The hardest in enmity and the nearest in amity

You will certainly find that the most violent of people in enmity for those who believe to be the Jews and those who are polytheists, and you will certainly find the nearest in amity to those who believe to be those who say: We are Christians; this is because there are priests and monks among them and because they do not behave proudly. Q5:82

Verse Q5:82 is arguably the most relevant and explicit verse in the Qurʾānic differentiation between Jews and Christians in terms of their attitude towards Muslims. In his commentary, and like most exegetes, Fadlallah interprets the verse by linking it to two migration events in early Islam:¹¹⁷⁰ the migration of the first Muslims to Abyssinia and the Prophet’s migration to Medina. The Ayatollah emphasizes the difference between the Christians and the Jews in terms of their different reception of the Prophet Muhammad at the beginning of his mission. While Fadlallah describes the Muslim-Jewish encounters at Medina as highly polemical and hostile, he praises the Muslim-Christian ones as less polemical and non-aggressive.¹¹⁷¹ In reference to the episode found in Sīrat Ibn Hishām, the Ayatollah explains that Muhammad’s first encounter with the Christian community was positive when the Prophet’s persecuted followers found refuge in Abyssinia.¹¹⁷² There, the country’s Christian king protected them and refused to give them back to their tribe—Quraish. The Ayatollah also stresses that both parties, the Muslims and the Christians, noticed the common lines between Islam and Christianity.¹¹⁷³ In contrast, the Jews have been hostile, treacherous and envious since their first encounter with Islam and have never ceased to be so.¹¹⁷⁴ Fadlallah links this negative behavior to the Jews’

superiority complex and contempt for other nations based on their “chosen people fallacy.”¹¹⁷⁵ Faithful to his style, Fadlallah moves on to draw some practical lessons from this verse: If there was only one lesson Fadlallah wanted to teach his followers, young and old, even if only one Muslim person remained on earth, it would be verse Q5:82.¹¹⁷⁶ Indeed, Fadlallah used to ask people to choose for their funerals the Qurʾānic verses which

1170 For example, al-Ṭūsī’s Tibyān 3:616.

1171 MWQ8:299–305. Also in HQ, 139–149. Similar views are also found in Darwaza’s Qurʾānic commentary al-Tafsīr al-Ḥadīṯ 9:44–45. See also Lewis, The Jews of Islam, 10–13.

1172 Ibn Isḥāq, Sīrah 1:208–221.

1173 MWQ8:299–300.

1174 MWQ8:300–301 and Ḥiwār Shāmil, 68–69.

1175 MWQ8:301–302; Fadlallah, “Taʾammulāt fī Kalimat al-Umma fī al-Qurʾān,” al-Munṭalaq N. 21, (1990):

85–102.

1176 Ḥiwār Shāmil, 97.

describe the Jews and their character as a means of political opposition and as a constant reminder of the evilness of the Jews.¹¹⁷⁷ Fadlallah warns against the calls for religious tolerance towards the Jews “because these calls might aim at alleviating the state of intellectual, spiritual and practical tension which believing Muslims live under in order to maintain their Islamic position.”¹¹⁷⁸ This state of tension is necessary because without it Muslims would relax and thus come closer to defeat. Hence, keeping a high level of tension between Muslims and the Jews is in the best interests (maṣlaḥa) of Islam and Muslims, otherwise the latter are going to receive a knockout blow from the enemy.¹¹⁷⁹ The Ayatollah emphasizes that the Jews “should be treated as enemies because they plot to weaken Islam and Muslims in order to ultimately eradicate both. […] Hence, you cannot treat them as friends unless one is naïve and unable to understand matters clearly.”¹¹⁸⁰ The Jew is presented as the arch-enemy against whom Fadlallah explicitly warns, fights, and incites. The Ayatollah does not shy from calling explicitly for the eradication of the Jews: “kill your enemy, your arch-enemy, kill an Israeli.”¹¹⁸¹ On the other side, the Christian’s starting point, Fadlallah explains, is the Gospel which is full of spiritual values.

