Andrew G. Bostom, M.D., M.S., is the author of six books on Islam, including Sharia Versus Freedom (2012) and A Modern Qur’anic Kampf Against the Jews (2026).
(Oct. 15, 2026 / JNS)
There is nothing inherently objectionable about frank Jewish-Muslim dialogue. Nor is there anything wrong with recognizing that religious texts have historical contexts and competing interpretations. Context can illuminate difficult material. But it should not make that material disappear.
Author and self-described interfaith activist Rick Sopher has launched a prominent campaign against what he calls “Quranophobia,” culminating in his newly released collaborative book, Illuminating Scriptural Connections. His current book tour was recently featured in London’s Jewish Chronicle and The Times daily newspaper as part of an ongoing conversational series that includes discussions this fall in the United Kingdom, New York and Miami.
Sopher, a banker and fellow at the Cambridge, England, “interfaith charity” Woolf Institute, argues that the Quran’s difficult passages concerning Jews can be understood benignly. Lecturing to the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) this summer, Sopher went so far as to maintain that “the Quran just wants Jews to be better Jews.” His claim merits serious scrutiny, not least because Sopher cites his 2026 visit to Al-Azhar University in Cairo as evidence for this interpretation.
Al-Azhar is one of the most prestigious institutions of Sunni Islamic learning. Its grand imam occupies a near-papal equivalent position in contemporary Sunni Islam. So, if an interpretation of the Quran is attributed to him, we should examine the institution’s authoritative texts and teachings, rather than rely exclusively, as Sopher does, on an anecdote about a conversation with an unnamed imam.
Consider Quran 59:2, which concerns the expulsion of the Jewish Banu Nadir from Medina. During Sopher’s presentation, the Arabic text was cut off before the verse’s troubling conclusion: Allah “cast terror into their hearts,” their houses were destroyed and believers were told to “take warning.” The surrounding verses (59:3,4,5) describe Divine punishment and the “punishment of the fire.”
How has Al-Azhar interpreted this passage?
Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, grand imam of Al-Azhar from 1996 until he died in 2010 and a major modern Quranic commentator, explicitly identified those involved as the Jews of Banu Nadir. His commentary describes their defeat and expulsion as divinely ordained and interprets the passage as punishment extending into the afterlife.
Privately, an individual Muslim may not accept Tantawi’s interpretation. But Tantawi’s authoritative interpretation holds great currency among the Muslim masses and cannot be omitted when assessing its impact, given Al-Azhar’s respected intellectual tradition.
The same issue arises with Quran 9:29, which commands Muslims to wage sanguinary jihad against “People of the Book”—Jews and Christians—until they pay the Quranic poll tax, the jizya. Sopher presents the resulting dhimma system as one of “protection”: Jews and Christians paid the jizya, while Islamic law provided security for them.
Not every Muslim accepts these interpretations, but they are part of the historical record and the modern Islamic intellectual tradition.
That description omits critical features of the historical and jurisprudential record.
Medieval Muslim jurists developed deliberately punitive and debasing restrictions applied to Jews and Christians concerning their religious buildings, dress, testimony, arms and public status, alongside prescribed procedures for collecting the jizya. The renowned historian of Muslim-Jewish relations, S.D. Goitein, after studying documentary records from the Cairo Geniza, concluded that the tax could become a severe burden on poor Jews, describing tax collection as a period of “horror, dread and misery.”
Tantawi’s commentary on Quran 9:29 similarly cannot be reconciled with Sopher’s innocuous assessment. Tantawi describes the alternatives facing the People of the Book as fighting, conversion to Islam or payment of jizya, characterizing submission to Islamic rule and the jizya as humiliation.
Then there is Quran 5:60, which characterizes Jews whom Allah cursed and transformed into “apes and pigs.” Sopher mistakenly associates a story of Sabbath-breaking and the exclusive reference to “apes” in Quran 2:65 with 5:60. But 5:60, which does contain the “apes and pigs” reference, mentions punishment for worshipping taghut, meaning “idol” and even Satan worship.
Tantawi’s commentary on 5:60 identifies the condemned people as Jews and uses sweeping language concerning a divine curse, anger and punishment. His earlier doctoral dissertation, completed at Al-Azhar in 1966 and republished while he was grand imam, likewise cataloged multiple permanent, negative Quranic characteristics attributed to the Jews and argued that such traits could be observed “throughout the ages.”
Not every Muslim accepts these interpretations. But they are part of both the authoritative Islamic historical record and its modern intellectual tradition as embodied by Al-Azhar and Tantawi.
The current record also deserves examination. Al-Azhar’s present grand imam, Ahmed al-Tayeb, has twice publicly invoked Quran 5:82, which speaks of Jews as having intense hostility toward Muslims, in discussing Jewish-Muslim relations over a 14-century-long continuum until today. On and in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023, Al-Azhar and its major clerics condoned Hamas’s carnage, issued a fatwa supporting a global jihad against Israel’s entire population, and condemned Jews with the Quranic epithet “apes and pigs.”
Contemporary Muslims aren’t required to adopt Tantawi’s classical interpretations or those of medieval jurists. Serious Muslim-Jewish dialogue, however, requires acknowledging this weighty doctrinal and historical evidence. If a Quranic passage is troubling, quote the whole passage. If major Quranic commentaries offer some competing interpretations, present those interpretations—and the consensus opinion—honestly. When the historical record includes consistent evidence of discrimination and persecution, acknowledge it.
If a seminal ancient and still vibrant modern institution such as Al-Azhar is said to have fundamentally changed its approach, demonstrate that change through its authoritative texts and teachings—not simply through an encouraging conversation with an isolated, unidentified imam.
Interfaith understanding is not strengthened by reassuring people that difficult Islamic texts do not really mean what they clearly appear to mean. It is strengthened when participants can confront those texts candidly, while acknowledging their prevailing, authoritative interpretations and historical realities consistent with the beliefs and practices of Muslims today.
That is what Quranic honesty requires.