In the early years of his mission, Muhammad spoke of the Jews with reverence, positioning himself as an Arab successor to the biblical prophets and, therefore, a convener of all nations under the ancient Abrahamic covenant. He directed his followers to pray toward Jerusalem. He hoped that the Jewish tribes of Medina would recognize him as a prophet in their own tradition.
They did not.
What followed was a systematic campaign to neutralize Jewish influence, de-legitimize Jewish testimony, and eliminate the Jewish presence from the Arabian Peninsula, ultimately involving the exile, enslavement, and mass-murder of Arabian Jews. The Jews’ ability to demonstrate, chapter and verse, that Muhammad’s “revelations” were riddled with errors and anachronisms posed an existential threat to his prophetic authority.
