A Modern Qur'anic Kampf Against the Jews

Editor and analyst Dr. Andrew Bostom, and translator Dr. Atef Ghobrial have provided the first complete, thoroughly annotated translation and analysis of the late (d. 2010) Al-Azhar University Grand Imam and major modern Qur'anic commentator Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi's Banu Isra'il fi al-Qur'an wa al-Sunna ("The Children of Israel in the Qur'an and Traditions").

This seminal, if ugly work, first published in 1968, and re-published and re-introduced proudly in 1997 by Tantawi himself, a year after he became Grand Imam-near Papal equivalent of Sunni Islam's de facto "Vatican"-is the apotheosis of authoritative, modern Islamic antisemitism rooted in the Qur'an and Traditions of Islam's prophet Muhammad and the earliest Muslim community.

Academic and journalistic apologists have argued Tantawi's views, by default, including his bilious Jew-hatred (and traditionalist views of aggressive jihad), somehow presented, an "alternative" to, "what...is seen as a rigid and conformist version of Islam." This pattern of Western apologetics, or frank denial, versus celebratory Muslim triumphalism regarding the unabashed Jew-hating rancor of Tantawi's thesis-coincident with his ancient-cum-modern embrace of jihad war doctrine-persists with great continued relevance today.

As we demonstrate, the virulent antisemitism and jihadism permeating "Banū Isrāʼīl fī al-Qurʼān wa-al-sunnah," has deep, living mainstream Muslim historical and doctrinal roots. Moreover, we maintain this venomous doctrine taught throughout the Muslim world with the authoritative imprimatur of major Islamic teaching institutions like Al-Azhar University contributes mightily to the present-day disproportionate pandemic of extreme Muslim antisemitism documented repeatedly by independent surveys conducted for more than two decades, ongoing.

Tantawi's written exegetic support for aggressive jihad, including jihad terror "martyrdom," was complemented by public pronouncements sanctioning homicide bombing, particularly against Israel's Jews, shortly after becoming Grand Imam, March 17, 1996, and reiterated consistently during his tenure. Sanctioning homicide bombings against Israeli Jewish non-combatants was certainly the worst example of Tantawi's visceral, religiously inspired Islamic Jew-hatred while Grand Imam, but another less directly lethal manifestation