The Children of Israel in the Qur'an

A detailed investigation into what "the Children of Israel" means in the context of the Qur'anic revelation

This Qur’an relates to the children of Israel most of that wherein they differ,

(27:76)

Background

First principles

The first order of business when approaching any complex subject is to define terms.

Since the broader object of this project¹ is to compare the Qur’an against texts advanced often (although not exclusively) by its detractors in order to diminish or refute the Qur’an’s internal claims, we must establish definitions for what the Qur’an itself means by important named actors where they occur also in external texts if we are to avoid being railroaded into accepting definitions thrust upon us by others.

Thus, it is a matter of importance, given the broader scope of our project, to reach a clear determination on what is meant by the children of Israel on the basis of the Qur’anic text, since they are so central to all three monotheist traditions and their associated writings.

Remarks on method

In The Qur’an: A Complete Revelation, the means for defining key archetypal terms were what I call pan-textual analysis (a process of inferring meaning based on the totality or generality of uses of a particular term), and Qur’anic definitions (taking statements which the Qur’an applies to particular archetypes as descriptive, even prescriptive). This methodology is expressive of an engagement with the Qur’an predicated upon its internal claims to be complete, sufficient, preserved by God, consistent, and susceptible to (even insistent upon) a reasoned and logical approach to its contents.

However, we cannot approach texts other than the Qur’an on the basis of the same methodology. While others may consider their proof texts unimpeachable, no obligation extends to us to treat them on that basis.

To compare the Qur’an against other texts requires a different approach. Ours will be to treat both the Qur’an and any external texts as textual narratives and to consider divergences of presentation between them on that basis.

Mechanisms of narrative analysis or narrative inquiry² abound, and their number today is perhaps expressive of the institutionalised lunacy which characterises much of what passes for academia. But this lamentable reality does not preclude us from leveraging such meat-and-potatoes concepts as fabula and sjuzhet,³ narrative voice,⁴ and so on,⁵ and these stalwarts will form part of our broader process.⁶

In short: in order to approach the question of the Qur’an’s relationship to earlier writings correctly — writings in which some of the same dramatis personae appear — we need to be clear about what we understand by the Qur’an’s use of such terms, especially where they are problematical.

And the Qur’an contains few questions of identification which are as problematical as those which attach to the children of Israel.

The battlefield for identification with “the children of Israel”

The Qur’an references and develops narratives rooted both in and around the monotheism of parts of West Asia of cultural relevance at the time of revelation. Accordingly, it focuses heavily upon Moses and the children of Israel. It mentions the children of Israel at least once in each of 40 verses,⁷ and Moses at least once in each of 131 verses.⁸ Moses is also addressed by name 24 times (more than any other person in the text),⁹ ten of which by God Himself. Narratives attaching to Moses occupy more textual real estate than those attaching to any other figure in the narrative past (we define this and related terms shortly).

Today, enquiry into the question of who or what the children of Israel were (or are) necessitates traversing a quagmire of frequently conflicting agendas. Dominant among these are those advanced by rich and powerful interests whose influence extends as far as (but is not limited to) media, academia, and religious apologetics. Detrimental though this de facto status quo may be for the operations of media, academia, and religious apologetics, it need not be our focus, nor should it materially affect our analysis.¹⁰

The following facts, however, should be acknowledged at the outset.

Firstly, it is objectively the case that the relatively recent term Jew has been conflated in the mind of the ignorant and undiscerning with children of Israel. However, “Jews”¹¹ (whatever one means by the term), do not claim to represent the totality of the children of Israel, rather a minor subdivision thereof. So even if one is to accept their claim uncritically, one is still left with a further and larger battlefield: the matter of the “lost” children of Israel.

This question then engulfs one in claim and counterclaim from such diverse camps as the we-was-kangz assertions of African Israel movements on the one hand, and the David-will-never-want-a-man-to-sit-upon-the-throne-of-the-house-of-Israel¹² narratives of British Israelitism and its offshoots on the other.

Clouds of additional complexity hang over this mountain (only some small portion of which we have summarised) occasioned by the ambiguities and scope for friction which bedevil the terms Israel, house of Israel, and children of Israel across the totality of the Hebrew scriptures in their present state.

These mysteries are then compounded by the fact that all written genealogies (by which membership of the children of Israel was proven historically) were destroyed by Titus along with the Temple in CE 70, meaning that no one can today assert his descent from the children of Israel on a textual basis originating from that quarter.

