Chapter 2: Surat Al-Baqarah (The Cow), verses 130-134

Translation:

Who but a foolish man would forsake the faith of Abraham? We chose him in this world, and in the world to come he shall dwell among the righteous. When his Lord said to him: ‘Submit,’ he answered, ‘I have submitted to the Lord of the Worlds.’ Abraham enjoined the faith on his children, and so did Jacob, saying: ‘My children, God has chosen for you the true faith. Do not depart this life except as men who have submitted to Him.’ Or were you present when death came to Jacob? He said to his children: ‘What will you worship when I am gone?’ They replied: ‘We will worship your God and the God of your forefathers, Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac: the One God. To Him we will surrender ourselves.’ That was a nation which has passed away. Theirs is what they earned, and yours is what you have earned. You shall not be questioned about what they did.

Tafsir (Commentary):

The message taught by the Prophet Muhammad was exactly the same as had been taught by Abraham. But it was the Jews, those who prided themselves on being followers of Abraham, who led the opposition to the Prophet Muhammad. Why did the Jews act in this manner? The reason was that the religion that Muhammad taught, and which Abraham had taught before him, was the religion of Islam. Now, Islam means total submission to God, and it was this religion that Abraham handed down to his offspring. But the religion that the Jews practiced had nothing to do with total submission to God. Having lapsed into permissiveness and, unwilling to change this lifestyle, they had allowed their religion to degenerate into a series of hollow rituals, which they fondly believed would make it easy for them to enter paradise. In the religion that the Prophet Muhammad taught, however, one could gain salvation only by virtue of one’s actions. The Jews, for their part, thought that their affiliation to a nation of saints and prophets would be sufficient to earn them redemption. There was a world of difference then between Islam, the true religion of Abraham, and the religion that the Jews practiced and attributed to him. True religion means acceptance of divine guidance, as revealed to man through the Prophets, whereas the religion practiced by the Jews was based on their own national legacy, a collection of national traditions which had accumulated over the generations among the Jews, but had been distorted from the pure religion which God had revealed to His Prophets.

Attaching oneself to saints and prophets, living or dead, lulls one into a false sense of security. It leads one to imagine that just as one has been attached to them in this life, one will remain attached to them in the next. It makes one feel that their surplus of good deeds will make up for one’s own shortcomings. The Jews were so far gone in this form of wishful thinking that they had invented a dogma of ancestral salvation, pinning all their hopes on the holiness of their elders. But it is sheer self-deception to think that one person will receive the reward of another’s actions. In reality, everyone will reap the rewards, and bear the burden of punishment for his own actions. No one will be made to share in the reward, or punishment, which is awarded to another by virtue of his actions on earth.