Can the Old Judeo-Islamic Brotherhood Ever be Restored?

At time of the prophet, Jews weren’t considered enemies or pushed to the corners for isolation because of their faith difference. In the sacred book of Sahih Bukhari still records heartwarming stories that group of Jews leisurely walking by the prophet asked each other to inquire the prophet about ‘the spirit’. You can infer from this interaction that Jews were not always lived as Dhimmi, an inferior stock to Muslims and of oppression object as often holier-than-thou Islamists argue in their faith supremacy and portray in their hateful preaching in ‘advocacy’ of Islam. Of course there were periods of hostilities between the two communities, but not always at war to each other. This Jews’ question tells me that that Muslims and Jews were equal in status, how did walkers be they Muslims or not asked my prophet a question while walking and standing that took him so long to respond without misconstruing utter disrespect for the prophet? If it happens to small Imam in the dusty-desert Arabia of Rubul Khali, the Jews would face condemnation and subsequent beheading unless armed to the teeth because the Imams generally are insecure about their faith and hide in smoke of plah plah plah, of violence, and of bloodshed.

This insecurity nobody of today’s Muslims can claim to be immune from, look at the debating Muslim scholars in the BBC or any other avenue, they yell and name call and refer to western statistics about the western society, not to the sacred books of mercy verses and friendship among the faithful communities. Any verse that calls reconciliation among the Abrahamic faiths is either invalid or today’s Jews and the Christians are fake unlike the ones the Prophet knew and interacted with. So all channels of negotiation of any meaningful interfaith dialogue and respectful coexistence is closed because of these lame excuses and double talk.

For example, a so-called intellectual a friend of mine saw what I wrote in the Times of Israel, instead of congratulating me, he said “modern-Jews are illuminates, devil worshippers they are not the real Jews our prophet told to intermarry and eat their kosher food. My sincere advice as a brother in Islam is to void them.” I was shocked to the core and found hard which prophet, a new or the old one, he was talking about.

These same Jews in the above story called the prophet his Arab name Abdul Qasim, not like a prophet because they didn’t believe his prophethood. As a result, he neither felt upset nor gossip when they left the place. What a prophet! Before the West associated Islam only when evil and suicide happens, my people remember other faiths including Shiites in the context of madness and evilness. The Muslims scholars go to Europe and talk about the peacefulness with honey-tongued language mesmerizing the Western audience but they come back and said to us “ that weren’t us.” In the old days, Muslims and Jews were having friendly relationship and live as neighbors unlike Arabs and Israel who happened to be antagonistic neighbors all the time.

Arabs wished that Israelis vanished or be replaced with Libya but they forget “you can choose your friend but you can’t choose your neighbor.” Arabs ought to come to their senses and recognize the State of Israel to end bloody tragedy that lasted long.  Israel demands less land than it occupied centuries before.

My tribal Imams un-knowledgeable in peaceful Islam don’t talk about what bridges the gaps among various communities in the Horn of Africa. Hebasha or Abyssinia hosted the first Muslim refugees fleeing the Quraysh tribe; 25 key companions of the prophet died there in modern-Ethiopia but you can’t hear them because there would be another pilgrimage to Christian-led country. Millions of Muslims from all over the world would tour the tombs of the Negev to recall how just this little man was and pay eulogy to him for giving asylum of the first pioneers of the Islam. Forget about Jews fighting to survive in a deadly region of the world where Palestine are brainwashed to take their lives in disregard to the Islamic values to restore “ the usurped land,” and export their fatal industry to poorer countries in Africa and Asia. Enough is enough, let’s behave amicably.