"Commentary [Ed: On Proclamation of the Grand Mufti to the Islamic World in 1937]
Just before his concluding admonition for a jihad to annihilate the Jewish community of historical Palestine, Hajj Amin el-Husseini recapitulates the dominant thematic narrative, woven together from a myriad of specific, canonical Islamic motifs, throughout the 1937 proclamation:
[T]he Arabs have learned best how they really are, that is, as they [the Jews] are described in the Koran and in the sacred scriptures… The verses from the Koran and hadith prove to you that the Jews have been the bitterest enemies of Islam and continue to try to destroy it.
El-Husseini‘s own apt summary assessment of the proclamation raises basic, important questions for those, in particular, who expound the view that his Islam was a form of modern "ideological chimerism," spatchcocked from "fundamentalist elements" of the Muslim creed, engrafted, fiendishly, to Nazism. 50 What do attentive, full tallies, comparing the numbers of Islamic and non-Islamic motifs cited by El-Husseini, demonstrate? Specifically, regarding the latter, what examples (if any), derived from Hitler‘s Mein Kampf, or the writings of Nazi racial theorists can be adduced? Do invocations of the Czarist Russian era forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, accompany, or complement these references to Nazi ideology? Is there any evidence that central themes from European Christian antisemitism are invoked, to confirm Paul Berman‘s fulmination about how "Nazified Islam" strove to demonstrate "that European and Christian superstitions ought to be regarded as authentically Middle Eastern and Islamic"?
What in fact can be readily gleaned from a careful, objective reading of el-Husseini‘s proclamation is there are no concrete, substantive references to any of these major non-Islamic sources of antisemitism. This absence of references contrasts starkly with the numerous and specific antisemitic motifs from Islam‘s canonical texts—the Koran (consistent with its gloss in authoritative Koranic commentaries), hadith, and sira—which el-Husseini‘s declaration invokes continuously, from opening to closing...
Within the first century of Islam‘s advent, this aphorism was coined, which highlighted the importance of the Sunna (and, by extension, the hadith): “The Sunna can dispense with the Koran but not the Koran with the Sunna.” The hadith compiled by al- Bukhari (d. 870) and Muslim b. al-Hajjaj (d. 875) are considered, respectively, to be the most important authoritative collections...
Sira, which can mean "epistle," "pamphlet," or "manifesto," also means "biography," "the life and times of". Ibn Ishaq of Medina (d. 767-770) composed the earliest full-length biography of Muhammad, Sirat Rasul Allah (Biography of the Prophet of Allah), nearly 150 years after the Muslim prophet‘s death...
A simple enumeration conveys el-Husseini‘s extensive use of references from Islam‘s canonical texts: ten explicit references to Koranic motifs (including eleven separate verses quoted directly in the proclamation), with an additional six implicit references; two explicit citations of the sira, and five implicit references; and two major, explicit citations (with quotation) of hadith, accompanied by three additional implicit references to the hadith literature. These citations are complemented by an explicit reference to the great early Muslim scholar al-Tabari (d. 923), and his monumental History.
How does el-Husseini‘s interpretation of the eleven Koranic verses he quotes, directly, compare with their authoritative exegeses, classical, and modern?
Maulana Muhammad Shafi (1898-1976), a former grand mufti of India (prior to the August, 1947 partition), was the author of Maariful Qur‘an, which remains the best-known work of tafsir (Koranic commentary) in Urdu. He also wrote more than three hundred books, and in addition to these literary works, broadcasted tafsir of the Koran on Radio Pakistan for a number of years. Here is Mufti Shafi‘s commentary on Koran 2:109, from Maariful Qur‘an, bearing in mind el- Husseini‘s reference to the verse as an example of the Jews‘ efforts to "discredit Muhammad‘s teachings":
Some of the Jews, pretending to be the well-wishers of the Muslims, were always inventing new stratagems to make them turn away from Islam, and, in spite of repeated failure in this effort, did not refrain from it. The verse warns the Muslims against their intentions, which are motivated, not by sincerity and friendship, but by envy—which in its turn arises not from anything the Muslims do, but spontaneously from within themselves even after they have come to understand clearly what the truth is. The verse also asks the Muslims not to give way to their justifiable anger at such misconduct, but to forgive the Jews, and wait till Allah sends a new commandment with regard to such matters. Thus, the verse gives an indication that Allah is soon going to lay down a law for the preservation of peace and order on the earth which would guide the Muslims in dealing with mischief-makers – the law, of course, being the permission to go to war against the enemies of Islam. The Muslims were actually conscious of their own weakness and the strength of their foe, and could have wondered how they would be able to act upon the new law. So, the verse reminds them that Allah's power extends over everything, small or big, ordinary or extraordinary…This command to show forbearance towards the Jews was proper to the situations of the Muslims at that time. Later on, Allah fulfilled the promise made in verse [2:]109, and sent down the injunction with regard to Jihad. Then, this new law was applied to the Jews as well as to other miscreants - in order to prevent disorder and to make peace and order prevail on the earth, Muslims went to war against them, and the mischief-makers were either killed, or forced into exile, or made to pay jizya.” [emphases added]
Two renowned classical Koranic commentators, Qurtubi (d. 1273), and Ibn Kathir (d. 1373) earlier concurred that the sentiments expressed in Koran 2:109 regarding tolerant forbearance toward the Jews, were indeed abrogated by the jihad verses in the Koran‘s "final revealed chapter," sura 9, both citing verses 9:5, and 9:29, specifically.
El-Husseini maintains that Koran 59:2 is about how "Muhammad saw himself constrained to drive the (Medinan) Jews (of the Banu Nadir tribe) out by force," for their perfidious "disbelief." His understanding of this verse comports with its classical exegesis in the seminal Tafsir al- Jalalayn, which, as the contemporary Dutch Islamologist Johannes J.G. Jansen notes in his treatise, The Interpretation of the Koran in Modern Egypt, remains one of the most popular, as well as the most authoritative Koranic commentaries in present day Egypt. Here is the gloss on Koran 59:2 from Tafsir al-Jalalayn:
"It is He who expelled those who disbelieved among the People of the Book"—meaning the Jewish clan of the Banu Nadir—"from their homes" in Medina "to the first gathering-place" on the way to Syria; the final step was when Umar [b. al-Khattab, the second "Rightly Guided" Caliph] exiled them from Khaybar when he was khalifa. "You" believers "did not think they would leave; and they thought that their fortresses would protect them from" the punishment of "Allah." "Then" the command and punishment of "Allah came upon them from where they least expected it"—from the believers, which possibility had not occurred to them—"and cast terror into their hearts" by the killing of their leader, Ka‘b ibn al-Ashraf. "Their houses were pulled down by their own hands and by the hands of the believers. People of insight take note!"
... According to el-Husseini, Koran 5:49 is yet another depiction of the Jews‘ efforts to "sew dissension among Muhammad‘s followers," and even cause Muhammad to act against the Sharia, Allah‘s "divine law," in effect, apostasizing. Ibn Kathir‘s classical gloss, and the modern commentary of Maulana Muhammad (Mufti) Shafi in Maariful Qur‘an are entirely consistent this interpretation."
