A Critique of Cambridge’s Woolf Institute Lecture on the Koran and Jews

In England, Cambridge’s Woolf Institute for interfaith relations, together with the Aga Khan Centre for education on Muslim Civilizations, brought together a Jew and a Muslim to lecture about what the Koran really says about Jews. The lecture, titled “What the Qur'an really says about Jews, Judaism and the Bible” by Rick Sopher and Abdulla Galadari, was also posted on JewishNews and a major Israeli news site IsraelHayom (in Hebrew).

At CSPII Monitor, we welcome any effort to foster honest and respectful interfaith dialogue. However, we also believe the public deserves accurate information — especially when it concerns a political ideology embedded in the religious framework of Islam.

Unfortunately, the lecturers:

• Claim the Koran has pretty much the same characters as the Bible.
• Claim there are “some problematic verses” but don’t discuss them. Instead, they only discuss verses that they say only appear to be problematic, but if correctly interpreted, are not at all.
• Portray the Hadith as separate from the Koran, ignoring the 89 Koran verses that command Muslims to follow Mohammed’s “perfect example”, and thus binding the Hadith, just as a contract that has references to an appendix makes the appendix inseparable from the contract.
• Compare capital punishment in the Bible to the story where Allah punished the Jews who didn’t keep the Sabbath by turning them into apes and pigs:
  • They fail to distinguish between self-criticism (moral instruction within the faith) and doctrinal attack (divine condemnation of outsiders). The Bible criticizes its own people, while the story in the Koran is a hostile indictment of another group.
  • While Judaism and Christianity long ago abandoned the literal application of these laws, Islamic law (Sharia) remains actively enforced.
  • The Koranic story of "apes and pigs" is still used today to insult, incite against, and dehumanize Jews.
  • Islamic doctrine does not allow reinterpretation that contradicts Mohammed’s example or abrogates the Koran.
  • No concept of "outdated" in Islamic doctrine. Sharia is eternal. Mohammed is the “perfect man” (Koran 33:21), and all his actions (e.g. executing critics, waging jihad) are normative.
• Make a false equivalence between the Biblical story of Joseph and the Koranic story of Yusuf. In the Koran, Yusuf is a preacher, not the founder of a nation.
• Claim the Koran doesn't contradict anything fundamental in the Torah, and that the similarities between the Torah and the Koran are greater than the differences. But in what way? The moral of the stories is mostly different, Allah is different from the Jewish / Christian god in temperament, sentiments, inclination towards violence, cruelty, and hatred. That is a fundamental difference.
• Claim that Koran 5:55 contradicts the idea that 5:51 says to not be friends with Kafirs (non-Muslims). This is incorrect. Believers are those who believe also in Mohammed, thus, not Jews. Also, Koran 3:28 says to only pretend to be friends in case the Muslim is afraid of the Kafir.
• Abdulla rhetorically asks if there are “any lawyers in the room?” and claims 9:29 does not apply to all Jews, only to those who do not believe in god, AND the last day, AND do not forbid what god and his messenger have forbidden, AND do not obey the rule of justice (Sharia…). Jews do not believe in Mohammed nor follow Sharia. Nor do Atheists, Christians, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, and others.
• Selectively bring up Sultan Mehmed III’s 1602 decree as proof for coexistence, but are mistaken as that is a pragmatic, political exception, not normative Islamic doctrine. Islamic law does not guarantee "peaceful living" as a right for so called Dhimmis (second class non-Muslim citizens living in an Islamic territory). It tolerates their existence only under humiliation and submission. Per classical jurists like al-Mawardi, Dhimmis are humiliated so as to be reminded of their inferior status. Koran 9:29 explicitly requires they be “subdued” (saghirun). Examples from authoritative Islamic jurisprudence include: Ban on public religious displays, Prohibition on new churches or synagogues and Dhimmi testimony which is inadmissible against Muslims.
• Present Koran 3:64 as proof of Islamic call for co-existence with Jews and Christians. Yet, this verse is often used to attack the central tenets of Christianity. Chronologically, it is from the early Medina time, and was abrogated by later verses calling to fight Kafirs until they submit to Islam.
• Present Koran 49:13 as proof of Islamic call for co-existence between races and tribes, but this is dated to after the conquest of Mecca, during a period when many tribes were entering Islam. Despite this mass conversion, pre-Islamic tribal hierarchies and ethnic arrogance persisted. So, this related to co-existence between different Muslims, not faiths.
• Mention the misnomer "Islamophobia", and suggest another misnomer: "Koranophobia"
• Claim "Koran does not require perpetual enmity against Jews or Judaism" – but this is contradicted by dozens of Koran verses (e.g. Koran 7:167, 5:64, 5:51). Also, Koran obligates to follow the Hadith and there are dozens of hadiths requiring enmity against Jews (e.g. Hadith Bukhari 2926) in addition to the Koranic verses.
• Claim that the Koran does not allege that Jews have corrupted the Torah. But this is not so, as Koran 2:79 says otherwise. This is also a nowadays widely held belief.

We urge media outlets to ensure that goodwill is matched by rigor and that public understanding of Islamic doctrine is not compromised for the sake of idealistic narratives.

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