Apes and pigs?
by
Sr. Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood
One news item
that came under discussion in February 2007 concerned a convert-Muslim teacher who claimed he had been
unfairly dismissed from the eminent Muslim school, the King Fahd Academy in Acton,
West London. He had reported that the school was teaching racism and
using racist books in its lessons. Apparently one of the books in use at that school described Jews as 'monkeys' (or
apes) and Christians as 'pigs'.
I later
watched a TV discussion in which Jeremy Paxman interviewed an official from the
school who categorically denied that racism was taught there, but admitted that
the reference to the apes and pigs did indeed exist in one school text-book,
and needed careful explanation and interpretation. The Muslim Weekly reported
later that the school has now decided to take this book out of service.
But where
should such a phrase have come from? As a person who objects strongly to
racism, I wanted to look into this matter. Personally, I have found Islam to be
a faith that has nothing to do with racism, but on the contrary actively seeks
to unify people of many different races.
Could it possibly be true that the Qur’an taught racism?
I knew that
the words ‘apes and pigs’ were mentioned in certain verses of the
Qur’an, and therefore to be automatically defended by Muslims as part of the
revealed message, so it is vitally important to study the meaning and
implication of those verses, especially to see if they did condone racism or
not.
I started by
looking up all the references to apes or monkeys, and pigs or swine in the Alim
Encyclopedia CD. This excellent resource gives four different translations of
the Qur’an, plus the full translations of the four leading collections of
authentic sayings of the Prophet or hadiths - Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud and
Tirmidhi. My search revealed three references to apes and pigs in the Qur’an
and four in the hadiths.
Examining the Qur’anic passages first, I could see no evidence whatsoever of racism – only of the issues of divine punishment for sin and reward for obedience.
Here is the first Qur’an passage given in full: Surah 2.62-66.
‘Rest assured
that Believers (Muslims), Jews, Christians and Sabians - whoever believes in
Allah and the last day and performs good deeds - will be rewarded by their
Rabb; they will have nothing to fear or to regret. Remember, O Children of
Israel, when We took a covenant from you and when We lifted the Mount
(Tur/Sinai) over your heads saying: ‘Hold firmly to what We have given you (ie.
the two tablets of stone containing the Ten Commandments) and follow the
commandments therein, so that you may guard yourself against evil.’ But even
after that you backed out; if it had not been for the grace and mercy of Allah
upon you, you surely would have been among the losers. You very well know the
story of those of you who transgressed in the matter of the sabbath; We ordered
them: ‘Be detested apes.’ Thus, We made their fate an example to their
own people and to succeeding generations, and a lesson to those who are
God-conscious.’
The full story to which this refers is given in the second Qur’anic
passage, which I give in full: Surah 7.163-166.
‘We divided
them (the Jews) into twelve tribes or nations. We directed Moses by inspiration
when his (thirsty) people asked him for water: ‘Strike the rock with thy
staff.’ Out of it there gushed forth twelve springs: each group knew its own
place for water. We gave them the shade of clouds and sent down to them manna
and quails (saying): ‘Eat of the good things We have provided for you.’ (But
they rebelled): to Us they did no harm but they harmed their own souls. And
remember it was said to them: ‘Dwell in this town and eat therein as you wish,
but say the word of humility and enter the gate in a posture of humility; We
shall forgive you your faults; We shall increase (the portion of) those who do
good.
But the
transgressors among them changed the word from that which had been given them; so
We sent on them a plague from heaven because they repeatedly transgressed. Ask
them concerning the town standing close by the sea. Behold! They transgressed
in the matter of the sabbath. For on their sabbath days their fish came to them
openly holding up their heads, but on the days which were not sabbaths they
came not: thus did We make a trial of them for they were given to
transgression.
Some of them
said: ‘Why do you preach to a people whom Allah will destroy or visit with a
terrible punishment?’ The preachers answered: ‘To discharge our duty to your
Lord and perchance that they may fear him.’ When they disregarded the
warnings that had been given them We rescued those who forbade evil; but We
visited the wrong-doers with a grievous punishment because they were given to
transgression. When in their insolence they transgressed (all) prohibition We
said to them: ‘Be ye apes despised and rejected.’
The Third Qur’anic passage: Surah 5.59-60.
