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Tuesday, February 09, 2021

Egyptian newspaper using an Islamic hadith to incite hate against Jews




Youm7 (The Seventh Day) is a popular Egyptian newspaper and news site.

Yesterday, it dedicated an article to describing about five Islamic hadiths that claims that Jews tried to poison Mohammed.

Most versions of the story go like this

Narrated Ibn Shihab:
Jabir ibn Abdullah used to say that a woman from the inhabitants of Khaybar poisoned a roasted sheep and presented it to the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) who took its foreleg and ate from it. A group of his companions also ate with him. The Messenger of Allah then said: Take your hands away (from the food). The Messenger of Allah then sent someone to the woman and he called her. He said to her: Have you poisoned this sheep? The woman replied: Who has informed you? He said: This I foreleg which I have in my hand has informed me. She said: Yes. He said: What did you intend by it? She said: I thought if you were a prophet, it would not harm you; if you were not a prophet, we should rid ourselves of him (i.e. the Prophet). The Messenger of Allah then forgave her, and did not punish her. But some of his companions who ate it, died. The Messenger of Allah had himself cupped on his shoulder on account of that which he had eaten from the sheep. It has been a Jewish knowledge that there will be a prophet at the end. He will not be killed and will die natural death. Banu Nadhir's Jews made many attempts to kill Prophet Muhammad to prove that he is not a true prophet but failed. This attempt was perhaps last one. Abu Hind cupped him with the horn and knife. He was a client of Banu Bayadah from the Ansar.
Sunan Abu Dawud 39:4495
As with any legend, there are variants in the stories. The Youm7 article emphasizes that this was an initiative of the "Jews" and not of one woman - in fact, it doesn't even mention her name, Zaynab bint Al-Harith. 

The story was picked up by other Arabic media