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From: gt8145a@prism.gatech.edu (FADEL,AYMAN HOSSAM)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Muslims' position on Jews
Keywords: ibn Al-jawzi's chapter on Jews
Message-ID: <1990Nov8.013442.26821@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 8 Nov 90 01:34:42 GMT
Sender: bes@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Behnam Sadeghi)
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Lines: 87
Approved: bes@tybalt.caltech.edu

[Moderator's note: replies must remain relevant to Islam. -Behnam]


salam,

A number of netters have asked about muslims/islam's position towards
Jews.  I've tried to translate relevant sections of books written
by scholars to try to give this issue some distance from the issue
of palestine.

The first translation i will post is from talbis iblis, by al-hafiz
al-imam jamal al-din Abul-faraj abd el-rahman ibn al-jawzi al-bagh-
dadi, may God have mercy on him.  he died in 597 a.h., which would
be about the thirteenth century of the common era.

Talbis Iblis (lit. "Satan's Deception") is about the various errors
groups of people have made in their beliefs.  His most bitter 
criticisms are directed towards the kharijites, the Ismailis, and
the philosophers (in among muslims.

He also talks about sun worshippers, idolators, the Zorastrians, the
hindus, Christians and others.

The following is my translation, which is poor but i hope will be
adequate. For brevity, I have removed the chains of narration.

{  }  indicates a quotation from the Quran.

Mentioning [Satan's] Deception of the Jews

Satan has deceived them in many things, of which I will only mention
a few as evidence of this.  They include their finding similarities 
between the Creator and His creation.  If this was true, then He would
be exposed to the same things [creation] is exposed to.  Abu abd allah
ibn hamid reported from one of our professors that the Jews claim
that the worshipped God is a man made of light who sits on a chair
made of light and that He has a crown of light on His head.  Also,
He has body parts like humans.  Also, the Jews maintain that Uzair
(Ezra?) is the son of God.  However, if they understood the true
nature of sonship, which goes under the category of parts [i.e. someness,
the son is part of the father], and that the Creator cannot be
divided into parts because there is nothing comparable to Him, they
would not have attributed sonship to Uzair.

Furthermore, a son has the attributes of his father, and Uzair was
in need of food and a god is that upon which things depend for
existence, not that which depends on things for its existence.

What caused them to make this error, besides their ignorance of
the true nature of things, was that they saw him return and read
the Towrah (the revelation revealed to Prophet Moses, may peace
be upon him] after he had died.  So they began to try to explain
this with their spoiled suppositions, [and this heresy was the
result.]

That they were a people at a distance from
rationality is evidenced by their seeing the result of God's
power in his splitting the sea for them and then their asking
for idols like the ones of [the people they met in Sinai].
So they said [to Moses] : {  Give us a god like they have gods  }.

So when Moses prevented them from doing this, there remained some
resentment hidden in their breasts.  Then the hidden became
apparent when they began to worship the calf.

Two things made them do this.  The first is their ignorance of
the Creator and the second is that they wanted that which comforts
the senses.  This desire of theirs is due to the predominance of
the senses over them and their distance from reason.  And if they
weren't ignorant of the Worshipped One they would not have
had the gall to say {  God is poor and we are rich  }
nor {  God's hand is in chains  } [i.e., He is unable to help
the believers at this time.]

-------------  My comments  -------

By rationality ('aql), al-jawzi is not referring to the pure
reason of the philosophers, which he rejects.  He only means
a common sense type rationality espoused by traditional
jurists.  He also accused the idol worshippers of lack of 
reason.


To be continued

If you feel this is a useless  excercise, please write me
so I don't waste more time.  Salam, ayman