What do Jews think of Mohammed?

[robocombot]

This may seem very contentious but is a follow up to the Thread "What do Jews think of Christ?"

Jews reject Jesus as the Messiah, but why do Jews reject Mohammed as a Prophet?

• Does Mohammed fit the jewish criteria of "Prophet"?
• Is the Jewish collection of writings finished, so that they could not accept more books (like the Quran - which claims to complete them)?
• Is the rejection because Mohammed was an Arab?

References to the Tanach or the Talmud would be good,

I know this is a delicate issue so please keep it scholarly (no politics!)

[Postmaster]

Interesting post robocombo, glad you started it... Hope people of the Jewish faith can shed some light about this. Although Jesus is known to the Christians as the Messiah but not the Jews why was Mohammad refused as a prophet?

[NewAgeNerd]

Excellent question. I should say as a preface that I have a great respect for Islam. In many ways the Jews and the Muslims are cousins. I can only hope that with time peace will exist between our nations.

With that being said, there are a number of reasons why Muhammed is not considered a prophet for the Jews. This is not to say he was not a prophet of G-d, he obviously revealed a message about the one true G-d and spread it en masse and for this he should be greatly respected.

Here is where I have to unfortunately become critical. Prophecy in Judaism is a very specific thing. There are rules for determing who is and who is not a prophet, and these rules are strict.

Firstly, a prophets words must not contradict earlier works. The Qu'ran, however, contradicts the Torah in a number of places. There are, for example, places where things are mentioned about Abraham that do not conform to the Torah.

In addition, a prophet must prove his divine gift in his lifetime. Muhammed failed to do this.

There are other reasons which I do not have the time to get into right now. For more information, consult this site:

http://zionsake.tripod.com/prophet.html

Muhammed's rejection as a prophet has NOTHING to do with his race, and indeed a prophet who confirms his gift of prophecy repeatedly would likely be accepted regardless of who he was. In addition, G-d himself in the Torah refers to his Laws as complete. He promised the Jews a number of times that he would NEVER change his convenant with us. Any so-called prophet who attempts to change our law is therefore no longer considered a true prophet of G-d according to Jewish law.

Even a Prophet who performs several miracles and has numerous correct visions is considered merely a charlatan if he attempts to change Jewish Law.

You are probably wondering what the job of a Prophet is according to Jewish Law. A prophet is ordained by G-d with the gift of visions, not to change His eternal Law, but rather to complete specific projects. One such project might be rebuilding the temple, or locating the ark of the convenant, or restoring the faith of the Jews.

Therefore, niether Jesus nor Muhammed are regarded as prophets according to Jewish Law.

[bananabrain]

i'd just like to agree with what NaN said, with the caveat that where he said that muhammad did not prove his gift in his lifetime it was not proved to jewish satisfaction - although it is hard to see how it could have been. either way, the problem shouldn't really arise unless muslims insist on muhammad being considered a jewish prophet or jews insist that non-jews are not entitled to be considered prophets in other religious contexts. essentially, i consider this a bit of a non-issue (apart from the people who would maintain that the Torah has been falsified)

b'shalom

bananabrain

[robocombot]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

essentially, i consider this a bit of a non-issue (apart from the people who would maintain that the Torah has been falsified)

While i honour a stance that is non-confrontational and may lead to peace im not sure we can say that Mohammed was a Prophet for the Arabs only. Either he was a Prophet for all mankind or he was not a Prophet at all.

If Mohammed was a Prophet then Al-Quran is correct that:

O People of the Scripture! Why confound ye truth with falsehood and knowingly conceal the truth? 003.071

If anyone maintains Al-Quran is correct then they, by default, maintain that the Torah has been falsified.

Infact there does not seem to be a reason why the Jewish people should accept Mohammed, so you dont have to justify why you reject him. However i would value an insight.

[bananabrain]

i'm not sure we can say that Mohammed was a Prophet for the Arabs only. Either he was a Prophet for all mankind or he was not a Prophet at all.

that's not how judaism considers it, so i don't follow this either/or part of your argument. islam itself considers muhammad to have been the prophet sent to the arabs, as opposed to the prophets sent to other nations - i think there is a traditional figure of 700, or 7000 or something.

O People of the Scripture! Why confound ye truth with falsehood and knowingly conceal the truth? 003.071

If anyone maintains Al-Quran is correct then they, by default, maintain that the Torah has been falsified.

if that is true then there can be no meeting-point between adherents of the two (in fact, three) faiths. and if that were true, then the Qur'an would not say elsewhere that if G!D had wanted us all to follow one faith, it would have been arranged that way. which means that there must be some other way of interpreting that verse - for example, the "people" referred to may be a specific group, say the jews of medina during muhammad's life, as opposed to all jews and christians of all times. like i say, if you know enough about the grey areas in interpretation, it shouldn't be a problem

b'shalom

bananabrain

[fadfad]

I'm new member and am interested to know the fundamental similarities of jewish and muslim religions.

[inhumility]

Originally Posted by robocombot

Jews reject Jesus as the Messiah, but why do Jews reject Mohammed as a Prophet?

• Does Mohammed fit the jewish criteria of "Prophet"?
• Is the Jewish collection of writings finished, so that they could not accept more books (like the Quran - which claims to complete them)?
• Is the rejection because Mohammed was an Arab?

References to the Tanach or the Talmud would be good,
I know this is a delicate issue so please keep it scholarly (no politics!)

This is a valid question. What is the valid criteria of a Prophet/Messenger as per Torah the book of Jews ?This is another valid question.
Jews are normally a serious, reserve, matter of fact and intelligent people, they never indulge in useless things or go into a frenzy of sentiments, and this is appreciable. This is my personal opinion though I have never met any Jew personally as there is no Jew around here. Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, A.S, (1835-1908), the Guided One by God had stated that when God sends some person or when God’s Word is revealed to a Messenger/Prophet, as the revelation increases the wisdom and knowledge of the recipient of Word of God; as a bonus or additional benefit the intelligence of the people of that age, who are working hard in some field of knowledge, is also increased by God as a sign from Him. And so it happened, many a Scientist and Social Scientists of his contemporary period; their wisdom got extraordinarily increased and they in fact founded many branches of Sciences. A large share of that benefit went to Jews on merit as they were engaged in this activity seriously. We appreciate such qualities of Jewish people and in fact have to thank them for the inventions they have made, and humanity has benefited from them the world over in this respect. We cannot deny that. I thank God and thank you the Jewish people.
I may clarify here that though Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, A.S, enjoyed the status of a Messenger/Prophet of God and he was bestowed these names by God but he himself clarified that he had not brought any Canon/Book or Sharia from God. He is a true subordinate successor of Hazrat Muhammad (SAW) and is commanded by God to follow Quran the last Word of God and Muhammad’s Sunnah as perfect model of life and this way he had established no new Religion and revived Islam for the humanity at large. This is like Yeshua (Jesus) who was a follower Messenger/Prophet of the Book of Moses and hence subordinate to Moses; as had been previously, many a Jewish prophets between the periods starting from Moses to Yeshua. Muhammad is the last Prophet in this sense. Before Muhammad all the Jewish Prophets and of other nations enjoyed regional or tribal status; the first Universal Messenger of God was Muhammad; and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad being his true successor and Chosen-One-of-God, enjoys also a Universal Status and hence his ranking in providing Guidance to humanity the world over is above Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, David, Solomon, Yeshua etc, though the point here is not to discuss these ranking.
The Jews are a nation in the word like many other nations. They were at fault by not accepting Yeshua as a true Prophet/Messenger of God to start with, though they were waiting for one Moshiach. Similarly they were waiting for a person called THE PROPHET. When they rejected Yeshua, their hardened clergy had to make new rules to accept or reject a prophet, which was a cruelty on their part as they were never authorized to do so .Only Torah directly was the Canon from God; as for Talmud etc the verbal tradition that cannot supercede commandments of Torah and hence Talmud is a subordinate servant to Torah. Ram-bam or any other high-priest cannot formulate new concepts/beliefs/rules for the Jews. Since it is a world-wide phenomenon; like Hindu priest–hood has hijacked Krishna's Religion, or Christian priesthood has hijacked the Jesus’ Religion or Muslim priesthood has hijacked Islam; these nations have to liberate themselves from the hardened radical priesthood and ride the bus they ignorantly missed. The Jews received so many prophets/Messenger of God from Abraham to Moses to Yeshua but for the new cruel/unjustified rules no prophet has come to Jews for the last two thousand years .Please think coolly, there must be something spiritually wrong with you, please reflect.
Please open up and discuss those rules and their correctness or otherwise openly; after all this forum belongs to you and it is founded for useful and meaningful discussions, of course politely and in a civilized manner which your are. Please do tell us your pent-up arguments/rules and make us wise in this regard, please.
Please do not mind my language as English is not my mother language.
Thank you
I am an Ahamadi a faith in Islam

