banū isrāʾīl, ahl al-kitāb, al-yahūd wa-l-naṣārā (Holger Zellentin)

Article

1. The term banū isrāʾīl equally designates the Qur’an’s Jewish and Christian contemporaries (or, more often, their common ancestors), and, second, the predominantly collective usage of al-yahūd wa-l-naṣārā shows that the three designations for Jews and Christians must be understood both in their continuity and in the increasing internal differentiation of Jews and Christians from each other.
2. The Qur’an’s prerogative of divine authorship does not allow for heresiological discourse [2] per se: while the Qur’an seeks to correct false interpretations of the Jewish and Christian tradition, its claim to authority is predicated on prophecy rather than orthodoxy (Angelika Neuwirth ([2010] 2019)). The Qur’an focuses on the individual believer in a way that emphasises the in-group—eventually, the umma—differently than Christians and rabbinic Jews conceived of church- or peoplehood towards the end of Late Antiquity. This difference did not dispel the dynamics of communal interaction, traceable across the Meccan and Medinan periods (following Nöldeke’s chronology as a rough heuristic device). The chronological model of Theodor Nöldeke ([1909–1938] 2013) remains fundamental for Qur’anic studies. Its basic distinction between the Meccan and Medinan periods, and its rough sequencing of Meccan suras, is affirmed by a majority of scholars; for a summary and some modifications based on external criteria, see Sinai (2016, 111–37); for my own attempts to base chronology on a comparative literary approach, see H. Zellentin (2019b); for a very critical approach to the issue, cf. Gabriel Said Reynolds (2011). 4 For the relationship between the Qur’an and Late Antiquity, see Neuwirth ([2010] 2019), Reynolds (2011). Qur’an’s portrayal of encounters with Jews and Christians often constitutes more direct evidence than many comparable Jewish and Christian reports about encounters with each other or with heretics. At the same time, the Qur’an’s record of these contacts can be fruitfully compared with and contrasted to heresiological discourse.

That there was contact between the Qur’anic community and Jews and Christians has hardly been doubted and is buttressed by increasingly specific analyses of the Qur’an in its late antique context (see Neuwirth ([2010] 2019), Reynolds (2018) and Sinai (2016, esp. 59–78 and 138–158) & Zellentin (2022, 2013)). Recent archaeological and epigraphical findings, moreover, point to the presence of Jews and Christians in and around the Hejaz. A growing archaeological record firmly locates Jewish and Christian communities in Southwest Arabia, e.g., in Najran, Qaryat al-Faw and Ḥimā, in Northwest Arabia, e.g., in al-ʿUlā, Taymāʾ and Madāʾin Sāliḥ, and in historical Bahrain and several Gulf islands, including Ṣīr banī Yās (see, e.g., Fisher 2015). The presence of Jews and Christians in Mecca and especially in Medina, by contrast, can thus far only be determined by relying on the evidence of the Qur’an and the Islamic tradition; see, e.g., Osman (2005, 67–80). There are, moreover, good arguments for the basic historical reliability of the Qur’an’s depiction of its audience’s experiences. The Islamic Scripture seeks to convince its audience by appealing to their intellect, knowledge, personal experiences and collective memories. Its engagement with verifiable and therefore falsifiable events within the lifetime of its audience is therefore more likely than not to reflect a factual basis. For example, even the promise of divine intervention in battle in Q8:9–11 is hedged in careful, almost psychologizing ways, ensuring that the Scripture’s veracity never depends on the believers’ experience of any miracle other than the revelation itself.

