Rabbi Reuven Firestone is a Professor of medieval Judaism and Islam at the Rabbinical School HUC-JIR, and an affiliate professor at the USC School of Religion. He served as Vice President of the Association for Jewish Studies and President of the International Qur’anic Studies Association.

He writes that “Jews were established throughout what would become the Muslim Middle East and North Africa for centuries before the coming of Islam. In addition to the ancient homeland of the Land of Israel, Jews had also become scattered into other areas. The Assyrian Empire dispersed many Jews to various locations within its realm as early as 733 bce, and after the destruction of the First Temple in 586 bce, a large community was driven into exile to the city of Babylon on the Euphrates River in what is today Iraq.

The Bible mentions Jews in Nineveh, Babylon, Susa, Hamath, Cuthah, Gozan, Erech, Nimrud (Calah), Sardis (Sefarad), and Egypt among other locations that would eventually fall within the empires of Islam. Epigraphic and literary evidence also supports the existence of a well-established Jewish community in Arabia.

Evidence of Jewish communities in both northern and southern Arabia derives from Greek, Roman, and early Christian chroniclers writing from the first through the sixth centuries, and from Hebrew and Arabic inscriptions from roughly the same period.

A Jewish kingdom was even established in Himyar in southern Arabia in the fifth and sixth centuries, which controlled a number of other regions as well. There is clear evidence of a Jewish presence in the northern areas that straddled Jewish settlement in Palestine and Mesopotamia on the one hand, and the Hijaz, the location of Mecca and Medina, on the other. Jewish inscriptions in Hebrew and/or Aramaic script but in either the Aramaic or Arabic language have been found in Måda’in Salih, Taymå’, al-’Ula, Umm Judhayidh (near TabËk), and a few other locations in WådÈ al-Qurå and elsewhere.

Jews (and Christians) brought their cultural, literary, and religious traditions with them wherever they settled, freely sharing their traditions and practices with local communities. Biblical and rabbinic traditions thus became part of the cultural landscape of pre-Islamic Arabia and became nativized as they mixed with local cultural expressions.

The Jews of Arabia were traders, craftsmen, farmers, and Bedouin herders, and they practiced some kind(s) of “rabbinic” Judaism. The Qur’an (Q.3:79; 5:44, 63) appears to refer to Jews as “rabbanites” or the followers of rabbis (rabbaniyun) and “companions” (a˙bar), the latter term probably reflecting a Talmudic expression used to identify a learned Jew.

Arabian Jews were probably an ethnic mixture of immigrants from Palestine and converts from local tribes and communities. They spoke Arabic, and some, at least, also spoke a language referred to in Muslim sources as al-yahudiyya, perhaps a Jewish dialect of Syriac–Aramaic and Arabic, but they also knew some Hebrew. They lived in houses in towns and cities and in tents in the desert, and they also inhabited castles, built as protection for extended clans in some places such as Medina.

Evidence from inscriptions, the Qur’an, and historical references, such as the pact known as the Medina Agreement (ßa˙Èfat al-madÈna or mithåq al-madÈna) found in early Muslim historical writings suggest that the Jews were a significant, well-established, and accepted component of the Arabian population. They lived not only in discrete Jewish tribal communities but also as family units attached to non-Jewish tribes and were related by both blood and marriage to non-Jewish individuals and groups.”

There were many Jews who supported Muhammad ﷺ when he arrived in Medina. One of them was Rabbi Mukhayriq, a learned leader of the tribe of Tha’labah, who fought and died alongside Prophet Muhammad ﷺ in the battle of Uhud on March 19, 625 CE. That day was Saturday; the Jewish Sabbath. Rabbi Mukhayriq asked his congregation to join him in support of Prophet Muhammad, but they declined because it was the Sabbath.

So Rabbi Mukhayriq announced to his congregation that he would fight along side Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and if he died in the battle his wealth should go to Prophet Muhammad ﷺ to be distributed as charity. And so it happened. But why were the majority of the Jews in the three Jewish tribes living in Medina who did support Prophet Muhammad, hesitant to fight for him?

Because they were afraid that after his death, the majority of Muhammad’s ex-polytheist followers would return to polytheism, and turn Muhammad ﷺ into a son of God, just as the majority of the ex-polytheist, non-Jewish followers of Prophet Jesus had done. Those ex-pagan Trinitarians then persecuted Jews for not accepting Jesus as the Son of God for centuries to come. No Jews wanted to see that happen again.

Rabbi Mukhayriq must not have believed that this would happen again, because he hoped that Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was not only a Prophet, but also one of God's Anointed (a Messiah); and that he and his followers would enable the Jewish people to return to the land of Israel, just as the Persian King Cyrus the Great (who is called God's Anointed by Prophet Isaiah 45:1) had done eleven centuries earlier.

The fact that the Persian Empire had just a few years previously (614 CE) captured the Land of Israel from the Eastern Roman Empire (where Jews had been oppressed and persecuted for three centuries) may in the rabbi's mind, have stimulated his belief that the Messianic Age was coming closer and closer. In 435 C.E. Emperor Theodosius II issued an edict ordering the destruction of all pagan temples in the Roman Empire; thus celebrating the victory of Christianity over polytheism.

Only Jewish synagogues remained and they were under frequent attack. Most Bishops thought that the Jews themselves would soon disappear. Yet 175 years later, in Makkah, Prophet Muhammad ﷺ began his 22 years of service as God’s Messenger, and within 80 years most Jews no longer lived under the oppression of the Roman Empire.