[bananabrain]

fadfad,

the basic similarity is that both are more about what you do and the way you do it than complicated theological constitutions, as in the case of christianity. islam and judaism agree on the One G!D, that G!D speaks to each group in terms appropriate to that group and that all-encompassing religiously-based law can be extracted from sacred text. because of this, both are in practical terms legal paradigms rather than theological ones. both have an interpretative tradition which has developed the raw power of the sacred text into a holistic system for living by. christianity, by contrast, concentrates far more on the theological side of things. because islam was influenced by both judaism and christianity, it has borrowed what it considers to be the best bits and, as a result, a lot of the practical stuff (like ritual slaughtering, dress codes, interpersonal relations and business ethics) has much in common with judaism, whilst much of the theological stuff is far closer to christianity. i hope this answers your question.

in reference to the post above, i have had words with inhumility before (see What's wrong with the Jewish God? ) because s/he continues to insist, despite my attempting to dispel his/her ignorance, insensitivity and general bone-headed arrogance, that the jews must adopt the criteria of islam for prophecy and that therefore we must accept jesus and muhammad and, incidentally, his own ahmadi "prophet" mirza ghulam ahmad - needless to say most other muslims seem to find this unconvincing to say the least, although many of them take the same view, except with the last prophet being muhammad. obviously, the baha'is say the same thing about baha'ullah and mormons about joseph smith and so on and so forth. apparently it is the done thing with other religions to get credibility by telling the jews we have to accept their prophets as superseding or continuing the jewish prophetic tradition. we don't - and the reason for this is that our tradition is self-contained and intended for us. we are not a universalist religion in the sense that we believe that we are better than anyone else, 'saved' or 'elect' or whatever. we are a universalist religion in that we believe every human can follow a path to G!D provided they observe seven basic rules known as the "noachide laws" (read http://www.jewfaq.org/gentiles.htm) which have generally been worked out by every civilisation on the planet. in other words, virtually everyone is fine. we have extra rules for ourselves, but nobody else is obliged to obey them. that is why jews do not seek to convert others. others seeking to convert us (which is always unwelcome) almost always follow the following process:

1. someone decides they are a prophet.
2. the "prophet" then produces a "revelation", supposedly from G!D.
3. the "prophet" then decides to try and get his "revelation" endorsed by the jews because apparently we're clever like that - it's like getting 5-stars in the michelin guide, religiously speaking: "as agreed by the Jews"
4. the "prophet" then decides that his "revelation" is far easier to understand and therefore "better" or "more modern" than judaism and tells the jews that they ought to ditch judaism and use his stuff instead.
5. the jews tell him to sod off.
6. the "prophet" then mysteriously discovers that judaism was wrong all along and that jews "changed" their own sacred texts in order to conceal the forthcoming revelation from him, the "new and improved prophet".
7. the prophet tells his followers that they should attempt to convert the jews.
8. the jews tell his followers to sod off.
9. the prophet tells his followers that jews are an evil, false bunch of liars and that they should be aggressively targeted.
10. many of the followers interpret "aggressive targeting" to mean "kill".
11. eventually the jews decide they're not going to put up with this any more.
12. the followers then waste everyone's time banging on about this all over the internet in order, apparently, to annoy jews and get up their noses, whilst at the same time maintaining that the jews don't know their own religion.

i am *so* bored by this. i welcome questions, but this constant "you aren't G!D's favourite people, we are" bollocks is not only offensive, but banal and pathetic.

on the other hand, genuine inquiry is always encouraged.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[inhumility]

As there is a universal cycle of human life; a child is born, slowly grows, from teens to youth to grown up to attaining full age to old age, then one dies for sure. One can even die in between, no certainty. Even one can have children at some stage and then life cycle starts again. This is for everybody, for a Hindu, for a Jew, for Zoroastrian etc. Whether one considers or is under impression or illusion that he is G!D’s most Favored Person like Brahman of India or Jew of Jerusalem or just a commoner like me or an Untouchable of India, the cycle is the same. To me every human being created by GOD, born of his own parents under the Globe is God’s most Favored Person and must be respected equally. I, being a sinner, everybody else is superior to me and that’s always in my mind; so there is no arrogance whatsoever and hence inhumility.
So, as there is a human Life Cycle so is a cycle for every Religion and for every Revelation, both are intertwined, whether secure or corrupted. Religion is born then gets corrupted for losing the Word of God or its true meaning which is synonymous with death, then revived again by God ………….. so on and so forth. The cycle goes on uninterrupted whether one is a favored one or not

Under the umbrella of Abrahamic Religions; I consider Jews, Christians and Muslim are natural brothers in humanity, leaving the diplomatic temporal strife aside; I am a firm believer that Religious matters could be and should be solved by dialogue and discussion. It is definitely not to speak lowly for anybody. When we are discussing principles, no need to take things personally or feel bitterness whatsoever.
I further have to add that whenever a Law bearing ProphetMessenger of God is sent by God, along-with the WORD from God (that could be termed as First Means of Guidance), his people usually get two other subordinate servants of the Word. The ACTIONS i.e. the daily or weekly repetitive acts etc, enjoined in that Word, which naturally as a role model the ProphetMessenger has to perform, these would not be many due to its nature as the humans can only perform a limited number of repetitive actions, and in fact everyone remembers it in routine, though these could be written down for children or new converts to learn to start with. This could be termed as Second Means of Guidance. Then there are the words of the prophet (distinct from the Word of God),stories, historic accounts etc, these verbal traditions are not known by the common believer generally and are known to the priesthood clergy, anybody interested could read them if committed to writing or could ask the clergy about it. This is only to be accepted if it is not against the first means of guidance and must be understood and interpreted and judged by the Word of God and not the vice versa. This is the third mean of guidance. The corrupted egoistic clergy starts establishing his hegemony over the ignorant believers starting through the third means to upwards. If a people don’t maintain this order, the death process gets started. They don’t give the Word of God the importance it deserves, so the Words of starts get lost to where it came from. This is a universal life cycle of the religions. If Law of Gravity is in operation in Tokyo, the same would be in operation in London, in New York or in Jerusalem.
This happened to Judaism, to Christianity and to Islam etc. Once this balance is lost, God sends another Guide-From-Him, quite naturally.

I never saidthat “the Jews must adopt the criteria of Islam for prophecy;” in fact my intention was to compare the conceptual criteria for comparative religious study for better understanding and was open for everybody including Judaism.

“The reason for this is that our (i.e. Judaism) tradition is self-contained and intended for us” Jews.
I would have conceded to that if the Jewish people would have been living in some other planet or in some secluded place in some uninhabited island; they claim exclusive authority from God on common lands, common elders and common books equally shared by other Religions in quite proximity, that makes it reasonably essential for others to check their propriety and to understand the logic or otherwise of their stance. This is an academic discussion; no arbitration is in operation; so why worry? If the claim is legitimate; let it be known? The thing is that first an idea comes to a people, if that is not corrected in time, and those people are intelligent, they get set to implement that plan, their neighbors are affected by that and they naturally react that on merit; then the vicious cycle of strife gets started and in the end of the day both come to harm. It is like a passenger ship boarded by many people, if some among them start boring a hole in its bottom on plea of personal freedom, and others don’t tell them not to do that that unwise act, they all would perish. Jews are definitely respectable and wise people, I don’t deny. Please share your wisdom with us.
For narrating important beliefs/principles/criteria only first means of guidance has to be used/consulted/quoted i.e. Word of God, which is open for everybody and may be not the others two means.
For the time being this much is sufficient.
This is an Ahmadiyya view- a faith in Islam

