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Confused about Some Hadiths: Any Clarification?

20 August, 2018
Q As-salamu `alaykum. I’m extremely interested in this religion and find the Qur’an to be very amazing. However, I have an issue with a few Hadiths which do seem very unfair and slightly oppressive in which I hope you can clarify for me; to my best understand these Hadiths are supposedly authentic. There is a Hadith which states that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said "expel the Jews from the Arabian peninsula." Was this because they were Jewish or was there more to it? If this was the other way round and Muslims were expelled for being Muslims, would we not see this as unfair? Can you, please, clarify this for me? Also there is another Hadith in which a Jewish man embraces Islam but then reverts back to Judaism and is killed. Was this because the Muslims and Jews were at war so he would have been a threat? How was this justified?

Answer

Wa `alaykum as-Salamu wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.


In this fatwa:

As for dismissing the Jews from Makkah or Madinah, that was not due to their religion. Rather, it was because they have broken all the covenants they had made with the Prophet (peace  be upon him).

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Responding to your question, Dr. Muhammad Salama, PhD in Islamic Studies in English and an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Islamic Science, Al-Madinah International University, states:

As the cradle of Islam, Arabia needed to be secured. The Prophet (peace be upon him) made many covenants with the Jews but they broke them and conspired against him and against Muslim community as well.

In fact, other narrations of that Hadith require the evacuation of non-Muslims in general. However, scholars differed over the interpretation of the Hadith and whether they are to be evacuated from the entire Arabian Peninsula or only from Makkah and Madinah.

Scholars also differed over whether what is meant is to ban them altogether except for a necessity or just to ban them from having a settlement there. So, it should now have become clear that the issue is not restricted to the Jews and that there are various interpretations of the hadith and how to apply it.

As for killing the apostate, it is a penalty prescribed in the prophetic Hadith “Whoever changes his [Islamic] faith kill him”, this penalty is applicable regardless of the religion an apostate converts to.

Allah Almighty knows best.