Rabbi Mukhayriq heard that prior to the invasion of Palestine, the Persian King Khosrau made an agreement with the official head of Babylonian Jewry, that Jews would provide 20,000 soldiers for the Persian army to participate in the capture of Jerusalem. King Khosrau appointed Nehemiah ben Hushiel, the son of the Exilarch, as the symbolic leader of Persian troops. Since Nehemiah was a known mystic, Khosrau was certain he would not interfere in military or political affairs.The united forces took Jerusalem by storm after a 21 day siege in July, 614 CE.

This event is referred to in the Qur’an: “The Romans (Byzantines) have been defeated in the nearest land (Israel). But they, after their defeat, will overcome (the Persians) within three to nine years. To Allah belongs the command before and after.” (30:2-4)

Indeed exactly three years later, perhaps because the Persians feared Nehemiah’s messianic pretensions, or thought support from a larger Christian population in Israel was more valuable than the much smaller number of Jews; the Persians executed the Jewish governor of Jerusalem along with his sixteen top supporters in 617.

Perhaps this unorthodox rabbi saw the arrival of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ in Medina only five years later, as God’s answer to his Messianic hopes, and viewed fighting alongside Muhammad ﷺ as his personal voluntary fight in support of monotheism, as well as a witness to his faith in the imminent arrival of one of God's Anointed Messiahs (not the final Son of David Messiah, but Prophet Elijah, King Cyrus, or the Son of Joseph Messiah) who will precede the Son of David Messiah.

Of course, when Rabbi Mukhayriq made the decision to risk his life fighting along side Muhammad ﷺ at the battle of Uhud, much of the Qur'an had not yet been revealed. But since the chapter Al-A’raf had already been revealed in Makka, this unorthodox rabbi may also have been inspired by two of the Qur'an's statements:

“Moses said to his people: “Pray for help from the Lord, and (wait) in patience and constancy: for the Land is his, to give as an inheritance to whoever He wanted". (7:128) and "We made people, who were considered weak (oppressed slaves like The Children of Israel), inheritors of lands in both east and west, – lands whereon We sent down Our blessings. The fair promise of your Lord was fulfilled for the Children of Israel, because they had patience and constancy". (7:137)

The Qur'an's words “inheritors of lands in both east and west,” refers to the Children of Israel, as well as other nations that Allah has liberated, as the Hebrew Prophet Amos, declares: "Aren't you people of Israel like the people of Ethiopia to me?" declares the LORD. "I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?” (Amos 9:7)

The only verses in the Quran that mentioned God giving a land to a people as an inheritance are the ones just quoted, plus this specific statement: "Thus it was, but We made the Children of Israel inheritors of it (the Land of Israel).” (26: 59)

Perhaps Rabbi Mukhayriq had already heard directly from Prophet Muhammad ﷺ the Ayah: “There are certainly, among Jews and Christians, those who believe in God, in the revelation to you, and in the revelation to them, bowing in humility to God. They will not sell the signs of God for a miserable gain! For them is a reward with their Lord.” (3:199) and believed that it applied to all Jews like him.

Unfortunately, Prophet Muhammad ﷺ died just four years before the Muslim conquest of the Land of Israel. Although Jews were then able to settle in Jerusalem, there was no equivalent decree like that of King Cyrus's supporting the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem.

In 435 C.E. Emperor Theodosius II issued an edict ordering the destruction of all pagan temples in the Roman Empire; thus celebrating the victory of Christianity over polytheism. Only Jewish synagogues remained and they were under frequent attack. Most Bishops thought that the Jews themselves would soon disappear. Yet 175 years later, in Makkah, Prophet Muhammad ﷺ began his 22 years of service as God’s Messenger, and within 80 years most Jews no longer lived under the oppression of the Roman Empire.

I first studied Islam when I was a student at UCLA 64+ years ago, Then again in the Reform Judaism Rabbinical school HUC-JIR. Over the years I continued to read the Qur'an and other Islamic books. I read these books as the Prophet taught his followers in a Hadith “not as a believer, and not as a disbeliever”. What does that mean?

The Qur'an, of course, is sacred scripture for Muslims. A disciple of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ named  Abu Huraira related, “The people of the Book used to read the Torah in Hebrew and then explain it in Arabic to the Muslims. Allah's Apostle said (to the Muslims). "Do not believe the people of the Book, nor disbelieve them, but say, 'We believe in Allah, and whatever is revealed to us, and whatever is revealed to you.'”

Following Prophet Muhammad’s ﷺ teaching I also neither believe nor disbelieve in the Qur'an. If I believed in the Qur'an I would be a member of the Muslim umma (community). But I cannot disbelieve in the Qur'an because I believe that Muhammad ﷺ is a prophet and I respect the Qur'an as a kindred revelation, first revealed to a kindred people, in a kindred language.

In fact, the people, the language and the theology are closer to my own people, language and theology than that of any other on earth.

Thus, I feel that I am an Islamic Jew i.e. a faithful Jew submitting to the will of God, because I am a Reform Rabbi. Reform Jews are now the largest of the Jewish denominations in the U.S. In the U.K. Reform Judaism is called Liberal Judaism; and in Europe Reform Judaism is called Progressive Judaism.

As a Rabbi I am faithful to the covenant that God made with Abraham the Hebrew (Genesis 14:13) the first Jew to be a Hanif muslim, and I submit to be bound by the covenant and commandments that God made with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai.

As a Reform Rabbi I believe that Jewish spiritual leaders should modify Jewish law and tradition as social and historical circumstances change and develop. I also believe we should not make religion difficult for people to practice by adding an increasing number of restrictions to the commandments we received at Mount Sinai.

If most of the Orthodox Jews of Prophet Muhammad’s ﷺ day had followed Prophet Muhammad’s  ﷺ teachings; Reform Judaism would have started in Arabia, instead of almost 1200 years later in Germany.