[bananabrain]

Originally Posted by inhumility

Whether one considers or is under impression or illusion that he is G!D’s most Favored Person like Brahman of India or Jew of Jerusalem or just a commoner like me or an Untouchable of India, the cycle is the same.

again, if you took the trouble to actually learn something rather than just repeating what you think you know, you would find out that jews do not think that we are "G!D's most favoured" people. that's not what being the "chosen people" means. it means we have been chosen to be jewish, which is a difficult thing to be.

So, as there is a human Life Cycle so is a cycle for every Religion and for every Revelation, both are intertwined, whether secure or corrupted. Religion is born then gets corrupted for losing the Word of God or its true meaning which is synonymous with death, then revived again by God ………….. so on and so forth. The cycle goes on uninterrupted whether one is a favored one or not

this is *YOUR OPINION*. i do not believe my religion is corrupted and frankly, if you keep saying to me that it is then i will moderate your posts in future. read the bloody CoC.

If Law of Gravity is in operation in Tokyo, the same would be in operation in London, in New York or in Jerusalem.

science is science and religion is religion. you can't use scientific arguments to justify religious positions - because, according to science, all this stuff is nonsense, anyway, including ahmadiyya.

This happened to Judaism, to Christianity and to Islam etc. Once this balance is lost, God sends another Guide-From-Him, quite naturally.

well, in that case, i declare that ahmadiyya has been corrupted, because it appears to cause its adherents to talk rubbish. in fact, i declare myself the new prophet of the ahmadiyya tradition and command you all to shut up.

I never said that “the Jews must adopt the criteria of Islam for prophecy;”

you said that jews must recognise that we made a mistake in not accepting the prophecy of jesus and muhammad. the criteria that make those two prophets are those of islam, therefore we must adopt those criteria in order for those alleged prophets to be accepted. you can't have it both ways.

I would have conceded to that if the Jewish people would have been living in some other planet or in some secluded place in some uninhabited island; they claim exclusive authority from God on common lands, common elders and common books equally shared by other Religions in quite proximity,

this is quite simply ridiculous. i presume you are talking here about the patriarchs, whose deeds are of course written of in the Torah. the Torah is a book for the jews, not for everybody. furthermore, the commandments of the Torah are (apart from the seven mentioned above) for jews, not for everyone. the Torah predates other traditions which claim the patriarchs, therefore, they are originally ours. it is all very well for you to claim them as part of a subsequent tradition, but anyone could do that. the church of the spaghetti monster could claim it is part of a hidden tradition from abraham and there would be no way of checking that either. the point is that you wouldn't even have heard about abraham were it not for the Torah and the jews - and the same goes for everyone else. so the "elders" may be in common, but you can hardly claim that we came up with this after the christians and the muslims. surely the onus is on the other traditions that claim to be "abrahamic" to show what on earth their religious systems actually have to do with abraham, to say nothing of isaac and jacob. i mean, we're directly descended from jacob. that's like you saying my grandfather is yours and not mine.

secondly, as i have already said, we do not claim that our books are "common". they were and are intended for us, not everyone. if you want to claim them as inspiration, feel free, but don't tell us you know what they are saying better than we do, or that we have misunderstood them, let alone corrupted them. that's just ignorant and rude.

thirdly, i have no idea what you're on about "common lands". the only land judaism is interested in is the land of israel, which is a spiritually defined entity. that is ours. the rest of the world is up to everyone else.

so frankly, all this stuff about "equal shares" is nonsense. if my family has owned a house for three generations and some guy comes up and says that he really respected my grandfather and follows his teachings and therefore he owns half the house, that's obviously ridiculous. neverthless, that is precisely what you appear to be doing about our books.

