I would like a detail of the attitude of the Qu'ran about Jews.  What
are the main themes of attack or criticism the Qu'ran makes about
Jews?  Are there trends?  Quotes from a translation would be helpful.

Hello jgrantl-ga,

Your question naturally has great contemporary relevance as many
people are perplexed and wish to better the theological roots of
hatred, turmoil, and violence that has been increasingly disturbing.
Verses of the Qu'uran have frequently been used in virulent speeches
of various Muslim clerics.

The attitude toward Jews or Children of Israel (as well as toward
Christians and any other "disbelievers" in Allah) that is reflected in
the Koran is consistently disparaging. They are described having "vain
desires" and a "greed for life", being "transgressors" "deserving of
wrath and disgraceful punishment",  "wretched", "corrupt",
"disobedient", and  "enemies of Allah, the Prophet and the angels".
The rationale given for these characterizations is for rejecting Allah
as God.

The Qu'uran regards Abraham of the Old Testament, referring to him as
"Ibrahim", and not recognizing his Hebrew identity,  as an "upright"
man in contrast with Jews and Christians.  It recognizes the Biblical
Jewish history, assigning credit to Allah for the Divine protection in
their wanderings in the Desert, including the splitting of the Red
Sea, the protective clouds, heavenly nourishment through Manna, and
Quail, as well as  the moral assets of the Jewish people found in
their Torah.

Exemplary passages are:
2.90 – 2.91: Evil is that for which they have sold their souls -- that
they should deny what Allah has revealed, out of envy that Allah
should send down of His grace on whomsoever of His servants He
pleases; so they have made themselves deserving of wrath upon wrath,
and there is a disgraceful punishment for the unbelievers.
"And when it is said to them, Believe in what Allah has revealed, they
say: We believe in that which was revealed to us; and they deny what
is besides that, while it is the truth verifying that which they
have."

Because the author of the Koran regards belief in Allah as the only
moral way, it warns its followers not to befriend Jews or Christians
and declares that they and any nonbelievers will be doomed in the
final day of reckoning and "subject to Allah's curses."

The University of Virginia has a searchable Koran online at:
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/koran.html, where you can further
passages, by entering the terms,  "Jews", "Israel", "Musa", or
"Taurot".
Even more convenient is the web site
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/anti-semitism/koranjews.html, which
has the searching done for you and lists and organizes many of the
passages in the Koran pertaining to the Jewish people.  Passages in
the Qu'uran regarding Jews are also listed on the following web site:
http://www.a-voice.org/discern/islam.htm#jews

Google search strategies:
"Jews" and "in the Koran" and "attitude"
"Koran" and "online"

I hope you find this information to be helpful and perhaps edifying in
some constructive way.

Please let me know if it suits your needs or if you wish any further
clarification.

Best regards,

vitalmed-ga

---

Clarification of Answer by vitalmed-ga on 27 Oct 2003 07:28 PST

Hello jgrantl-ga

This is just a footnote to insert the word "understand" in the text
where it was missing.
In the first paragraph, the phrase should have read, " ...wish to
better understand the theological roots..."

Again, I hope my answer is helpful.

Good and complete answer.  But for the price could have been more
thorough and even better trend summaries.

Dear JGrantl
following are few versus from Koran, i found which have Jews mentioned
in them for you. I am reproducing them here for you without any
"explanation" and "interpertation" for you. The versus numbers are
menetioned and they can found on any website which have Koran
translation ( as one mentioned by Vitalmed). Rest everyone interprets
them ( or any other religious material,for that matter) according to
one;s own views. Also i would like to note that it wuould be good idea
to refer to commentry on the versus too as they can be taken , like
any other material, out of context.
Also i would like to mention that since Muslim;s God name is Allah,
thats why they use God and Allah interchangebly.


Those who believe (in the Qur'an), and those who follow the Jewish
(scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians,- any who believe in
God and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward
with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.
(2:62)

Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews
and Pagans; and nearest among them in love to the believers wilt thou
find those who say, "We are Christians": because amongst these are men
devoted to learning and men who have renounced the world, and they are
not arrogant.
(The Quran, 5:82)


"Say: 'O People of the Book (i.e., Jews and Christians)!  Come to 
common terms as between us and you:  That we worship none but Allah; 
that we associate no partners with Him; that we erect not, from among
ourselves, Lords and patrons other than Allah.'  If then they turn 
back, say ye: 'Bear witness that we (at least) are Muslims (bowing to
Allah's Will).'  (The Quran, 3:64)" 


