Zone1 Historic Council | Open letter to the leading scholars of Islam: "We need 3 agreements"

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Historic Invitation | Open letter to the leading scholars of Islam: "We need 3 agreements"

Introduction - the address

Rabbi Oury Cherki was born in Algeria in 1959. He moved with his family to France where he lived for several years and then immigrated to Israel in 1972. He studied Torah with Rabbi Zvi Yehuda HaKohen Kook in the Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva as well as with Rabbi Yehuda Leon Ashkenazi and Rabbi Shlomo Binyamin Ashlag. He was ordained as a rabbi and has been serving as the rabbi of the Bet Yehuda community in Kiriat Moshe, Jerusalem. Rabbi Cherki teaches at Machon Meir and is the head of the Noahide World Center.


Historic context

From Josephus discourse in "Against Apion" with the ancient Hellenist idol worshippers, through Rabbi Yehuda HaLevy's "Book of Refutation and Proof on Behalf of the Despised Religion", and Ramban's disputations in Barcelona with the Christian clergy; There was a constant exchange and of ideas, even if hostile, or with the intent to convert, between the Jewish scholars and the leading contemporary intellectuals and clergy of the generation.

One remarkable example of such exchange, is in the Babylonian Gmara, Tractate of Sanhedrin, reference to Gviha Ben Psisa court debate before Alexander the Macedonian, when several nations come to claim their historic arguments against Israel. Among those were Egyptians, Cna'anites and African nations, with Ishmaelites.

However, unlike debate with all those nations, the debate with the Ishmaelites abruptly ends in silence, without a response, despite Alexander encouraging them to engage.

Simillar to that, despite proximity and mutual influence as result of mutual history, this history is silent on fundamental engagement between Hebrew and Islamic scholars, on the principles of morality, law, shared values and differences, that may contribute the knowledge, service of G-d in the world, with further realization of human potential.

And there's a reason for that, like the characteristic arguments of each nation mentioned above. But they should be explained by the addressed scholars, when the engagement develops, in the manner they find appropriate.

A formal council between the Hebrew and Islamic courts,
will be the first event of that kind, historically a turning point.


The format

Suggested format is not a general inter-religious meeting for a news item, to talk about commonalities and vague commitment to peace , ending with a vegan desert and smiles for optics, but nothing practical.

The invitation is for serious scholars, authorities of Islamic courts, universities, clergy, leading public speakers and thinkers of the Islamic Umma worldwide, that can handle difficult questions in a constructive manner and due respect.

May those who come in good faith, merit G-d's blessing.

 

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A Bridge between Faiths​

An Open Letter to Islam​

[Part 1]​

January 21, 2024
​

What does Judaism have to say about Islam?​

On the 7th of October, 2023, Hamas attacked the citizens of Israel. Over 1,200 children, women and elderly, Jews, and people of all religions were brutally murdered, hundreds were taken captive, and some were murdered in captivity. This attack was carried out by an Islamic movement acting in the name of Islam. This fact should lead us to reflect more deeply on the relationship between Judaism and Islam in the present and, more importantly, in the future. Facing this brutal attack, the Jewish nation has decided to fight to defend itself and has embarked on a mission to destroy Hamas.

Is Islam capable of progressing toward a spiritual goal that will prevent such atrocities in the future? The answer is to be sought amongst the leading Islamic religious authorities.

This question has become more salient today, mainly because the current moment in Arab history is unique. For the first time, a sovereign Jewish state arose again in a land that had been part of the Muslim world for a significant period (Dar al-Islam). This situation has engendered complex relations between Jews and Arabs in the land of Israel and across the Middle East.

Little has been written over the centuries exploring the Jewish tradition’s view of Islam. Such literature does exist, both in the philosophical realm and in that of Jewish law, but for the most part it is scattered across the rabbinic literature and challenging to find concentrated in one source. As well, few rabbinic authorities have also studied Islam in-depth.

In this letter I will fill this void. I have no intention to ignore or distort the problems between Judaism and Islam. Still, I am writing to the Islamic religious leadership in the hope that it will contribute to our mutual understanding and promote more peaceful relations between the sons of Abraham: the descendants of Israel and the descendants of Ishmael.

The Status of Islam in Judaism​

The status of Islam in the Jewish philosophical and halachic (legal) literature is a topic that few take the time to study in-depth, both among Jewish and Islamic scholars.

We must address this from multiple facets: in part 1 of the letter, I will discuss the points of commonality between Judaism and Islam and the points of contention. In part 2, I will address the status of the prophet Mohammad, the potential for joint action between Islam and Judaism as strictly monotheistic religions, steps that Islam must take from the perspective of Judaism to allow for such cooperation, the future of relations between the State of Israel and the Muslim world, the relevance of the seven Noahide laws for Muslims and the potential contribution of Judaism to Islam.