‘Say (to them): O People of the Book! Do you disapprove of us for no other reason than that we believe in Allah and the revelation that has come to us and that which came before (us) and (perhaps) that most of you are rebellious and disobedient? Ask them: Should I tell you of those who will have even worse than this in retribution from Allah? They are those whom Allah has cursed; who have incurred His wrath; some of whom were turned into apes and pigs; who worshipped Taghut (Evil, forces of Shaitan); these are worse in rank and far more astray from the Right Way.’
A fourth
reference? – Surah 4.47.
‘O people
of the Book! Believe in what We have (now) revealed (ie. the Qur’an) confirming
what was (already) with you (ie. Jewish and Christian scriptures) before We
obliterate your faces and turn them back to front (an Arabic idiom meaning
basically ‘to lose face’), or curse them as We cursed the Sabbath-breakers: for
the decision of Allah must be carried out.’
None of these passages has any racist intent, or is racist in any way whatsoever; they all refer to a punishments that fell upon certain particular sinners, and have nothing to do with racism.
Hadiths are recorded sayings of the Prophet or narratives about him. There are a few which mention apes and pigs. In them, particular sinners were punished because they had deliberately and persistently ignored God’s commandments, and tried in effect to bamboozle Him. The passages all concerned only particular Jews who deliberately decided to break the sabbath laws, and not all Jews. None of the hadiths or commentaries was racist.
According to the Jewish Law as given in the Torah - Exodus 31.14 - the penalty for those who broke the sabbath was death. Fishing was one of the things forbidden on the sabbath.
The tradition (as Muslim commentators understood it) apparently referred to a specific community of Jews who were residents of the village of Iliya on the Red Sea coast. There is no reference to them or this incident anywhere in the Old Testament, and so far as I know, is not found in the Talmud either. (There are references to disobedient Jews being smitten by God and ending their days in terror in Psalm 78.31 and Exodus 32.35, but nothing is mentioned about apes and pigs).The Arab traditions recorded that God made great schools of fish appear on the sabbath days and disappear before nightfall to test the faith and obedience of Jews in this particular community to His commandments. It proved too great a temptation for some of them to resist, and they found ways of getting around the divine prohibition.
Most early Muslim sources and classical commentators accept that Allah literally transformed these particular sinners into apes and swine.
1. Ibn Abbas, a cousin of the Prophet (pbuh) and one of the first to write a commentary on the Qur’an, recorded that the legend suggested that this particular example of disobedience commenced when one Jewish man secretly caught a fish on the sabbath, and decided to ‘bend’ the Law – he did not go so far as to pull the fish out of the water (which would have been fishing), but he fastened it with a string to a stake in the ground and put it back into the water, and only on the next day pulled the fish out of the water and ate it (ie. he caught the fish but did not fish it out of the water). When he saw that he was not punished, he repeated his actions on the following sabbath, and on the sabbath after that. Eventually, the neighbours noticed the tantalizing smell of the fish from his cooking, and began to follow his example. For a long time they ate in secret, and took note that God did not immediately punish them. It was only when they began to fish openly and sell their prohibited catches in the markets that they were punished.
2. Tabari’s version mentioned a different tactic used to
circumvent the prohibition. One crafty Jewish fisherman dug a pit with a
channel leading from it to the sea. On the sabbath he opened the channel so the
waves would wash the fish into the pit and trap them, so that he could catch
and cook them on the following day. The aroma of the cooking fish reached the
neighbours, some of whom followed his example, and ate fish caught on the
sabbath. When their religious leaders warned them, they claimed they were
taking the fish on Sundays when they removed the fish from the pit, and not on
Saturdays (the sabbaths), when they opened the channel.
Tabari’s version then develops the narrative. When the sinners refused to stop sinning, those who kept God’s commandments decided they were unwilling to live in the same village with them and built a wall between them. One day, the sinners were not seen leaving their gate. The faithful Jews climbed the wall and went to check the houses, and found them locked. When they opened the doors, they found that everyone – men, women, and children – had been turned into apes. ‘They locked up their houses at night, in their usual manner, and woke up as apes.’
3. The 13th century
Andalusian commentator, Qurtubi, added to this that the apes knew and could
identify their human relatives, approached them, smelled their clothes and
cried out to them. But the humans, in contrast, could not identify their metamorphosed
relatives. They cried: ‘Did we not forbid you (from violating the word of
God)?’ To which the apes nodded their heads.
