A review of the supremacy and racial claims of the Israelites by Ayatollah Martyr Beheshti (1)

Abstract

There are a limited number of those Islamic scholars who are present and have relied on the facts concerning the tumultuous and complex history of the Jews to properly describe the features of Judaism and Zionism in the present age of history.
The innocent martyr, Dr. Beheshti, with the detailed and commendable information which he had gathered about the history of Jews in the past centuries, was of the opinion that the current state of Jews is rooted in their bad behavior and improper views, and also believed that ignoring the lessons of the past will be the main cause of their problems in the future.
It can be claimed with certainty that his open vision in dealing with the problems, his extensive familiarity with the history of religions which he had gained from his religious and cultural activities through valuable experiences in Europe, altogether led to some correct ideas coming from the sound soul that today can be regarded as a scientific proof for those who are interested in the subject.
Key words: martyr Beheshti, the Jews, the Zionist regime, the Torah, racism.

Introduction

In the history of every country and among the people of every nation, some figures have lived and still live whose thoughts, ideas and their activities go beyond the scope of personal and individual destiny and influence the fate of the country to which they belong. One of these individuals is no doubt Ayatollah Dr. Mohammad Hussein Beheshti. Ayatollah Beheshti was one of the characters that was in the position of a priest, a profound religious thinker and a scholar enjoying a vast insight of the time and thoughts and, at the same time, while he was faithful to the divine values and ideals, he was also known as an expert with a coherent, systematic and tailored thought commensurate with the needs of the community.
It is no wonder that Imam Khomeini mentioned the following words on the supreme authority of the martyr: "Beheshti is a fully qualified mujtahid (religious scholar and theologian) and I have rarely found the likes of him even in the religious educational centers. In another sentence, the wise man also said: martyr Beheshti was in the strict sense of the word one of the great and rare personalities of our time."
Martyr Beheshti was a representative of the broad-minded and liberal trend of freethinking in recent decades in Iran. The personality characteristics of this great martyr for the ever-increasing acquisition of modern knowledge coupled with his reflective outlook, at a time when Islam and Iran was threatened by some ethnic groups and religions from around the world, his sense of responsibility in the management of the political and social structure caused him to be assumed as one of the major characters in the system of the Islamic Republic.
By looking at the works and books and lectures of that martyr, it can be concluded that his thought resembles a multi-dimensional prism which covers the scientific, legal, social and political areas. Works like the following can be pointed to in this connection: the Islamic economy, the importance of the method of cooperation, banking, and financial interest in Islam, the do's and don'ts, a review and analysis of jihad, justice, liberalism, the leadership of Imam, health and family planning, monotheism in the Koran, the kinds of Islamic lessons, al-Hajj in the Quran, God as viewed by the Quran, understanding in terms of the Quran, the bill plan of punishment, the victorious opposition, music and fun in Islam, the Night of Power, the three types of Islam and other writings among his works, speeches and interviews.
Among the cognitive areas of the martyr, we can refer to his understanding of other religions and schools of thought including the Jewish studies. Unfortunately, no book or articles have been written by that Martyr in explaining and opening the status and nature of the Jewish people or Israel, but if we revise his speeches and interviews, we can find out about this issue that he has a profound and influential grasp of the nature of Jews or the Jewish studies and these studies along with his experience, had added to his academic knowledge.
Therefore, to reread the history of the Jews from the perspective of the martyr Beheshti, we may just have to consider his lectures which are for now preserved in the form of cassette tapes by the "Foundation for the publication of the ideas and works written by Shahid Beheshti”.
Resources that are mentioned in this article refer to the martyr's speech as tapes and they are kept in a numbered fashioned in that very center. On the other hand, the date of the archive tapes of his speeches has not been clarified by the center but it seems that the date of the speeches goes back to the years starting from (1350) to (1356). Therefore, only the number of the tape resources can be noted among the works and ideas maintained in the martyr Beheshti Foundation.
