There is a particular criticism that is commonly directed against Islam, from both Jews and Christians. It is the assertion that the Israelites not only rejected but, in some cases, killed the prophets that God had sent to them. The Qur’an of course repeatedly informs us that the Children of Israel both persecuted and murdered prophets.
The Qur’an declares that the Israelites “used to kill the prophets without right” (Q. 2:61; cf. 2:87), condemns them because “they disbelieved in the signs of God and killed the prophets unjustly” (Q. 3:21, 3:112), and recalls that “whenever a messenger came to you with what your souls did not desire, you became arrogant; some you denied and others you killed” (Q. 2:87; cf. 5:70).
These passages generally do not identify particular individual prophets. Instead, they portray prophetic persecution as a recurring historical pattern.
Is the Qur’an, however, “unique” in forwarding such a supposedly “unfounded accusation”?
New Testament
Indeed, this characterization is in fact not unique to the Qur’an.
The New Testament similarly presents Israel’s history as one of repeated violence against God’s prophets. Jesus (peace be upon him), in the words that are attributed to him by Christians, laments over Jerusalem, declaring:
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her (Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34).
Earlier, in the same discourse, Jesus is quoted as accusing the religious leaders of perpetuating the crimes of their ancestors:
You are the sons of those who murdered the prophets (Matthew 23:31).
It then continues by quoting him predicting that they shall repeat this pattern:
I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town (Matthew 23:34; cf. Luke 11:49–51).
Jesus concludes that responsibility extends “from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berechiah” (Matthew 23:35; Luke 11:50–51), thereby presenting prophetic martyrdom as a continuous theme throughout Israel’s history.
The same motif appears elsewhere in the New Testament. Stephen, shortly before his own execution, asks:
Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One. (Acts 7:52).
Likewise, Paul writes that the Jews “killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets” (1 Thessalonians 2:15), thus reflecting an early Christian interpretation of Israel’s treatment of the prophetic tradition. The accusation, therefore, cannot be labelled as being “uniquely Islamic.”
Jewish Texts & Traditions
Perhaps more importantly, the roots of this accusation actually already appear within the Hebrew Bible itself.
The prophet Elijah laments:
The Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword (1 Kings 19:10; repeated in 1 Kings 19:14).
The Chronicler similarly states:
They mocked the messengers of God, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets (2 Chronicles 36:16).
In Nehemiah’s historical confession, Israel is accused of rebellion against God:
They were disobedient and rebelled against you, cast your law behind their backs and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you (Nehemiah 9:26).
Other passages emphasize persecution even where murder is not explicitly mentioned. For example, Jeremiah reports that the people sought his life (Jeremiah 11:18–23; 26:8–11), while Elijah complains that he alone remains because the prophets have been slain (1 Kings 18:4; 19:10, 14).
Collectively, these texts establish a biblical tradition in which God’s messengers were repeatedly rejected, persecuted, and, at times, killed.
Let us now take a look at some specific cases.
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Zechariah, Son of Jehoiada (2 Chronicles 24:20–22)
The execution of Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, constitutes the most explicit biblical account of a prophet being judicially murdered by the Judean monarchy.
Following the death of the high priest Jehoiada, King Joash and the officials of Judah abandoned the worship of YHWH in favor of idolatrous practices (2 Chronicles 24:17–19). In response, “the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah” (2 Chronicles 24:20), indicating that his subsequent rebuke was understood by the Chronicler as a divinely inspired prophetic oracle rather than a merely personal criticism.
Standing publicly in the Temple precincts, Zechariah proclaimed:
Thus says God: Why do you transgress the commandments of the LORD, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the LORD, he has also forsaken you (2 Chronicles 24:20).
Rather than responding with repentance, the king ordered that Zechariah be stoned “in the court of the house of the LORD” (2 Chronicles 24:21).
The setting is highly significant: the Temple, ordinarily the locus of divine worship and covenantal fidelity, becomes the scene of judicial violence against God’s own messenger.
The Chronicler explicitly presents the execution as an act of covenantal betrayal, emphasizing that Joash thereby repaid neither the kindness nor the loyalty previously shown to him by Jehoiada, Zechariah’s father (2 Chronicles 24:22).
Within the canonical narrative, Zechariah’s final words, “May the LORD see and avenge!” (2 Chronicles 24:22), function as a prophetic curse that is subsequently fulfilled through the military defeat and assassination of Joash later in the chapter (2 Chronicles 24:23–25).
The narrative thus establishes a theological principle central to the Chronicler’s historiography: violence against God’s prophet ultimately incurs divine judgment upon the perpetrators.
Uriah, Son of Shemaiah (Jeremiah 26:20–23)
The execution of Uriah, son of Shemaiah, provides a second canonical example of prophetic martyrdom, illustrating the increasing hostility toward prophetic dissent during the final decades of the Kingdom of Judah.
Jeremiah 26 presents Uriah as proclaiming a message “in the name of the LORD” that closely paralleled Jeremiah’s own warnings concerning Jerusalem’s impending destruction (Jeremiah 26:20). His proclamation was therefore not treated merely as political criticism but as an authoritative prophetic indictment of the nation’s covenantal unfaithfulness.
King Jehoiakim responded by seeking Uriah’s execution. Recognizing the danger, the prophet fled to Egypt, but the king dispatched officials to extradite him (Jeremiah 26:21–22). Upon his return, Uriah was executed by the sword and denied an honorable burial, and his body was cast into the common burial place of the people (Jeremiah 26:23).