4. Ibn
Kathir gave this commentary regarding Surah 2:66:
Allah says to the Jews: ‘You know of the punishment that befell the people of 'Ilah, when they disobeyed Allah's order to glorify the sabbath and not to work on that day. They used a stratagem to catch the fish which came up to their water channels or pools on the sabbath days. They prepared the nets, ropes and hooks to trap fish during the whole day of the sabbath. They would then come to take the catch of fish on Sundays claiming that they had not fished on the sabbath. However, since the actual act of fishing took place on the sabbath day, Allah cursed them for it and transformed them into despised apes.
These
commentators were all agreed that the metamorphosis of some humans into apes
and pigs literally did happen.
Others
added that their misery was soon terminated, by death.
5. 'Ata al-Khurasani reported that
the people of the township were told: ‘O people of the township, be you apes,
despised and rejected’, and that when those who forbade fishing saw them they
asked: ‘Did we not warn you?’ They nodded in agreement. He then added ‘They
were doomed to stay as apes for three days without food, drink or reproduction,
until they died.’ (Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Part 1, Surah Al-Fatiah Surah
Al-Baqarah, ayat 1 to 141, abridged by Sheikh Muhammad Nasib Ar-Rafa'i
[Al-Firdous Ltd., London, second edition 1998], pp. 146 –147.)
6. Abdullah narrated that mention was also made before him of monkeys, (and Mis'ar (one of the narrators) said that he thought the narrator also mentioned swine) which had suffered metamorphosis. The Holy Prophet (pbuh) said: ‘Verily, Allah did not cause the race of those which suffered metamorphosis to grow, or they were not survived by young ones. Monkeys and swine themselves have been in existence long before (this metamorphosis of these particular human beings).’ Muslim 1226.
7. Ibn Abbas agreed that anyone whose form was changed lived for no more than three days and did not eat, drink, or propagate.
8. Ibn Mas'ud said that the Prophet (pbuh) was asked if the monkeys and pigs who now existed in their present time were descendants of those whom Allah had transformed? His reply indicated that this was not true at all. He said: ‘Allah never destroyed a (race of) people by transforming them and then creating offspring or descendants for them. Monkeys and swine both existed before this took place.’
So it does appear here that the Prophet (pbuh) did accept literally the metamorphosis of some humans into apes and pigs – but that they were a special case, and had nothing to do with – or no genetic link with - the creatures that were apes and pigs already, or those that exist now. Moreover, these unfortunate metamorphosed individuals soon died, and did not produce offspring or further propagate their species.
Do reports of such miracles suggest an ancient text is rubbish?
This
usually depends on the attitude and faith of the believer. Some people might
find the whole claim of the metamorphosis of people to animals to be no more
than a fairy tale, and if the Quran contains such suggestions this must be a
proof that it cannot therefore be true, or truly God's word. This would be
problematic for Muslims who do accept that Allah may act as He wills, even
bringing about highly improbable things simply by His command.
The same issue is faced by Christians who find it impossible to believe that Jesus could have walked upon water or turned water into wine, etc, and therefore would reject the Gospels (or selected parts of them) as not being true, or truly God’s word. Some Christian commentators and scholars (eg Bultmann) would demythologize the entire New Testament, on the simple grounds that miracles are impossible – while other Christians devoutly believe in them with no questions, as acts of faith.
There is an alternative view – Some scholars suggest that the words should be ‘Be as apes’ – in other words, they add the word ‘as’ and suggest the command should not be taken literally but was figurative.
They maintain
that the phrase was never intended to be taken literally but was a metaphorical
description (mathal) of the moral degradation which sinners
undergo. They find no problem in inserting the softening word ‘as’ in their
commentary or even their translations, although this is not found in the Arabic
original. The cursed persons became wildly unpredictable like apes, and
as abandoned to the pursuit of lusts as swine (Manar VI.448) A footnote
in Muhammad Asad’s translation also suggests that the words should not be taken
literally, but rather be translated as ‘Be as apes’ – on the authority
of such famous tabi’i as Mujabid and Ibn Jarir Tabari. Others who agree
include Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Maulana Muhammad Ali, Rashad Khalifa, et al. For a
modern example, see the Oxford University Press translation of the Qur’an
published in 2004. The translator, Professor Muhammed Abdel Haleem,
states in his notes that it is a figure of speech.
Does
it matter? Surely it is the point of the passage that is important.
The
radical Egyptian Sayyid Qutb was one of those who argued that we do not
really need to be concerned with whether the metamorphosis was physical or not
- the point was that the minds and spirits of these particular Jews had fallen
into a beastly state.