If this were not enough, atheist Zionists now arrogate to themselves the mythological vim of the children of Israel as a media-narrative brand, which they combine with insistence on exceptionalism for Jews in all things on the one hand, and citizens of the Zionist state itself such as Shlomo Sand who has publicly renounced his “Jewishness” on the other.¹³

Clearly, the whole subject is a mess. And perhaps it is meant to be one.

We do not claim to wield a sword sufficiently sharp to cut at one stroke the genetic, historical, genealogical, cultural, political and economic Gordian Knot of the question of who is or who is not today a member of the children of Israel. Perhaps others are able to do so convincingly. If so, we will review their findings with interest.

We are simply acknowledging the question as a mess, and as a mess which is the battleground for a dog’s dinner of delusion, invective, identity politics, power manoeuvring, victim politics, and financial shakedowns.¹⁴

But while this entire question is a mess, it need not be our mess if we restrict ourselves to the following task: to determine a definition for what the Qur’an has in view when it speaks to or about the children of Israel, one which is consistent both with the logistics of the Qur’anic text and with reason.

We can then hold to this definition downstream amid the cut-and-thrust of comparison between the Qur’an and other texts which also feature the children of Israel.

And it is to this task that we now turn.¹⁵

Triangulating a definition

In order to resolve this question on the basis of Qur’anic data in such a way that conclusions are confirmed by what we might term logical triangulation, we need to step outside the strict confines of the subject under review. Despite this apparent digression, the reader may be assured that what follows is necessary to our process.

Narrative voices

If we are to manage treatment of this question on the basis of clearly delineated categories, it is necessary to recognise that the children of Israel feature both in the Qur’an’s narrative past (by which term we mean events which predate the Qur’anic revelation), as well as in its narrative present (by which term we mean the now of the time of the revelation) as well as, to some extent, in the actual present (i.e. for us as readers today engaging with the text of the Qur’an).

Examples follow:

And God took an agreement of the children of Israel; and We raised up among them twelve leaders. And God said: “I am with you if you uphold the duty, and render the purity, and believe in My messengers, and support them, and lend to God a goodly loan. I will remove from you your evil deeds, and make you enter gardens beneath which rivers flow. But whoso among you denies after that has strayed from the right path.”

(5:12)

Ask thou the children of Israel how many a clear proof We gave them. And whoso changes the favour of God after it has come to him: God is severe in retribution.

(2:211)

Clearly, 5:12 is anchored in the narrative past. Meanwhile 2:211, though clearly anchored in the narrative present also places markers in the actual present.

Jacob and the children of Israel

Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham is the father of the children of Israel in the Hebrew scriptures, therefore consideration of the identification of Jacob with Israel in the context of the Qur’an is required.

While the casual reader may be forgiven for missing the fact, Jacob is nowhere overtly associated with the name of Israel in the Qur’an. Even in surah 12, where Jacob and his sons feature more prominently than anywhere else, Jacob is consistently — even pointedly — named Jacob throughout,¹⁶ while the word Israel does not occur in the surah at all.

There exist two verses only in the Qur’an where the name Israel occurs outside of the formula of the children of Israel; both are supplied below:

All food was lawful to the children of Israel save what Israel made unlawful upon himself before the Torah was sent down. Say thou: “Bring the Torah and recite it, if you be truthful.”

(3:93)

Those are they whom God favoured among the prophets of the progeny of Adam, and of those We bore with Noah, and of the progeny of Abraham and Israel, and of those We guided and chose. When the proofs of the Almighty were recited to them, they fell down in submission weeping.

(19:58)

We can reliably determine on the basis of the Qur’anic narrative, however, that Jacob was Israel from the fact that the text marks Jacob and his sons’ entry into the land of Pharaoh, establishes the facts of the children of Israel’s sojourn and enslavement there, as well as their eventual delivery out of it under the leadership of Moses.

We can now assert the following points:

• While the internal logistics of the Qur’an provide plot points sufficient to permit the definite identification of Jacob as Israel and patriarch of the children of Israel, the fact is not emphasised (or is rather, one might say, de-emphasised).

• The events at Genesis 32:22-31 in which Jacob wrestles with the Angel and is renamed Israel are entirely absent from the Qur’an.

• Israel as a collective term and house of Israel, both of which are prominent in the Hebrew scriptures and the cause of much wrangling today, are entirely absent from the Qur’an.

• The other name-change so pivotal to readings of the Hebrew scriptures — that of Abram to Abraham — is also absent from the Qur’an, as is that of his wife from Sarai to Sarah (Abraham’s wife is nowhere identified by name in the Qur’an).

