When Muhammad Rejected by Rabbis, He Turned Against Them
To understand why Western civilization developed so differently from much of the Islamic world, it helps to understand early Islamic history.
Islamic tradition says that in the early 600s, Muhammad began preaching in Mecca. For roughly a dozen years, his message gained only a small following—mostly close family members and loyal friends—while facing strong opposition from local leaders.
After that period, Muhammad migrated to Medina (the Hijra). Medina was home to influential Arab tribes and significant Jewish communities, and it was a major commercial and political center. During this time, Muhammad’s changed his teachings to include many references that sounded familiar to Jews and Christians—often called “People of the Book, but there was no book.” This is one reason people notice similarities between Judaism and Islam, such as dietary restrictions, structured daily prayer, and fasting traditions.
However, when key Jewish groups in Medina did not accept Muhammad’s prophetic authority, tensions escalated. The relationship shifted from dialogue to political conflict and military confrontation. From that point forward, Islam was no longer only a spiritual movement; it also became a governing and military force, shaping law, society, and expansion.
As Islamic rule spread, Jews and Christians were often allowed to remain within Islamic states, but typically as protected minorities under specific legal limits. In many historical periods, this included paying the jizya (a poll tax) in exchange for protection and permission to practice their religion—though how this worked varied widely by place and time. Jews had to wear a star, and Christians had to wear a belt. Also, news could not blow the Shofar, and Christians could not ring the church bells. Basically, Jews and Christians were second-class citizens and were considered dirty. They could not walk on the same side of the street with a Muslim and would have to cross the street.
Islam continued to expand rapidly beyond Arabia, reaching the Levant and eventually Jerusalem. By the late 11th century, Christian rulers in Europe viewed Muslim control of key Holy Land sites—and reports of hardships faced by Christian pilgrims and Eastern Christians—as a crisis. In 1095, Pope Urban II called on Western Christians to go east in an armed pilgrimage to aid fellow Christians and to reclaim Jerusalem. That appeal became the First Crusade.
The Crusades were not originally launched as a random campaign to convert Muslims; their stated purpose was to defend Christian communities and recover Holy Land territory, especially Jerusalem. The Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099 and held it for less than a century. In 1187, Saladin (Salah al-Din) defeated Crusader forces and Jerusalem returned to Muslim rule after the Siege of Jerusalem (1187).
Crusading efforts continued for generations, but by the late 1200s, the Crusader states in the region largely collapsed. Meanwhile, Islamic empires expanded across North Africa and into parts of Europe—most notably the Muslim-ruled territories of the Iberian Peninsula known as al-Andalus—and eastward across parts of Asia through successive dynasties and conquests.
In many regions under Islamic rule, Jews and Christians were permitted to remain as protected religious minorities, but often under legal limits and with the requirement to pay the jizya, a tax historically levied on non-Muslim subjects.
Ottoman expansion into Central Europe reached its high point in the 1600s, culminating in the 1683 siege of Vienna. The siege was lifted in September 1683, and that moment is often treated as a major turning point in the long European pushback against Ottoman expansion.
After World War I and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey abolished the caliphate on March 3, 1924 as part of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s secular reforms. Those reforms included major legal and social changes, including expanding women’s civil rights and restricting certain traditional religious institutions.
As for Jerusalem in the modern era: Israel captured East Jerusalem (including the Old City) in 1967 during the Six-Day War.
Truth News by Teresa Morin
