Hatred: jihadists today routinely refer to Jews as apes and pigs. This idea is rooted in Qur’an 2:63-66; 5:59-60; and 7:166. Here is 2:63-66:
And when We took compact with you, and raised above you the Mount: ‘Take forcefully what We have given you, and remember what is in it; haply you shall be godfearing.’ Then you turned away thereafter, and but for the bounty and mercy of God towards you, you had been of the losers. And well you know there were those among you that transgressed the Sabbath, and We said to them, ‘Be you apes, miserably slinking!’ And We made it a punishment exemplary for all the former times and for the latter, and an admonition to such as are godfearing.
Traditionally in Islamic theology these passages have not been considered to apply to all Jews. Ibn Abbas says that “those who violated the sanctity of the Sabbath were turned into monkeys, then they perished without offspring.” Others, however, such as the early Islamic scholar Ibn Qutaiba, held that today”s apes are the descendants of the Sabbath-breaking Jews.
Many Muslims use this passage today as a metaphor for the Jews” corruption, even unto bestial status. Muhammad himself began this when he addressed the Jews of the Qurayzah tribe, which he was about to massacre, as “you brothers of monkeys.” Several years ago, the late Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, called Jews “the enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs.” The Saudi Sheikh Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudayyis, imam of the principal mosque in Mecca, the Al-Haraam mosque, expanded on this, saying in a sermon that Jews are “the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs.” Another Saudi Sheikh, Ba”d bin Abdallah Al-Ajameh Al-Ghamidi, made the connection explicit: “The current behavior of the brothers of apes and pigs, their treachery, violation of agreements, and defiling of holy places”¦ is connected with the deeds of their forefathers during the early period of Islam “” which proves the great similarity between all the Jews living today and the Jews who lived at the dawn of Islam.”
This series inspired by Pat Condell.