A Comparative Study of the Israelites and Muslims’ Behavior after their Prophets according to Sunni Commentaries

The story of the Israelites is much more repeated and emphasized than other stories in the holy Quran. There is a reason behind this emphasis in the holy Quran as a divine miracle and guidebook. There is no doubt that one of the most important reasons behind the emphasis is for Muslims to draw lessons from the Israelites’ behavior. On the other hand, both Sunni and Shiite traditions have insisted upon the same behavior by Muslims. One of the instances of such behavior is how they treated the Prophet’s successor, Imam Ali. The main question here, therefore, is whether this behavior is the same as that of the Israelites and whether this has been repeated or not. Three similarities can be extracted through a comparative-analytic study of the Israelites and Muslim’s behavior. The first similarity is schism and disputes which both communities became involved in after hearing the call of unity by their Prophets. The second similarity is their denial of their prophets, infraction and disobedience to the Prophets’ orders. In the Muslim community, this happened when designating the Prophet’s successor. Perfidy is the third similarity through which the Muslim community, like the Israelites, went back from their promise with their prophet and repeated that of the Israelites. In this research the data were collected by from the libraries and were analysed by the analytic and comparative method.