Points of commonality between Islam and Judaism​

• Islam and Judaism agree with the belief in monotheism (that God is One), the negation of God’s corporeality and the rejection of idolatry. The great Jewish scholar, Maimonides wrote that the monotheism of the sons of Ishmael is a “pure monotheism, without flaw,” meaning with no pagan components. Judaism recognizes that Islam worships one God despite the differences in understanding the meaning of this oneness, and this recognition has practical implications. One of them is that while Jewish law forbids a Jew from entering a place of idol worship, it allows entry to a mosque. All rabbis accept this, myself included. We have no desire to convert Muslims to Judaism nor to kill or subjugate them.
• From Judaism’s perspective, all people are obligated to accept and fulfill the seven commandments God gave to all humanity, referred to in the Jewish tradition as “The Seven Noahide Laws.” These laws are the prohibition of idolatry, prohibition of cursing God, prohibition of murder, the prohibition of sexual deviancy, prohibition of theft, the prohibition of eating meat torn from a living animal, and the positive obligation to establish courts of justice and a penal system. Islam accepts these commandments in principle, and therefore Judaism can accept Islam as a sister religion – and indeed we are both descendants of Abraham. At the same time, Islam has not yet clearly affirmed these principles as obligatory toward non-Muslims and this equivocation has been a blemish on Islam throughout its history, expressed once again by the events of October 7th.
• God has not commanded the Jews to convert non-Jews, but rather to accept only those who desire to join the Jewish people out of their own initiative. In contrast, Islam aspires to impose its rule on the entire world. The use of violence to further the spread of faith is considered entirely illegitimate by Judaism. However, from a Jewish perspective, the original intent of Islam could be expressed by Abraham’s initial phase, in which he built a movement for ethical monotheism, gathering tens of thousands of followers before he was commanded to found a particular nation.
• God commanded the people of Israel with 613 commandments, above and beyond the seven Noahide laws. The 613 commandments were given as part of the covenant God made with the people of Israel so that they would serve as a model of a holy nation for all humanity and collective holiness. The sons of Ishmael were blessed with fertility and abundance to fulfill the mission of spreading the worship of the true God to all people as individuals. In other words, the sons of Ishmael were given the role of spreading the knowledge of the One God and His ethical commandments to a more significant number of people. In contrast, the sons of Isaac and Jacob were given the role of founding a model of collective holiness based on the covenant with God to make them a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” to serve as a model for emulation for all humanity.
• For Judaism, the appearance of a new religion that recognizes God’s oneness and the Noahide laws was a cause for grand celebration, and many expressions of affinity could be found in the initial period of Islam, despite the difficult and violent conflicts of those days.
• In light of the crisis of values in many societies in our times, cooperation between the sons of Israel and the sons of Ishmael could bring great blessing to the world and promote the belief in God’s oneness and his ethical commandments.

Points of disagreement between Judaism and Islam​

Alongside the above commonalities, there exist many significant points of dispute between Judaism and Islam. We will focus here only on the main and fundamental points and not the peripheral ones.

• The first point of contention is the claim by Islam that the Mosaic Torah has been nullified and that even the Jews are called upon to accept Islam. For Judaism, the Mosaic Torah is eternal. Even if God sends additional prophets after Moses, and even if He sends them to other nations, the Torah remains valid, as it represents God’s word and is incumbent on all Jews. Likewise, it must be stated that according to Judaism, the commandments of the Mosaic Torah are not incumbent on Muslims.
• The second point of contention is Islam’s claim that the Jews have corrupted the holy scripture and erased, as it were, the predictions of the coming of Muhammad. This claim is not made across the board but instead mainly concerning any contradiction between the Torah and the Quran. Many of the stories of the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish tradition are brought in the Quran, which Muslims accept as accurate.
• The third point of contention, most relevant today, is God’s promise that the Jewish people will return to their land and establish a state.
• Islam holds that it must spread its faith to all humanity by force if necessary. Judaism rejects the use of violence as a tool for spreading its faith.

Therefore, for Islam to be truly accepted by Judaism as a legitimate religion for all peoples, three points must be agreed upon:

• The recognition of Islam as a religion parallel to Judaism and not as a replacement and that the prophecy of Muhammad has not come to invalidate the Mosaic Torah.
• The recognition that the Torah is God’s word, which carries a message to all humanity. This requires abandoning the claim of corruption (Tahrif), so that Judaism will be acknowledged as the religion from which Islam developed.
• The recognition of the divine promise that the Jewish people will return to their historic homeland and rule in it, as it says explicitly in the Quran.