Children of Israel! call to mind the favour which I bestowed upon 
you, and that I preferred you to all others. (2:47 repeated in 2:122)
Remember Moses said to his people: "O my people! Call in remembrance 
the favour of Allah unto you, when He produced prophets among you, 
made you kings, and gave you what He had not given to any other among
the peoples.(5:21)

We did deliver aforetime the Children of Israel from humiliating 
Punishment, Inflicted by Pharaoh, for he was arrogant (even) among 
inordinate transgressors. And We chose them aforetime above the 
nations, knowingly, ( 44:30-32)


As Vitalmed mentioned 2:90-91, some other versus before these one are:

2.85":    Yet you it is who slay your people and turn a party from
among you out of their homes, backing each other up against them
unlawfully and exceeding the limits; and if they should come to you,
as captives you would ransom them -- while their very turning out was
unlawful for you. Do you then believe in a part of the Book and
disbelieve in the other? What then is the re ward of such among you as
do this but disgrace in the life of this world, and on the day of
resurrection they shall be sent back to the most grievous
chastisement, and Allah is not at all heedless of what you do.

"2.86":    These are they who buy the life of this world for the
hereafter, so their chastisement shall not be lightened nor shall they
be helped.

"2.87":    And most certainly We gave Musa the Book and We sent
apostles after him one after another; and We gave Isa, the son of
Marium, clear arguments and strengthened him with the holy spirit,
What! whenever then an apostle came to you with that which your souls
did not desire, you were insolent so you called some liars and some
you slew.


a commentry site is 
http://www.qurantoday.com/BaqarahIntro.htm

anohter one 
http://www.al-islam.org/enlightening/

commentry and translation by 3 different repuatable trasnlators
http://www.al-islam.org/quran/

About Ibrahim or Abraham ( by the way, i guess in Arabic all the names
of prophets are changed, i guess its the language constraint like
Moses is Musa, Josef is Yousaf, Jacob is Yakub, and so on) Koran has a
whole chapter, chapter 14) which can be viewed at any site with Koran
translation or at

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/HolKora.html


Now again what koran say, from two different point of views ( you
would notice how each one has interperated things according to their
own beliefs):

From a Muslim Source:
The first time a Jew reads the Quran he is often surprised by the 
fact that the Quran does not focus on Muhammed, Ishmael or the Arab 
people. Instead the Quran focuses primarilly on the Jewish patriarchs
and prophets. The Quran concerns itself primarily with the history 
and future of the Children of Israel. Thus the primary figures of the
Quran are figures like Abraham, Joseph, Moses and King David. In fact
the primary figure of the Quran is Moshe Aveynu (Moses our father) 
who is mentioned more than any other individual in the Quran. Many 
Jews are surprised to learn that one entire "Surah" (chapter) of the 
Quran (Surah 17) is titled "The Children of Israel".

http://jews-for-allah.org/Jews-and-Muslims-Agree/jewish-koran.htm


From a Christian Source:
Question: Q14. Host: The Quran mentions the people of the Book, who 
are the people of the Book? (1:48) 

Answer References 
Dr. Labib: The people of the book? People of the book, according to 
the Quran, are the Jews and the Christians. You know, and when you 
read the Quran, you will see that the Quran has two stages. When 
Mohammed was at Mecca, in the beginning of his religion, and then 
when he migrated to Medina. When he was at Mecca, he was weak, and 
because of that you see many revelations in the Quran, that will 
praise Christians and Jews. When he migrated to Medina, and he had a 
strong army, he destroyed the Jews in Medina, he destroyed the 
Christians, and that was the end of the story. That was, I think, as 
one of his relatives had said, when they saw the army of the sand 
coming to Mecca, at the end of the life of Mohammed, someone was
standing there and said, "Look at the prophethood of Mohammed." And 
his relatives said, "He is really a genius, but prophethood, I doubt 
it!" That was that, you see.So when we read in history, and we'll be 
fair with history, we will see that Islam is not a divine religion. 
The only satisfaction anybody could find is in Jesus Christ and in 
him alone. 
 
http://thespiritofislam.com/text/Q14.html


Hope all this help.
regards

Dear jgrantl-ga,
As any fool can plainly see, I am no scholar, but since I have been
blessed to have access to the new revelation that God wants us all to
know, I understand "the bottom line" of Muhammad, and Islam, much
better than any scholar not aware of this new revelation.  If this
revelation had been taught as God Willed it, since 1960, then events
such as Nine-Eleven would have never occurred.
First of all, it is a seemingly strange fact of history, that such
great religious leaders as Buddha, Confucius, Zoroastro, and others,
came at the same time, approximately 400 years before the birth of
Jesus Christ.  Why?  From God's viewpoint, they were all sent to their
respective people with the mission to prepare their people for the
Advent of the Messiah.  But that Advent never came to their people,
because Jesus was crucified. The teaching of the Advent of Christ was
since "lost", but if one digs deeply into, (for example), Buddhism,
one finds the statement, "The Avatar will come".  Muhammad is the
great exception, coming 600 years AFTER Jesus. Why?