• No son of Jacob other than Joseph is named in the Qur’an.¹⁷

To conclude this part of our analysis: the Qur’anic data fits with the Hebrew scriptures’ identification of Jacob as the father of the children of Israel, but the racial, genealogical, and tribal emphasis which characterises both the narrative of the Hebrew scriptures and myriad doctrines claiming roots in the same is entirely absent.

The children of Israel and the children of Adam

Having noted the almost pointed absence of tribal or genealogical emphasis attaching to Israel in the Qur’an, we are equipped to recognise the significance of the following fact: while the Qur’an speaks of sons (Arabic: banī) as a generality, in the dual, and in the singular in numerous cases, in one other case only does it identify a demographic on the basis of the same convention as that it applies to the children of Israel (Arabic: banī isrā’īl), and that is in the case of the children of Adam (Arabic: banī ādam).

Thus, not only is the case which we now include in our purview (i.e. that of the children of Adam) one comparable to that of the children of Israel in the Qur’an, it is in an important way the only case comparable to that of the children of Israel in the Qur’an.

This fact provides a point of purchase later in our analysis.

Given our task of defining the children of Israel on a Qur’anic basis (and given that any act of definition typically presupposes some process of delineation and, importantly, exclusion), an obvious question at this point is: in view of the fact that the Qur’an speaks of the children of Adam, should we infer that there exists a human line other than that which descends from Adam?

In order to address this question requires that we again plough at something of an angle to our present furrow, but the point of any apparent divergence will become clear.

The Serpent Seed and Esau-Edom doctrines

The idea that the children of Adam and all mankind are not synonymous exists in various quarters. It holds sway among certain fringe¹⁸ Christian sects, for example, in the form of what is termed the Serpent Seed doctrine.¹⁹ And while its details are not our main focus, the brief overview which follows will serve our broader purpose.

Variants exist, but the doctrine’s dominant themes have Cain as the physical offspring of Satan and Eve. According to strains of thought predicated upon this interpretation, today’s “Jews” are identified as descendants of Satan via Cain. While further developments based upon this premise may conflict, they necessitate the conclusion that the children of Adam are a subset of the total human race.

This mechanism provides a convenient explanation for much one sees in the world today,²⁰ but it is not sustainable on a Qur’anic basis:

And recite thou to them the report of the two sons of Adam²¹ with the truth, when they offered an offering, and it was accepted from the one of them and not accepted from the other: — he said: “I will kill thee.” Said he: “God only accepts from those of prudent fear.

(5:27)

Had the formulation above been the two sons of Adam’s wife, for example, one might have had occasion to pursue the line of enquiry posited by the Serpent Seed doctrine. But since the Qur’an makes clear that the two men in question were brothers on the basis of descent from Adam, we must exclude the Serpent Seed doctrine and analogues thereof.

A further, perhaps allied, position is found in the Esau-Edom doctrine,²² and we briefly address it now for the sake of completion.

This doctrine again essentially divides the human race into parts with “Jews” placed on the Satanic side of the delineation process. This time, the critical distinction is between the twin sons of Isaac. The doctrine leverages portions of the Hebrew scriptures in that regard, of which an example follows.

1 The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.

2 I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob,

3 And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.

Malachi 1:1-3

Under the Esau-Edom doctrine, “Jews” are the descendants of Esau while the true sons of Jacob have (typically) forgotten that they are sons of Israel as a function of the machinations of the evil Edomite Jews.

The same doctrine points also to verses from the New Testament.

31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

33 They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?

John 8:31-33

The Esau-Edom doctrine holds that the “Jews” speaking with Jesus effectively admit here that they are interlopers and usurpers since, had they been children of Israel (i.e. descended from Jacob), they would have been in bondage in the past (i.e. with the children of Israel in Egypt).

History attests that the sons of Esau (Edom), while descended from Abraham, were forcibly converted to “Judaism” under the Hasmonean kings in the second century BC. The Esau-Edom doctrine holds that these Edomite “Jews” infiltrated and then usurped the ruling religious class in Jerusalem and beyond, and manifest today as the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie (cf. Revelation 3:9).

The following points may be made in consideration of the key features of the Esau-Edom doctrine on the basis of the contents of Qur’an:

• Esau is nowhere mentioned in the Qur’an.

• The Qur’an nowhere states that Jacob had a brother, let alone that he had a twin brother with whom he was in conflict and whose birthright he usurped, as per the Hebrew scriptures.

• It is not possible even to infer the existence of Esau from any of the thumbnail lineage summaries the Qur’an provides.²³

• The Qur’an has nothing to say to the Esau-Edom doctrine’s argument based on the Gospel of John since it attaches no relatable statement to Jesus.

