What is Islam’s view about Jews?

Islam requires Muslims to respect people of all faiths and this clearly includes followers of Judaism.

Jews are regarded as one of the groups of people described as ‘People of the Book’. This is a title given to two groups of people; the Jews and the Christians, both of which were given guidelines directly by their founders, Moses^(as) and Jesus^(as) respectively.

Furthermore Islam does not condemn any individual since everyone has an equal opportunity to earn God’s pleasure. So Jews also have the same opportunity and have been respected in Islam and Islamic communities. When the Prophet^(sa) travelled to Madinah and was made Head of the State, he made a treaty with the Jews based completely on fairness and equal opportunities. Another example would be the Golden Age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula, that being when the Muslims ruled  Spain in the eighth century. The Qur’an does note that some Jews were responsible for seeking to have Jesus^(as) – a prophet of God – killed on the cross and this earned them God’s displeasure. However as mentioned above this in no way means that all Jews are guilty or indeed punishable as the Qur’an states that,

Surely, the Believers, and the Jews and the Christians and the Sabians – whichever party from among these truly believes in Allah and the Last Day and does good deeds, shall have their reward with their Lord, and no fear shall come upon them nor shall they grieve. (Ch.2: V.63).

Indeed according to Islam there have been many great Jews and it is worthy to note that most of the prophets mentioned in the Qur’an were Jewish, e.g. Moses^(as), Aaron^(as), David^(as), Solomon^(as), Elijah^(as),  John the Baptist^(as) and Jesus^(as).