Jews and the instillation of
misleading thoughts between the Muslims

‘The illegal deeds of Jews came with heavy repercussions and effects. One of the most significant effects was the distortion of culture and faith due to the infusion of doubts and several misleading and baseless thoughts amongst the Muslims. When they laid the foundation of their opposition against Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.), they began to instil doubts and create an atmosphere of scepticism and suspicion by the distortion of Torah and by quoting a number of concocted narrations. Thereafter, they preached them between the Jews and Muslims and this undesirable act resulted in the misguidance of the Jewish people and a group of Muslims, which brought them on the verge of two distinct paths. Therefore, the instillation of doubts and misleading thoughts by the Jewish heads created a destructive ideology in people’s minds and the eradication of these doubts was not a simple task.

          One of the steps taken by the Jews towards this path was the infusion of ‘Israelite stories’ between the narrations, in such a manner that most of them were superficial and false, and it was apparently a cultural and religious lobby against Islam in order to undermine its greatness and to portray it in an unintellectual form before the human society, and to put an end to its ongoing progress. Unfortunately, they commenced this strategy with a deceptive and misleading mannerism and gained success to a certain extent by injecting these deceiving thoughts by the hands of a specific group of Jews and Muslims, and drowned the people in a vast ocean of skepticism.

          Therefore, it was a wise move by Prophet (p.b.u.h.) to have restricted the Muslims from inquiring the non-believers and from relying on the authenticity of their books[1]; and considering the infusions that were made by the Jews, their motive could become more logical. Specifically, the reaction of Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) against Umar bin Khattab, for studying the Jewish books, can be mentioned as an evidence.

          Unfortunately, his connection with the Jews left its impact and at the last stage of the life of Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.), along with the expansion of Islam and the Islamic borders, baseless beliefs and Jewish falsifications became widespread between the Muslims, and people like Ka’ab ul Ahbar, Abdullah bin Amr bin Aas and Abu Hurayrah had a major role to play. Just as Umar bin Khattab permitted ‘Tamim Bin Aws’ to narrate his stories and anecdotes openly inside the Prophet’s Mosque before the people and heard the fictional stories of Ka’ab ul Ahbar, himself.[2]

                In this manner, the trend of stories and story-telling became common within the mosques with Umar’s agreement, and along with these tales and stories, the superstitions and falsifications spread between the people. As the common people have a tendency to incline towards astonishing and shocking things, they gathered around the story tellers and lend ears to their lies, which resulted in the spreading of ‘Israelite stories’ between the people.

          Dr. Abu Shub’ha says: ‘The new trend of story-telling began towards the end of Umar bin Khattab’s reign. Thereafter, it was introduced as a specialized art and presented with those stories that were not intellectually and ethically appropriate.[3]

          Due to the Jewish strategies made for the purpose of spreading Israelite stories and misguiding thoughts between the people, and the support extended by Umar bin Khattab towards the preachers and story-tellers whose stories were full of superstitions and Israelite stories, the result was nothing but the dispersion of misguiding thoughts and instillation of misleading doubts between the Muslims which left an undesirable but deep impact; and due to these very actions, a large number of non-believers remained in the state of ignorance and misguidance, and a group of Muslims, who were of weak faiths, got pulled towards a devious path.

          Therefore, the propagation of misguiding and indecent thoughts had a harmful effect in every era. In that period of time, the Jews realized this fact and began to spread these doubts between the people and these offensive acts came along with great effects and impacts, one of which was that the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) had to spare a lot of time in the eradication of these doubts.[4]

          A significant point towards which the Sunnis should pay attention – just like their famous clergymen have written in their books – is that: Umar used to restrict people from writing and narrating the narrations of Prophet (p.b.u.h.) and used to say, “Narrating the word of Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) can result in people’s ignorance and lack of attention towards the Book of Allah!” If Umar’s actual intention behind restricting people from quoting the narrations was to direct their attention towards Quran, then why did he not prevent them from story-telling and narrating Israelite stories. Instead, he gave permission to men like Tamim bin Aws to narrate their stories inside the Prophet’s Mosque! This incident continued in such a way that according to Dr. Abu Shub’ha, story-telling became a trend by the end of Umar’s reign and emerged as a regular profession and specialization for a few men.  

           Was it such that collecting Jewish beliefs and gathering their thoughts by Umar, did not result in the diversion or lack of people’s attention from Quran, but narrating the word of Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) could result in the aloofness of people from Quran?!!

          Indeed, the true path has always been bright and evident. It is necessary for the Sunnis to be cautious of the path they have chosen; specially, the young generation, which possesses bright and broad intellectual reasoning, should think deeper in order to have an absolutely intellectual access of such beliefs that can provide them conviction.