• The Qur’an states specifically and without qualification that Jesus was sent to the children of Israel²⁴ (which fact excludes adoption of the Esau-Edom doctrine’s argument against Edomites “Jews” since, even if true, people who saw themselves as such were not part of Jesus’ mission, which fact renders the exchange at John 8:31-33 inapplicable).

Thus, we exclude any relevance of the Esau-Edom doctrine to the Qur’an.

Further consideration of “the children of Adam”

To reiterate: the Qur’an speaks of precisely two demographics identified by descent from a single origin by means of the Arabic term banī: the children of Israel and the children of Adam. Now that we have excluded the Serpent Seed doctrine and its associated theory on the basis of the Qur’an, we can return to the children of Adam as a means of gaining purchase upon our principal task of achieving a Qur’anic definition for the children of Israel.

In pursuit of that object we now ask the following questions:

1. Inadmissibility on the basis of the Qur’anic data of either of the doctrines reviewed above notwithstanding, can we demonstrate on the basis of the Qur’anic data whether the children of Adam encompasses all humankind or a subdivision thereof?

2. If the Qur’anic term the children of Adam can be shown in fact to encompass all humankind, then what distinction, if any, can be drawn between the children of Adam on the one hand, and the Qur’an’s many references to mankind as a generality on the other? And if no distinction can be drawn, then what benefit is there to the use of different terms?

It will be appreciated that we must approach this area of enquiry as do adherents of the Serpent Seed doctrine: at the point of the creation of man.

The creation of man

We present our findings for this part of our analysis in as compact a form as the material allows.

In terms of dramatis personae, the Qur’an contains multiple tellings of the creation of man:

1. One in which there is no named party.

2. One which names Adam (Arabic: ādam).

3. One which names man (Arabic: al insān).

4. One which names a mortal (Arabic: bashar).

Our task is to establish whether these are different tellings of the same event, or tellings of more than one event.

We present below the irreducible components which distinguish the four scenarios listed above:

1. The creation of unspecified man from clay (Arabic: ṭīn) at 6:2.

2. The creation of Adam from clay (Arabic: ṭīn) attached to Iblīs’ refusal to submit to him at both 7:12 and at 17:61.

3. The creation of man (Arabic: al insān) from clay (Arabic: ṭīn) at 32:7 and the creation of man (Arabic: al insān) from sounding clay like pottery (Arabic: ṣalṣāl kalfakhkhār) at 55:14.

4. The creation of a mortal (Arabic: bashar) from sounding clay, from dark slime transmuted (Arabic: ṣalṣāl min ḥamā’ masnūn) at 15:28 attached to Iblīs’ refusal to submit to him at 15:31-33.

The matrix above informs the following proposition:

1. If the creation of unspecified man [1], and of Adam [2], and of man (Arabic: al insān) [3] attach in every case to clay (Arabic: ṭīn); and

2. Adam [2] and a mortal (Arabic: bashar) [4] attach in each case to Iblīs’ refusal to submit to him; and if

3. Iblīs’ refusal to submit results in a single, unrepeatable event, one with permanent consequences; then

4. [1], [2], [3] and [4] must be different tellings of a single event.

We develop this outline in more natural language before presenting textual proof of its conclusion.

The clay (Arabic: ṭīn) which attaches to [1], [2] and [3] provides a communality between the creation of the unspecified man of [1], the Adam of [2], and the man (Arabic: al insān) of [3]. Meanwhile, the refusal of Iblīs to submit which attaches to both [2] and [4] provides a communality between the creation of Adam [2] and that of a mortal (Arabic: bashar) [4].

While the communality of clay (Arabic: ṭīn) between [1], [2] and [3] does not preclude multiple creation events, if the communality of Iblīs’ refusal to submit at [2] and [4] attaches incontrovertibly with a single, unrepeatable event with permanent consequences, then that fact impales all four tellings on a single spike, and does so because:

1. Iblīs is cast out subsequent to a creation stated to be made from:

   1. clay (Arabic: ṭīn);

   2. sounding clay, from dark slime transmuted (Arabic: ṣalṣāl min ḥamā’ masnūn).

2. Together, clay (Arabic: ṭīn) and sounding clay, from dark slime transmuted (Arabic: ṣalṣāl min ḥamā’ masnūn) attach to all four identifications of man:

   1. as an unnamed party;

   2. as Adam (Arabic: ādam);

   3. as man (Arabic: al insān);

   4. as a mortal (Arabic: bashar).

Stated differently:

1. If we know [1], [2], and [3] to attach to the colour yellow, that may or may not mean that they attach also to the shape of a square.