For narrating important beliefs/principles/criteria only first means of guidance has to be used/consulted/quoted i.e. Word of God, which is open for everybody and may be not the others two means.

but according to you, our Torah is not the "word of G!D" because it's been "corrupted". and, also according to you, your texts *are* the word of G!D. you have to understand that in the absence of criteria that we can accept, we have no way to verify this. nor do we have any reason to accept your criteria, because they rest upon basically telling us that we're lying to ourselves and everyone else. there is effectively no way for us to understand what you're saying except as someone who is telling us "something else, which G!D did not Command".

If the claim is legitimate; let it be known?

the onus is not on me to prove my claim. the onus is on you to prove that what you are saying has some merit. and so far, you really aren't. all you are doing is going on about how our religion is corrupt and that isn't dialogue. we cannot actually have a dialogue until you stop insulting us by telling us we are wrong. so unless you are going to do that i don't see much point in continuing this discussion.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[BlaznFattyz]

Originally Posted by NewAgeNerd

A prophet is ordained by G-d with the gift of visions, not to change His eternal Law, but rather to complete specific projects. One such project might be rebuilding the temple, or locating the ark of the convenant, or restoring the faith of the Jews.

Therefore, niether Jesus nor Muhammed are regarded as prophets according to Jewish Law.

from a christian perspective, prophecies regarding raising the son of man, and jesus saying he would be raised up; and prophecies regarding our sins being taken on through his suffering; and jesus saying he would rebuild the temple in three days, and resurrecting in three days back to glory with the father; and jesus not ever breaking one law, but said he came to fulfill them and taught everyone the meanings of god's word. he came as the salvation god had promised so he wasnt breaking anything but giving us forgiveness through god's grace and love.

[dauer]

Blazn,

and prophecies regarding our sins being taken on through his sufferin

There are no passages about an individual taking our sins through his suffering in the Tanach.

and jesus saying he would rebuild the temple in three days

There is no rebuilt beit hamikdash.

and resurrecting in three days back to glory with the father

This is a Christian myth, which does not exist in any Jewish sacred text.

and jesus not ever breaking one law

If you go by the Greek Testament, Jesus did break laws, for example, he bore a grudge in Matt 10:33, cursed an Israelite in ibid 23:33, gave misleading advice in ibid 19:9. As well as telling people they could work on the sabbath. Now, you may say that he didn't think any pharisaic tradition applied (which would work in some cases), but if you look at, for example, Matt 23:1-3 you'll see that, quite the opposite.

but said he came to fulfill them

But it is said so many times in the Tanach that I need not source it that the covenant with the Jewish people is eternal, and that all of the commandments will be kept forever, not that they will at some point in the future no longer be kept.

and taught everyone the meanings of god's word.

That goes back to what this thread became about, people who took on our sacred texts and then tried to tell us what they were "really" about as if we now have to accept their tradition. I certainly respect your right to your beliefs,, but this is the Jewish board, not the Abrahamic one.

he came as the salvation god had promised so he wasnt breaking anything but giving us forgiveness through god's grace and love.

That's a theology that would more appeal to Romans. The Torah has in it a very clear system for earning atonement and forgiveness, by which every person is empowered to through their actions be forgiven, and we as Jews also understand it that God's justice is always tempered by His mercy. We don't have a hell anyway. But for the Romans you get more these chaotic gods who act on a whim, and they would indeed need salvation from that. Least that's my understanding of the actual history.

Dauer

[BlaznFattyz]

Originally Posted by dauer

Blazn,
There are no passages about an individual taking our sins through his suffering in the Tanach.

isaiah 53.

[dauer]

isaiah 53.

If you read that chapter in the context of the rest of Isaiah instead of picking out one chapter from the rest, you'll see that servant is identified by name as Israel.

Dauer