Its reports of disbelief are unlikely to be invented and buttress the historicity of instances that portray the prophet’s eventual success in gaining followers. The Qur’an’s prophetology, especially in Mecca, accentuates that prophets—who are usually native to the community to which they are sent, with notable exceptions, such as Jesus’ and Muhammad’s dual address to Israel and all of humankind—tend to be rejected. The emphasis on rejection suggests that the depictions of pastoral, communal, and military success, especially in Medina, are likely to be historically accurate. Moses, foreshadowing the mission of Jesus and Mohammad, is also sent to both the Israelites and to nonIsraelites, in his case the people of Pharaoh. The addressees of Yonah, by contrast, are not explicated in the Qur’an. On the prophetology of the Qur’an, see Hussain (2022), O’Connor (2019), Saleh (2018), Goudarzi (2018), and Dost (2016). The solid continuity between Medinan political prerogatives and the subsequent establishment of Islamic civilization should equally guide our reading. On the Qur’an and historical plausibility, see also Ghaffar (2020, 1–14). Finally, the Qur’an’s disagreements with its contemporaries never point to a dispute about empirically perceivable reality. If what is at stake is reality’s interpretation, then the representation of reality itself, including depicted encounters with Jews and Christians, can become potential source material—subject to careful analysis—for our historical inquiry.

Qur’an univocally describes contact between its community and Jews or Christians—the “Children of Israel” (banū isrāʾīl), the “Scripture People” (ahl al-kitāb), the “Jews and Christians” (al-yahūd wa-l-naṣārā), or their leaders, the “rabbis and colleagues” (al-rabbāniyyūn wa-l-aḥbār), and the ruhbān and qissīsūn (more on these terms below).The two central new contributions are (1) that numerous interpersonal channels for the transmission of religious knowledge in both directions were established during most of Muhammad’s career, and (2) the classification of these channels. The Qur’an’s view is that individual exchanges between the Prophet and Jews and Christians took place from the middle Meccan period onward. These encounters were expanded by the Qur’anic community’s encounters with Jews and Christians that may have begun in the late Meccan period. They clearly became a frequent occurrence throughout the Medinan period, during which individual exchanges between the Prophet and Jews and Christians, in turn, are enacted through addresses to these communities which take the place of the Meccan reports about them.

It seems that the terms “Children of Israel” (banū isrāʾīl) and “Scripture People” (ahl al-kitāb) include Christians alongside Jews in the Biblical past and the Qur’anic present. The idea of Christians as “Israelites” is surprising only in modernity. An “Israelite” Christian self-identity can be detected in layers of East and West Syrian, Byzantine and Axumite Christianity (see Zellentin 2022, 101–5). Note that rabbinic Jews lamented the Christian appropriation of Israelite selfidentity, see e.g. Tanhuma Ki Tisa 34:1–3 and parallels. The rabbis, by contrast, saw the Byzantine Empire as “Edomite” and Christians therefore as descendants of Esau, Israel’s brother, rejecting precisely such a Christian claim to the Israelite lineage all the while rooting them in the Abrahamic family line (see Morgenstern 2022, 261–322; cf. Schremer 2010, 121–42). These competing claims have been conducive to the Qur’an’s representation of Jews and Christians as each constituting one a “group (ṭāʾifa) of the Children of Israel,” who split apart in the times of Jesus (according to the Medinan passage Q61:14). The term ṭāʾifa, “group,” used in Q61:14, also denotes factions among the Scripture People in Q3:69 and 72, using the same term.

1. The Qur’an’s three main expressions to depict Jews and Christians are not full synonyms. [10] “Children of Israel” predominantly denotes the Israelites in Biblical times as the ancestors of both Jews and Christians, i.e., before their split, yet it can equally depict the Jews and Christians in the Qur’anic community’s present. Uri Rubin (2003) has rightly noted that the “Children of Israel” designates “Jews … and Christians …, in reference mainly to past generations” and that “[s]ometimes, the label “Children of Israel” is interchangeable with “People of the Scripture” (see also Sachedina 1986). This viewpoint is corroborated by Zellentin (2013, 163–64), Crone (2015, 230) and Goudarzi (2018, esp. 324–50). The term “Scripture People” exclusively indicates the Jews and Christians in the Qur’anic community’s lifetime. The expressions “the Jews and the Christians” obviously signify Jews and Christians, as contemporaries of the Qur’anic community.
2. Zelletin: “I do not share his [Donners’] view of the Qur’anic community as thoroughly ecumenical beyond the Meccan period”

