constant comparison with oppression in Christian countries has, exacerbated by the ongoing denialism by the perpetrating countries. As the cliche goes, comparisons are odious.

Ami,

Ignoring the comparison with Christian countries, I believe motive is relevant. The way I understand antisemitism, is that Jews are attacked because they are Jews. Nasty things are said about Jews irrespective of the truth. To the persecuted person, the reason may not matter much but from a historical point of view, I believe my point is very relevant.

Maybe we simply disagree. I can’t agree with all people all the time. That doesn’t mean to say I do not respect your opinion Ami as I do. I would rather not be on the wrong side of you again!

On a different note, I would like to make clear why I selected people such as Daniel Pipes and Bernard Lewis to quote from. Pipes especially and to certain extent Lewis as seen by some in the Muslim community as anti-Muslim. These scholars were selected in some ways by design – to stop attacks from “the right” arguing that I have selected people to quote from to argue that there was not historical Muslim antisemitism in the way we currently understand it who are biased in favour of the Muslim position. If someone such as Pipes argues, as he does, “until recently Muslims had nothing in their lexicon corresponding to Christian anti-Semitism,” why should anyone think that he should not be trusted on the point?

“Maybe we simply disagree”. The disagreement is just one of what it is more productive to focus on in this instance.

ami,

If you have a substantive response to my post, I am sure David will give you a guest post. You can see the sources I relied upon for my post as I listed them. I am not saying that they are definitive but at the time of writing, I believed them to be accurate – or at least the message I was receiving from the cumulative effect of them. I also have read, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I have also read Efraim Karsh’s excellent book Islamic Imperialism: A History Updated Edition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007.) In this book there is not even a reference to antisemitism in the index. You have to look under the “vilified” sub category of “Jews and Judaism.” Those references are again consistent with what I have posted.

I note that from the 19th century onwards things changed and if we were to provide examples in say the 21st century of Islamic inspired antisemitism there we would be a whole slew of examples to choose from. We could also argue how antisemitism is embedded into the characteristics of organisations such as Hamas and regimes such as the Islamic Republic of Iran. But my post does not focus on the modern period.

I have also noted that I have been privately emailed about the work of Andrew Bostom that may imply that I am wrong. Bostom may well be right, but I must admit that until that email I was not familiar with his work and did not know about him. I did know about Daniel Pipes, Bernard Lewis, Robert Wistrich and Efraim Karsh, so those are the scholars whose work I relied upon. Even if I am wrong, and I accept that I may be, I do not believe I can be blamed for my choice of scholars that has led me to come to this conclusion. I hope you at least concur with that.

No, what I mean is that I am focused on the experience of those at the receiving end of the persecution, and the retrieval of their history. Part of the process of supporting their moves to do this, is to refrain from making those inviduous comparisons harping on how they were better off than their brethren in the West.

Josh Scholar,

“Nothing antisemitic in killing all the men, raping the women (nice to have left that out), making them slaves and ethnically cleaning Jews from the Gulf.”

No, it doesnt sound like anti semitism. It sounds like tribal justice. Especially when you consider that, had the tables been turned, the same would have happened to the Arabs. This is exactly what is described in Leviticus for those enemy tribes of the Isrealites who were lucky enough not to be subject to complete and total destruction.

ami,

I think your point about comparisons to the West is valid, but I think that is an aside from the main point I was making.

Daniel Pipes argues that the change occurred in 1798 after Napoleon’s conquest of Egypt. This “brought Muslims in the Middle East into direct and intense contact with Europe.” He is quite emphatic that Muslims “learned” about antisemitism from the West.

As soon as I finished reading this post I wondered why no mention was made of Andrew Bostom’s book. Mikey, please consider obtaining Bostom’s book The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism
and then following this post up with another one that takes his work into account. As it stands, this post is missing too much information to make an informed judgement about the issues you want to address.

Black Voter,

When does Leviticus date from ? 3,000 years ago
When did Mo the bandit destroy the Banu Quarish ? 1500 years later. enough time for moral standards to have improved.