2. If we know both [2] and [4] to attach to the shape of a square, then we know [2] to be both yellow and square.

3. If we know [2] and [4] to attach to a single fact which necessitates the exclusion of both colours and shapes other than those encountered to that point, then we know that not only is [2] both yellow and square, [1], [3] and [4] must be also.

The single, unrepeatable event with permanent consequences is the banishment of Iblīs, which itself attaches in direct consequence to Iblīs’ refusal to submit to the man God created both at [2] and at [4].

When thy Lord said to the angels: “I am creating a mortal from clay,

“And when I have formed him, and breathed into him of My Spirit, then fall down, to him in submission.”

He said: “O Iblīs: what hindered thee from submitting to that which I have created with My hands? Hast thou waxed proud? Or art thou of the exalted?”

Said he: “I am better than he; Thou createdst me of fire, and Thou createdst him of clay.”

He said: “Go thou forth from it; for thou art accursed;

“And upon thee is My curse until the Day of Judgment.”

Said he: “My Lord: grant Thou me respite until the day they are raised.”

He said: “Thou art of those granted respite

“Until the day of the known time.”

(38:71-81)

In conclusion: the Qur’an allows for a single creation event for man only, and all men who have ever lived are descendants of one man.

“The children of Adam” vis-à-vis mankind

We have, then, logically excluded multiple creation events for man and any possibility other than Adam as the father of all mankind. Having established this, we can consider the broader import of our findings.

As stated early, the children of Adam occurs in seven verses:

O children of Adam: We have sent down upon you raiment to hide your shame, and as adornment; but the raiment of prudent fear, that is best. That is among the proofs of God, that they might take heed.

(7:26)

O children of Adam: let not the satan subject you to means of denial as he turned your parents out of the garden, removing from them their raiment, that he might make manifest their shame to them. He and his kind see you from where you see them not. We have made the satans allies of those who do not believe.

(7:27)

O children of Adam: take your adornment at every place of worship; and eat and drink, but commit not excess; God loves not the committers of excess.

(7:31)

O children of Adam: if there come to you messengers from among you, relating to you My proofs, then whoso is in prudent fear and makes right — no fear will be upon them, nor will they grieve.

(7:35)

And when thy Lord brought forth from the children of Adam, from their backs, their progeny, and made them bear witness as to themselves: “Am I not your Lord?” — they said: “Verily, we bear witness.” — “Lest you say on the Day of Resurrection: ‘Of this were we unaware,’

(7:172)

We have honoured the children of Adam, and carried them on land and sea, and provided them with good things, and preferred them greatly above many of those We created.

(17:70)

“Did I not commission you, O children of Adam, that you serve not the satan,” — he is an open enemy to you —

(36:60)

It is sufficient at this juncture to note both that five of the verses above comprise direct addresses by God in the vocative mode, and that the Qur’an contains a number of comparable addresses:

• O mankind (Arabic: al nās)²⁵

• O man (Arabic: al insān)²⁶

Prior to drawing together the somewhat disparate strands of our argument we supply the following verses as representatives of the two categories above to augment the conclusions reached in the previous section:

O mankind: be in prudent fear of your Lord who created you from one soul; and created from it its mate, and scattered from them many men and women; and be in prudent fear of God through whom, and through kinship, you ask one of another; God is over you, watching.

(4:1)

O mankind: if you are in doubt about the Resurrection, then: We created you from dust; then from a sperm-drop; then from a clinging thing; then from a fleshy lump formed and unformed — that We might make plain to you. And We settle in the wombs what We will to a stated term; then We bring you forth as a child; then that you should reach your maturity. And among you is he who is taken. And among you is he who is sent back to the most abject age, so that he knows not, after knowledge, anything. And thou seest the earth lifeless; then when We send down upon it water it quivers and swells and grows every delightful kind,

(22:5)

O mankind: We have created you from a male and a female, and have made you nations and tribes that you might know one another. The most noble of you in the sight of God is he of you most in prudent fear; God is knowing and aware.

(49:13)

O man: thou art toiling towards thy Lord with labour, and wilt meet Him!

(84:6)

We finally approaching the culmination of much of the preceding analysis. But in order to accord it its proper weight, we must remind ourselves that, despite what the actions of many who claim monopoly rights over the Qur’an might imply, the Qur’an is a preaching to all men, not one exclusively directed to those who call themselves Muslims.

Accordingly, when the Qur’an addresses particular demographics, the expectation is that those to whom it addresses itself should recognise the fact.

Thus, anyone with a rational mind who encounters the appeals O mankind and O man will apprehend that they include him within their remit.

