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You probably came across circulating social media rumors that Hamas aims to kill all Jews in the world. When making this claim, people often cite a hadith about the end of the day's battle between Muslims and Jews. This hadith, found in Sahih Muslim, states:

"The last hour would not come unless the Muslims would fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree, and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews."* (Sahih Muslim 2922). (1)

This hadith is misunderstood and taken out of context. In this post, I will try to clarify this prophecy

Prophecy, Not a Call to Action

First, it is vital to understand that this hadith is a prophecy about future events, not a present-day command. In Islam, prophecies describe events that will naturally unfold, not actions for believers to pursue. The best testament to that is the fact that Jews lived among Muslims for centuries. Furthermore, Muslims saved Jews throughout history from many threats. Historians even argue that Muslims saved Jews from extinction. (2)

Many Islamic scholars see this hadith in the context of the false Messiah (Dajjal). This suggests that the prophecy pertains to a specific period of great turmoil rather than our current times. The focus is on a future scenario involving significant eschatological events.

Battle, Not Random Killing

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The hadith explicitly mentions the word "fight," indicating a battle rather than random acts of violence. This distinction frames the event as a specific conflict, not a blanket justification for hostility or violence against Jews today. So, in other words, the hadith is merely saying that at the end of times, there will be a battle between Muslims and Jews, and the victorious Muslims will kill the Jews they fought. There is nothing in the Hadith that implies any event outside the prophesied battlefield.

Not Referring to All Jews

The hadith doesn't state that all Jews will be involved. The definite article "the" before the proper noun "Jews" could linguistically mean the entire group (both in the original Arabic and the English translation). But that's not the case in this Hadith. An event that would involve killing all Jews in the world would be significant enough to mention all Jews in the world explicitly.

The text rather refers to a specific group of Jews. This is similar to the Bible's reference to "the Egyptians" chasing Moses (peace be upon him), which specifically means Pharaoh's army, not every Egyptian. In Exodus 14:9, it says: "The Egyptians pursued them, all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen and troops." (2)

The Talking Stones and Trees

The references to trees and stones speaking are not necessarily literal. Many scholars suggest that these descriptions are metaphorical, for example, specific trees or shapes of stones (buildings) serving as markers where Jews would be hiding. But many scholars also speak about that being a miraculous event.

Hamas’s Official Position

The founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, stated in an interview that their conflict is not with Jews because they are Jews, but with those who kicked them out of their homes who happened to be Jews. (3)

Even when some Hamas officials made broader claims, the movement’s leadership distanced themselves from such statements. (4)

1. Sahih Muslim, Book 41, Hadith 6985.
2. Exodus 14:9, The Bible