Surah al-Ma'idah (The Table) 5 : 59

Overview (Verse 59)

Finding Fault with Dedicated Believers
 
When all these addresses to the believers have been completed, the sūrah instructs the Prophet to put a direct question to the people of the Scriptures: What fault do they find with the Muslim community? Do they take anything against it other than the fact that Muslims believe in God and in His past revelations, as well as His revelations to the Prophet of Islam? In other words, the only fault they find with the Muslims is that the Muslims are believers, while they, i.e. the people of earlier revelations, are mostly transgressors. It is a confrontation that is embarrassing and decisive at the same time, because it points out the true cause of hostility.
 
Say: People of earlier revelations! Do you find fault with us for any reason other than that we believe in God [alone], and in that which has been revealed to us as well as that which has been revealed previously, while most of you are transgressors? Say: Shall I tell you who, in God’s sight, deserves an even worse retribution than these? They whom God has rejected and who have incurred His anger, and whom He has turned into apes and pigs, and who worship false gods. These are yet worse in station and they have gone farther astray from the right path. (Verses 59-60)
 
God directs His Messenger to put this question to the people of earlier revelations in order to emphasise the actual fact about their motives which shape their attitude towards the Muslim community and its faith. It is at the same time a question which rebukes them for their attitudes and their motives. Moreover, it seeks to enlighten the Muslims so that the idea of binding themselves in an alliance with such people becomes repugnant to them.
 
The people of earlier revelations never found fault with the Muslim community at the time of the Prophet, and they do not find fault today with the advocates of Islamic revivalism, except for the fact that Muslims in all ages believe in God and what He has revealed to them in the Qur’ān as well as what the Qur’ān endorses of the revelations sent down to earlier Prophets. They are hostile to Muslims simply because they are Muslims; that is to say, because Muslims do not follow Judaism or Christianity. The other reason is that they themselves are transgressors who have deviated from what God has revealed to them. The most damning proof of their transgression and deviation is the fact that they do not believe in the final message which endorses what God has revealed to them, except that which they have invented or distorted. Moreover, they do not believe in the final Messenger who has come to confirm earlier messages and honour all previous Messengers.
 
God states this fact absolutely clearly when He says to His Messenger in another sūrah: “The Jews and the Christians will never be pleased with you unless you follow their faith.” (2: 120) In this sūrah, God tells him that it is time to confront the people of earlier revelations with the truth which shapes their motives and provides the logic behind their attitude: “Say: People of earlier revelations! Do you find fault with us for any reason other than that we believe in God [alone], and in that which has been revealed to us as well as that which has been revealed previously, while most of you are transgressors?” (Verse 59)
 
This fact is stated by God in several places. Nevertheless, it is this act which many among the people of earlier revelations and among those who call themselves Muslims try to dilute or present in a confused way. By so doing, they seek to justify what they term as the cooperation of “religious” people against materialism and atheism.
 
The people of earlier revelations wish to dilute this fact and to cover it up altogether, because they want to cheat the people of the Islamic world, or, more correctly, the world which claims to be Islamic. They try to distort the penetrative vision Islam gives to its followers as they implement its system. Equipped with such a sound vision and profound awareness, Muslims were able to tower over the imperialism of the Crusaders. Having failed in their direct campaigns, and in their open missionary warfare, those Crusaders felt that the only option left to them was that of deception. They have tried, therefore, to promote among latter day Muslims that the whole episode of religious warfare is over and that it belongs to the dark ages. Now that the world has become more “enlightened” and more “advanced”, it is unacceptable for people to be involved in religious conflict. Hence, conflicts of today are over wealth, resources, markets, and investments. Therefore, Muslims, or more correctly their heirs, must remove all thoughts of religion and religious conflict from their minds.
 
When the people of earlier revelations who colonise Muslim countries are reassured that Muslims have been so hypnotised and that the whole question has been confused in their minds, then they are reassured that they will not have to face the Muslims’ fury when their faith is assaulted. They realise from their history that they can never stand up to such fury when it is so motivated. Now that the senses of the Muslims have been benumbed, the people of earlier revelations not only win the war over religion, but they also win with it the materialistic war, enjoying their loot in the shape of investments and resources.
 