Is there any verse in the Bible which encourages the Jews to jump for joy after raping and pillaging? The only place where matters get dicey is when Moses or Joshua gives advice on what to do with some captive women. But even here, the woman is to mourn her family for one whole month and the man cannot abuse her. Contrast this with the behaviour of the pedophile, the beast is so randy that he simply can’t wait for the victim to bury her kinsmen. Even the Greeks at their worst were better than this. And Mo is the pattern of virtues, the perfect man we should all follow, henna beard and all. I spit on the dirty fucker and the ‘religion’ he founded.

I believe the Armstrong and Miller solution of “give less of a shit” is required. There are an awful lot of holy writings. Why do the American religious go on about gays for example? They may well be aginnit, but according to The Book there are LOADS of things they should and shouldn’t do. Why no Proposition banning mixing linen and wool? Why no anti-envy campaigns?

So just because there’s stuff in the Bible or the Koran or Dianetics :P that may suggest treating Jews like shit, there’s no reason to go on about it. I mean that on both sides. Islam’s prime directive doesn’t have to be death to the Jews, and I don’t think we’re doing anyone any favours by insisting to Muslims that it does.

Lbnaz,

You may not have noticed it but twice previously in this thread, I have commented that I have been emailed privately about Andrew Bostom’s book. I have stated that I understand he would disagree with my argument.

In truth, I had not heard of Bostom or his book when I wrote this post. I accept that this may well be a gross omission on my part. In my defence I have relied upon the work of four scholars – Bernard Lewis, Daniel Pipes, Efraim Karsh and Robert Wistrich. Given who the authors are and their backgrounds as well as where their work has been published, I believed that it was reasonable to rely upon them – I did not think they would dismiss Islamic inspired antisemitism if much of it had existed. As I commented to my correspondent who informed me of Bostom’s book, Daniel Pipes stated, in the essay I referred to from Commentary in my main post,

“until recently Muslims had nothing in their lexicon corresponding to Christian anti-Semitism.”

The message I was getting from these four scholars was similar. I do not believe that it has been unreasonable for me to rely upon them.

No, it doesnt sound like anti semitism. It sounds like tribal justice. Especially when you consider that, had the tables been turned, the same would have happened to the Arabs…

Sure it would have. I mean thank God Mohammad committed genocide first!

Whew imagine if he hadn’t. Something bad might have happened.

“Black Voter” if you haven’t been called a fucking monster yet today, let me be the first.

“Whilst it is true that the Koran has some negative comments about Jews, from the time it was written until the 19th century, antisemitism, as we understand it, was not a noted Islamic quality.”

For me, this quote taken with those scholars, the scrappy research and anti-Christian polemic motif of this piece (no doubt it was childishly chosen for such a purpose…ho ho ho), sums up the dangerously amateur proposition of the author:

To claim, relying almost entirely on Lewis’ name and a couple of quotes, that a brief survey of ‘Islamic texts’ has led these scholars and yourself to this unescapable conclusion is risible; to assert that contemporary Islamic anti-Jew polemics and apologia have somehow crystallised as a result of European Christian influence is a whopping great deduction.

Until you and the scholars you cite can demonstrate that Islam did not definitively spring from a complex admixture of Judaeo-Christian influences, your whole premise is flawed: why, one could just as easily claim that Judaism itself sowed the seeds for contemporary Islamic bigotry.

I am totally unconvinced, not the least because of the literature in which I have been immersed these past years dealing specifically with Islamic textual criticism; I’ve yet to see any works of note in this discipline key to understanding Islam’s dogma by these fellows. Perhaps you yourself have surveyed the thousands of texts in Arabic, the vast majority unavailable in translation, and determined the extent and origins of Islamic Jew-hatred? Surely you’ve built up a credible body of pre-Young Turk Christian anti-Semitic texts with which to compare them?

No offense is intended here to you or any of the authors you cite. Indeed, I really ought to have read the works of these chaps to get a feel for where you’re coming from. My reaction is partly because of the frothing anti-Christian tropes on display here from people who would identify with Jewish ethnicity but consider themselves agnostic or atheist.