So, we end up with two points of view - either that certain sinful Jews who broke their own laws became as apes and pigs, or that they were literally transformed by Allah by a miraculous metamorphosis into those creatures.
Muslims are free to choose between either of these two points of view, according to the acceptance of their own reason, since both interpretations were debated by the scholars from the earliest of times.
Racist slurs and insults
What matters is that the verses should not ever be used in a racist
manner. Whether literal or metaphorical, the fate of those particular
sinners referred to in no way applied to any other members of their race. It is
an insult to call other Jews descendants of or brothers of apes and pigs.
Millions of Jews in those times and since then were not involved in any way in
the sinful behaviour of these particular punished persons. On the contrary,
many have been widely accepted as good and saintly persons by Muslims.
Apologies appropriate - some Muslims have been racist
Unfortunately,
I did find that there was no point in denying that depicting Jews (sometimes
limiting the reference to Zionists in particular) as the ‘descendants of apes
and pigs’ does indeed seem to have become widespread in public discourse
amongst Muslims of a certain type, and it is certainly true that such phrases
have been bandied about as insults in inflammatory speeches by Muslim preachers
in various circumstances, to inflame hatred. One can find numerous examples on
the internet.
Here are three such examples:
(i) In a weekly sermon dated in April 2002, Sheikh Muhammad Tantawi of the al-Azhar University of Cairo and one of the highest-ranking clerics in the Sunni Muslim world, called the Jews ‘enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs.’
(ii) Saudi Sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Sudayyis, imam and preacher at the Al-Haram mosque in Makkah, urged Arabs to give up peace initiatives with the Jews because they are ‘the violators of pacts and agreement, the murderers of the Prophets (a charge also proclaimed by Jesus), and the offspring of apes and pigs.’
(iii)
In a 1998 speech on the occasion of the Shi'ite Ashura holiday Hizbullah
Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah regretted that the holiday fell ‘on the 50th
anniversary of the bitter and distressing historical catastrophe of the
establishment of the state of the grandsons of apes and pigs – the Zionist Jews
– on the land of Palestine and Jerusalem.’
The phrase has a long history, and was used in at least two
ancient narratives. In this first example, it was used in a derogative
manner by Arab tribesmen.
Abu Sufyan (a non-Muslim Quraysh Arab chief who was fighting against the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) wanted to test the (Jewish tribe of) Banu Qurayzah so he sent his son to them. ‘My father sends greetings of peace to you,’ the young man began. ‘He says that our siege of Muhammad and his companions has been a protracted affair and we have become weary...We are now determined to fight Muhammad and finish him off. My father has sent me to you to ask you to join battle with Muhammad tomorrow.’
‘But tomorrow is the sabbath,’ said the Jews of Banu Qurayzah, ‘and we do not work (or fight) at all on sabbaths. Moreover, we will not fight with you until you hand over to us seventy of your nobles and nobles from the Banu Ghatafan as hostages. We fear that if the fighting becomes too intense you would hasten back home and leave us alone to Muhammad. You know that we have no power to resist him...’
When Abu Sufyan's son returned to his people and told them what he had heard from the Banu Qurayzah, his men shouted in unison: ‘May these sons of monkeys and swine be damned! By God, if they were to demand from us a single sheep as a hostage, we would not give them it.’
And while the enemy alliance (against Islam) was thus in this state of disarray, God sent down on the Quraysh and their allies a fierce and bitterly cold wind which swept away their tents and their vessels, extinguished their fires, buffeted their faces and cast sand in their eves. In this terrible state of confusion the allies fled.
In this second ancient narrative, it is the Jews themselves who refer to the punitive metamorphosis:
The Banu Qurayzah had expected that the Battle of the Ditch against the Muslims would end in the defeat of the Muslims, and that they would be duly rewarded by their anti-Muslim Arab confederates for the services rendered to their cause. When the battle ended instead in the discomfiture of the Quraysh and their allies, the Banu Qurayzah felt themselves stranded and exposed to the wrath of the Muslims. Indeed, the Prophet (pbuh) sent a small force under the command of Ali to the Jewish quarter. Ali contacted the leader of the Jews, Ka'b b Asad, and brought home to him the point that as they had violated the terms of their agreement with the Muslims, and were guilty of high treason, they could no longer be allowed to live in Madinah. They were told that they should lay down their arms and migrate to live elsewhere.