But, and this is the important point, the same does not hold true in either the narrative present or the actual present for O children of Adam. In both cases, the reader must already understand himself to stand in relation to the children of Adam in order to apprehend that he is being addressed. In other words: response or recognition necessarily presuppose a minimal amount of pre-existing knowledge.

While one with only a nominal Christian, Jewish or Islamic cultural background will assume the appeal O children of Adam to include him, the same is not true of many of the billions of men who have grown up entirely outside such milieux.

What I am getting at is that it is the response which determines identification: only a man who understands himself to stand in some relation to a monotheistic cultural narrative would — or could — respond in any way to O children of Adam.

While the following comparison is imperfect, it is worthy of inclusion: only a man who understands himself to be a supporter of Tottenham Hotspurs would think to respond in any way to a football chant from an opposing team directed at supporters of Tottenham Hotspurs. And while this example permits access to some part of our point it is, as we say, imperfect since it is entirely possible, as we note above, to pertain to the children of Adam and not know it, but one will always know if he supports Tottenham Hotspurs.

Before proceeding at last to our conclusions, we will impose a final review of the following narrative concepts upon the reader:

1. Narrative present: that which is in the present at the time of telling.

2. Narrative past: that which is in the past at the time of telling.

These concepts are to be distinct in our minds from present and past as we commonly think of them.

Those parts of the Qur’an which treat of Muḥammad’s life and actions, for example, are in, or close to, the narrative present in the text, while they are for us in the actual past.

Conclusions

We now restate the key points we have covered which inform our conclusions:

1. The Qur’an contains only two categories identified collectively as descendants of a single man: the children of Adam and the children of Israel.

2. It is possible to pertain to the children of Adam and not know it.

3. In the case of the children of Adam it is the response which determines identification: only a man who at least in some culturally monotheistic way grasps the concept of humans as the creation of God can be expected to respond to an address on this basis.

We assert that what is true for the children of Adam above applies in the following way to the children of Israel:

1. Whenever the Qur’an treats of the children of Israel in the narrative past, it presents events which form the pre-history of the Qur’an and may be understood on that basis.

2. Whenever the Qur’an treats of the children of Israel in the narrative present (i.e. in an aspect which was the actual present in the past), it treats of those who understand themselves to be children of Israel.

Thus, if the hearer understands himself to be a member of the children of Israel, the substance applies to him; if he does not, it does not.

Further thoughts on the children of Israel

Despite the objective complexities which attach to the subject of the children of Israel today, the following assertions may be accepted without demure:

1. Non-Hebrews joined themselves to the children of Israel in the past.

2. People who are not born “Jews” may adopt a religion which “Jews” follow, after which point they and their children can — and do — genuinely consider themselves part of the children of Israel.

3. Conversely, “Jews” can — and do — lose any cultural memory of a connection with the children of Israel and merge fully with the surrounding culture.

4. The majority of the Hebrew Bible’s children of Israel no longer regard themselves as such.

Importantly, nowhere in the Qur’an does God call upon anyone to remember who he is; rather, He addresses Himself to those who are expected to know who they are, and exhorts them to respond on that basis.

To develop this point: my name is not James; presently, it does not matter how many times you call out James, I will not respond.

But let us say that I am given a credible account which shows to me that the people I think of as my parents are not my parents, and that I had been adopted and that I had been named James at birth, and that these crucial facts had been hidden from me all of my life. Now when I hear James called, my response is qualitatively different. At the very least I some part of me becomes alert.

But suppose I later find out that the story of my adoption is a tissue of lies: I had never been called James. Now the name James has no effect on me.

While this is a convoluted case, its application to our argument is valid. That argument is, in summary, that it is the fact of self-identification in the narrative present (and, by extension, in the actual present) which is the operative principle for inclusion among the children of Israel as presented in the Qur’anic text. All matters of genealogy, torturous and politicised historical wrangling, or expansive self- or national conceptions are utterly irrelevant. What matters is whether or not the hearer conceives of himself as part of the children of Israel.

In deciding whether one may accept this conclusion, one should consider what rejecting it requires:

1. That we accept that God collectively addresses and instructs people who are, as it were “in fact”, children of Israel but who do not know it.

2. That we accept that those who consciously and sincerely believe that they belong to the children of Israel — and respond to the Qur’an’s appeals on that basis — but who do not meet criteria the Qur’an nowhere supplies for such membership are in some undefined way deficient.

It is only by accepting that membership of the children of Israel as the Qur’an uses the term in the narrative present is necessarily a function of self-identification that these outcomes are precluded.