To highlight just how far back contemporary Islamic invective against other religions and Jews in particular stretches outside of the canonical texts, consider the anti-Shi’a polemic surounding Abdullah bin Saba’ in:

Ibn Hazm’s ‘Al-Fisal fi’l-Milal w’an-Nihal’
http://www.almeshkat.net/books/archive/books/mell-nehal.zip

Yitzhak Nakash’s ‘Reaching for Power: The Shi’a in the Modern Arab World’
http://scholar.google.com.eg/scholar?hl=en&q=author:%22Nakash%22+intitle:%22Reaching+for+Power:+The+Shi+%E2%80%98a+in+the+Modern+Arab+World%22+&um=1&ie=UTF-8&oi=scholarr

Yusuf,

For me, this quote taken with those scholars, the scrappy research and anti-Christian polemic motif of this piece (no doubt it was childishly chosen for such a purpose…ho ho ho), sums up the dangerously amateur proposition of the author.

I can assure you that I did not write this piece as a piece of anti-Christian rhetoric.

I know, I know. I just wrote that in the heat of the moment. Consider having a flick through (via Google Scholar) the Yitzhak Nakash text and search for Abdullah bin Saba’, an almost certainly fictional crypto-Jewish character – there’s no more proof that he existed than Muhammad, who is often associated with Shi’a genesis.

Another area of enquiry could be the ongoing work into establishing the nature of the Jewish and Christian influences on Muhammad: was a toxic mixture of Nestorian Christology and apocryphal Jewish mysticism responsible for the often violently anti-Semitic motifs in which much of the Qur’an is couched…did purported early Madinan converts to Islam hailing from the Jewish tribes and consequently referred to collectively by Allah as the Hypocrites, have a significant impact on Muhammad’s mistrust and eventual hatred of the Jews…

Ivan,

“When did Mo the bandit destroy the Banu Quarish ? 1500 years later. enough time for moral standards to have improved.”

Possibly. But when you consider Europe even after the Reformation, Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution still managed to fight two World Wars and embark on the largest genocide of all time, and I dont even have time to Wiki went happen in the Soveity Union, it would take more tham time for moral standards to have improved.

“Muslim anti-semitism is a drop in the ocean compared to the rampant Jewish Islamophobia we see in our mainstream media”

Because, like, nothing sympathetic about Muslims or Islam is ever written or said in our media, whereas the media of the Islamic world is full of books, articles and programs sympathetic with Jews or Israel.

Indeed, the West is full of millions Muslims, more than Jews, in fact. The Islamic world is almost entirely empty of Jews.

In my recent article in Midstream magazine, of which long excerpts appear at the link below, I go into these issues.

http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2008/10/forgotten-oppression-of-jews-under.html

Prof. Moshe Sharon [born in Iraq, by the way] writes that the Muslims/Arab-Muslims felt special hatred for the Jews because of the conflict between Muhammad and the Jews of Medina as related in the Hadith, among other reasons. Sharon cites the medieval Baghdadi author al-Jahiz to support this opinion. So I would have to reject Bernard Lewis’ view, with all due respect to him, and say that there is indeed a theological aspect to Muslim/Arab Judeophobia that goes beyond the mere hatred of dhimmis. Further, numerous witnesses testify that Jews were at the bottom of the barrel in Arab-Muslim society generally, particularly in the Levant, in Syria, Israel, Egypt. On the other hand, Lewis is probably right that the Ottoman Empire may have favored Jews over Christians at certain times and places.

Carlo Panella too supplies information showing that Islamic Judeophobia did have more in common with Christian Judeophobia than either Bernard Lewish or Daniel Pipes acknowledge, with all due respect to them. In his Il “Complotto Ebraico”: L’antisemitismo islamico da Maometto a Bin Laden [Torino 2005], Panella shows three early manifestations of the Jewish Conspiracy notion in Islam:
1) When the Qur’an and Hadith describe alleged Jewish plotting in Medina against Muhammad; 2) a perhaps imaginary Jewish plotter who allegedly did much to bring about the schism with the Shi`at `Ali [the Shi`ah]; a poster above mentions this supposed plotter; 3) the Shi`ite version which claims a Jewish plot to split the Shi`a into Seveners and Twelvers.

So the paranoia based on Jewish Conspiracy notions goes back to the origins of Islam. Panella’s argument supports that of Moshe Sharon regarding the early and theological nature of Islamic Judeophobia.