The Jews ridiculed the proposal and replied with abusive language about the Prophet (pbuh) and the Muslims. Ali tried his best to make them see the light of reason and migrate elsewhere in their own interest. When he did not succeed in prevailing upon them he reported the matter to the Prophet (pbuh) who therefore ordered a military operation against them.
He handed the war banner to Ali, and the Muslims marched to the Jewish quarter. The Jews shut themselves in their citadel and the Muslim force besieged them. In fact, the Banu Qurayzah expected that the Quraysh and the Jews of Khaybar would come to their assistance, but the days passed and no help came, and things became difficult for them. On the sabbath Day, Ka'b b Asad - the leader of the Banu Qurayzah - pointed out to his people that as each day passed things were getting worse, and that it would not be possible to withstand the siege for much longer. He placed three proposals before his people.
· That they should be converted to Islam, and should accept Muhammad (pbuh) as a true prophet of God. The Banu Qurayzah turned down the proposal, and said that they would never accept Islam.
· That they should kill their own women and children with their own hands, and thereafter fall upon the Muslims to either kill them or be killed. His people refused to kill their women and children.
· That as it was the sabbath Day the Muslims would not be expecting any attack from them, so they should attack the Muslims on the sabbath Day. The Jews replied that their ancestors who fought on the sabbath Day were converted to apes and that therefore they would not fight on the sabbath Day lest they might also be turned into apes.
This
narrative, therefore, suggests that the Jews did have a tradition of
this metamorphosis happening to some of their ancestors, people who had broken
the sabbath laws by deciding to fight on the Sabbath when warfare on that day
was forbidden. I do not personally know, however, of any Jewish source for this
tradition.
The
four hadiths mentioning apes and swine.
First, it
must be stated that there is no hadith in the authentic
collections in which the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) calls Jews apes or pigs.
1. Abu Amir
or Abu Malik narrated that Abdur Rahman ibn Ghanam al-Ash’ari said: Abu Amir or
Abu Malik told me: ‘I swear by Allah (another oath) that he did not believe me
that he heard the Apostle of Allah (pbuh) say: ‘There will be among my
community people who will make lawful (the use of) illegal sexual intercourse
and silk. Some of them will be transformed into apes and swine.’ (Abu Dawud 1863).
This hadith and the next two all actually refer to Muslims who break Islamic Law, and not Jews at all. The sayings are not racist and refer to events which have not yet happened – they are warnings of what could happen to those Muslims who break Islamic Law at some future time.
2. The second hadith is really another version of the first hadith:
Abu Amir or Abu Malik al-Ashari narrated that he heard the Prophet (pbuh) say: ‘Among my followers there will be some people who will consider illegal sexual intercourse, the wearing of silk, the drinking of alcoholic drinks and the use of musical instruments, as lawful. And there will be some people who will stay near the side of a mountain and in the evening their shepherd will come to them with their sheep and ask them for something, but they will say to him, 'Return to us tomorrow.' Allah will destroy them during the night and will let the mountain fall on them, and He will transform the rest of them into monkeys and pigs and they will remain so till the Day of Resurrection.’ (Bukhari 7.494b).
3. In the third hadith Anas ibn Malik narrated:
The Prophet (pbuh) said: ‘The people will establish cities, Anas, and one of them will be called Basrah or Busayrah. If you should pass by it or enter it, avoid its salt-marshes, its market, and the gate of its commanders, and keep to its environs, for the earth will swallow some people up, pelting rain will fall and earthquakes will take place in it, and there will be people who will spend the night in it and become apes and swine in the morning.’ (Abu Dawud 2020).
4. In the fourth hadith Ammar ibn Yasir narrated that Allah's Messenger (pbuh) said: ‘The table was sent down from Heaven with bread and meat, and they were commanded not to be unfaithful nor to store up for the morrow. But they were unfaithful, sorted up and laid by for the morrow, so they were changed into apes and swine.’ (Tirmidhi 1332).
This last
hadith does refer to the Jews during their time in the wilderness after the
Exodus from Egypt, and again refers to specific persons who disregarded God’s
command not to store up the heaven-sent manna for the morrow. (See
Exodus 16.19-20).
My own conclusion is that the phrase was simply used as a metaphor for supposedly believing persons (either Jews or Muslims) who had deliberately and willfully chosen to ignore commandments from God.