They share with the Prophet, in diverging ways, their belief in biblical revelation, the final judgement, and the resurrection. Initially, Jews and Christians are evoked as witnesses to the veracity of the Qur’an. Later on, many seem unconvinced by its divine origins, which leads to the accusation that many of them—though never all—“associate” God with other entities, are guilty of disbelief, or are hypocritical. Yet, they are never fully fused with either the in-group, the believers, or with the out-group, the associators or disbelievers, and their identity as Israelites, distinct by lineage, remains intact throughout the Meccan and Medinan periods. On the Qur’an’s notion of ethnicity, see Goudarzi (2019) and cf. Donner (2012). For a broader history of the ethnic and legal distinctions of Israelite and non-Israelite identities among Jews and Christians, see Zellentin (2022). Interactions between the Prophet and these three types of addresses—an in-group, an out- [12] group, and those in between, such as the Israelites—vary as much as their respective attitudes. Explicit depictions of the Prophet’s interaction with his audience, however, are not as common as one would expect in a text that functions in toto as God’s address to a prophet facing the public. References to polemical and hostile interactions between, on the one hand, the prophet and his community and, on the other, the associators and disbelievers, are ample all along. For example, a man’s attempt to hinder Muhammad in performing a prayer is a focal point of Q96, a Meccan sura (H. Zellentin (2021a)). As for the community’s initial interactions with Jews and Christians, these can be said to resemble the dialogue between the Prophet and the believers more so than his conflicts with associators and disbelievers. From the late or possibly middle Meccan period, we can perceive increased hostility between the Qur’anic community and the Jews and Christians. Their proximity to the associators and disbelievers becomes a growing part of the discourse. Yet even here, a small number of Jews and Christians are singled out and praised for their affinity to the Qur’anic community. The Qur’an, in other words, is never anti-Christian, anti-Jewish or even anti-rabbinic. Rather, it criticizes specific attributes or actions of the Israelites in its past or present. Criticism, at the same time, is present from the beginning of interactions. Ghaffar (2020, esp. 27–56) persuasively argues for the Qur’an’s polemic to target not Christianity but Byzantine and Axumite imperialism, already in the middle Meccan period.

Q79 – It is unclear whether the audience addressed Muhammad because they doubt that the Hour [15] will ever come to pass—as the associators and disbelievers typically do—or whether some of the believers want to learn the precise time of the eschaton in order better to prepare for it. Regardless, God dismisses the question. The Prophet’s role is only to warn about the eschatological hour, not to reveal its time.

Some of the instances actually constitute more direct evidence for such exchanges. This reticence already seems palpable in the curtness of the answers throughout the Meccan period. Another indicator for the historical veracity of these interactions may be the tension between such questions and the Qur’an’s preferred mode of uninterrupted divine discourse, as in the Medinan sura Q5, which warns believers not to ask any questions during the time of revelation: (101) O you who have faith! [19] Do not ask (pl.) about things which, if they are disclosed to you, will upset you. Yet if you (pl.) ask about them while the Qur’an is being sent down, they shall be disclosed to you. God has excused it, and God is forgiving, forbearing. (102) Certainly some people asked about them before you (pl.) and then came to disbelieve in them. Here, the Qur’an instructs its community carefully to consider addressing their prophet [20] during revelation, since previously, some believers doubted the answers they received and apparently disliked. We can learn at least two things here. First, this passage continues to express the Qur’an’s reticence vis-à-vis the audience that is addressing the Prophet directly, as in the Meccan passages analysed above. Second, the content of the questions in Medina has shifted. While it is unclear what instructions the audience disliked here (it is sketched too briefly in Q5:103), most questions in Medina are of legal nature—with two noteworthy exceptions, one of which concerns the Jews and the Christians.25 This counts for eleven of the thirteen questions in Medinan passages. Nine of these use the formula “they ask you,” as with the Meccan questions. The community inquire about observance of the new moons (Q2:189), charity (Q2:215 and 219), warfare during the holy month (Q2:217), wine and gambling (Q2:219), orphans (Q2:220), intercourse during the menses (Q2:222), food (Q5:4), and the spoils of war (Q8:1). Two cases, dealing with orphans (Q4:127) and inheritance (Q4:176), feature the phrase yastaftūnaka, “they seek your ruling.” In Medina, there are only two instances of a non-legal question. Q33:63 repeats the inquiry about the eschaton, found in the Meccan passages Q79:42 and Q7:187, and uses the imperfect verb form yasʾaluka, as in the second non-legal Medinan question. The passage in Q4 is unique in naming those who ask the question.

