dialogues with the Jews

 

Jews' questions to the Messenger, may

God bless him and grant him peace / Muhammad Bayoumi In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful:

The Jews used to read the description of the Prophet:salla-s: in the Torah, and they were certain that he was a prophet. They even used to wait for his coming and his mission so that they would believe in him and fight their enemies with him. They used to seek his support:salla-s: before his mission against the polytheists of the Arabs, and they used to say to them that a prophet will be sent at the end of time, and we will kill you with him as we killed Aad and Iram. The Jews used to wish that the Messenger would be from the descendants of Jacob. But when God sent His Prophet and the Jews knew that he was from the descendants of Ishmael, they disbelieved in him and said, "We do not know him!" God

Almighty said:
(And when there came to them the Book from God, confirming what was with them - and before that they used to pray for victory against those who disbelieved - but when there came to them that which they recognized, they disbelieved in it. So the curse of God is upon the disbelievers.) [Al-Baqarah: 89].
Ibn Kathir - may God have mercy on him - said: God Almighty says (And when there came to them) meaning the Jews (a Book from God) which is the Qur’an that was revealed to Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace (confirming what is with them) meaning the Torah. And His statement (And before that they used to pray for victory against those who disbelieved) meaning that before the coming of this Messenger with this Book they used to pray for victory through his coming against their enemies from the polytheists when they fought them saying: Indeed, a Prophet will be sent at the end of the world, and we will kill you with him as ‘Aad and Iram were killed... On the authority of Ibn Abbas that the Jews used to pray for victory against the Aws and Khazraj through the Messenger of God :salla-s: before his mission, but when he was sent from the Arabs, they disbelieved in him and denied what they used to say about him, so Muadh bin Jabal, Bishr bin Al-Bara’ bin Ma’rur, and Dawud bin Salamah said to them: “O group of Jews, fear God and submit, for you used to pray for victory against us through Muhammad :salla-s: while we were polytheists, and you told us that he was sent and described him by his description.” So Salam bin Mushrik, the brothers of the Banu Al-Nadir did not bring us anything that we know of, nor is it what we used to mention to you.”

The Jews were determined to fight the Prophet :salla-s: and extinguish his call, and they used many means in their war against them. One of the means the Jews used in their war against Islam was to direct questions to the Prophet :salla-s: and to debate with him with the intention of embarrassing him :salla-s: and they began to incite the Quraysh against the Prophet :salla-s: by directing questions. On the authority of Ibn Abbas, may God be pleased with them both, he said: The Quraysh said to the Jews: Give us something to ask this man. They said: Ask him about the soul. He said: So they asked him about the soul, and God revealed (And they ask you about the soul. Say: The soul is from the command of my Lord. And you have not been given of knowledge except a little.) They said: We have been given abundant knowledge, the Torah, and whoever has been given the Torah has been given much good. So the following was revealed: (Say: If the sea were ink for the Words of my Lord, the sea would be exhausted before the Words of my Lord were exhausted, even if We brought the like of it as a supplement.) (Al-Kahf: 109) [Narrated by Al-Tirmidhi with a sound chain of transmission].

When the Prophet (peace be upon him) migrated from Mecca to Medina, the Jews greeted him with questions to embarrass him, but there were a few of them whom Allah opened their hearts to Islam after listening to the Prophet's (peace be upon him) answer. Among them was Abdullah bin Salam (may Allah be pleased with him). Al-Bukhari narrated in his Sahih on the authority of Anas (may Allah be pleased with him) that Abdullah bin Salam heard of the Prophet's (peace be upon him) arrival in Medina, so he came to him and asked him about things. He said, "I will ask you about three things that only a prophet knows: What is the first sign of the Hour? What is the first food that the people of Paradise will eat? And why does a child tend to follow his father or mother?" He said, "Gabriel told me about it just now." Ibn Salam said, "That is the enemy of the Jews from the angels." He said, "As for the first sign of the Hour, it is a fire that will gather them from the east to the west. As for the first food that the people of Paradise will eat, it is the extra liver of a fish. As for a child, if the man's semen precedes the woman's semen, the child will be born, and if the woman's semen precedes the man's semen, the child will be born." He said: I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and that you are the Messenger of Allah. He said: O Messenger of Allah, the Jews are a people of slander, so ask them about me before they know that I have become Muslim. So the Jews came and the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “Which kind of man is Abdullah bin Salam among you?” They said: “The best of us and the son of the best of us and the most excellent of us and the son of the most excellent of us.” The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “What do you think if Abdullah bin Salam becomes Muslim?” May Allah protect him from that. He repeated it to them and they said the same thing. Then Abdullah came out to them and said: I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. They said: “He is our enemy and the son of the worst of us,” and they disparaged him. He said: This is what I was afraid of, O Messenger of Allah. [Narrated by Al-Bukhari].

