Special Report - Arab Antisemitism
November 1, 2002
No. 9

Based on Koranic Verses, Interpretations, and Traditions, Muslim Clerics
State:
The Jews Are The Descendants of Apes, Pigs, And Other Animals

The following is a summary of a MEMRI study on the subject. The full report
will be available on Friday, November 1, 2002, at www.memri.org/release.

Introduction

Defining the Jews as "the descendants of apes and pigs" is widespread today
in religious, educational and public discourse in the Arab world. In his
weekly sermon (April 2002) the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyid
Al-Tantawi, the most senior authority in the Sunni Muslim world, described
the Jews as "the enemies of Allah, sons of pigs and apes."(1)

Viewing Jews as the "descendants of apes and pigs" is grounded in the most
important Islamic religious sources, both in divine revelation in the
Koran,(2) in the Hadiths (traditions about the Prophet Muhammad), and in the
most reliable compilations of traditions collected by the leading
ninth-century sages Al-Bukhari and Muslim [both mention transformation into
mice and lizards as well]. The notion of transforming Jews into animals
appears also in ancient Arabic literature.(3)

It should be noted that the religious Muslim sources also mention
transformation of Christians(4) and sinful Muslims(5) into apes and pigs.
However, in the case of Christians and Muslims the sources are not Koranic -
as in the case of Jews - but are Koranic commentary and traditions.
Furthermore, the number of references to Jews as apes and pigs in these
sources is greater.

These beliefs about the Jews were common not only during the period in which
they arose, but also in the pre-Islamic era, and clearly since then. The
belief that people could be turned into animals, statues, or stars by
supernatural intervention - primarily by divine punishment - was prevalent
in the pre-Islamic era among Arabs and other peoples.

In North Africa, under the Muslim Aghlabid dynasty (9th through 11th
centuries), Jews were forced to wear a shoulder patch with a picture of a
monkey and Christians had to wear a patch with a picture of a pig. These
images had to be affixed to the doors of their respective homes. In Spain,
during periods of friction between the various religious communities, the
Muslims called the Jews "apes" and the Christians "pigs and dogs."(6)
Furthermore, the concept of transformation of humans into animals influenced
Islamic dietary law.(7)

The Muslim Religious Commentary

The most common explanation among Koran commentators for punishing Jews by
transforming them into apes and pigs attributes the punishment to their
violation of the Sabbath. According to the Koran, the Jews in question were
inhabitants of the village of Iliya.(8) Testing their obedience to His
precepts, God made a school of fish appear on the coast on the Sabbath and
disappear at nightfall until the next Sabbath. The Jews, who were banned
from working on that day, devised ways of circumventing the divine
prohibition. According to one tradition, one Jew trapped a fish secretly on
the Sabbath, tied it with a string to a stake in the ground and threw it
back into the water. The next day he pulled it out and ate it. When he
repeated his deed his neighbors smelled the fish and followed suit. For a
long time they secretly ate fish and Allah did not hasten to punish them.
But when they began to fish and sell their catches openly at the markets,
they were punished.

Some of the Jews warned the sinners that Allah would punish them. When the
latter refused to stop, they separated themselves from the sinners with a
wall. One day, the sinners were not seen leaving their gate. When those who
observed the divine precept climbed the wall and opened the doors of the
locked houses they found that all men, women, and children had turned into
apes.(9) According to some commentators, the young people among the sinners
became apes, while the elderly became pigs.(10)

The Punishment in Practical Terms

Most of the commentators take the writings literally and maintain that the
Jews were physically changed into apes and pigs, as explicitly stated in the
Koran. Only one Koran commentator, Mujahid,(11) who is cited in other Koran
interpretations, held that the Jews were not physically transformed and that
the change was metaphoric; their hearts were changed and their souls, but
not their external appearance, came to resemble those of apes.(12)

In a recently published series of articles in the Hamas monthly Falastin
Al-Muslima, author Ibrahim Al-'Ali takes the approach of physical change
literally: "Allah did not mete out the punishment of transformation on any
nation except the Jews. The significance of it is actual change in the
appearance of the Jew and perfect transformation from human to bestial
condition... from human appearance to the form of genuine apes, pigs, mice,
and lizards..."(13)

The Connection Between the Sin and the Punishment

The 14th century Koran commentator Ibn Kathir(14) explains that every deed
has its appropriate recompense; the Jews conspired to fish on the Sabbath,
preparing hooks, nets, and poles ahead of time. Since their sins and
subterfuges were outwardly like the truth, but in essence opposed to it, so
was their reward one suited to their deeds.(15)

Jordanian researcher Dr. Sallah Al-Khaledi follows the same argument: "The
logic of this transformation is that Allah wanted them to be humans who
would live as real people and actualize their humanity in the best possible
way. But when they rebelled against Allah's laws, they rejected divine
grace, and thus relinquished their humanity and honor and turned spiritually
into animals. Then Allah [also] changed their form into apes, and turned
them into real animals, [thus] creating a correlation between the spiritual
and physical images."(16)

Did the Transformed Jews Have Offspring?

Thirteenth-century Koran commentator Al-Qurtubi explained that two
approaches developed among clerics on this matter: The first considers all
apes to be the offspring of the sons of Israel. Those of this view base
their belief on Hadiths in which the Prophet Muhammad warned against eating
particular animals, such as mice and lizards, for fear that they were
originally the sons of Israel. The second states that the apes who used to
be Jews left no offspring, and that therefore today's apes, pigs, and other
animals are the offspring of animals in existence before the divine
punishment. Early Islamic commentator Ibn Abbas maintained that anyone whose
form was changed lived for no more than three days and did not eat, drink,
or propagate.