Meccan Suras on Interaction with Jews and Christians

Banū Isrāʾīl constitutes by far the most common designation for ancestral and contemporary [25] Jews and Christians in the Meccan suras; it occurs a total of 22 times, namely in Q7:105, 134, 137 and 138; Q10:90 (twice) and 93; Q17:2, 4, 101 and 104; Q26:17, 22, 59 and 197; Q27:76; Q32:23–24; Q40:53; Q43:59; Q44:30; Q45:16; and Q46:10. Note that Q19:58 mentions the “offspring of Abraham and Israel”; while of broader relevance, the passage refers to the Israelite past rather than the Qur’an’s present. Arguably, another very expansive reference to the Israelites appears in Q 6:84–90, as Goudarzi (2018, 181–82) has argued. Nineteen of these passages relate to the biblical past or the eschatological future and will be set aside. The Qur’an’s overall attitude towards the Biblical Israelites—from within the House of Abraham—is as critical as that of the Bible—from within the House of Jacob—and includes similar accusations of religious and social transgressions. One passage describing the Biblical past is the late Meccan passage Q32:23–24, where we learn that God set some of the Children of Israel “as leaders to guide at Our command (aʾimmatan yahdūna bi-amrinā), once they were patient and convinced about Our signs” (see also Q7:159 and Q28:5). The Qur’an establishes a model of community leadership among the Jews and Christians that is also valid for its own present, as seen in other Meccan and Medinan passages. Already in Q32:23–24 the Qur’an expresses the perceived ambivalence of their leaders towards God’s signs that also marks their attitude in the present: the Qur’an implies that it took effort to win over the ancient Israelites, making the present reluctance less surprising. Such examples show that the Qur’an’s representations of the past is distinct, yet never fully separable, from its representation of the present. The close relationship of past and present in the Qur’an stands in line with attitudes attested broadly throughout the Middle East; see, e.g., Gardner and Osterloh (2008). The remaining three Meccan examples deal with the here and now: the two middle Meccan [26] verses Q26:197 and Q27:76 and the late Meccan Q46:10, which we will discuss in detail. I hold that these verses constitute more direct evidence for the interaction between the Prophet and the Jews and Christians, yet in varying degrees of concreteness. Together with the late Meccan passage Q16:101–105, they seem to reflect historical encounters of the Prophet and his community with Jews and Christians in the Meccan period—though about the location of these encounters, little can be gleaned from the text.