When Abdullah bin Salam embraced Islam, his Islam was good, so much so that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) gave him the good news of Paradise. Sa`d bin Abi Waqqas (may Allah be pleased with him) said: I did not hear the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) say: “Anyone who walks will be in Paradise except Abdullah bin Salam.” [Agreed upon].
Ibn Salam supported the call of the Prophet with the knowledge of the Torah that he had been given. Abdullah bin Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both) said: The Jews came to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and mentioned to him that a man and a woman among them had committed adultery. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said to them: “What do you find in the Torah regarding stoning?” "They said: We will disgrace them and flog them. Abdullah bin Salam said: You have lied, but it contains stoning. So they brought the Torah and spread it out. One of them put his hand on the verse of stoning and read what came before it and what came after it. Abdullah bin Salam said to him: Raise your hand. So he raised his hand, and there was in it the verse of stoning. So the Messenger of Allah (salla-s): ordered them to be stoned. I saw the man bending over the woman to protect her from the stones." [Narrated by Al-Bukhari]. The rest of the Jews did not submit to the truth as Abdullah bin Salam did, but rather they persisted in their error and continued to ask the Messenger (salla-s): and debate with him, and the Messenger (salla-s): answered them to what they asked.

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Questions of the Jews to the Messenger (salla-s):

in Al-Mina Al-Munawwarah

I mentioned previously that the Jews said to the Quraysh: Ask Muhammad about the soul, so the words of God Almighty were revealed: (And they ask you about the soul. Say: The soul is of the command of my Lord, and you have been given of knowledge only a little.) [Al-Isra: 85]. But the Jews were not satisfied with this divine answer because they wanted, through what they were asking, to stir up controversy and doubt in the Islamic community. So here they are again directing this same question to the Messenger of God: salla-s:. On the authority of Abdullah bin Masoud, may God be pleased with him, who said: While I was walking with the Prophet: salla-s: in the ruins of Medina - and he was leaning on a stick with him - he passed by a group of Jews. Some of them said to each other: Ask him about the soul. Do not ask him, lest he come up with something you dislike. Some of them said: Let us ask him. A man of them stood up and said: O Abu Al-Qasim, what is the soul? He remained silent, so I said that revelation is being sent to him, so I stood up. When it was revealed to him, he said: “And they ask you about the soul. Say: ‘The soul is of the command of my Lord. And you have been given of knowledge only a little.’” [Agreed upon].

Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar (may Allah have mercy on him) said:
“It occurred in some of the commentaries that the wisdom in asking the Jews about the soul is that they have in the Torah that only Allah knows the soul of the sons of Adam, so they said: ‘We will ask Him, and if he interprets it (i.e. as the Torah says it), then he is a prophet, and this is the meaning of their saying: He will not come with something that you dislike.’ Al-Tabari narrated on the authority of Mughirah on the authority of Ibrahim in this story: ‘Then the verse was revealed and they said: ‘This is how we find it with us.’ And its men are trustworthy.” Fath Al-Bari (8/256).
Al-Nawawi - may God have mercy on him - said: “There is no evidence in the verse that she did not know, nor that the Prophet (peace be upon him) did not know her, but he answered with what is in the noble verse because they believed that if he interpreted the spirit, then he is not a prophet” (Al-Nawawi’s explanation of Muslim 8/190).
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The Jews test the prophethood of the Prophet :salla-s: A second time

