Islamic view of Ezra

Ezra (
pages = 72
chapter = Allah and Islam in Ancient History]

Edward Henry Palmer states that “there is no Jewish tradition whatever in support of this accusation of Mohammed's, which probably was entirely due to his own invention or to misinformation.”cite web
url = http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/sbe06/009.htm#fn_288
title = Footnote on 177:1
accessdate = 2007-11-15
last = Palmer
first = Edward Henry
authorlink = Edward Henry Palmer
work = The Qur'ân, part I (Sacred Books of the East volume 6), Palmer edition [1880]
publisher = Internet Sacred Text Archive
quote = The Moslem tradition is that Ezra, after being dead 100 years, was raised to life, and dictated from memory the whole of the Jewish Scriptures which had been lost during the captivity, and that the Jews said he could not have done this unless he had been the son of God. There is no Jewish tradition whatever in support of this accusation of Mohammed's, which probably was entirely due to his own invention or to misinformation.] According to Horovitz, “Muhammad could have heard about Jewish or Judeo-Christian sects that venerated Ezra in the way other sects venerated Melchizedek.” Abu-Rabiʿ, Ibrahim M. "Ezra ." Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. General Editor: Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Georgetown University, Washington DC. Brill, 2007. Brill Online.] According to Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi, the relevant qur'anic text should in any case be understood in the context of the Muslim-Jewish relations that was replete with theological arguments between the nascent Muslim community and the well-established Jewish community in Medina. Rabi states that for the Qur'an, even a minute association of a creature with God is not acceptable and that this verse aims to distinguish the Muslim community from the existing Christian and the Jewish community. Even so, Rabi says, this would not explain why Ezra should be considered the son of God; Is Uzayr really Ezra, Rabi questions. Some modern scholars have suggested that Uzayr might actually refer to the Biblical Enoch, Azazel or Osiris. Encyclopedia of Islam, "Uzayr" ]

According to Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, later Muslim authors who heard from their contemporary Jews and Christians that the accusation of sonship had no basis mentioned three types of explanation: al-Tabari said that only one Jew (Finhas) viewed Uzra as the son of God, Ibn Hazm said that only a small group of Jews worshipped ʿUzayr as a son of God in some past period. And others like Qurtubi said that the verse refers to the extreme admiration of Jews for their doctors of law.

Ibn Kathir, in his Qur'anic commentary, narrates a tradition on the authority of Abdullah Ibn Abbas saying that the Jews exalted Ezra because he could write down the Torah out of his memory; Moses could receive the Torah in the form of a book while Uzair got it without a book. According to Islamic scholar Al Baidawi, when Jews returned from "Babylonish captivity", no one remembered the "Tawrat" and it was lost, hence God raised Ezra from the dead. Upon seeing him being raised from the dead, Jews exalted him to be the Son of God. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=JherW50tVyAC&pg=PA114&dq=uzair+ezra+islam&as_brr=3&ei=_BkvR5WeAoKAsgPUzKChCQ&sig=5i1Fiq01TVLkK6jsU-IHaogRvng A Dictionary of Islam By Patrick Hughes, Thomas Patrick Hughes, pg 114] ] Moreover, the Quran further adds that despite Jews and christians were "commanded to worship but One Allah" through scriptures, yet they exalted their clergy as Lords. [Quran 9:31]

Jewish tradition and literature

A fundamental tenet of Judaism is that God is not bound by any limitations of time, matter, or space, and that the idea of any person being God, a part of God, or a mediator to God, is heresy. [
*Maimonedes, Mishneh Torah, Yesodei Hatorah, Chapter 1
*"Emunoth ve-Deoth", II:5
* [http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/tmm/tmm08.htm Exod. Rabba 29] , “…I am the first, I have no father; I am the last, I have no brother; Beside Me there is no God; I have no son.”] The Book of Ezra, which Judaism accepts as a chronicle of the life of Ezra and which predates Muhammad and the Qur'an by around 1000 years, gives Ezra's human lineage as being the son of Seraiah and a direct descendant of Aaron (Bibleref|Ezra|7:1|HE–Bibleref|Ezra|7:5|HE). Tractate Ta'anit of the Jerusalem Talmud, which predates Muhammad by two to three hundred years, states explicitly that “if a man claims to be God, he is a liar.” [ Ta'anit (2:1)]

The Qur'anic verse on Ezra appears in one of Maimonides's discussions about the relationship between Judaism and Islam where he says “…they [Muslims] lie about us [Jews] , and falsely attribute to us the statement that God has a son.”cite journal
last = Shapiro
first = Marc B.
authorlink = Marc B. Shapiro
year = 1993
month = Summer
title = Islam and the halakhah
journal = Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life & Thought
volume = 42
issue = 167
publisher = American Jewish Congress
location = New York
url = http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0411/is_n3_v42/ai_14234286/print
accessdate = 2007-11-15
quote = The Ishmaelites are not at all idolaters; [idolatry] has long been severed from their mouths and hearts; and they attribute to God a proper unity, a unity concerning which there is no doubt. And because they lie about us , and falsely attribute to us the statement that God has a son… ]

Abraham Geiger remarked the following concerning the claim that Jews believed Ezra to be the son of God: “According to the assertion of Muhammad the Jews held Ezra to be the Son of God. This is certainly a mere misunderstanding which arose from the great esteem in which Ezra was undoubtedly held. This esteem is expressed in the following passage ‘Ezra would have been worthy to have made known the law if Moses had not come before him.’ Truly Muhammad sought to cast suspicion on the Jews’ faith in the unity of God, and thought he had here found a good opportunity of so doing.” [Abraham Geiger's book Judaism and Islam chapter 2 part 4]

In Karaite Judaism, mourners use the word "meharef" to represent a whole range of Muslim anti-Jewish polemic including the notion that Jews considered Ezra to be the son of God. Salmon b. Yeruhim said: “A meharef is one who reviles [us] for sins we have committed and others which we have not. The former includes our worshipping the calves, killing the prophets and the like. The latter, our assertion that 'Uzayr [Ezra] was the son [of God] …” [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=MzqwUksGUrkC&pg=RA1-PA193&dq=ezra+jews+quran&sig=fbOsyb0Xif-XuWYIrA0Yi2ifdf0#PRA1-PA193,M1|Search Scripture Well: Karaite Exegetes and the Origins of the Jewish Bible, By Daniel H. Frank, pg 193] ]

Accusations of falsification

Ibn Hazm, an Andalusian Muslim scholar, explicitly accused Ezra of being a liar and a heretic who falsified and added interpolations into the Biblical text. Ibn Hazm provided a polemical list of what he considered "chronological and geographical inaccuracies and contradictions; theological impossibilities (anthropomorphic expressions, stories of fornication and whoredom, and the attributing of sins to prophets), as well as lack of reliable transmission (tawatur) of the text", Hava Lazarus-Yafeh states. Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, "Tahrif", Encyclopedia of Islam ] In response to attacks on the personality of Ezra, the Byzantine Emperor Leo III defended Ezra as a pious, reliable person. The Jewish convert to Islam al-Samaw'al (d. 1175) accused Ezra of interpolating stories such as Gen. 19:30-8 in the Bible in order to sully David’s origins and to prevent the rule of the Davidic dynasty during the second Temple.The writings of Ibn Hazm and al-Samaw'al was adopted and updated only slightly by later Muslim authors up to contemporary times.

According to Hava Lazarus-Yafeh, the early writers seem to have been influenced with the idea of falsification of the scriptures already present in the pre-Islamic sources and well-known among Christians and Jews, who had written in their refutation.

References