IMAGInInG ThE “ISrAElITES” • 163“religiously” about the matter. the Jews, according to rida, say that
the restoration of their glory “has been foretold with the appearance
of their ‘messiah,’ ”^96 a term rida defines as “the one [who brings] do-
minion and law.” For Christians, this messiah is “Jesus Christ the son of
Mary, peace be upon him, and the ‘dominion’ that he brings is ‘spiritual
dominion’ ”; that is, the Jews’ expectation that a messiah will restore
them to political sovereignty is misguided. Finally, citing the Gospel of
Barnabas,^97 rida explains that the Muslim position is that “the prom-
ised one is Muhammad . . . the one who came with the prophecy that
resulted in dominion.” the problem with the Jews’ interpretation,
then, is not its assumption of the political nature of the dominion but
rather the presumption that it will be Jewish political dominion.
Setting aside the “religious perspective,” rida then addresses the
issue from a “social point of view.” here he suggests that one must
consider the Jews’ “dispersion throughout the world as a minority” and
the challenges this dispersion would necessarily pose to their prospects
of renewed sovereignty in any one place. Moreover, given Jews’ “aban-
donment of the arts and practice of war, and their weakness in agricul-
tural work due to their interest in amassing money from the nearest,
most profitable, least difficult source, such as usury,” rida wonders
how they might succeed in regaining political power.^98 how might a
people that has devoted itself to “usury” suddenly begin a life of agri-
culture, as would necessarily be demanded, were it to gain a country
of its own? Though Zionism is not mentioned here by name, it is clear
that rida’s concern about the movement motivated his exploration of
the subject in this exegesis.
two years later, in 1910, rida developed these views more exten-
sively, still within the framework of his Qurʾanic commentary. he be-
gins again with the contention that the torah, in the form in which
it now exists, is not the true word of God. This time, he offers further
details about the process by which the torah was transformed from the
version that God revealed, and he explicitly contrasts Jewish infidel-
ity to their scripture with Muslim faithfulness to theirs. the Jews, he
explains, “did not memorize it by heart at the time of its revelation, as
we [i.e., Muslims] memorized the Qurʾan, and they did not write many
copies of it at first, as we did so that if some copies were lost others
would remain.” rather, “the Jews had only one copy of the Torah— the
one that Moses . . . wrote— and it was lost.” Then, citing his teacher
(^96) rida offers both the Arabic masīḥand the transliteration of the english “messiah.”
(^97) On this apparently early modern pseudepigraphic text and rida’s arabic edition of it,
see ryad, Islamic Reformism and Christianity, 213– 42; and Sidney h. Griffith, “Gospel,” EQ.
(^98) al-Manār 10:11 (January 1908), 814– 15.