HOW IS HATRED OF JEWS AND CHRISTIANS PLANTED IN A MUSLIM CHILD’S MIND? It starts with the very first chapter of the Quran. It’s called Al-Fatiha (The Opening). According to Islam, no prayer is valid without reciting it. Muslims repeat it at least 17 times a day during the five obligatory prayers. That’s 6,205 times a year. And what are they repeating? “Guide us to the straight path, not the path of those who have incurred Your wrath, nor of those who have gone astray.” Who are these people? According to Muslim commentators: THOSE WHO INCURRED ALLAH’S WRATH: THE JEWS. THOSE WHO WENT ASTRAY: THE CHRISTIANS. Read that again. A Muslim child can grow up repeating a prayer 17 times every single day that identifies Jews as the objects of Allah’s wrath and Christians as people who have lost their way. 6,205 TIMES A YEAR. I know exactly what I’m talking about because I was that child. Before I understood who Jews and Christians were, I was already being taught to reject them and their paths. Before I had ever studied their beliefs, I was repeating words that associated them with divine condemnation. This is how religious prejudice can be planted in a child’s mind before that child is old enough to question it. And then people act shocked when antisemitism and hostility toward Christians appear in Muslim societies. They condemn the hatred but refuse to examine the religious teachings that can help cultivate it. They discuss the symptoms while refusing to confront the disease. They want to fight religious intolerance without questioning the doctrines used to legitimize it. Here’s the uncomfortable question: What happens to a child’s perception of Jews and Christians when he is taught, from his earliest years, to associate them with God’s wrath and misguidance? You cannot uproot religious hatred while declaring the religious ideas that nourish it untouchable.