It teaches its followers pure spirituality and love of the truth in an innocence that resembles that of children.¹¹⁸² The Christians amity towards Muslims stems from this “Gospel-inspired unrestrained modest spirituality” and from their openness to the thought of the other.¹¹⁸³ For this reason, the Qurʾān refers to the humility of Christians in a time when they “did not have [yet] a complex of conflict towards Islam and Muslims.”¹¹⁸⁴

5.1.1. Christianity vs. Jewish Christianity

Even though Fadlallah emphasizes several times that the degree of enmity of the Jews towards the Muslims is higher than that of the Christians, he argues, nevertheless, that Muslims should be vigilant when dealing with both groups to protect themselves from any possible plots they might be preparing for them.¹¹⁸⁵ Fadlallah highly praises the Christians’

1177 Nadwa 9:355.

1178 MWQ8:307. Similar thoughts are also in Fadlallah’s Ḥiwār Shāmil, 71–72 where he suggests that these calls attempt to “remove the barriers between Zionist Israeli Judaism and between the Muslims and the Christian. These are not innocent calls.”

1179 MWQ8:307. Also in MWQ8:293–294 in the context of Q5:78–81.

1180 MWQ8:306–307.

1181 Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, ʿAlā Tarīq Karbalāʾ, Beirut: Dār al-Tayyār al-Jadīd, 1984, 53.

1182 MWQ8:303.

1183 MWQ8:305.

1184 MWQ8:302–303.

1185 MWQ2:178.

attitude and spirituality as described in the verse under study; however, he limits the atmosphere of good spirit and the openness of Christianity towards Islam only to a specific group. The Christians intended by the positive description in Q5:82-83 are those who lived at the time of Muhammad. Although Fadlallah explains that this verse teaches modern-day Muslims, Daʿwa workers in particular, to find common ground with Christianity and to build a solid ground between Christians and Muslims for union and mutual understanding, he also warns Muslims to take note of the “complicated historical and political elements which have left profound effects and changed the spirit in reality from that described in this verse.”¹¹⁸⁶ He cautions Muslims to differentiate between meek Christians whose spirituality is Gospel-driven and those whose “Christianity is Jewish in terms of hatred and hostility against Islam and Muslims.”¹¹⁸⁷ Hence Muslims should be realistic, take caution and not “fall into the trap of the deceptive slogans calling for love while it [this Christianity] does its best to conspire [against Muslims] in hatred and hostility.¹¹⁸⁸ The Ayatollah refers in another context to Zionist Christianity which believes that God has promised the Land of Palestine to the Jews and which supports Israel more than the Jews themselves.¹¹⁸⁹ The Christians who follow this type of Christianity are against Palestinians and Muslims in general and paint the latter in dark shades. Both “Jewish” and “Zionist”

are attributes which take from Christianity its pure form and turn it into a usurping political movement which does not differ from Zionism itself. Additionally, the Ayatollah also borrows Sayyid Quṭb’s (d. 1966) concepts “Global Zionism” (al-Ṣuhyūniyya al-ʿālamiyya) and “Global Crusades” (al-Ṣalībiyya al-ʿālamiyya), according to which the deviation (inḥirāf) of Judaism and Christianity from their true divine form led to the formation of a political version of them whose main aim is to destroy Islam and Muslims through various means such as lobbying and secret plots.¹¹⁹⁰ These two political forms constitute the powers of global arrogance (al-Istikbār al-ʿālamī) and are united against the oppressed Muslims (al-mustaḍʿafūn). However, while Quṭb holds both Jews and Christians responsible for all evil on earth, Fadlallah concentrates his attack on the Jews in particular.¹¹⁹¹

The American policy in the Middle East in general and in the Arab and Lebanese reality in particular is an Israeli policy. The

1186 MWQ8:306.

1187 MWQ8:306.

1188 MWQ8:306. Similar ideas are repeated in the context of Q5:57 in MWQ8:236.

1189 Damascene lecture held on 21 October 2002 retrieved from Fadlallah’s official website on 30 January 2017. http://arabic.bayynat.org/ArticlePage.aspx?id=2691.

1190 Cf. Sayyid Quṭb, Maʿrakatunā Maʿa al-Yahūd (Our struggle with the Jews), 20–38.

1191 The relationship between Fadlallah’s thought and that of Sayyid Quṭb has been pointed out by several researchers. See, for example, Olivier Carré, “Khomeinisme Libanais,” 187–200 and Ibrahim Abu Rabi,

“Toward an Islamic Liberation Theology,” 202–47.

Jews direct it through the Jewish Lobby on the one hand, and through the American administrations on the other. When it comes to the actual administration in particular, the Jews control most of its members.¹¹⁹²