On the authority of Ibn Abbas, may God be pleased with them both, he said: The Jews came to the Messenger of God :salla-s: and said: O Abu Al-Qasim, we ask you about five things. If you inform us of them, we will know that you are a prophet and we will follow you. So he took from them what Israel took from his sons when they said: God is the witness over what we say. He said: Bring them. They said: Tell us about the sign of a prophet. He said: His eyes sleep but his heart does not sleep. They said: Tell us how a woman is made feminine and how she is made masculine. He said: The two fluids meet, so if the man’s fluid overtakes the woman’s fluid, she becomes masculine, and if the woman’s fluid overtakes the man’s fluid, she becomes feminine. They said: Tell us what Israel forbade himself. He said: It was He complained of sciatica and found nothing suitable for him except the milk of so-and-so. My father said: Some of them meant camels, so he forbade their meat. They said: You have spoken the truth. They said: Tell us what this thunder is. He said: An angel of the angels of God Almighty is in charge of the clouds. In his hand or in his hand is a whip of fire with which he drives the clouds where God commands. They said: What is this sound that is heard? He said: His voice. They said: He has spoken the truth. There remains only one thing, and it is the one that we will pledge allegiance to you if you tell us about it, for there is no prophet except that he has an angel who brings him good. So tell us who is your companion? He said: Gabriel, peace be upon him. They said: Gabriel, that is the one who descends with war, fighting and punishment, our enemy. If you had said Michael, who descends with mercy, plants and rain, it would have been so. Then God Almighty revealed: (Whoever is an enemy to Gabriel) to the end of the verse [Narrated by Ahmad and al-Nasa’i with a sound chain of transmission].

We notice in the dialogue that the Jews had based their faith in the Prophet :salla-s: on his answers to what they asked, saying, "If you inform us of them, we will know that you are a prophet and we will follow you." But did the Jews do what they promised and pledged to themselves? The answer is that they did not do so even after the Prophet answered them. Rather, they went and created enmity with the noble and trustworthy Messenger Gabriel, peace be upon him, and made this enmity an obstacle to their faith in the Prophet :salla-s: .

The strange thing is that the Jews justified their enmity towards Gabriel by saying, "He is the one who brings down war, fighting, and torment, as if the Jews were people of peace and mercy!"

Isn't this one of the most amazing things that the Jews would say this, while they are the ones who incite wars and seditions everywhere and at all times? How impudent and lying are these people.
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The Jews ask the Messenger :salla-s: and believe his words and bear witness to his prophethood

On the authority of Abu Asmaa Al-Rahabi that Thawban, the freed slave of the Messenger of God, told him: I was standing with the Messenger of God :salla-s: when a rabbi from the rabbis of the Jews came and said: Peace be upon you, O Muhammad! I pushed him so hard that he almost fell down. He said: Why did you push me? I said: Why don’t you say it, O Messenger of God? The Jew said: We only call him by the name that his family gave him. The Messenger of Allah (salla-u-sallam) said: “My name is Muhammad, which my family named me with.” The Jew said: “I have come to ask you.” The Messenger of Allah (salla-u-sallam) said to him: “Will it benefit you if I tell you anything?” He said: “Listen with my ears.” The Messenger of Allah (salla-u-sallam) struck him with a stick he had with him and said: “Ask.” The Jew said: “Where will the people be on the Day when the earth is replaced by another earth and the heavens as well?” The Messenger of Allah (salla-u-sallam) said: “They will be in darkness without a bridge.” He said: “Who will be the first people to cross?” He said: “The poor immigrants.” The Jew said: “What will be their gift when they enter Paradise?” He said: “The extra liver of the Noon tree.” He said: “What will be their food after that?” He said: “The bull of Paradise that used to eat from its edges will be slaughtered for them.” He said: “What will be their drink after that?” Say: “From a spring in it called Salsabil.” He said: “You have spoken the truth.” He said: “And I have come to ask you about something that no one on earth knows except a prophet or one or two men.” He said: “Will it benefit you if I tell you?” He said: “Listen with my ears.” He said: “I have come to ask you about a child.” He said: “The man’s semen is white.” The woman's water is yellow. If they come together and the man's semen overpowers the woman's semen, they will produce a male child, Allah willing. If the woman's semen overpowers the man's semen, they will produce a female child, Allah willing. The Jew said, "You have spoken the truth. You are indeed a prophet." Then he turned and left. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of

Allah be upon him) said, "This man asked me about what he asked me about, and I had no knowledge of any of it until Allah brought it to me." [Narrated by Muslim] An-Nawawi (may Allah have mercy on him) said
, "His statement, 'They are in the darkness short of the bridge,' is with the opening of the jim or the kasra, two well-known languages, and what is meant here is the path."

His statement, 'Who are the first people to cross,' is with the breaking of the hamza and the zay, and its meaning is crossing and passing.
His statement, 'So what you have gifted them with' is with the opening of the ha', two languages, and it is what is given to the man, is reserved for him, and is kind to him."
His saying: salla-s: : The extra part of the liver of the whale, .. it is the whale and the extra part is one thing and it is the tip of the liver and it is the best of them ... and its meaning is what is their food at that time and it does not mean asking about their food always and God knows best.
His saying: salla-s: : From a spring in it called Salsabil, a group of linguists and commentators said Salsabil is the name of the spring and Mujahid and others said it is a strong flow and it was said it is a soft chain.