Martyr Beheshti’s speeches about the Israelites and Jews, in connection with his remaining works deal with the interpretation of the verses of the Sura Al-Baqara and the other subject that come about in the meantime. The features of the Jewish people which are discussed in his presentations are the following: the territorial delusional claims, repeated excuses raised by this nation for their lack of faith and disbelief, self-isolation of the Jewish people, racism and the extreme nationalism of the Jewish people, the atonement of the Muslims for the massacre of the Jews in Europe and the assumption of the Jews in regarding themselves as the superior race, which will be discussed in the following parts.
1. The delusional territorial claims
Martyr Beheshti, in this regard, states on the basis of the history and genealogy of the Prophet Ibrahim, that he moved from the city of Ur to Canaan and then invited his sons and grandsons by the invitation of the Prophet Yusuf, the son of Jacob, one of the children of Abraham who moved to Egypt to find a more appropriate haven. But, after a while coupled with the death of Prophet Yusuf, the people and the Pharaohs of Egypt were gradually very concerned about the growth of the Jewish population and turned them subjects to oppressive labor, hard work, and hardships lest their generations might lead to a revolution in Egypt. Martyr Beheshti points to a remarkable notion that the Israelites, wherever they lived in a certain land, thought that the place was their Promised Land and thought that they are the rightful owners of the land. He has said so about the genealogy of the Israelites:
The nation and tribe of the Israelites was the people who primarily lived and resided on the banks of the Euphrates River from the city of Ur, near Basra. Then after a while, Prophet Abraham moved from Ur to Canaan (which is called Palestine at the present time). In this new land, the prophet was given a house and they were welcomed as guests. Abraham had two sons, one was Ishmael and the latter was Isaac. Isaac had some children and the names of two of his sons are mentioned in the Torah, one older child was Esau, his second son was the one that was called Jacob. This is where the Israelites come from and these were people of robust nature living in deserts and they were a brave and stout nation that lived in the mountains. Jacob had twelve children and from each of them there were families and decedents and they later became the tribes of Jacob which means the descendants of Jacob. Each of these great grandchildren had a peculiar line of ancestry, a generation whose father who is Joseph, the son of Jacob, can be taken as their father. There was another family whose ancestry went back to Benjamin and he was called the father of the nation and also twelve families that were still in Israel. There might be other families and generations as we were speaking of the children of Israel based on their own accounts. According to a story in the Quran as we read, Joseph came to Egypt and there is a similar story in the Torah as well. Joseph stayed in Egypt and came to be honored. After receiving this honor and grandeur, he asked his father and his brothers to come to Egypt. Then the text of the Koran indicates that Jacob came to Egypt with all of his children as they were invited by Joseph. This means that they evacuated the land of Palestine completely.
The aim of martyr Beheshti in describing this course of events and the immigrations and settlements is how a people immigrated to the land of (Palestine) and were later invited elsewhere and once again they moved by their own will (and not by force) to Egypt and after many years, they claimed the lands where they had resided as guests. Throughout the history, no other nation or government has had such a claim for the lands in which they have been welcomed as guests. In this connection, martyr Beheshti adds:
After the Israelites immigrated to Egypt, the visitors claimed that we are the landlords and they still say that we are the landlords. Whatever you say to them, telling them, dear sir, based on the Torah which is accounted for by yourselves, this place has had original inhabitants, and your nation was present there as guests and by the demand of your respectable Father you immigrated from the Euphrates to such a place, not only, they say that they are the owners and the landlords of that land, but also claim that they own the territories all the way from the Euphrates to the Nile which were once the lands visited by Joseph, their great father. On this account, the large map of Israel borders on the Euphrates in the east and the Nile in the west, and then they say, because Abraham immigrated to Medina, the southern borders of the map should have these borders and its northern border reaches the territories which is now in Turkey. They say all the places where Abraham traveled in it, as Abraham traveled to Egypt again and then had to travel here, so all of these lands belong to us and we have a piece of evidence to support our claim which is very strong and is a few thousands years old.
As martyr Beheshti says, they always cite their own holy book, but in the Torah, there is no such evidence in this connection.