The narrative underscores the determination of the royal administration to suppress prophetic opposition even beyond Judah’s borders.
The juxtaposition of Uriah’s fate with Jeremiah’s own trial is particularly significant: while influential officials and elders intervened to save Jeremiah (Jeremiah 26:24), Uriah lacked comparable political protection and was executed.
Isaiah
Unlike the deaths of Zechariah son of Jehoiada and Uriah son of Shemaiah, the Hebrew Bible does not record the death of Isaiah.
Nevertheless, by the rabbinic period, a well-established tradition had emerged identifying King Manasseh as being responsible for the prophet’s execution.
This tradition became one of the most influential narratives of prophetic martyrdom in both Jewish and Christian literature.
The fullest rabbinic account appears in Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 49b. According to the Talmud, Isaiah fled from King Manasseh and miraculously concealed himself inside the hollow of a cedar tree. Manasseh’s servants discovered his hiding place, and the king ordered that the tree be sawn apart, thereby severing Isaiah in two.
The Talmud, however, is not primarily concerned with narrating Isaiah’s death. Instead, it focuses on explaining why such a righteous prophet could be condemned. It presents Manasseh as charging Isaiah with apparent contradictions between his prophecies and the Torah. Among the accusations are Isaiah’s declaration, “I saw the Lord” (Isaiah 6:1), seemingly contradicting Exodus 33:20 (“no one shall see me and live”); and his statement that God is “near” (Isaiah 55:6), which appears inconsistent with Deuteronomy 4:7.
Rather than engaging in self-defense, Isaiah accepts martyrdom to avoid further profanation of the Divine Name, thereby transforming his death into an act of supreme fidelity to God.
Although the dramatic account of Isaiah being sawn in half is absent from the canonical Hebrew Bible, the association of Manasseh with the shedding of innocent blood provides an important biblical foundation for the later tradition. The Deuteronomistic historian repeatedly condemns Manasseh, stating that he “shed very much innocent blood, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another” (2 Kings 21:16; cf. 24:3–4). Rabbinic tradition identifies Isaiah as one of the principal victims of this persecution, thereby giving concrete expression to the biblical accusation.
The tradition also exercised a profound influence on early Christianity. Though the New Testament never names Isaiah explicitly, many scholars understand the reference in Hebrews 11:37 (“they were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword”) as an allusion to the already well-known Jewish tradition concerning Isaiah’s death. The author of Hebrews appears to assume that this martyrdom narrative was familiar to his audience, suggesting that the tradition was circulating well before the final redaction of the Babylonian Talmud.
From a historical-critical perspective, Isaiah’s execution occupies an intermediate position between biblical history and post-biblical interpretation. While the Hebrew Bible itself does not describe his death, the combination of Manasseh’s biblical reputation for murdering the innocent (2 Kings 21:16), the coherent rabbinic tradition preserved in Yevamot 49b, and the probable allusion in Hebrews 11:37 indicates that the belief in Isaiah’s martyrdom was widespread across both Jewish and early Christian communities. Consequently, Isaiah represents one of the clearest examples of how later exegetical traditions expanded the biblical motif of prophetic persecution into a detailed narrative of prophetic martyrdom.
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Lives of the Prophets
Beyond the canonical Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature, one of the most important witnesses to the development of prophetic martyrdom traditions is the Lives of the Prophets.
Although the work survives primarily in Christian manuscripts, the majority of modern scholars regard its core as a Jewish composition originating during the late Second Temple or early Roman period (approximately first century BCE to first century CE), then subsequently expanded through Christian interpolations.
Rather than functioning as a commentary on Scripture, the work provides brief biographical notices concerning Israel’s prophets, frequently providing information that is absent from the biblical narratives, especially regarding their deaths and burial places.
A striking feature of the Lives of the Prophets is its consistent portrayal of the prophets as martyrs whose proclamation of divine judgment provoked violent opposition from kings, priests, or their own communities.
Jeremiah
According to the Lives of the Prophets, Jeremiah accompanied the Jewish refugees to Egypt after the destruction of Jerusalem, where he continued condemning idolatry and warning the exiles to remain faithful to YHWH. His uncompromising preaching ultimately provoked hostility among his own people, who stoned him to death.
Ezekiel
The Lives of the Prophets reports that Ezekiel denounced the idolatrous practices of an Israelite leader (described as a prince, judge, or member of the people). In retaliation, he was executed by this official and subsequently buried in the land of the Chaldeans.
Amos
The account of Amos is among the most detailed martyrdom narratives preserved in the Lives of the Prophets. Following his denunciations of the northern kingdom, Amos was repeatedly beaten by Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, echoing the conflict already described in Amos 7:10–17. The Lives of the Prophets expands the biblical narrative by stating that Amaziah’s son struck Amos on the head with a club, inflicting injuries that the prophet later died from.
Micah
The Lives of the Prophets attributes Micah’s death to King Joram (or, in some manuscript traditions, another northern ruler), who ordered the prophet’s execution after repeated condemnations of royal impiety and injustice. Different textual recensions describe his death differently. Some state that he was thrown from a precipice, and others simply mention that he was killed. All of them, however, agree that his execution resulted directly from his prophetic ministry.
In conclusion, the foregoing evidence demonstrates that the Qur’anic accusation that the Children of Israel persecuted and, in some cases, killed God’s prophets is not an isolated or unprecedented Islamic doctrine. Rather, it belongs to a much older literary and theological tradition that is already firmly rooted within Jewish and Christian sources.
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