The Quran's Major Error Regarding Jewish Belief

 Those who read the Quran will see the countless stories it gives about the days prior. But those who do some research on the authenticity of these stories will easily catch some errors, some more obvious than others. The Quran, when explaining the beliefs of Jews and Christians, made a fatal mistake regarding the Jews.

This mistake is in the Quran, chapter 9, verse 30. It goes to say "The Jews say, 'Ezra is the son of Allah,' and the Christians say, 'The Messiah is the son of Allah.' These are their statements, out of their mouths. They emulate the statements of those who blasphemed before. May Allah assail them! How deceived they are!"

Of all the absurd beliefs in Judaism, not once have any of them believed what that verse described. The belief that Ezra is the son of God never existed in any sect of Judaism at any point in history.

Apologists for Islam will try to tell a tale in which there was a Jewish community in Yemen that believed Ezra was the Messiah. However, there is no evidence for this outside of what the Islamic sources say. The website "Islamic Awareness" made an attempt to save the Quran from this error. The article was written by Dr. Saifullah, who had this to say: "The Islamic exegetes have mentioned that there existed a community of Jews in Yemen who considered Ezra as son of God. Hirschberg says in Encylopedia Judaica:

The Islamic exegetes have mentioned that there existed a community of Jews in Yemen who considered Ezra as son of God. Hirschberg says in Encylopedia Judaica:

H Z Hirschberg proposed another assumption, based on the words of Ibn Hazm, namely, that the 'righteous who live in Yemen believed that 'Uzayr was indeed the son of Allah. According to other Muslim sources, there were some Yemenite Jews who had converted to Islam who believed that Ezra was the messiah. For Muhammad, Ezra, the apostle of messiah, can be seen in the same light as the Christian saw Jesus, the messiah, the son of Allah."

An apologist can be expected to dig around hard to defend a clear error when their religion embarrasses itself. However, Ibn Hazm, the man mentioned in the above statement, lived in the late 9th and early 10th century, and he lived in Spain, nowhere near the time nor place where the Quran was written, nor anywhere near Yemen. His words were not based on evidence. The above quote in the article is clear in saying "H Z Hirschberg proposed another assumption."

His words were mere guesswork, and lo and behold, it was based on the Islamic sources. Outside of the Islamic sources, there are no existing records of any sect of Judaism that believed Ezra was the son of God, nor even the Messiah. Even with this, the Quran says "the Jews" and not "some Jews". The author of the Quran really thought the Jews worshipped Ezra.

The Hadiths themselves confirm this in Sahih Al-Bukhari 7439. In the lengthy Hadith, it states "Then it will be said to **THE JEWS**: 'What did you use to worship?' They will reply 'We used to worship Ezra, the son of Allah (God).'

It couldn't get any more clear than that. If it was only talking about one community of Jews, what about the others? It wasn't only talking about one community. It was talking about all of them as a whole. This hadith was talking about the supposedly approaching "judgement day". The fact that the Jews are supposed to give that answer, and the fact that this "judgement day" hasn't happened indicates that, according to the Islamic sources, the Jews still worship Ezra today. Of course, this is false. Judaism contains a lot of stupid teachings (just like Islam and Christianity), but this is not one of those teachings. It doesn't exist, nor have any Jews in any part of history ever believed it.

It's clear that the author of the Quran made a huge mistake in this regard. Perhaps it's time to acknowledge that the Quran may not be as authentic as adherents of Islam thought, instead of denying reality to defend it.

The verse before it, verse 9:29, was one of violence. It had this to say: "Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, nor abide by the religion of truth—from among those who received the Scripture—until they pay the due tax, willingly or unwillingly."

That verse called for violence against the adherents of Judaism and Christianity. Adherents of Islam were ordered to violently subjugate them until they pay a tax called "Jiziya", which is a tax for Jews and Christians. The Quran is even worse toward those who reject all 3 religions. We don't even get the choice to pay this tax. Instead, we're supposed to be killed. A future article will discuss this.

In conclusion, the Quran gave a violent order in one verse, then a historical error in the next verse. There are some (not all) adherents of Islam who obey that verse. All of that killing for a book that couldn't even get something so basic right. This book is full of errors, and Islam is rooted in lies, and it is not an excuse to do bad things to humanity.