Jewish views on Muhammad

Judaism has no special or particular view of Muhammad, and very few texts in Judaism directly refer to or take note of Muhammad. Contrary to numerous arguments proposed by Muslim scholars about prophecies referring to the advent of Muhammad in Jewish scriptures, Judaism takes a strong stand against his self proclamation of receiving divine revelations from God and labels him instead as a False prophet. One of the most important Jewish principles of faith is the belief that Moses was superior to all preceding and succeeding prophets, and that the Torah transmitted to Moses at Sinai remains uncorrupted due to Judaism's strict scribal laws.

Background

In the Tanakh, a prophet was seen as a person who was selected by, and spoke as a formal representative of God; the intention of the message being for the purpose of effecting a social change as conforming to God's desired standards initially specified in the Torah as dictated to Moses who is held to be the greatest prophet of all until the Messiah.

A prophet with a message had to confirm his status as a prophet by giving signs in the form of predictions of near events, which upon their occurrence would verify his status as a prophet, and without their occurrence would mandate his execution as a false prophet.

Thus, the belief in Muhammad as a prophet was contested to be incompatible with Judaism according to the Jews of his time and today.

Judaism's worldview and Muhammad

Judaism's view of Prophets and Prophecy

Prophets were seen as having attained the highest degree of holiness, scholarship and closeness to God and set the standards as the epitome of human perfection. The Talmud reports that there were more than a million prophets: twice as many as the number of people who left Egypt, which was 600,000. But most of the prophets conveyed messages that were intended solely for their own generation and were not reported in scripture. The scripture also states that in the Messianic age, all Jews will attain a level of prophecy.

A prophet is not necessarily a man, the scripture records the stories of seven female prophets, and the Talmud claims that Sarah's prophetic ability was superior to Abraham's; nor is a prophet necessarily a Jew with a prophetic message for Jews, the Talmud reports that there were prophets among the gentiles (most notably Balaam, whose story is told in Numbers 22, although they were not as elevated as the prophets of Israel, as the story of Balaam demonstrates). The prophet Jonah, was sent on missions to speak to the gentiles.

Contradictions between the Torah and the Qur'an

Muhammad's relativity to judaism

it is known that especially before the hijra muhammad had some good relationships with the jews of the area.

in several occasions muhammad preached for muslims that if they have a questions about god's word, they shall go and ask the jews for they got the book before them. muhammad also declared several times that he accept the torah as the first revelation from god. it is narrated that muhammed visited madrases a number of times, though it is known that in some time it wasn't for torah study.

the hadith tells that muuhammad had eight wives that two of them where jewish, Safiyya bint Huyayy and (though disputed) Rayhana bint Amr ibn Khunafa.

Muhammad and the Jews

References