The failure of a Jewish program of public satire in the squares of Medina

Jewish tradition has placed great emphasis and pride in the Jewish people collectively taking on the "yoke of the kingdom of heaven" and the "yoke of the commandments," meaning that the Jew submits entirely and without question to the will of God as expressed through divine law. Such is the rabbinic understanding of the phrase spoken by the Israelites when receiving God's commandments at Mr. Sinai: na'aseh venishma' in Exodus 24: 7, or shama'nu v' 'asinu in Deuteronomy 5:24, both of which mean "We hear and obey."(1) Islam too expresses tremendous pride in its demand for total submission to God's will. This, in fact, is the very meaning of the word, islam - "submission" to the will of God.(2)

Judaism and Islam share many traits in their respective religious civilizations, from structures of religious organization to theological and philosophical trends, ritual activities, legal categories of thought, and even language of religious discourse. Yet in the ambivalent historical relations between Judaism and Islam, each considers the other to have deviated from God's true will. The tension between these two great religious systems and their respective adherents begins as early as the period of initial contact between Muslims and Jews during the lifetime of Muhammad, and the only contemporary source of this contact, the Qur'an, purportedly records some of the argument between them."

Among its criticism of Jews, the Qur'an repeatedly notes that they claim piety to divine decree while not really submitting to God's will.(4) The Jews' lack of fidelity to God is expressed in such extremity that they are accused of distorting their own scriptural revelations. In a classic example of this, Qur'an 4:46 accuses the Jews of orally manipulating the words of the Torah from the original "we hear and obey," to the corrupt "we hear and disobey." This is only one of many verses which condemn the Jews for such distortions.(5) The general accusation of scriptural twisting is perhaps comprehensible when one takes into consideration the many similarities and differences between the Bible and the Qur'an. If the two revelations are so similar and derive from the same Creator, how may the differences otherwise be explained in a way that would protect the integrity of the newer revelation? These accusations are only a small part of a large body of evidence indicating that after Muhammad and his community moved from Mecca to the densely Jewishly populated Medina in 622 C.E., the Muslim prophet and the Medinan Jews were engaged in intense competition for religious authority.(6)

But why would the Qur'an accuse the Jews specifically of distorting their Scripture to read, "we hear and disobey"? Such an accusation would appear to have derived from an attempt to discredit the religious integrity of the Jews. But why with such an odd statement? Such a condemnation would appear patently ludicrous, for if Jews were accused of such an act they could easily turn to the text of the Torah for proof. Before Muhammad's arrival in Medina and the subsequent conflict between them, the Medinan Jews are portrayed even in the Islamic sources as highly respected by their pagan Arab neighbors for practicing their religion faithfully and piously.(7)

Nevertheless the verse, Qur'an 4:46a, claims that "There are some Jews who change the words from their places by saying: 'we hear and disobey.'"(8) This qur'anic verse accuses the Jews specifically of distorting the written text of Torah through oral recitation (yaquluna). It implies oral discourse, either through liturgical recitation, teaching, or intercommunal discussion. The qur'anic context suggests polemic argument and religious competition between Jews and Muslims. Some light might be shed on the problem raised by the accusation of Qur'an 4:46 by examining the discourse of public conflict and competition between Jews and Muslims during the lifetime of Muhammad.

The first ongoing contact between Jews and Muslims occurred in the period immediately following the Hijra of Muhammad and his Meccan followers to the largely Jewish town of Medina in 622.(9) That period ended with the banishment or destruction of the large Jewish clans of the town, culminating in the massacre of the men of the Banu Qurayza in about 637.(10) The relations between Muhammad and the Jews at this time have been examined and re-examined by Western scholars for the past century, and in response to these studies they have been critically evaluated also by Muslim scholars.(11) The Western analyses tend to condemn Muhammad's harsh treatment of the Jewish inhabitants of Medina while the Muslim analyses tend to condemn the Jews' harsh treatment of Muhammad and nascent Islam. The present study does not attempt to condemn or confirm the views of either side, but rather seeks to understand one aspect of the mechanism of rivalry and contention between them: the use of public satire among the Jews as recorded in the Qur'an.

It has been generally accepted among scholars of Islam that at least during the early Medinan period, if not also somewhat before, Muhammad considered his prophethood and mission to lie within the broad context of Judaism and Jewish history.(12) The Islam that was preached during this period therefore exhibited a number of striking parallels and similarities with Judaism, some of which include the early direction of prayer (qibla) toward Jerusalem; the term for and system of prayers (salat as opposed to du'a);(13) the institution of the Friday service (jum'a); fasting on the tenth day of the (seventh?) month ('ashura)(14) and at least customarily by Muhammad and a few followers, also on Mondays and Thursdays; the requirement of zakat, the prayer for rain (alistisqa), etc.(15) Despite such "Judaizing" practices as these, the Jews, with only few exceptions, rejected Muhammad's claims to prophethood and refused to follow his teachings.(16)