Talmud and Qur’an – Hearing Together the Call to Our Shared Humanity
Mehdi Azaiez
Professor of Islamic Studies, Catholic University of Louvain
As a scholar committed to the comparative study of major religious traditions, I believe that texts, narratives, and spiritual legacies—when read with both intellectual curiosity and rigor—can illuminate paths of hope. Never have the Talmud and the Qur’an resonated so powerfully together as in these words: “Whoever kills a single soul is as if he has slain the whole world” (Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:5), to which the Qur’an responds, “Whoever saves a single life, it is as if he had saved all of humanity” (Qur’an 5:32).
As the harrowing images from Gaza continue to unfold before our eyes, as unarmed civilians—children and entire families—are brutally massacred and starved, and as Israeli hostages remain in the hands of Hamas, the perpetrator of the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Second World War, we are witnessing a descent into the abyss driven by a relentless logic of war. In the face of such horror, we must cry out in outrage and recall the words of the Prophet Jeremiah: “Act with justice and righteousness, deliver from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place” (Jeremiah 22:3).
This indignation is nourished by an ethic of justice—one rooted both in my Muslim heritage and in my academic work in Islamic studies. But even more deeply, it is grounded in an affective memory: a childhood shaped by the stories, music, and humanity of a Sephardic Jewish milieu from which I learned early lessons in dignity, remembrance, and openness. It is from this religious, scholarly, and personal imperative that I feel compelled to speak today.
I am outraged by the explicitly racist and genocidal rhetoric expressed by numerous Israeli political figures and citizens. It represents a profound moral collapse for those who claim to embody democratic values. Nothing—absolutely nothing—can justify the collective punishment of an entire people. Hamas’s terrorism, which must be condemned unequivocally and without qualification, must not be used as a pretext for the erasure of a people or the denial of their inalienable right to self-determination within internationally recognized borders.
This moment is also about Israel—an Israel whose democratic foundations, founding ideals, and ethical legacy of Judaism are being betrayed. Israel must not be reduced to the policies of its current government or the figure of Benjamin Netanyahu, whose self-serving and destructive political strategy has no aim beyond his own survival.
We must commend and support the many Jewish voices—intellectual, spiritual, and activist—who, both in Israel and across the diaspora, refuse the logic of imposed silence. Together—Jews and non-Jews—we must stand against both theocratic and racist ideologies, whether propagated by Hamas or by the supremacist factions within the Israeli government. Together, we must courageously advocate for a genuine peace—one rooted in law, mutual recognition, and security for all.
The creation of a sovereign, democratic, and multi-faith Palestinian state is not only an urgent necessity—it is a moral imperative. This vision is not incompatible with a secure Israel, anchored in its founding democratic values. On the contrary, these two projects are two inseparable sides of the same promise: a shared future beyond walls, hatred, and cynical calculations.
Today, the time has come to act—not to choose sides or reinforce divisions, but to recall that the demand for justice, like our fidelity to humanistic principles, is a collective responsibility that binds us all.
About the author
Born in 1974 in Paris, Mehdi Azaiez is Professor of Islamic Studies at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium). He previously taught at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, USA), KU Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), and UNIFR (Fribourg, Switzerland). He has authored numerous scholarly contributions on the Qur’an, his primary field of expertise.