Page 454 - Bigotry: The Dark Danger

Bigotry:
The Dark Danger

The Gharqad, the Tree of the Jews

Abu Huraira reported God's Messenger

(pbuh) as saying: "... the Jews would
hide themselves behind a stone or a tree

and a stone or a tree would say: 'Mus-
lim, or the servant of God, there is a Jew

behind me; come and kill him;' but the

tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the
tree of the Jews." (Sahih Muslim, Book

41, Hadith 6985)

Perhaps the most frequently employed hadith in the context of
enmity toward the Jews is this false hadith about the Gharqad tree.
According to this hadith, a Jew must be killed when he hides behind
a rock or tree. It makes no difference in this logically impoverished
way of thinking if the Jew in question is innocent and free of any sin.

The Jew may be a child, devout or someone full of love. Again
according to this false hadith, when a Jew hides behind a tree, no
matter what his personal qualities, the rocks and trees will tell a
Muslim of this, and that Jew must be killed, without exception, even
if he is a little child.

However, this is murder in the view of the Qur'an. If someone
who regards himself as a Muslim believes these fabricated hadiths

and kills a Jew hiding behind a tree on the grounds that "the tree told
me to do it," the Jew may go to paradise, but the Muslim will be pun-

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