His saying: salla-s: : Male by God’s permission and female by God’s permission.
The meaning of the first is that the child was male, and the meaning of the second is that the child was female. His saying “female” is with a long vowel at the beginning and a light “nun.” It has been narrated with a short vowel, with a heavy “nun,” and God knows best.
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The conversations of the Messenger (PBUH) with the Jews regarding adulterers

On the authority of Abdullah bin Omar, may God be pleased with them both, he said: The Jews came to the Messenger of God (PBUH) and mentioned to him that a man and a woman among them had committed adultery. The Messenger of God (PBUH) said to them: What do you find in the Torah regarding stoning? They said: We will disgrace them and flog them. Abdullah bin Salam said: You have lied, it contains stoning. So they brought the Torah and spread it out. One of them put his hand on the verse of stoning and read what came before it and what came after it. Abdullah bin Salam said to him: Raise your hand. So he raised his hand and there was in it the verse of stoning. They said: You have spoken the truth, O Muhammad, it contains the verse of stoning. So the Messenger of God ordered them to be stoned. I saw the man bending over the woman to protect her from the stones. [Narrated by Al-Bukhari]

Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar - may God have mercy on him - said: And his saying (The Jews came to the Messenger of God - may God bless him and grant him peace - and mentioned to him that a man and a woman from them had committed adultery) Al-Suhayli mentioned from Ibn Al-Arabi that the woman’s name was Basra with a damma on the unified letter and a sukoon on the neglected letter, and he did not name the man. Abu Dawud mentioned the reason for that through a chain of transmission from Al-Zuhri: “I heard a man from Muzaynah who followed knowledge and was with Saeed bin Al-Musayyab narrating from Abu Hurayrah who said: A man from the Jews committed adultery with a woman, so some of them said to each other: Go with us to this Prophet, for he was sent to ease the situation. If he issues a fatwa for us, Without stoning, we accepted it and argued with it before Allah and said, “A young man from one of your prophets.” He said, “They came to the Prophet (peace be upon him) while he was sitting in the mosque with his companions and said, ‘O Abu al-Qasim, what do you think of a man and a woman who committed adultery among them?’” Ibn al-Tabari and al-Tha’labi narrated from the commentators that they said, “A group of people from Qurayza and al-Nadir, including Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf, Ka’b ibn Asad, Sa’id ibn Amr, Malik ibn al-Sayf, Kinanah ibn Abi al-Haqiq, Shas ibn Qays, and Yusuf ibn Azura, went and asked the Prophet (peace be upon him). A man and a woman from the nobles of Khaybar committed adultery and the woman’s name was Busra. Khaybar was at war with the Prophet (peace be upon him) at that time, so he said to them, ‘Ask him.’ Then Gabriel came down to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and said, ‘Set between you and them Ibn Suriya.’
” Muslim narrated from the hadith of al-Bara’ that, “A Jewish man who had been flogged and had been washed passed by the Prophet (peace be upon him). So he called them and said, ‘This is how you will find the punishment for adultery in Your book? They said: "Yes." This contradicts the first in that it states that they began the question before the punishment was carried out, and in this they carried out the punishment before the question. It is possible to combine them by multiplicity, so that those who asked about them were not the one they flogged. It is possible that they hastened and flogged him, then it occurred to them and they happened to pass by the flogged person while they were asking about that, so he ordered them to bring them, and what happened happened, and knowledge is with Allah.

His statement (What do you find in the Torah regarding stoning? Al-Baji said: It is possible that he knew by revelation that the ruling of stoning in it is fixed as it was legislated and had not been changed. It is possible that he knew that by the information of Abdullah bin Salam and others who converted to Islam from them in a way that he obtained after knowing the authenticity of their transmission. It is possible that he only asked them about that to know what they had about it, then he would learn the authenticity of that from Allah Almighty.