1. The Qu’ran and fixing disputes between Jews/Christians: In this, Muhammad mirrors the Qur’anic Jesus: the latter first addressed Israelites and then all of humankind, the former is a non-Israelite prophet who equally addressed the Israelites. The Qur’an does not emphasize Jesus’ mission to anyone but the Israelites, yet it implies his broad reach when stating that “We have made” him and Mary “a sign for the worlds” (Q21:91), repeating verbatim how “We have made” Noah and his family “a sign for the worlds” (29:15) (see Zellentin 2013, esp. 128–140). Disagreement between Jews and Christians is a recurring theme in the Qur’an, as is the notion that God will ultimately decide the quibbles between the two parties, either through the revelation of the Qur’an or at the end of days. The late Meccan Q10:93 states that the Children of Israel “did not differ until the knowledge had come to them; your Lord will indeed judge between them on the Day of Resurrection concerning that about which they used to differ;” closely following the wording in Q27:78. See also the late Meccan Q16:124 (about disagreements about Shabbat), Q32:23–25, and Q45:16–17. The theme occurs in Medinan passages such as Q2:113 and Q3:19. The issue of differences after God’s revelation to a group features more generally in late Meccan passages such as Q10:19, Q16:39, and Q39:3 and 46 (and even the middle Meccan Q23:53), and Medinan passages such as Q2:176 and 213. The accusation of disunity against a group of opponents is a late antique Jewish and Christian heresiological trope. The topic of initial unity followed by disagreement is well established in Jewish and Christian discourse; e.g., Tosefta Hagiga 2:9; Sanhedrin 7:1; Clementine Recognitions 1.54; and Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.4.3; see the excellent discussion in Cohen (1980, 1984); see also Iricinschi and Zellentin (2008). The first entry of the Children of Israel into the Prophet’s discursive present thereby already [30] displays two overlaying triangles that mark the entire Qur’an: there is a triangle between (1) the Qur’anic community, (2) the associators and disbelievers, and (3) the Jews and the Christians. This primary triangle structures Qur’anic discourse, with some fluidity between its three sides. It repeatedly makes way for a secondary one, constituted by (1) the Prophet or the believers, (2) the Jews and (3) the Christians. The prominence of the primary triangle may partially explain why the Qur’an almost always places Jews and Christians together as Israelites—even if it occasionally differentiates between believing and disbelieving ones, among whom God will adjudicate. The disagreement, in Q27:76–78, between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Israelites prepares the distinction between ‘good’ Christians and ‘bad’ Jews found in some Medinan suras. In Q27:76–78, the Qur’an positions itself vis-à-vis the Jews and the Christians. It sees itself [31] as an Arabic Scripture and refers to many of the ethno-cultural particularities of its context. It presents itself as a universally valid copy of the heavenly Scripture that rectifies errors partially resulting from disputes between Jews and Christians and thereby depicts these disputes as of sectarian nature. Already here, the Qur’an brings some of the Children of Israel into the fold, while forcefully rejecting those who disbelieve. The term “believers” in verse 77 seems primarily to denote the believers among the Jews and the Christians, since they feature in the preceding and following verse. To these believers (who also feature in Q46:10 and plausibly in Q26:199), the Qur’an announces itself as “a guidance and a mercy,” since they follow the Qur’an’s guidance on their mutual disagreements.

Q26, which Theodor Nöldeke dates as preceding Q27, invokes the testimony of the “learned [33] ones” among the Children of Israel, who have heard and sanctioned the Qur’an. It distinguishes between Jewish and Christian common believers and their respective religious leaders, also found in other passages. This passage prepares the conclusion of a sura that sets out Qur’anic prophetology in detail; [35] it emphasizes the Prophet’s role as a warner about the immanent destruction of the Meccan community (On Q26, see Griffith (2013, 64–71). For Muhammad’s role as a warner, see Saleh (2018)). It plays out the Qur’an’s vernacular proximity to the Meccans against the divergent linguistic tradition of the Children of Israel. The Qur’an is in “a clear Arabic language,” intelligible to the Meccans, whereas previous revelation to the Israelites occurred in a “nonArabic” sacred language, most likely Hebrew or Aramaic—an important theme in subsequent passages on Jews and Christians. On the notions of “clear Arabic” and “non-Arabic,” see Hoyland (2022), who carefully modifies Peter Webb’s (2016) emphasis on the post-Qur’anic development of the notion of Arab ethnic identity. Still, some Meccans reject the Qur’an, as marked by the very question that evokes the presence of the “learned ones,” or “scholars of the Children of Israel” (v. 197), who are said to “know” or “recognize” the Qur’an. On ʿalima, see Ambros (2004, 193–94). The root ʿ-l-m is used in South Arabian instructions for the approval of a document by seal or signature, a meaning relevant for the present context (see Stein 2021, 75).

