Dr. Salama Dawoud, President of Al-Azhar University, says that this verse carries within it a great lesson about knowledge, learning, and benefiting from knowledge.
During an episode of the program “The Eloquence of the Qur’an and Sunnah,” broadcast on “Al-Nas” channel, Dawoud said that the comparison to a donkey carrying books is a very strange comparison, because it is not usual to see a donkey carrying books.
“The verse does not only refer to the Jews who carried the Torah, but to everyone who acquired knowledge but did not act upon it, whether in religion or in any other field. "
If the message was to all of humanity, why did Mohammed specify Jews as being the ones analogous to donkeys? In fact, the next three verses are also addressed to Jews specifically, saying that if they are really the chosen people, they should not fear death because paradise is automatic.
62:6 – Say, "O you who are Jews, if you claim to be Allah’s chosen ones, to the exclusion of (all) people, then wish for death, if you should be truthful."62:7 – But they will never wish for it, ever, because of what their hands have put forth. And Allah is Knowing of the wrongdoers.62:8 – Say, "Indeed, the death from which you flee – indeed, it will meet you. Then you will be returned to the Knower of the unseen and the seen, and He will inform you about what you used to do."
It is one of many examples where Islam applies its own peculiar worldview to Jews to define Jews as hypocrites. Jews value life because only in life can one do mitzvot and improve.
These verses are apparently the source of the bizarre taunt that Palestinians often say to Jews, "We love death and you love life."
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