Encyclopedia of Islam

Antichrist

---

of a European scholarly effort to rationally catego-

rize the languages and races of the world. It was 

derived from the name of Shem, a son of n

oah

,

considered to be one of the ancient ancestors of 

the Hebrews in the Bible. It acquired negative 

meaning when white European racists, especially 

in Germany, asserted that their Indo-European, or 

Aryan, cultural and biological heritage was supe-

rior to that of other races, including that of the 

“Semites.” Both Jews and Arabs were classified as 

Semitic peoples, but during the late 19th century 

and early 20th century the term Semite came to 

be used in a deliberate propaganda campaign to 

dehumanize the Jews of Europe. This campaign 

culminated in the Holocaust of 1933–45, which 

involved the mass extermination of millions of 

Jews and members of other minority groups in 

concentration camps built by Nazi Germany and 

its allies in Europe.

Anti-Semitism was imported to Muslim lands 

from Europe in the 20th century. Prior to that 

time, Jews in these lands held 

dhimmi

 status, a 

kind of second-class citizenship, and, except for 

sporadic outbreaks of violence, they were bet-

ter integrated into Islamicate societies than into 

Christian European ones. Indigenous elites in 

Muslim countries became influenced by Euro-

pean intellectual trends and political ideologies 

of all kinds—including ant-Semitism—during 

the decades they were under direct or indirect 

colonial rule. With the breakup of the colonial 

empires after World War II, the emergence of new 

a

rab

 nation-states, and the creation of i

srael

,

anti-Semitic rhetoric found widespread use in the 

speeches of Arab leaders and the Middle Eastern 

media. There were also violent attacks on eastern 

Jews living in i

raq

,  l

ibya

, Morocco, and Aden 

(y

emen

). These attacks, and growing Arab nation-

alist rhetoric, together with the desire of Jews to 

live in their own homeland, caused Jews in many 

Arab lands to immigrate to Israel.

At first, anti-Semitic hostility in the Middle 

East was expressed mainly by secular states and 

political parties. After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, 

however, it was also promoted by radical Islamic 

movements, beginning with the m

Uslim

 b

rother

-

hood

 in e

gypt

 and other Arab countries. Publica-

tions of this organization repeated dehumanizing 

caricatures and stereotypes of Jews that had origi-

nated in Europe. The demonization of Jews and 

of Israel intensified in the wake of the i

ranian

r

evolUtion

 

oF

 1978–1979, the Israeli invasion 

of Lebanon (1982), escalation of hostilities in the 

a

rab

-i

sraeli

 

conFlicts

 during the late 1980s and 

1990s, and the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq 

in 2003. Arabic and Persian translations of The 

Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fraudulent Russian 

document alleging a Jewish plot to dominate the 

world, circulated widely in the Middle East, and it 

continues to be cited in anti-Israeli speeches and 

even television dramas. Saudi schoolbooks refer to 

it as if its slanderous allegations were true. Other 

examples of anti-Semitic ideology in the religiopo-

litical rhetoric of the Middle East include iterations 

of a medieval Christian libel against the Jews and 

denial of the Holocaust. l

oUis

 F

arrakhan

, the 

African-American leader of the n

ation

 

oF

  i

slam

,

has also been condemned for making anti-Semitic 

remarks. In some Jewish circles, anyone who 

criticizes the policies and actions of the Israeli 

government, especially with regard to the question 

of Palestine, is labeled an anti-Semite. Extremist 

rhetoric appears to be increasing in the first decade 

of the 21st century among different factions and 

movements, a development that inhibits the peace-

ful resolution of political conflicts in the Middle 

East. It also undermines efforts to achieve better 

interfaith understanding.

See also 

colonialism

; J

Udaism

 

and

 i

slam

.