The Shahadah, the Shema and Religious Identity

The Shahadah (Witnessing) is the Islamic declaration of faith, calling Muslims to declare that:

There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.

It is the first of the five pillars of Islam, with the other four pillars being Salat (Prayer), Zakat (Charity), Sawm (Fasting Ramadan) and Hajj (Pilgrimage to Mecca). The Shema is the Jewish affirmation of monotheism, found in the Torah; it commences with these words:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One.

The Shema (Hear) is similar to the first part of the Shahadah in that it affirms God’s unity and uniqueness, but it makes no mention of belief in a prophet or messenger. 

While declaring the Shahadah defines one as Muslim, believing in the Shema does not establish Jewish identity. This fundamental difference lies at the heart of understanding the differences between the religions, and has profound implications for those identifying as Muslims and Jews. In Islam, once someone declares Shahadah they are assumed to be sincere, and are then treated as Muslim. The importance of accepting someone’s Shahadah was made clear in the early days of Islam, during a military expedition led by the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). Usama bin Zaid, a young companion, encountered an enemy fighter during battle. When Usama was about to strike him, the man quickly proclaimed the Shahada, but despite this declaration, Usama killed the man. 

He later reported the incident to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), who was deeply troubled by what happened. The Prophet (pbuh) repeatedly asked him, “Did you kill him after he said ‘There is no god but Allah’?” Usama tried to justify his action by saying the man only said it out of fear, not sincerely. The Prophet (pbuh), however, responded, “Did you open his heart to see if he was sincere or not?”, and continued to express his disapproval, saying, “How will you deal with ‘La ilaha illa Allah’ on the Day of Judgment?” He repeated this question so many times that Usama later said he wished he had not embraced Islam before that day (meaning he wished his previous sins had been wiped clean by a later conversion).

In Judaism, however, Jewish identity is defined very differently. A Jew is either born from a Jewish mother or converts to the religion. If a Jew converts to a different religion they are still seen as Jewish. A non-Jew can convert to Judaism, but can then never stop being Jewish - once established, Jewish status is considered permanent. This is because the Jewish identity is not actually defined by what someone believes, but by who they are, or to be more precise, by what type of a soul they have. The Cabbala (book of Jewish mysticism) teaches that Jews who do not believe in the Jewish religion are still seen as Jewish as they have Jewish souls - they have simply gone astray. Conversion to Judaism is explained as a Jewish soul born into a non-Jewish body reconciling their body with their soul’s true nature.

The Islamic focus on belief as the only factor that determines who is Muslim is fundamental in stopping any one group of people from claiming Islam for themselves. Implicit in belief in the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is belief in the Holy Quran - the words of God that were revealed to him. The Quran clearly confirms Islam is for all, Allah says:

We have not sent you [Muhammad] but as a mercy to all the worlds…

Say [O Muhammad]: ‘O mankind! I am the Messenger of Allah to you all’

Allah also explicitly prohibits racism of any kind, saying:

O mankind! We created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come to know one another.

In Judaism, by contrast, the belief in Jewish and non-Jewish souls is explicitly racist. As Israel Shahak writes:

One of the basic tenets of the Lurianic Cabbala is the absolute superiority of the Jewish soul and body over the non-Jewish soul and body… Rabbi Kook, the Elder, the revered father of the messianic tendency of Jewish fundamentalism, said “The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews… is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle.”… “Souls of non-Jews come entirely from the female part of the satanic sphere.”

It is important to note that these teachings are not just those of a few extremists, but are constantly cited by religious Zionists in justification of their genocidal views and actions. Settlers in the West Bank, for example, see stealing Palestinian land as serving a sacred cause: they “believe the land is redeemed by being transferred from the satanic to the divine sphere.”

While secular Jews will deny they are influenced in any way by the Jewish religion, the question then is what makes them Jewish? Many will cite lineage and culture. Neither of these, however, stand up to scrutiny: European (Ashkenazi) Jewish DNA contains far fewer genes of ancient Israelites than that of Palestinians, for example, and Jewish culture is essentially the culture of the countries they reside in. Ultimately, many Jews say their Jewishness is something that simply cannot be defined - it ‘just is’. Ironically, the vagueness of this position actually falls in line with the Cabbala’s teaching that there are Jewish and non-Jewish souls: both views see a Jewish identity as something that the individual Jew has no choice to accept or reject as it ‘just is’. In Israel, religious Zionists openly admit they are taking full advantage of this commonality with secular Jews to achieve their messianic aims: they say they (the religious Jews) are a “collective Messiah” who should “ride upon these (secular) Jews….to exploit them for material gains and… redeem them.”

While the Shahadah and the Shema contain the same monotheistic message, it is clear that in Judaism this message has been distorted by the Caballic obsession with ‘Jewish souls.’ In Islam, however, all souls are seen as equal and its message is unequivocally for everyone. The Quran refers to Jews (and Christians) as ‘people of the book’, recognising that both the Shahadah and the Shema emanate from books revealed by the same One God. Allah warns us that the original teachings of the Torah have been corrupted, saying, “Woe to those who write the ‘scripture’ with their own hands, then say, ‘This is from Allah’” Quran (2:79). Islam calls Jews to discard the racist teachings of the Cabbala and recognise that the original message of the Shema is enshrined and protected in the Shahadah. Truly reformed Judaism, then, is Islam.

Sources: The Holy Quran, Sahih Bukhari: Book 56, Hadith 301, Israel Shahak: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel