The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism

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The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History is a 2008 book by Brown University professor Andrew Bostom. It is a “collection of sources, Islamic and others, which testify to the long and sorry history of anti-Semitism in Islam.” ^[1]

According to Robert Kaplan, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism “provides a broad history of the darker side of the Jewish experience in the lands of Islam and the ideas and beliefs which guided Moslem attitudes towards Jews.”^[2]

According to Hebrew University professor Raphael Israeli, “the author delves in considerable detail into the main sources of Islamic jurisprudence - the Koran and the Hadith, complemented by the Sirah (the earliest pious Muslim biographies of Muhammad), where an abundance of references, usually not complimentary but rather derogatory, are made to Jews, collectively known as Israi'liyyat (Israelites' stories). This is a trove of anti-Jewish stereotypes that have become the Shari'a-based uncontested "truth" about the People of the Book. Those accounts are invariably cited in sermons during Friday prayers, thus assuring their universal diffusion among Muslim constituents and the constant poisoning of the souls of young and adult Muslims alike, something that renders their fundamentally negative attitudes to Jews and Israel unchangeable.”^[3]

Bill Warner writes that The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, is as “historic work. It is a complete encyclopedia of both the doctrine and practice of Islamic Jew hatred. Jew hatred is Bostom's usage and it is accurate.” ^[4]