Happily, this definition resolves the multitudinous issues created by every proud, professing Israelite from the African Kangz to the British ones; from simple English folk exchanging knowing looks to the tune of Blake’s And did those feet in ancient time to the Founding Fathers establishing a New Jerusalem upon America’s shores and the rock of the Torah; from possible “Jews” to definite Jews; from Khazar Jews to Edomite Jews; from Ashkenazi Jews to Sephardic Jews; from the Rothschilds to the most obscure crypto-Jews: if the hearer claims part with the children of Israel, then what the Qur’an has to say to the children of Israel applies now, in the actual present, to him.

We supply all contexts in which God directly addresses the children of Israel in the Qur’an, and we again kindly ask the reader to maintain in view the narrative distinctions we have emphasised throughout:

O children of Israel: remember My favour wherewith I favoured you; and fulfil the covenant with Me, and I will fulfil the covenant with you; and Me — be you in fear of Me.

And believe in what I have sent down confirming what is with you, and be not the first to deny it; and sell not My proofs at a cheap price; and Me — be you in prudent fear of Me.

And clothe not truth with vanity, nor conceal the truth when you know.

And uphold the duty, and render the purity, and be lowly with the lowly.

Enjoin you virtue upon mankind, and forget yourselves when you recite the Writ? Will you then not use reason!

And seek help in patience and duty; and it is hard save for the humble:

Those who consider that they will meet their Lord, and that to Him they are returning.

(2:40-46)

O children of Israel: remember My favour wherewith I favoured you, and that I preferred you above all mankind.

And be in prudent fear of a day no soul will avail a soul anything, nor will intercession be accepted from it, nor will compensation be taken from it; nor will they be helped.

(2:47-48)

O children of Israel: remember My favour wherewith I favoured you, and that I preferred you over all mankind.

And be in prudent fear of a day no soul will avail a soul anything, nor will compensation be accepted from it, nor will intercession benefit it. And they will not be helped.

(2:122-123)

O children of Israel: We delivered you from your enemy; and We made an appointment with you on the right side of the mount; and We sent down upon you manna and quails:

“Eat of the good things that We have provided you, and transgress not therein lest My wrath descend upon you; and he upon whom My wrath descends has fallen.”

And I am all-forgiving towards him who repents and believes and works righteousness; then is he guided.

(20:80-82)

It will be seen that in all cases reference is made to preference of some kind from God, which then dovetails with an appeal to respond to that favour. It is difficult to see how this could fail to appeal to — as well as to exhort — precisely those human types most susceptible to the very human weakness of claiming specialness on the basis of something other than faith and works.

Final word

We close with a verse we have met previously, whose acceptance will serve to smooth any honest feathers ruffled in process of this analysis:

O mankind: We have created you from a male and a female, and have made you nations and tribes that you might know one another. The most noble of you in the sight of God is he of you most in prudent fear; God is knowing and aware.

(49:13)

1. This article relates to the project provisionally entitled The Qur’an & Earlier Writings the Abstract to which is found here.

2. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_inquiry

3. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabula_and_syuzhet

4. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narration#Narrative_point_of_view

5. We are not going to expand on this subject fully here, although our broader project (to which this article is adjunct) may be expected to make extensive and unapologetic use of such concepts.

6. I.e. not just in the present article, but across work on the present project more generally.

7. 2:40, 2:47, 2:83, 2:122, 2:211, 2:246, 3:49, 3:93, 5:12, 5:32, 5:70, 5:72, 5:78, 5:110, 7:105, 7:134, 7:137, 7:138, 10:90, 10:93, 17:2, 17:4, 17:101, 17:104, 20:47, 20:80, 20:94, 26:17, 26:22, 26:59, 26:197, 27:76, 32:23, 40:53, 43:59, 44:30, 45:16, 46:10, 61:6, 61:14.

8. 2:51, 2:53, 2:54, 2:55, 2:60, 2:61, 2:67, 2:87, 2:92, 2:108, 2:136, 2:246, 2:248, 3:84, 4:153, 4:164, 5:20, 5:22, 5:24, 6:84, 6:91, 6:154, 7:103, 7:104, 7:115, 7:117, 7:122, 7:127, 7:128, 7:131, 7:134, 7:138, 7:142, 7:143, 7:144, 7:148, 7:150, 7:154, 7:155, 7:159, 7:160, 10:75, 10:77, 10:80, 10:81, 10:83, 10:84, 10:87, 10:88, 11:17, 11:96, 11:110, 14:5, 14:6, 14:8, 17:2, 17:101, 18:60, 18:66, 19:51, 20:9, 20:11, 20:17, 20:19, 20:36, 20:40, 20:49, 20:57, 20:61, 20:65, 20:67, 20:70, 20:77, 20:83, 20:86, 20:88, 20:91, 21:48, 22:44, 23:45, 23:49, 25:35, 26:10, 26:43, 26:45, 26:48, 26:52, 26:61, 26:63, 26:65, 27:7, 27:9, 27:10, 28:3, 28:7, 28:10, 28:15, 28:18, 28:19, 28:20, 28:29, 28:30, 28:31, 28:36, 28:37, 28:38, 28:43, 28:44, 28:48, 28:76, 29:39, 32:23, 33:7, 33:69, 37:114, 37:120, 40:23, 40:26, 40:27, 40:37, 40:53, 41:45, 42:13, 43:46, 46:12, 46:30, 51:38, 53:36, 61:5, 79:15, 87:19.