The reference to Israelite scholars also stands in continuation with the Qur’an’s portrayal of [37] leaders of the ancient Israelites, seen above. (They become more clearly defined in Medina.) The Qur’an’s use of these ‘expert witnesses’ is, moreover, a well-established model in late antique heresiology. Most famous is perhaps the case of Joseph of Tiberias, whose journey towards Christianity, and from one orthodoxy to another, equally employs a learned Jew as having recognized the divine Christian truth in his own tradition. Crucially, the evocation of outside witnesses is made again in two late Meccan passages. [38] Q10 states: (94) So if you (sg.) are in doubt [39] About what We have sent down to you, Ask those who read the Scripture (alladhīna yaqraʾūna l-kitāba) before you The truth has certainly come to you from your Lord, so do not be among the doubters. The passage stands in contrast with the Medinan encounters between the prophet and the [40] Scripture people, here using the circumlocution “those who read the Scripture.” By evoking the prophet’s doubt, God instructs him to ask those who have read the Scripture before him. The appearance of the Children of Israel in the previous verse clearly identifies this group. Again, the element of doubt increases the likelihood of the prophet’s actual access to Jews and/or Christians. The Meccans are charging Muhammad with inventing Scripture, a well-known accusation [43] also in late antique discourse. Again, the witness of the Children of Israel is invoked in order to assure the audience of the Qur’an’s divine origins. The Israelite witness serves as a marginal insider since he, unlike the Meccans, did believe. At the same time, the circle of witnesses seems to shrink: rather than “the learned ones” from among the Israelites who recognize the Qur’an as in Q26:197, we hear about only one individual of unnamed rank who became a believer. The Qur’an makes its point as before. It does not embellish the prophet’s failure to convince most of his Meccan contemporaries, nor does it embellish the Qur’an’s initial rejection by most Israelites, apparently adjusting the number of witnesses as it happened.

These Meccan passages paint a picture of interactions between the Prophet and his commu- [58] nity, on the one hand, and Jews and Christians, on the other. Most of the evidence pertains to the Prophet’s previous interaction with them as a group whom the Qur’an addresses (Q27:76– 78), with Jewish and Christian scholars (Q26:192–199), or with two Jewish or Christian individuals (Q46:10 and Q16:101–105; though possibly one historical encounter is evoked more than once). The key element in these encounters was the way in which Jews and Christians could be useful for or a danger to Muhammad’s mission to the Meccans, even if, and especially since, the Qur’an is described as also directed at the Children of Israel (in Q27:76–78). The Jews and Christians vary in their levels of belief in the Prophet, and tend to be portrayed in terms of Scriptural and linguistic distinctness.