We also find within the Muslim world, agents for the people of earlier revelations repeating the same words. These people claim that the Crusades were not truly crusades and they describe the Muslims who fought against the Crusaders under the banner of faith as “nationalists”, not Muslims.
 
There is a third group who are deluded. They listen to the descendants of the Crusaders of the imperialist West making a call to them: let us meet together to defend religion against the schemes of the “atheists”. Naïve and well intentioned, this deluded group respond favourably, oblivious of the fact that these very descendants of the Crusaders have always joined forces with the atheists whenever the confrontation was with Muslims. They have not changed in any way. They are not concerned about fighting atheist materialism as much as they are concerned about fighting Islam. They realise that atheist materialism is a temporary phenomenon, but Islam is, to them, the eternal enemy. This deceptive call aims only to undermine the Islamic revival and to make use of those deluded people to fight the atheists, the political enemies of imperialism. Both are the same, hostile to Islam and Muslims. In this war, a Muslim’s only reliable weapon is the penetrating vision imparted to him by the Divine system.
 
Those who allow themselves to be deceived and think that the people of earlier revelations are serious about joining forces with Muslims in fighting atheism are oblivious to what history has shown throughout 14 centuries, which have seen no exception to this rule. They are also oblivious to what their Lord has told them most clearly and most emphatically on this particular point. When these people read or write, they quote only those Qur’ānic verses and pronouncements of the Prophet which order the Muslims to treat the people of earlier revelations with kindness and to show them maximum tolerance. They, however, prefer to overlook the clear and decisive warnings against entering into a relationship of patronage and alliance with them. They also ignore the penetrating statement about their motives. They shut their minds to the unequivocal instructions relating to the organisation and practical movement of Islam prohibiting the establishment of such alliances with non- Muslims. To a Muslim such an alliance can only be concerned with the establishment of the Islamic system in practical life. There is simply no common ground between Muslims and the people of earlier revelations with regard to Islam, despite the fact that these religions enjoyed the same origins as Islam before they were distorted. After all the people of earlier revelations do not find fault with Muslims except for that they believe in their faith. They are not satisfied unless Muslims abandon their faith, as the Lord of mankind clearly states.
 
Such deluded people treat the Qur’ān in an ambivalent way, taking only those parts of it which endorse their naive call, assuming that it is innocent, and abandon what is in conflict with it. As for us, we prefer to listen to God’s words in this whole question. His word is clear, unequivocal, decisive.
 
God, however, gives another reason for their grudge against the Muslims, namely, that the majority of the people of earlier revelations are indeed transgressors. Transgression motivates the transgressor to try to find fault with those who are keen to follow Divine instructions and not to violate God’s orders. This is a psychological and practical rule confirmed by this remarkable Qur’ānic verse. Indeed, those who transgress cannot stand those who follow Divine guidance, because their very presence presents them with the ugly sight of their own deviation and transgression. Hence, they begrudge them their obedience of God’s orders and try hard to make them follow their own deviation, or to smash them if they prove to be difficult to control.
 
This is a constant rule, which is not limited to the attitude of the people of earlier revelations towards the first Muslim community in Madinah. Indeed, it describes their attitude in general towards the Muslims as a whole, and includes the attitude of every deviant transgressor towards every group of believers who seriously observe Divine orders. It tells us the cause of the unabating war launched against the good, the honest and the obedient in any society where the evil, the transgressor, and the deviant have the upper hand. Such a war is only natural in view of this rule, stated in this remarkable verse.
 
God, limitless He is in His glory, knows that goodness and right will always be viewed with hostility by wickedness and evil, and that obedience to Him will always provoke the anger of transgressors. He also knows that goodness, right and obedience will need to defend themselves and fight the war launched against them by wickedness, evil and transgression. It is an inevitable battle, which right must fight and goodness cannot avoid because wickedness and evil will inevitably try to eliminate them. If the advocates of right, goodness and obedience to God imagine that they can steer away from this war, or that wickedness, evil or transgression can be persuaded to leave them alone to observe some sort of peace or truce between them, then they are infinitely naïve. The people of goodness and right must be prepared for fighting the inevitable battle, or else they will be vanquished.