Spoerl / The Levantine Review Volume 2 Number 1 (Spring 2013)
reference to these Jewish rabbis and the hypocrites of Aus and Khazraj…” (p. 247). God’s message in Sura 2 includes the following admonitions aimed at the Jews:
- “…do not conceal the knowledge which you have about My apostle and what he has brought when you will find it with you in what you know of the books which are in your hands.” (p. 250)
- “…you contradict what you know to be in My book.” (p. 250)
- “…there is a party of them who listen to the word of God then change it after they understand it, doing so knowingly.” (p. 251)
- “…a party of them changed the commandments they had been given…” (p. 251)
- “’And when there comes to them what they know they deny it. God’s curse is on the unbelievers. Wretched is that for which they sell themselves in disbelieving in what God has sent down, grudging that God should send down of his bounty upon whom He will of His servants,’ i.e. that He should have given it to one who was not of them. ‘They have incurred anger upon anger and for the unbelievers there is a shameful punishment.’ [note omitted] The double anger is His anger at what they have disregarded of the Torah which they had and His anger at their disbelieving in this prophet whom God had sent to them.” (p. 254)
- “…they know about thee [Muhammad] by the knowledge which they have and deny it.” (p. 254)[1]
An interesting aspect of Ibn Ishaq’s commentary on Sura 2 is his treatment of the famous verse 256, which says “there shall be no compulsion in religion.” According to Ibn Ishaq this verse was cited by Muhammad in a letter to the Jews of Khaybar as follows: “…Do you find in what He [God] has sent down to you that you should believe in Muhammad? If you do not find that in your scripture then there is no compulsion upon you. ‘The right path has become plainly distinguished from error’ [note omitted] so I call you to God and His prophet” (p. 256). This is the only allusion to verse 2:256 in the entire sira, and it is significant that the precept “there shall be no compulsion in religion” is only stated in a conditional form: “If you do not find in your scriptures the foretelling of Muhammad’s coming as a prophet, then there is no compulsion upon you.” However, in the very same paragraph, Muhammad asserts that the condition is not fulfilled. As we have seen, the entire sira repeatedly denies that the condition has been fulfilled, insisting that the Jews know that their scriptures foretell Muhammad’s coming and then lie about it. Indeed, Ibn Ishaq’s life of Muhammad is filled with examples of religious compulsion sanctioned by
- ↑ Koran verses that accuse Jews or “people of the book” of distorting or lying about their scriptures include the following: 2:59, 2:75, 2:79, 2:89, 2:101, 2:140, 2:146, 2:159, 2:160, 2:174, 2:211, 3:70-71, 3:78, 3:187, 5:12-15, 5:41, 6:91, 13:36. (See Appendix for text.) All of these but one (6:91) come from Medinan suras, consistent with Ibn Ishaq’s narrative, according to which Muhammad had relatively little contact with Jews in Mecca before the hijra.
