Look again at Saul’s early part in the war on the faithful followers of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam (ʿalayhi al-salām, peace be upon him). “The apostles” in Christian usage refers specifically to the followers of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, the group the Qurʾān calls the ḥawāriyyūn (الحواريون, “the disciples”).
Saul bears responsibility for the killing of one of those followers, Stephen. Acts records it:
1And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles. 2And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him. 3As for Saul, he made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison.1
Saul’s cruelty toward the followers of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam is no secret, because the events are set down in the New Testament that Christians themselves hold sacred. The record is prima facie evidence against the sudden saint.
1And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, 2And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. 3And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:2
4And I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women. 5As also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders: from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem, for to be punished.3
58And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.4
These texts show that Saul’s brutality is no false accusation from outsiders. The scripture of the Christians records it. A question follows: how could a man with a history of planned, systematic killing of the ḥawāriyyūn repent so easily?
Paul himself admits it in his letter to the Galatians:
13For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: 14And profited in the Jews’ religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.5
Hatred without cause
The violence Saul showed in hunting the followers of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam was driven by more than religious duty or obedience to the highest religious authority. It reflects a deep ideological hatred.
In Jewish moral tradition, hatred of this kind is called sinat chinam (שִׂנְאַת חִנָּם, “hatred without cause”), hatred with no legitimate reason or real threat behind it. The term is found in the Psalms6 and in the Babylonian Talmud,7 where it is named the chief cause of the fall of the Second Temple.8
Paul’s conduct in the early part of his life fits that character: full of anger, hating without ground, ready to use violence to wipe out those who differed. His hostility to the ḥawāriyyūn was a hatred without cause, rooted in inner unease and in the threat their message posed to his own religious identity.
Saul then set out for Damascus to hunt the followers of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam. On that road, he claimed, he “met” Jesus Christ through an apparition from the sky. Suddenly he declared that he had repented of his crimes against the supporters of the mission of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, and that he was the most faithful follower of Jesus Christ.
- Acts 8:1–3 (KJV). ↩
- Acts 9:1–3 (KJV). ↩
- Acts 22:4–5 (KJV). ↩
- Acts 7:58 (KJV). ↩
- Galatians 1:13–14 (KJV). ↩
- cf. Psalms 35:19, 69:4. ↩
- Yoma 9b. ↩
- See Jonathan Sacks, Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence (New York: Schocken Books, 2017), p. 218; and Rabbi Doron Perez, “Sinat Chinam: From Dispute to Demonization,” HaMizrachi, Tisha B’Av 2020, p. 3. ↩