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Explanatory Note
Against this historical background of God’s covenant with Abraham, the building of the Ka`bah and the entitlement to the religious heritage of Abraham, the sūrah takes a closer look at some Jewish and Christian arguments and claims. It exposes the weakness in those arguments and the insidious ulterior motives behind them. The passage is rounded off by presenting Islam as man’s comprehensive and universal religion, opposed and rejected only by those who are stubborn and ungrateful: They say, ‘Follow the Jewish faith — or, follow the Christian faith — and you shall be rightly guided.’ Say, ‘No. We follow the faith of Abraham, who was truly devoted to God, and was not of those who associated partners with God.’ Say [all of you], ‘We believe in God and in what has been revealed to us, and in what was revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants, and in what was given to Moses and Jesus, and in what all prophets have been given by their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and to God we have surrendered ourselves. ‘ If they come to believe in the way you believe, they will be rightly guided; but if they turn away, they will be in schism, but God will protect you from them; He hears all and knows all.’
The Prophet is instructed here to confront the Jews and the Christians together with the same challenge, and call upon them equally to revert, together with the Muslims, to the original religion of Abraham, the founding father of the faith of Islam on earth. He was the one to make a covenant with God and he was true to his covenant.