God's first Will for Jesus, was that He be accepted, and obeyed, first
by the "Chosen People", who had been prepared by God for 2,000 years
to receive Him, and then by the rest of the world.  It was only
because of multiple failures, that Jesus had to go the way of
crucifixion, thus making it necessary for Him to say, "I will come
again".  Also, He did not pray, "Let this cup, (of the crucifixion),
pass from me", out of weakness, in Gethsemane, but because He knew it
was not God's Complete, Prime Will, that He be crucified.  Instead, He
was supposed to marry, raising up His bride to the position of
Restored Eve, and then He would have married those following Him,
creating the foundation for the return of the Garden of Eden, on
Earth, as it was before the Fall of Man. God knew from the time of His
birth, that enough failure to accept Jesus would allow only a partial,
"spiritual" victory, if Jesus had to go the way of the Cross, but it
was obviously not God's First Will, for Jesus.  At the age of thirty,
when Jesus started His mission, he said, "God's will for you is that
you love me".  It was only later, when certain failures to follow Him
had occurred, that He said, "I must be raised up, (on the Cross)".

But I digress.  The same God sent Muhammad, Who had sent Abraham, and
Jacob, and Moses, and Jesus. Muhammad is the only real exception, to
the fact that all those great leaders, (mentioned two paragraphs
above), came 400 years before Jesus.  Muhammad came 600 years after
Jesus. Why did God send Muhammad?  It was because the Christian
Church, which was one, Catholic Church, and all Christianity, had
become completely corrupt.  Because of this, God's plan was that all
blessings would be "transferred" into the Muslim world, TEMPORARILY,
since God must have and maintain the central Christian teaching of the
Second Advent to come. Then, the entire Christian mainstream of
history would be struck, and purged by God. The "Crusades", whereby
Christians lost so much, are an example of this.  Later, (it was about
500 years later), God returned the blessings back into the Christian
mainstream, and the Muslim world was left as a "remnant" and a warning
from God to all Christians, that if they become corrupt enough again,
God does have a way to answer that corruption.

This is why the Muslim faith is so strict, because it is God's painful
answer to Christian corruption, not because the Muslim faith is
"purer", or "more holy".  Hence, they ask you, if you are a thief,
"Which hand did you steal with?", and then they cut off that hand. 
Hence, the women are more "covered", and subject to execution for
adultery. And hence, the ORIGINAL Koran states that, if any Christian
tries to "convert" you, KILL THEM.

So, Osama Bin Laden is not a "radical", or even an "extremist", but in
fact, is reading the ORIGINAL Koran, which makes him an Orthodox
Muslim, if you will.  If only he understood that the Koran was only
TEMPORARY direction, and that the violence that was done to Christians
within God's Will was only meant by God to be TEMPORARY, then he would
not believe that the glory of the Muslim world, during that 500 years,
could be regained by that sort of violence, and Nine-Eleven would not
have happened.

The United States may be corrupt in many ways, but it has not even
begun to reach the state of complete corruption of the Christian
Church at the time of Muhammad, so this Muslim dream, of reclaiming
"the good old days", by violence, is truly impossible to realize. 
Still, if Americans understood the ORIGINAL Koran, and the above
explanation, they would not think Osama Bin Laden to be such a
"criminal gangster kook", for being so adamant about wanting
Christians OUT of Saudi Arabia.  Given the fact that we are living at
the very time that the Second Advent of Christ walks among us,
Americans have the means of containing this violence, through applying
the new revelation, called "Divine Principle", that He brings to us.
Muslims would also do well, to study and follow the teaching of the
"Divine Principle", as well.

And so, jgrantl-ga, the attitude of the Koran towards Jews is most
likely as vitalmed-ga states, but history tells us that Muslims and
Jews lived together quite successfully, while all those Christians
were being "purged" and killed.  This is because the Jews have never
been "evangelical" in their demeanor, as are the Christians.  The
original "purpose", of the Koran, from God's viewpoint, allows for
that friendly relationship with the Jews, during those 500 years of
the glory of the Muslim world, because the Jews never had any designs
to "convert" anyone, to Judaism, as the Christians did, to
Christianity.