1. The Medinan Suras on Interaction with Jews and Christians
2. The Medinan suras continue to depict aspects of the types of interaction seen in the Meccan [59] ones. We also see various dramatic shifts, in line with Q29:46–48, that seem to result from a change in the type of intercommunal contacts. In Medina, we encounter a nomenclature for Jews and Christians and their communal leaders that is at once more diverse and concrete than in Mecca. This shift parallels the growth in diversity in the Jewish and Christian religious traditions reflected in Medinan suras. The channels for transmission of religious knowledge between the Qur’anic community and Jews and Christians thus apparently proliferated. At the same time, late antique heresiological tropes become less prevalent and give way to a more uniform application of the Qur’an’s own particular rhetoric. The Medinan testimony, though more extensive, therefore can also be said to be less direct than the Meccan material discussed. The Medinan suras reflect a more self-assured and more self-aware communal discourse than the Meccan ones, along with more elaborate and filtered representation of the events on the ground. To a student of rabbinic Judaism, the shift seems comparable to the one from the much rawer depictions of Late Roman reality in the Talmud Yerushalmi to more stylized depictions of Late Roman and Sassanian culture in the Talmud Bavli. The “Children of Israel” are named twenty times in the Medinan suras. Thirteen deal with [60] the past: Q2:83 and 246; Q3:49 and 93 (twice); Q5:12, 70, 72, and 110; Q20:47 and 94; and Q61:6 and 14. The ratio of past to present shifts from six to one in Mecca to roughly two to one in Medina. Some of these past references, of course, are highly relevant for the Qur’anic presence. In Q5:72, for example, all those Children of Israel who state that “God is the Messiah, son of Mary,” are described as “faithless,” a statement corroborated by Jesus’ injunction to the Children of Israel to worship God alone. The verse, along with the dismissal of the trinity in the subsequent one, is best understood as addressing Israelites past and present. The seven references to Children of Israel contemporary with the Medinan community fall [61] into three main categories, which amplify the tendencies of the Meccan passages. These Meccan verses make reference to the biblical past of the Children of Israel. We saw them among the audience of the Qur’an in the Meccan passage Q27:76–78 and evoked as witnesses in three others: Q26:192–199, Q10:94, and Q46:8–10. Four Medinan passages put their role in the audience into action by addressing them directly. They are enjoined to remember God’s past blessing in Q2:40, 47, and 122. They are also addressed when their salvation in the past is evoked in Q20:80. Secondly, we have reviewed indications of the Prophet’s interaction with the Children of Israel in some Meccan passages. Such passages are absent in the Medinan phase, yet the possibility remains open at least rhetorically: in Q2:211, the prophet is instructed, in the text’s present, to “ask the Children of Israel how many a manifest sign We had given them” in the Biblical past. There is here a clear contrast with the Meccan parallel Q10:94. Whereas in the latter passage the prophet is instructed to “ask” the Israelites to assuage his doubts, he is presently instructed to “ask” the Israelites to remind them of their manipulation (baddala) of God’s signs. This accusation belies yet another shift: whereas in the Meccan surahs, Muhammad is himself accused of manipulating and inventing scripture, such a charge is now levelled against the Israelites.

Thirdly, the potential disbelief of the Children of Israel in the Qur’anic present always re- [62] mained on the horizon in the Meccan passages Q27:76–78; Q26:192–199; Q46:8–10, and Q29:46–48. This potential is explicated in two Medinan passages which respond to the deterioration of relations between the believers and their Israelite enemies. In Q5:78–80, after the “faithless among the Children of Israel” are presented as cursed in the Biblical past, the Prophet is told that he sees many of them “fraternizing with the disbelievers” in his own time—an easily verifiable charge, and therefore more reliable evidence of interaction. Q5:32, finally, turns an aspect of rabbinic legal discourse on its head by employing the rabbis’ own logic in order to accuse the Children of Israel—Jews and Christians—of political violence before segueing into legislation that evokes both Biblical and Byzantine legal material. The acuteness of the charge and its finely spun web of allusions to Jewish and Christian traditions augments the likelihood of an actual exchange, see Pregill (2021), Zellentin (2023). The Qur’an’s usage of the term “Children of Israel” in Medina continues Meccan attitudes. [63] While we can perceive a shift slightly towards the present, the term predominantly continues to describe the Biblical past. In both periods the term is used to describe them as part of the Qur’an’s audience and to describe the interactions of the Prophet with them, shifting from direct to indirect evidence. Their disbelief is merely evoked in Mecca, yet levelled as a direct accusation (Q5:80) in Medina. The Medinan suras’ usage of the “Children of Israel” includes references to the Biblical past even when the Qur’anic present is described. As in Mecca, finally, the Medinan passages do not use the term “Children of Israel” to report interaction between the Qur’anic community and Jews and Christians. For cases relating to the present and to communal interaction, they employ either the term “Scripture People” (or its equivalents), used in the same circumstances once in a (possible Medinan insertion into a) Meccan sura, or the terms “Jews”/“those who profess Judaism” and “Christians,” which occur only in Medina.