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From: zvs@bby.oz.au (Zev Sero)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: Muslims' position on Jews
Message-ID: <1990Nov13.151202.16706@wpi.WPI.EDU>
Date: 13 Nov 90 15:12:02 GMT
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Ayman  = gt8145a@prism.gatech.edu (FADEL,AYMAN>>>>> HOSSAM)
Talbis = Talbis Iblis, by al-hafiz al-imam jamal al-din Abul-faraj
	 abd el-rahman ibn al-jawzi al-baghdadi (13th cent.) 

Talbis> a few as evidence of this.  They include their finding similarities 
Talbis> between the Creator and His creation.  If this was true, then He would
Talbis> be exposed to the same things [creation] is exposed to.

Moshe ben Maimun, in Hilchot Yesodei Hatorah, chapter 1, makes exactly
the same point.  This is why Jews do not, in fact, make this claim.

Talbis> Abu abd allah
Talbis> ibn hamid reported from one of our professors that the Jews claim
Talbis> that the worshipped God is a man made of light who sits on a chair
Talbis> made of light and that He has a crown of light on His head.  Also,
Talbis> He has body parts like humans.

Again, the professor was wrong.  Jews explicitly deny such a belief.

Talbis>  Also, the Jews maintain that Uzair
Talbis> (Ezra?) is the son of God.  However, if they understood the true
Talbis> nature of sonship, which goes under the category of parts [i.e. someness,
Talbis> the son is part of the father], and that the Creator cannot be
Talbis> divided into parts because there is nothing comparable to Him, they
Talbis> would not have attributed sonship to Uzair.
Talbis> Furthermore, a son has the attributes of his father, and Uzair was
Talbis> in need of food and a god is that upon which things depend for
Talbis> existence, not that which depends on things for its existence.

Once again, a valid point which becomes irrelevant once one realises
that it is based on a false premise.  I have never heard of anyone
considering Ezra to be the son of God.  Ezra was not even a prophet.
He was merely an extremely righteous and learned man, who was one of
the greatest figures in Jewish history.  His importance in Jewish
history is on a level with that of Moses, Rabbi Akiva, Rambam, and a
very few others, but he was no more than a man.