Ibrahim Al-'Ali, writing in Falastin Al-Muslima, states that the Jews who
were turned into apes, pigs, lizards, and mice were also punished by not
being able to reproduce. However, he claims, "The extinction of the Jews
punished with transformation does not mean that their punishment had ended.
The punishment left its mark in the souls of the Jews who came after them:
their spirit, their opinions, their feelings, and their ways of thought -
which are reflected in face and external appearance - became like their
nature and like the appearance of apes and pigs, and this profoundly
affected their ways of behavior."(17)

Furthermore, according to the article, the whole theory of evolution was
devised by the Jews to erase the shame emanating from the punishment:
"...Since the Jews felt disgrace and shame because of this special
punishment, which changed them into the brothers of apes and pigs, they
attempted to dispel this accusation from themselves with the help of the
satanic thought that guided them in despising the entire human race, by
saying that [man's] origin was in animals, and that it developed over time
from ape to human form, by means of the theory... of the Jewish ape
Darwin."(18)

Conclusion

Associating Jews with apes and pigs, as well as other animals, is firmly
grounded in the most important and authoritative religious sources, namely
the Koran. The idea that God punishes sinners by transforming them into
animals can also be found in various pre-Islamic sources. The concept of
transforming the Jews into apes and pigs has spread among Muslim societies,
and contemporary writers still discuss the idea and offer explanations to
theological problems that the ancient Koranic commentators addressed.

All links referenced in this report were current at the time of its
publishing but may no longer be so.

Endnotes:
(1) www.palestine-info.info/arabic/palestoday/readers/mashhoor/22_4_02.htm
(2) Divine punishment of the Jews is mentioned in three Koran verses:
"...They are those whom Allah has cast aside and on whom His wrath has
fallen and of whom He has made some as apes and swine..." (5:60); "...You
have surely known the end of those who from amongst you who transgressed in
the matter of the Sabbath, in consequence of which We condemned them: Be ye
like apes, despised" (2:65); and "When, instead of amending, they became
more persistent in the pursuit of that which they were forbidden, We
condemned them: Be ye as apes, despised" (7:166).
(3) In his ninth-century treatise The Book of Animals, the greatest of these
authors, Al-Jahiz (d. 869) mentions that it is generally thought that the
cheetah, eel, white ant, mouse, and lizard were originally Jews. He mentions
the tradition telling how a sage saw a man eating a lizard and said to him:
"Know that you have eaten one of the sheikhs of the sons of Israel." He does
not mention why they were changed into animals, but does say that proof of
this is that "the lizard's foot resembles the human hand." See Al-Jahiz,
Omar bin Bahar, Kittab Al-Hayawan. Cairo: Mustafa Al-Bai Al-Halabi and sons
(1943), Col. I, p. 309.
(4) See commentary on Koranic verses 5:112-115, by the renowned 10th-century
commentator Al-Tabari. Al-Tabari explains that the apostles were punished by
being turned into apes and pigs, or, according to another version, pigs
only, because they did not fulfill God's demands even though He produced a
miracle for them by bringing down a table laden with food from the heavens,
as they requested.
(5) Punishment by transformation into apes and pigs on Judgment Day was for
Muslim sinners whose ideas (such as denying predestination) and deeds (such
as drinking wine, playing instruments, and singing) had a Jewish or
Christian connection. The aim of punishing these sinners with punishments
identified with Jews and Christians was to fight foreign influences that had
infiltrated Islamic society and were considered a threat to the unique
Muslim identity. See Uri Rubin, "Apes, Pigs, and the Islamic Identity,"
Israel Oriental Studies XVII (1997), pp. 93-102.
(6) F. Viré, "Kird," Encyclopedia of Islam, Second Edition.
(7) M. Cook. "Early Islamic dietary law," Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and
Islam [JSAI], 7(1986), 223-233.
(8) Apparently Eilat, on the Red Sea. Ibn Kathir (7:166) explains that Iliya
is situated on the coast between Egypt and Al-Madina. According to
Al-Damiri, Iliya is between Midian and Al-Tur. Other places identified in
the commentary with "the village on the coast" are "Median" situated between
Iliya and Al-Tur (see Al-Tabari 2:65, Ibn Kathir 2:65.
(9) Al-Tabari 2:65, Ibn Kathir 2:65.
(10) Al-Qurtubi 2:65.
(11) Mujahid bin Jaber Al-Maki (died circa 718-722).
(12) Al-Tabari, 2:65, Ibn Kathir, 2:65, Al-Qurtubi 2:65.
(13) Falastin Al-Muslima (London), September 1996, pp. 54-55.
(14) Isma'il bin Amer Ibn Kathir (died 1373).
(15) Ibn Kathir, 2:65.
(16) Falastin Al-Muslima (London), September 1996, pp. 54-55.
(17) Ibid.
(18) Falastin Al-Muslima (London), September 1996, pp. 54-55.

*********************
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent,
non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle
East. Copies of articles
and documents cited, as well as background information, are available on
request.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)
P.O. Box 27837, Washington, DC 20038-7837
Phone: (202) 955-9070
Fax: (202) 955-9077
E-Mail: memri@memri.org
www.memri.org