Suppose the Islamic religious leadership should desire to build a bridge between the believers in the One God. In that case, they must be willing to listen to what Judaism has to say about additional essential issues, including Muhammad’s status, Judaism’s potential contribution to the world of Islamic faith, and more. I will address these topics in part 2 of this open letter.

With wishes for peace,
Rabbi Oury Cherki,
Chairman of Brit Olam Institutions

جسر الإيمان رسالة إلى حكماء الإسلام– الجزء الأول –

ما رأي اليهودية في الإسلام؟ في السابع من أكتوبر 2023، هاجمت حركة حماس مواطني دولة إسرائيل حيثُ قُتِل بوحشية أكثر من 1400 طفل وامرأة ومسن من اليهود ومن أتباع جميع الديانات، كما تم اختطاف المئات ممن قُتل بعضهم في الأسر. تم تنفيذ الهجوم الشائن على يد منظمة إسلامية تعمل باسم الإسلام. وقد تطلبت هذه...

noahideworldcenter.org

A Bridge between FaithsAn Open Letter to Islam[Part 1]

In the aftermath of the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, Rabbi Oury Cherki explores the complex relationship between Judaism and Islam. Part 1 delves into commonalities and disagreements, emphasizing the need for mutual understanding and peace. The article challenges Islam to align with Jewish...

noahideworldcenter.org

 

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The Truth About Jewish-Muslim History​

It is often said today that Muslim-Jewish relations were always good before Zionism and the State of Israel, and that Jews and Muslims historically lived in peace. Is this notion true?

Find out in this class, as we dive into an eye-opening letter written by the great philosopher Maimonides to the Jews of Yemen in the 12th century, uncover what Islam really preaches about Jews, and conclude with an incredible prophecy from the Zohar that has come true right before our eyes in recent years.

 

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'We expect the opening of a Muslim movement towards clarification and change'
Rabbi Cherki on the Open Letter to the leading scholars of Islam​

L. Aharish: I want to greet Rabbi Ouri Cherki,
R. Cherki: Shallom and a blessing
L. Aharish: Shalom, shalom
R. Cherki: Thank You to the audience

L. Aharish; I want to thank You for coming to join us. This week specifically in these times, You've sent a letter to the leaders of the Islamic religion. In which You call fo cooperation between religions, in which You write among others: 'The brital attack on 7th Oct was carried out by an Islamic organization, in the name of Islam. This fact demands a deep inspection regarding the relationship between Judaism and Islam".

To whom is the letter addressed, and have You received an answer?

R. Cherki: The letter is addressed to 2,000 recipients in the Islamic world, Madrassa's, the University of al-Azhar among other places of this kind. And the need for this letter is definitely, among others, the difficult situation in which we are, today is the day we honor our fallen, and certainly we have to pay attention to the essence of the conflict. Despite not so much wanting to address it, however it's a religious conflict.

L. Aharish: Do You think it all begins and ends with religion?
R. Cherki: No doubt. There's sort of 'politically correct' agreement, not to discuss it as a religious conflict, because it wouldn't be solvable. I think it's like telling someone sick with a disease we have no remedy for, to say their ailment, is something else. No, we need to know what we're dealing with today, we're dealing with Islam for generations. Meaning, there's Islamic theology, Islamic code. And we as the nation of Israel returning its land and taking back its place as the nation of the Bible in the lands of the Bible, we're allowed to tell Islam what we demand from them. That Islam recognizes what it really is, the daughter religion of Judaism, which didn't come to replace Judaism, or to take the land from the people of Israel. And there's also an element in the fundamental Islamic texts, a Quranic element to this saying, which are not part of Islamic orthodoxy today.
L. Aharish: Correct.
R. Cherki: Therefore, the chance of any significant movement towards what I demand of them, the chance is little. But we are speaking long term. Exactly as a 100 years ago it was inconceivable the changes in the Christian world, so we can expect in the coming decades, to witness the reality the return of the nation of Israel to its land - to become very significant to them.

L. Aharish: Rabbi Cherki, do You manage such discussions with Islamic clerics, on a daily basis? Who tell You, that it's correct, and we need a conference for another perspective, that this is not Islam, that the interpretations took Islam to unwanted places. Which can be said of any religion, regarding extreme or far fetched interpretations, unrelated to the texts.
R. Cherki: We need to understand one thing - there's no moderate Islam, and extreme Islam. Islam is fundamentally extreme, and moderating, unlike in other religions, where You can say, that the fundamental theology is moderate and someone radicalizes it, not the same. Therefore the requirement is for root treatment of the fundamental claims, which are significant. Meaning, the saying that there can be no other prophet after Muhammad, and the nation of Israel has ended its role, that Islam came to replace Judaism, that there's no legitimacy to the state of Israel, in what is called "deir al-Islam" - these require treatment at the root, it cannot be avoided.

