“A person is either your brother in faith, or your equal in humanity”
                                                                   (Ali ibn Abi Taleb, cousin and son in law of Prophet Muhammad)


Many observers of the current negative peak of the decade long Middle East conflict, both pro Israelis and pro Palestinians think that the nature of the hostilities is religious. They think that the relationship between Muslims and Jews was historically marked by animosity, driven by sectarian hatred. Except that this is a regrettable misconception.

This article will strive to counter this common prejudice by highlighting some widely unknown and probably unexpected cases of Muslim people helping and in fact rescuing Jewish people.

1. Albania, where the Pilkus, a Muslim family, harbored young Johanna Neumann and her mother in their home during the German occupation and convinced others that the two were family members visiting from Germany. “They put their lives on the line to save us,” Neumann, now 86, told TIME on Friday. “If it had come out that we were Jews, the whole family would have been killed.”
2. Iran: Abdol Hossein Sardari, an Iranian diplomat in Paris during World War II, successfully convinced Nazi German authorities to exempt Iranian and other Caucasian and Central Asian Jews residing in the occupied zone from anti-Jewish measures.
3. Iran: Despite the Iranian people suffering from the 1942-1943 famine, Iran became a place of refuge for 116,000 Polish refugees, of whom, around 5,000 were Polish Jews. The Jewish children would come to be known as the Tehran Children.
4. Tunisia, where Khaled Abdul-Wahab, the „Arab Schindler“ saved 25 Tunisian Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust.
5. Bosnia: When the Jewish Kavilio family, fleeing the German invasion of Yugoslavia, found themselves without a home, the Hardaga family, observant Muslims, provided shelter and considered the Kavilios part of their family. “Our home is your home”, they said, and to demonstrate this point, the women were not obliged to cover their faces in the presence of Josef Kavilio, since he was now a member of the family.
6. France: During the Nazi occupation of France frightened Jews fled to The Grand Mosque of Paris where they were sheltered and given Moroccan passports prior to being smuggled out of Paris to safety.
7. Morocco: Young Sultan Mohammed V declined to assist in the persecution of Jewish citizens. “I reiterate as I did in the past that the Jews are under my protection and I reject any distinction that should be made amongst my people.”
8. Turkey: Selahattin Ulkumen, the Turkish consul-general on the island of Rhodes which was under German occuaption managed to save approximately 50 Jews in July 1944.
9. Ottoman empire: When the spanish inquisition resulted in the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal in 1492, Sultan Beyazid II welcomed Sephardic Jews and allowed them to settle in various cities. He sent out proclamations throughout the empire that the refugees were to be welcomed.
10. (Nazi) Germany: When the deportations of the Jews from Berlin began, and Anna Boros, a family friend, was in need of a hiding place, Egyptian Dr. Mohammed Helmy brought her to a cabin he owned in Berlin, which became her safe haven until the end of the war. He was recognized by Israel as one of the Righteous Among the Nations in 2013, with his name being listed at Yad Vashem in the city of Jerusalem.

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