What does Islam say about Jews?

Islam honors the Jewish people as People of the Book (ahl al-kitāb), the children of Abraham and Jacob to whom Allah sent Moses (peace be upon him) with the Torah. Moses is the most frequently named person in the Quran, mentioned 136 times, and his story is told more fully than that of any other prophet. Muslims and Jews pray to the same God, keep kindred laws of food and purity, and share a long history of neighborliness. What Islam says about Jews begins with that kinship, and it forbids hatred of Jews as Jews.

What does the Quran say about Jews?

The Quran describes the Torah as revelation from Allah:

إِنَّآ أَنزَلۡنَا ٱلتَّوۡرَىٰةَ فِيهَا هُدٗى وَنُورٞ

“We sent down the Torah, in which there is guidance and light.”

Quran 5:44

The same verse praises the prophets, rabbis (rabbāniyyūn), and scholars (aḥbār) who judged by the Torah and guarded it. The Quran promises that Jews who believe in Allah and the Last Day and do good “will have their reward with their Lord; no fear will be on them, and they will not grieve” (Quran 2:62). It says that “among the people of Moses is a community who guide by the truth and act justly by it” (7:159), and that the People of the Book “are not all alike” (3:113).

The Quran also tells Muslims how to speak with Jews and Christians about faith:

وَقُولُوٓاْ ءَامَنَّا بِٱلَّذِيٓ أُنزِلَ إِلَيۡنَا وَأُنزِلَ إِلَيۡكُمۡ وَإِلَٰهُنَا وَإِلَٰهُكُمۡ وَٰحِدٞ وَنَحۡنُ لَهُۥ مُسۡلِمُونَ

“Say: We believe in what was sent down to us and what was sent down to you. Our God and your God is one, and to Him we submit.”

Quran 29:46

The Quran permits Muslims to eat the food of the People of the Book and to marry from among them (5:5), which is why kosher meat is halal (Can Muslims eat kosher or non-halal-certified meat?). A wider survey is in What does the Quran say about Christians and Jews?

How did the Prophet ﷺ treat Jews?

When the Prophet ﷺ arrived in Medina in 622, he agreed a charter with its tribes, known as the Constitution of Medina. It declared that the Jews of Banū ʿAwf were one community (umma) with the believers: “to the Jews their religion, and to the Muslims theirs.” His daily life was full of Jewish neighbors. He visited a Jewish boy who served him when the boy fell ill (Sahih al-Bukhari 1356), and when he died, his armor was held as security with a Jewish man for thirty measures of barley (Sahih al-Bukhari 2916).

Once a funeral passed by and he stood up. Someone told him it was the funeral of a Jew, and he answered:

«أَلَيْسَتْ نَفْسًا»

“Was it not a human soul?”

Sahih al-Bukhari 1312

The early biography of Ibn Isḥāq tells of Mukhayriq, a learned rabbi of Medina, who fought beside the Prophet ﷺ at the Battle of Uhud in 625 and fell there. He had left his gardens to the Prophet ﷺ, who is reported to have called him “the best of the Jews.”

What about the Quran’s criticism of some Jews?

The Quran criticizes particular groups among the Jews of its time for particular deeds, such as breaking covenants in wartime, in the same voice it uses for the hypocrites among the Muslims. The verses about Sabbath-breakers who were turned into apes describe one town by the sea in ancient times (7:163–166) and say nothing about Jews today. The verse that forbids taking certain Jews and Christians as allies (awliyāʾ, 5:51) concerns alliances in war, as explained in Can Muslims be friends with non-Muslims? Reading these passages as a judgment on a whole people contradicts the Quran’s own words: “they are not all alike.”

Hatred of Jews (antisemitism) is therefore haram, as is any contempt for a people because of their faith or descent. The Quran commands justice even toward those one is in conflict with:

وَلَا يَجۡرِمَنَّكُمۡ شَنَـَٔانُ قَوۡمٍ عَلَىٰٓ أَلَّا تَعۡدِلُواْۚ ٱعۡدِلُواْ هُوَ أَقۡرَبُ لِلتَّقۡوَىٰ

“Do not let hatred of a people lead you away from justice. Be just: that is closest to piety.”

Quran 5:8

Muslims may speak with conviction about justice for Palestinians and about the policies of any state. Turning a political conflict into hostility toward Jewish neighbors, synagogues, or schools is a betrayal of this verse.

How did Jews live in Muslim lands?

For centuries, Jewish life flourished under Muslim rule, alongside periods of hardship that history also records. In al-Andalus, Samuel ibn Naghrillah (d. 1056) rose to be vizier of Granada and commanded its army, while writing Hebrew poetry and works of Jewish law. Maimonides (d. 1204), born in Córdoba, settled in Fustat near Cairo, served as physician to Saladin’s court, and wrote his Guide for the Perplexed (Dalālat al-Ḥāʾirīn) in Judeo-Arabic. When Spain expelled its Jews in 1492, the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II sent his fleet under Kemal Reis to carry refugees to safety and ordered that they be welcomed throughout his empire.

A closing word

The faith of Muslims includes the prophets of Israel. Every Muslim recites, as part of belief itself, the words Allah taught:

قُولُوٓاْ ءَامَنَّا بِٱللَّهِ وَمَآ أُنزِلَ إِلَيۡنَا وَمَآ أُنزِلَ إِلَىٰٓ إِبۡرَٰهِـۧمَ وَإِسۡمَٰعِيلَ وَإِسۡحَٰقَ وَيَعۡقُوبَ وَٱلۡأَسۡبَاطِ وَمَآ أُوتِيَ مُوسَىٰ وَعِيسَىٰ

“Say: We believe in Allah, in what was sent down to us, in what was sent down to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the tribes, and in what was given to Moses and Jesus.”

Quran 2:136

Honor that kinship in the neighbor next door, the colleague at work, and the stranger at the synagogue gate. More on the prophets Muslims and Jews share is in Who are the prophets in Islam?