Encyclopedia

By:Hesham Tolba

Translated By: Magdy Abd AL-Shafy

Among the people who took upon their shoulder to fight Islam and staged machination against the spread of Islam were the Jews, they even collaborated with the idolaters and instigated the pagan Arab tribes against Islam though they were supposed to be the first people to believe and help but they did not. The Holy Quran rebuked them for their horrendous heinous acts and challenged them to mention the story of the Sabbath in which some of them were metamorphosed into monkeys and pigs. God says in the Holy Quran what means"

Ask them concerning the town standing close by the sea. Behold! they transgressed in the matter of the Sabbath. For on the day of their Sabbath their fish did come to them, openly holding up their heads, but on the day they had no Sabbath, they came not: thus did We make a trial of them, for they were given to transgression. When some of them said: "Why do ye preach to a people whom Allah will destroy or visit with a terrible punishment?"- said the preachers:" To discharge our duty to your Lord, and perchance they may fear Him." When they disregarded the warnings that had been given them, We rescued those who forbade Evil; but We visited the wrong-doers with a grievous punishment because they were given to transgression. When in their insolence they transgressed (all) prohibitions, We said to them: "Be ye apes, despised and rejected." (Al-Baqra:65-66)

"O ye who believe! take not for friends and protectors those who take your religion for a mockery or sport,- whether among those who received the Scripture before you, or among those who reject Faith; but fear ye Allah, if ye have faith (indeed). When ye proclaim your call to prayer they take it (but) as mockery and sport; that is because they are a people without understanding."(Al-Araf:163-166)

Say: "O people of the Book! Do ye disapprove of us for no other reason than that we believe in Allah, and the revelation that hath come to us and that which came before (us), and (perhaps) that most of you are rebellious and disobedient?" Say: "Shall I point out to you something much worse than this, (as judged) by the treatment it received from Allah. those who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath, those of whom some He transformed into apes and swine, those who worshipped evil;- these are (many times) worse in rank, and far more astray from the even path!"(AL-Ma'ada:57-60)

In the above-mentioned verse, a Muslim is not to befriend or exchange visits with those who abuse and vituperate Islam, among these islamic teachings that were derisively mocked by the Jews is the call to prayer. The Holy Quran rebuked them for such invectives, so reminded them of one of the real shameful act that the Jews committed and for which they were metamorphosed into apes and pegs.

In this story, God tested their belief and how much they would abide by His ordinances.In some villages that were located on the Red Sea, the Jews used to work in fishing. God ordered fish not to approach the shore except on Saturdays, On Saturday fish came abundantly to the shore .So they, discovering that that fish only came on Saturday, started to make some tricks by spreading their fish net on the eves of Saturdays and leave the whole of Saturday and then collect the fish on Sundays- Remember Jews are ordered not to work on Saturdays in Torah.

There were three teams debating on whether they should do or should not;Some of them stood up against the sinners warning them of the ordeal of the consequence that would ensue, the third team refused to take part in this sin and even said to the first team that advised the second team" Why do you exhort those sinners?", it was nota long time before God's punishment took place, it was so fast and the sinners were metamorphosed into monkeys and apes while the good among them survived.

This story was expunged from the Torah though there are still some evidences or traces of it, the first of these is " Thou hast despised mine holy things, and hast profaned my sabbaths. "Ezekiel(22:8)

How was the Sabbath story like? …… is a question that no canonical chapter gives an answer, yet there are still some evidences that explain how they despised the Sabbath and how they manipulated with the days of the week in the Talmud, ancient stories of the Jews and even there are evidence in the scriptures recorded after the writing of the Talmud ⁽¹⁾ that tolerate with spreading fish net for catching fish and nets for catching animals on the eves of Saturdays to collect them later on.

With the exception to those who tolerated with work on Saturdays is a cult known by the name Karaite and this is recorded in their book that records their ancient stories.

The last of these evidences are found in the Rabbinci⁽²⁾ scriptures and the Aramaic Talmud , in this book, Jacopo prophesies that the descendants of Ephraim, the son of Joseph, will be afflicted with a calamity because of catching fish by their mouth long after his death and as a result they will be inflicted with a lisp in their tongues and that they will die like fish^.(3)

It is well-established that eating fish had never been prohibited among the Jews, so one can conclude that eating fish must have been an illegal way(3)as the case with the people of the famous story of Sabbath.

To those who still claim that Mohummed borrowed the stories in Quran from their holy book we say : is it possible that he read, though he was illiterate and never knew any of the languages of these book all of these books to insert them in the Holy Quran?

Is it possible that he could get these books and then read the scattered pieces of these story and then found a hidden line that connect all its parts and then authored this story?

If so, though absurd and contrary to mind, why then did he choose some parts and exclude others? Why didn't he record the story that they thought of building tower that could reach the heaven to live in to escape this calamity?

This story is another evidence of the ascendancy and watching over of the Holy Quran over the other Holy Books, it seems as if the Holy Quran read all of these discordant books and adjudicated between them and unraveled the hidden facts and information and corrected the mistakes and discarded the superstitions or the impossibilities and then arranged the story by wish it challenged the Jews….no doubt it is a book that is revealed from God and every word is true.