As for the above Comments by pugwashjw-ga and lahoria-ga, I can only
hope that they can now understand, that if anyone is to be blamed for
the violence that is taught in the ORIGINAL Koran, we must blame the
Christians of the 6th Century.  Or, we should blame God, because it
was God's Will that brought Muhammad, and purged the Christians for
hundreds of years.

And so, any responsible scholar would of course want to examine and
study the "Divine Principle", which is in fact in the position,
historically speaking, of "The Completed Testament", following on and
fulfilling the Old Testament and the New Testament.  To follow up on
this, three URLs I can suggest, are:

<http://familyfed.org/>
<http://www.euro-tongil.org/>
<http://unification.net/>

I would like to add, that I would caution anyone that you should not
automatically trust anyone who is a member of this movement, which is
in fact centered on the Second Advent of Christ, The Most Reverend Sun
Myung Moon.  However, you can and should absolutely trust the new
revelation that has been revealed, called "Divine Principle", which,
technically speaking, consists of every word spoken by Rev. Moon,
since 1954, and before.

Incidentally, jgrantl-ga, you might be interested to know, that there
are actually two Messiahs on Earth, now.  During the 1980s, Rev. Moon
announced that His wife, Hak Jah Han Moon, had paid the extreme
indemnity necessary, to become His "equal".  As it was in the Garden
of Eden, before the Fall of Man, the Third Adam and the Second Eve are
restoring the positions of the unfallen Adam and Eve, and ushering in
the age of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.
And so, God Bless, whether you believe that the name of God
cannot/should not be spoken, or you say Yahweh, Allah, or God,
Most Sincerely,
trueparent-GA

A note or followup to your question.

You asked "Are there trends?"

A trend implies that you can determine two things:

1.  whether the text of the Koran itself has altered over time and 

2. the order in which the suras were written 

You would then analyse the text to see if criticisms became more or
less in frequency or if the "tenor" changed over time.

However, (and here I tread lightly?)  the order of the suras is
disputed by non-muslims.  Muslims believe that the Koran, being
divinely inspired, has come down to us in the present unchanged in any
way.  Non-muslim textual analysis differs.  If you wish to ascertain
trends, you will have to first decide which of these positions to
adopt .

A "re-numbered" version of the Koran based on western textual analysis
is available under citation 2.

An excellent introduction to the discussion of whether the text of the
Koran has changed over time can be found in the Atlantic Monthly 
Citation 1.


I hope this answer is helpful.

-------------------------------------------------------
Citation 1
What is the Koran? by Toby Lester
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99jan/index.htm

Citation 2
Title: The Koran Author: Muhammad [Various transliterations: Muhamad,
Mohammad, Mohammed, Mahomet] Translator: J.M. Rodwell September, 2001
[Etext #2800]

http://www.reu.org/public/heretics/koranrod.txt

It would seem as if Zaid had to a great extent put his materials
together just as they came to hand, and often with entire disregard to
continuity of subject and uniformity of style. The text, therefore, as
hitherto arranged, necessarily assumes the form of a most unreadable
and incongruous patchwork; "une assemblage," says M. Kasimirski in his
Preface, "informe et incoh‚rent de pr‚ceptes moraux, religieux, civils
et politiques, mˆl‚s d'exhortations, de promesses, et de menaces" and
conveys no idea whatever of the development and growth of any plan in
the mind of the founder of Islam, or of the circumstances by which he
was surrounded and influenced.
...
It should be premised that their order as it stands in all Arabic
manuscripts, and in all hitherto printed editions, whether Arabic or
European, is not chronological, neither is there any authentic
tradition to shew that it rests upon the authority of Muhammad
himself. The scattered fragments of the Koran were in the first
instance collected by his immediate successor Abu Bekr, about a year
after the Prophet's death, at the suggestion of Omar, who foresaw
that, as the Muslim warriors, whose memories were the sole
depositaries of large portions of the revelations, died off or were
slain, as had been the case with many in the battle of Yemƒma, A.H.
12, the loss of the greater part, or even of the whole, was imminent.
Zaid Ibn Thƒbit, a native of Medina, and one of the Ansars, or
helpers, who had been Muhammad's amanuensis, was the person fixed upon
to carry out the task, and we are told that he "gathered together" the
fragments of the Koran from every quarter, "from date leaves and
tablets of white stone, and from the breasts of men."