9. 2:55, 2:61, 5:22, 5:24, 7:115, 7:134, 7:138, 7:144, 17:101, 20:11, 20:17, 20:19, 20:36, 20:40, 20:49, 20:57, 20:65, 20:83, 27:9, 27:10, 28:19, 28:20, 28:30, 28:31.

10. Those who know my broader work will appreciate that I regard those groups behind the promotion of perversion and destruction less as a direct cause of civilisational breakdown and more as a result. In my view, we are at the end of the Kali Yuga, or Dark Age. Those whose rule is effective today require a debilitated, stupefied, solipsistic and Godless population in order to realise their end-point role and reward as kings of detritus. To “blame Jews” for this collapse is like rotten meat blaming maggots for its decay. Were the meat not rotten, maggots could not thrive upon it.

11. I present this term in scare quotes here since “Jewishness” is (among other things) a shell game played on multiple levels, including that of political weapon and social polarising agent, one whose operation is greased doctrinally by reference to “Jewishness” itself (which amounts, essentially, to a self-licking ice-cream).

12. Jeremiah 33:17, KJV.

13. The Invention of the Jewish People, 2008; How I Stopped Being a Jew, 2010; The Invention of the Land of Israel, 2012. Shlomo Sand.

14. Of course, in addition, it provides a predictable and explosive crucible for generating conflict useful to those with a firm grasp on realpolitik and the means and the will to implement strategy on that basis.

15. Despite the analytical nature of much of my written output, the vital parts of my process are not analytical as understood by moderns. As I have explained elsewhere (The Mysterious Letters of the Qur’an: A Complete Solution), I achieve most breakthroughs by means of intellective insights, and I freely admit that I do not myself understand how these come about. I therefore simply present the definition I have reached and its textual and rational supports without claiming logical inevitability to drive all aspects of my process. I sympathise to some degree with those habituated to the idea that all conclusions should have their origins in the counting of beans (i.e. that is is necessary to begin with little things in order to build bigger things, and that these bigger things can only emerge from a process of calculus applied to groupings of little things), but since this is not my experience, I am unable to provide a description of how such a process might have worked here.

16. 12:6, 12:38, 12:68.

17. We note that the Hebrew presentation is confused, if not garbled. According to that narrative, Joseph himself was not the father of a tribe properly speaking (his tribe being split among his sons Ephraim and Manesseh in consequence of complexities attaching to Reuben).

18. I use fringe not in order to disparage such groups, but as a statement of fact. The Ebionites, for example, whose teachings were possibly closest to those expounded by Christ himself, would be considered fringe today.

19. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_seed

20. It is a fact that while Jews comprise only 0.02 percent of the world’s population, they are spectacularly prominent, if not dominant, in almost every sphere where lies, treachery, duplicity, theft, moral turpitude and corruption accompany and dictate was is understood to be success. It is also an observable fact that Jews habitually refuse to engage with criticism of themselves except in terms which assume a deep moral defect in the critic (in the context of psychopaths and narcissists this technique is termed gaslighting). One notes that the same technique now also characterises most if not all aspects of what one may term the neo-Marxist agenda.

21. This is the sole verse in which this formulation occurs.

22. See: Who is Esau-Edom? Charles A. Weisman, 1991.

23. All verses in which Isaac (Esau’s father) is mentioned by name are: 2:133, 2:136, 2:140, 3:84, 4:163, 6:84, 11:71, 12:6, 12:38, 14:39, 19:49, 21:72, 29:27, 37:112, 37:113, 38:45.

24. 3:49, 5:72, 5:78, 5:110, 43:59, 61:6, 61:14.

25. See: 2:21, 2:168, 4:1, 4:170, 4:174, 7:158, 10:23, 10:57, 10:104, 10:108, 22:1, 22:5, 22:49, 22:73, 27:16, 31:33, 35:3, 35:5, 35:15, 49:13.

26. See: 82:6, 84:6.