Chapter 3: Surat Aal-'Imran (The House 'Imran), verse 64-71

Translation:

Say: 'People of the Book, let us come to an agreement: that we will worship none but God, that we will associate none with Him, and that none of us shall set up mortals as deities besides God.' People of the Book, why do you argue about Abraham when both the Torah and the Gospel were not revealed till after him? Have you no sense? Indeed, you have argued about things of which you have some knowledge. Must you now argue about that of which you know nothing at all? God knows, but you know not. Abraham was neither Jew nor Christian. He was an upright man, one who submitted to God. He was no idolater. Surely the men who are nearest to Abraham are those who follow him, this Prophet, and the true believers. God is the guardian of the faithful. Some of the People of the Book wish to mislead you; but they mislead none but themselves, though they may not perceive it. People of the Book! Why do you deny God's revelations when you know that they are true? People of the Book! Why do you confound the true with the false, and knowingly hide the truth?   (64-71)

Commentary:

Monotheism is not only the original teachings of the Prophet but even in the interpolated versions of the Torah and the Bible it is enshrined as an established reality. Judged on this established criterion Islam is proved to be a completely true religion rather than Judaism and Christianity. Monotheism implies belief in only one God. He alone should be worshipped. No one should be associated with Him. No man should be accorded the special place which is the prerogative of only the Lord of the Universe. This concept of monotheism is preserved in its pure form only in Islam in the Qur’an. Other religions accepting monotheism, ideologically, adopted almost everything that ran counter to it. While believing in God as sustainer they in practice accorded that status to their saints.

The Meccan idolaters called their religion the religion of Abraham. Jews and Christians too bracketed their religious history to Abraham. In every age people have used the name of their prophets and saints to justify their own additions and inventions in religion. After passing of some time people (public) fail to differentiate between the original religion and its later version. The later version is taken to be the real religion. In such an atmosphere when the call to true and pure religion is given, its opponents find the easiest way to discredit it by airing this in public that the caller is against the religion handed down to them by their saints. One (the present da'i) who is the real representative of the religion of “saints” (because the saints had given the original version, the followers later made additions and attributed those additions to the saints) is now rejected in the name of (past) saints. This is like covering the veil of falsehood over truth. That is, saying things which are of no value from religious and logical point of view, but since the public (the laity) has not the ability to analyze it, it think them to be right and is thus removed from truth. Muslim hanif (monotheist) is one who treads the straight path of monotheism and non-hanif is one who deviates from the straight path to enter into bylanes. Sometimes relative aspects of religion are so stressed by interpretation that they appear to be the main aspects, the actual reality of religion. In this way real aspects lose their significance and people leaving the straight thoroughfare of monotheism go astray into the bylanes of relative aspects.

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