Muslim Jew
Categories: Jewish Islam topics
A Muslim Jew is someone who is Jewish by ethnicity, but who has converted to Islam.
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Background
Jews who have converted to faiths other than Judaism, or who abandon Judaism for atheism, or the many Jews who simply view themselves as secular, often still feel strongly connected to their Jewish ethnicity. Although conversion to Islam is considered apostasy by all branches of Judaism, halakha (Jewish law) states that a child born of a Jewish mother is a Jew regardless of the faith they practice. Thus in Jewish law a Jew who converts to Islam remains a Jew, and is able to return to Judaism without conversion (see Baal teshuva).
In the past groups of Jews and individual Jews have converted to Islam; some voluntarily, some by force, some due to social pressure, and some in hopes of improving prospects for themselves and their families. While those who converted voluntarily have typically lost their identification as Jews, others who converted under various kinds of pressures have sometimes retained a connection to their ethnicity and faith, and some have even eventually returned to Judaism.
In Persia, during the Safavid dynasty of the 16th and 17th centuries, Jews were forced to abandon their religion, proclaim publicly that they had converted to Islam, and were given the name Jadid-al-Islam (New Muslims); in 1661 an edict was issued overturning this forced conversion, and the Jews returned to openly practising Judaism. Similarly, after a pogrom in 1839, the Jews of Mashhad were forced to convert to Islam. They practiced Judaism secretly for over a century before openly returning to their faith; at the turn of the 21st century around 10,000 lived in Israel another 4,000 in New York City, and 1,000 elsewhere.1
In Turkey the claimed messiah Sabbatai Zevi was forced to convert to Islam in 1666. A number of his followers did so as well, becoming known as the Donmeh (a Turkish word for a religious convert). While outwardly Muslim, the Donmeh secretly remained Jews, and covertly practiced Jewish rituals. They worshipped Zevi as the Messiah and an incarnation of God, observed certain Jewish rituals, prayed in Hebrew and Aramaic, and secretly celebrated Jewish festivals and fasts. The Donmeh are thought to still exist today.
A number of groups who converted from Judaism to Islam have remained Muslim, while maintaining a connection to and interest in their Jewish heritage. These groups include the anusim of Timbuktu who converted in 1492, when Askia Muhammed came to power in Timbuktu and decreed that Jews must convert to Islam or leave,[1], and the Chala Bukharan Jews, who converted voluntarily.
In modern times conversion of Jews to Islam is entirely voluntary, and a small number of individuals have done so. Probably the most notable of these are:
- Muhammad Asad (formerly Leopold Weiss), a Galician Jew who converted to Islam in 1926.
- Maryam Jameelah (formerly Margaret Marcus), author of over two dozen books on Islam, an American Jew who converted to Islam in the 1960s.
- Suleyman Ahmad Schwartz (formerly Stephen Schwartz), neoconservative journalist and author of several books on foreign affairs and Islam, an American Jew who converted to the Naqshbandi order of Sufi Islam in 1999.
Footnote
Note 1: Dan Ross, Acts of Faith, Schocken Books, New York, 1984, pp. 67-82. ISBN 0805207597
See also
See also
External links
- Jews for Allah Forward article.
- Jews for Allah - Jewsweek article.
- Chala - Bukharan Muslim Jews
- The Renewal of Jewish identity in Timbuktu
- Mashhadi Jews in New York
- The anti-Adam Shapiro
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