His statement (And they said: We will disgrace them) is from disgrace.
His saying (and they are flogged) The scandal was explained in the narration of Ayoub from Nafi’ with the wording: “They said: We will blacken their faces and disfigure them.” And in the narration of Abdullah bin Omar: “They said: We will blacken their faces and make them dark and make their faces different and they will be paraded around.” And in the narration of Abdullah bin Dinar: “Our rabbis introduced the blackening of faces and the tijbiyyah.” And in the hadith of Abu Hurayrah: “He is to be tijbiyyah, flogged and flogged.” And the tijbiyyah is that the two adulterers are carried on a donkey and their backs are opposite each other and they are paraded around… Al-Baji said: It appears that they intended in their answer to distort the ruling of the Torah and to lie about the Prophet (salla-salla-salaam): either hoping that he would rule between them with something other than what Allah revealed or because they intended by his ruling to make things easier for the adulterers and believed that this would remove them from what was required of them, or they intended to test his matter, because it is established that whoever is a prophet does not accept falsehood, so by the grace of Allah, their lie and his truthfulness were revealed to His Prophet, and praise be to Allah.

His saying (So they brought the Torah and spread it out, and one of them put his hand on the verse of stoning and read what came before it and what came after it) and something similar in the narration of Abdullah bin Dinar and in the narration of Ayoub “So they said to a man whom they were pleased with: O one-eyed man, read. So he read, until he reached the place where his hand was on it” and the name of this man was Abdullah bin Suriya…

His saying (So Abdullah bin Salam said to him: Raise your hand, so he raised his hand and there was in it the verse of stoning) in the narration of Abdullah bin Dinar “And there was the verse of stoning under his hand” and it was stated in the hadith of Al-Baraa “So his punishment was stoning, but it became common among our nobles, so if we seized the noble we would leave him and if we seized the lowly we would implement the punishment on him, so we said come, let us agree on something to implement on the noble and the lowly, so we made the stoning and flogging instead of stoning” and the explanation of what is in the Torah about the verse of stoning was stated in the narration of Abu Hurairah “If a married man and a married woman commit adultery and evidence is established against them, they are to be stoned, and if the woman is pregnant, she is to be kept waiting until she gives birth to what is in her womb” In the hadith of Jabir, according to Abu Dawud, “They said: We find in the Torah: If four testify that they saw his penis in her vagina, like the tip of a kohl stick, they are to be stoned.” Al-Bazzar added from this aspect: “If they find the man with the woman in her house, or in her clothing, or on her stomach, then it is a suspicion and there is punishment for it.” He said: “So what prevented you from stoning them?” They said: “Our authority has gone, so we hated killing.” And in the hadith of Abu Hurairah: “What was the first thing you made permissible with the command of God?” He said: “A relative of the king committed adultery, so stoning was delayed for them. Then a noble man committed adultery, so they wanted to stone him, but his people prevented him and said, ‘Start with your companion.’ So they agreed on this punishment.” And in the hadith of Ibn Abbas, according to al-Tabari: “We were young men, and one of our women had a beautiful face, and many of them did not stand up for him, so we began to flog him.” And Allah knows best. His statement
(Then the Messenger of Allah (salla-salaam) ordered them to be stoned.) He added in the hadith of Abu Hurayrah: “Then the Prophet (salla-salaam) said: ‘I rule according to what is in the Torah.’” And in the hadith of al-Bara’: “O Allah, I am the first to revive Your command when they killed it.” And in the hadith of Jabir, there is also an addition: “The Messenger of Allah (salla-salaam) called for witnesses, so he brought four, and they testified that they saw his penis in her vagina like the tip of a kohl container. So he ordered them to be stoned.”
His statement (I saw the man leaning) means leaning. And in the narration of Ubaydullah ibn Umar: “I saw him protecting her from the stones.” “By himself” and Ibn Majah from this aspect “covers her” and in the hadith of Ibn Abbas with al-Tabari, “When he found the touch of the stones, he stood over his companion, bending over her to protect her from the stones until they were both killed.

So that was from the doing of God to His Messenger in establishing the adultery of them.” And in this hadith are the benefits: The obligation of the punishment on the non-Muslim dhimmi if he commits adultery, and this is the opinion of the majority....

It states that if a woman is subjected to a punishment, she will be considered a...

It contains that the Jews used to attribute to the Torah what was not in it, even if it was not something they had changed. Otherwise, the answer would have been a deviation from the question, because he asked about what they found in the Torah, so they changed it because of what they were doing and they gave the impression that their action was in agreement with what was in the Torah, so Abdullah ibn Salam called them liars...
and he used it as evidence that the law of those before us is our law if it is proven to us by evidence from the Qur’an or an authentic hadith, unless it is proven that it was abrogated by the law of our Prophet :salla-s: “Fath al-Bari” (12/174-179).