Published at Real Clear Religion 10/28/26
Commemorating 10/7 Requires Confronting Authoritative Muslim Jew-Hatred
By Andrew Bostom
Commemorating the third anniversary of October 7, 2023, the horrific jihad massacres perpetrated by Hamas and its allies, demands more than remembrance. What is required is unapologetic examination of the core Islamic religious texts, their traditional interpretations, and the authoritative institutional teachings that legitimize Muslim Jew-hatred and anti-Jewish violence.
An official post on X December 10, 2024 from Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam’s preeminent religious teaching institution, featured its Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb condemning “the Zionists” for the Syrian morass. Previously, al-Tayeb regularly equated Zionists and Jews. During both 2013 and 2017 in nationally televised interviews on Egyptian television, al-Tayeb invoked Qur’an 5:82, which states the Jews harbor “the greatest enmity towards the Muslims.” Al-Tayeb insisted further that 5:82 defined permanent Jewish-Muslim relations causing the Muslims continuous suffering at the hands of the Jews “for 1400 years.” According to Al-Tayeb’s 12/10/24 invective, the Jews were allegedly “raping the lands of the region’s countries,” and he demanded “international pressure” to “stop the expansion and spread of this cancer in the Arab body, one limb after another.”
The following brief enumeration highlights ten intimately related Islamic doctrinal and societal issues pertaining to Muslim Jew-hatred that deserve serious public scrutiny.
First, pious Muslims recite the Qur’an’s brief opening chapter, Al-Fatiha, 17-times in their daily prayers. Its seventh verse (Qur’an 1:7)—repeated 17-times daily– refers to those who have incurred Allah’s anger. The vast preponderance of authoritative classical and modern interpretations of Q 1:7, beginning with Islam’s prophet Muhammad himself, explicitly identify the Jews as incurring Allah’s anger. Repetition of this theme 17-times daily is an indoctrination that continues to shape modern Muslim anti-Jewish religious attitudes.
Second, Jews have incurred “Allah’s anger,” per Qur’an (Q) 1:7, for transgressing Allah’s will by allegedly killing Biblical prophets (Q 2:61, 2:90, 3:21, 3:112), sowing social upheaval and sedition throughout the world (Q 5:33, 5:64, 17:4), and ignoring both the Qur’anic revelation and Muhammad’s prophethood (Q 2:89, 3:21, 2:146)
Third, the Jews harbor the most intense animosity to Muslims (Q 5:82), and were punished for worshipping other gods, including Satan, by being transformed into apes and pigs (Q 5:60)
Fourth, continuing the theme of prophet killing, the hadith (traditions of Muhammad and his companions) accuse the Jews of poisoning Muhammad to death, while the earliest pious Muslim biographies (sira) of Muhammad claim the poisoning was a Jewish conspiracy.
Fifth, the hadith also record Muhammad’s prophesy that the Jewish anti-Christ-like figure and his Jewish minions will all be slaughtered to usher in Islam’s messianic age (a tradition featured in the Hamas Covenant)
Sixth, all these deeply religious Islamic Jew-hating themes are preached repeatedly and monotonously by Islam’s most authoritative teaching institutions, like Al-Azhar University in Cairo, and in mosques across the world, including here in the United States
Seventh, this incessant preaching of authoritative Islamic Jew-hatred contributes mightily to the ongoing gross excess of severe Muslim antisemitism and antisemitic violence worldwide
Eighth, the 19 most antisemitic countries in the world are all Muslim societies where the prevalence of extreme antisemitism ranges from 64% to 97%
Ninth, Western European Muslims harbor extreme antisemitism at 2- to 4-fold the rate of Christians and non-Muslims (i.e., 45-60% for Muslims vs. 15-25% for Christians/non-Muslims), while U.S. Muslims are 6-fold more extremely antisemitic than U.S. non-Muslims (i.e., 38% among U.S. Muslims vs. 6% among U.S. non-Muslims)
Tenth, 2025 saw the greatest number of targeted antisemitic killings of diaspora (Australia, Europe, U.S.) Jews—20 deaths—since the 1994 Jewish Association of Argentina – or AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires. Muslims waging jihad were responsible for 18/20 Jewish diaspora deaths in 2025, and all 67 Jews (of the 85 total deaths) killed in Buenos Aires in 1994 were murdered by Shiite Muslim jihadists from Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran.
Three years after October 7, continued evasive silence about religiously framed Muslim Jew-hatred and its direct nexus to Muslim anti-Jewish violence, is unacceptable. Examining Islam’s primary texts without apologetics, and challenging mainstream, authoritative interpretations that demonize Jews, is requisite. Remembering October 7 must mean courageously exposing and challenging hateful—albeit normative—Islamic doctrine regarding Jews espoused by seminal institutions like Al-Azhar University. Honest scholarship and unequivocal opposition to such “sacralized” Muslim Jew-hatred are essential to that task.
Dr. Andrew Bostom, MD, MS is a scholar of Islam’s historical interactions with non-Muslims whose major works include “The Legacy of Jihad,” “The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism,” and most recently, “A Modern Qur’anic Kampf Against the Jews
Andrew Bostom
Andrew G. Bostom is the author of The Legacy of Jihad (Prometheus, 2005) and The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism " (Prometheus, November, 2008) You can contact Dr. Bostom at @andrewbostom.net