L. Aharish: Don't You agree, that every religion views, Christians also think Jesus is the only prophet, who they believe.
R. Cherki: First of all not, Christianity believes the Bible, it accepts us as the Biblical nation, with various harsh arguments but the fundamental infrastructure is the same. However, the fundamental claim of Islam, is that the Bible, although was a true document, but that Jews, and Christians forged it, changed it. Therefore, there's great difficulty in the credibility of the discourse itself. The moment someone in front of me thinks I'm a liar, it's very difficult to talk, therefore these things need a root treatment.

By the way, in the letter I've sent to the elders of Islam, I raise all these points. What is the status of a prophet according to Judaism, in what way can a prophet be accepted, or cannot. We except an opening, I'd say a formal Islamic approach towards clarification, maybe even change.

L. Aharish: What is the chance of such thing to happen?
R. Cherki: In the short term - very little, if at all. In the mid and long term, I'm certain that the reality of the nation of Israel having returned to the land, in the context of what we are for them -we are a Biblical event in the heart of modernity.

This shocks the most tinder spots of their collective unconscious, thus we can certainly expect a certain change. The recognition of the establishment of the state as the realization of the covenant of G-d with the nation of Israel, as written in Quran itself, not only given but "written to them", the meaning is that it is eternal.

This recognition has to pentrate. And I want to add an important point.
In the Quran, there're slanderous statements towards Jews, and statements of admiration towards the people of Israel. These are 2 different term, Banu Israil, which is a respectful character, which didn't exist during the initial days of Islam. It didn't exist on the ground, we didn't have a state. We have now, the people Israel have returned, we have to be conscious of that, and they as well to recognize that.
MK Meir Cohen: After all the theological analysis, I think You have given Christianity a big discount. The Crusades, Inquisition, it was way less tolerant than Islam.
R. Cherki: Let's say it like that - it was. Here we speak about the present, the present day Islam committed also...

L. Aharish: No, there's no...no argument. The Crusades were also violent, also Nazism, which used the cross as part of its ideology.

MK. Cohen: We have to understand, Nazism is also a religion, I'm saying there're those who say religion is the solution, I think it's the...
R. Cherki: ...the problem.

Yes, but remember one thing, atheists more millions of people than religions, right? Stalin and Mao Tzu Tung, I don't think they were exactly religious.

L. Aharish: I only want to disagree with one thing You've said. As a Muslim, who was raised on Islamic values, there's such thing as moderate Islam, I wasn't raised on radical Islam, or radical values, it's not the religion I've learned home, that I was brought up by. With this I disagree, the religion I've grow with was moderate, inclusive and tolerant of the other. The radicalization, the oral tradition which developed from that, is a complete extreme to another direction. And I don't have to tell You it happens in every religion, and unfortunately, it gets more stage in recent years.

 

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Torah Portion 'Mishpatim' | Liberation Beneath the Surface: Souls, Abundance, and Hierarchy in the Torah.




'This was the most significant meeting in my life. I heard things that until today I thought the Muslim world could not say.'
***
Following the publication of the letter to Islam that he wrote, Rabbi Cherki was invited to head a delegation to the United Arab Emirates that returned to Israel last night after a 3-day visit, during which the delegation met with Emirati clerics and government.

 

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New Embassy in Jerusalem Marks Historic, Even 'Prophetic' Beginning​

Recently, people from many nations came to Jerusalem and opened the first-ever Indigenous Embassy. The event marks what some believe to be an historic and even prophetic beginning.Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum played a key role in establishing the embassy."When I was approached by the indigenous Coalition for Israel about a year ago, about their dream to open an embassy in Jerusalem, I couldn't think of a better expression – and this was before the war.

 

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Rabbi Oury's plot to change Islam | Abū Isrā'īl​

Rabbi Oury Cherki, a fervent religious Zionist,
articulates his long-term goal to change Islam.

 

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בס"ד

Binyamin Luria with Rabbi HaYnuka

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"I Ended Up In Hamas Without Knowing I Was In Hamas"​

Since October 7th, the voices representing Muslims in the media have been dominated by the more extreme. Moderate voices seem to have been pushed out.

I sat down with author and former Islamist turned anti-radicalisation expert Ed Husain. Now a public intellectual, professor and government adviser, Ed had been swept up by Hizb ut-Tahrir and Hamas in his youth.

Ed explains to me the history of Islamism from Sayyid Qutb to the present. We also take a deeper dive into Islam and the unity and disunity between Muslims, Christians and Jews.Ed explains Islam in Britain and across the West today, and what needs to change.