The ‘Calming’ Opening Salvo of Qur’anic Jew-Hatred

This past week (published 12/7/23), nonpareil Iranian academics informed us in a peer reviewed, pooled analysis of existing “data,” that Qur’an recitation, “can reduce stress levels, and bolster overall mental well-being.” The Quran’s brief introductory chapter (“sura”) of 7 very short verses, known as the “fatiha” (“opening”), was singled out for its alleged capacity to reduce stress among hospitalized patients admitted to the intensive care unit.

Less salutary effects of Qur’an recitation were not explored by these trailblazing investigators.

Although the Qur’an’s basic organizing principle across 114 chapters, is simply longer duration chapters to shorter duration chapters, absent any chronological, orienting narrative, the terse fatiha, chapter 1, is a glaring exception to this order. Moreover, pious Muslims repeat the fatiha a total of 17-times daily during their requisite 5 prayers sessions.

Muslims are directed on their appropriate, righteous path, i.e., Islam, by “merciful Allah”, as set forth in the fatiha’s initial 6 verses (1:1,2,3,4,5,6), but they are cautioned, sternly, at concluding verse 7:

The path of those upon whom You have bestowed favor [Islam], not of those who have evoked [Your] anger or of those who are astray’,

Islam’s prophet Muhammad, in a canonical tradition (or “hadith”), clarified plainly, for Muslims, it is the Jews who evoked Allah’s anger, and the Christians who went astray. This clarifying interpretation is reinforced with rare exceptions by over thirteen centuries of authoritative classical and modern Qur’anic commentaries which have glossed verse 1:7.

Professor Andrew Rippin, late (d. 2016) doyen of contemporary Qur’anic studies, translated the earliest commentary on Qur’an 1:7, by Ibn Abbas (d. 687). Asserting that Islam represents “the straight path” in Qur’an 1:6–1.7, Ibn Abbas, “the father of Qur’anic exegesis (interpretation),” and ostensibly a contemporary “infant prodigy” companion of Islam’s prophet Muhammad, provides this gloss on the references to “wrath” and “astray” in Qur’an 1:7:

‘Not those against whom You have sent your wrath’: other than the religion of the Jews against whom You have been wrathful and have abandoned… ‘Nor those who are astray’: nor the religion of the Christians, who err away from Islam.’

The polymath al-Tabari (838-923), was a towering early Islamic historian, theologian and jurisconsult, who authored a monumental commentary on the Qur’an. Tabari cites traditions of Muhammad which claim the Jews engendered Allah’s anger, to establish his conclusion that Jews are referenced in both Qur’an 1:7, and Qur’an  5:60: “Whom Allah has cursed, and with whom he is angered, and made some of them apes and swine.” Repeating this reasoning to prove that the people mentioned in Qur’an 5:77 are those described as astray in Qur’an 1:7, Tabari cites traditions that identify the Christians as having gone astray.

Ma’ariful Qur’an, a definitive modern Qur’anic commentary, was written by Maulana Mufti Muhammad Shafi (1898-1976), former Grand Mufti of (pre-Partition) India, who wrote over 100 works explaining the Qur’an and Islamic law. His modern gloss is concordant with thirteen centuries of commentaries on Qur’an 1:7, highlighting the strident Antisemitic, and accompanying Christianophobic messaging of this verse, as taught to Muslims by authoritative Islamic instructors.

Those who have incurred Allah’s wrath…was the general condition of the Jews who were ready to sacrifice their religion for the sake of a petty worldly gain, and used to insult and sometimes even to kill their prophets. As for (those who go astray), has generally been the error of the Christians who exceeded the limits in their reverence for a prophet and turned him into a god.

 The Qur’an: An Encyclopedia is a modern compendium of analyses written by 43 Muslim and non-Muslim mainstream academic experts, edited by Oliver Leaman, and published by Routledge, New York, 2006. These excerpts from p. 614 serve as a “summary verdict”—consistent will all the previous evidence marshalled—on how Muslims and non-Muslims, both, are to understand the Fatiha’s last verse:

The Prophet [Muhammad] interpreted those who incurred God’s wrath as the Jews and the misguided as the Christians. The Jews, we are told killed many of their prophets  and through their character and materialistic tendencies [usurious 2:275, 4:161; greedy/hedonistic 2:96; envious 2:109; hard-hearted 2:74; liars 2:78] have contributed much to moral corruption, social upheaval and sedition in the world [Koran 5:32–33; 5:64] …[T]hey were readily misled and incurred both God’s wrath and ignominy [2:61; 2:90; 3:112]. As for the Christians…over time they succumbed to the influence of those who had already deviated from the chosen path.

Dissenting glosses on Qur’an 1:7 certainly do exist, but they remain marginal. The gloss of “modernist” Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905), is perhaps most often touted—at present—as representing this ostensibly more “ecumenical” interpretation of Qur’an 1:7. Rather ironically, Abduh’s disciple, and collaborator on the  Qur’anic commentary, Rashid Rida (d. 1935), contradicted his mentor’s gloss, in favor of the standard hateful interpretation!

Finally, irrefragable evidence of the vast majority consensus interpretation of the Fatiha’s last verse, was compiled in a 2014 monograph by Islamic Law Professor Sami al-Deeb (2017 English translation here). This analysis of 87 authoritative Sunni and Shiite Koranic commentators whose glosses on Koran 1:7 spanned the 8^th century through the early 21^st, described how 10 of the 13 Shiite commentaries, and 68 of the 74 Sunni commentaries, i.e., 78 of the 87, total, provided glosses maintaining the Jews incurred Allah’s anger, and the Christians went astray. Of the eleven most recent commentaries whose authors were alive into the 21^st century, ten reiterated this still predominant, traditional gloss on Koran 1:7.

Al Deeb’s meticulous study of glosses on Koran 1:7 across almost 13-centuries, includes this introductory video reference to a 2-year-old Muslima who had already imbibed the “Qur’anic understanding” it is the Jews who have engendered Allah’s anger. During January, 2017 al-Deeb warned: 

You have to pay attention to what is said in the mosques, and what Muslims pray every day…Imagine a person repeating in their prayers, daily, such a sentence of hate [i.e., Qur’an 1:7]. Could you imagine the consequences of this prayer on his mind, on his psychology? Can he really live in peace with his neighbor?…Every time he has to think, oh yeah, this is a Jew, then he is incurring the anger of God. Oh yeah, this is a Christian, this is a misguided person.