The gist of the section can be summed up succinctly: Jews and Christians should become Muslims. The Torah and the Gospel confirm the Quran. Any disagreements between the teachings of the Quran and the teachings of older Scriptures are the result of tampering in the older texts. Do not be friends with unbelievers.
Verse 41 has a remarkable statement about the will of Allah. The New Testament states that God wants all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth (First Timothy 2:3-4). But the God of the New Testament and the Allah of the Quran apparently disagree about this. The text says, "Whoever Allah wants to put in Al-Fitnah [error, objection], you can do nothing for him against Allah. Those are the ones whose hearts Allah does not want to purify." The clear meaning of this statement is that Allah wants to keep some people in error (the result of which is eternal damnation); it is not merely a matter of Allah allowing people to abandon Him. Allah does not want to purify their hearts. This personality-trait of Allah is different from the mercifulness of God as described in Ezekiel 18:23 and 32: "Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? says the Lord God, and not that he should turn from his ways and live?" and "I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies," says the Lord God.
Verse 42, instructing Muhammad to judge with justice, resembles Jesus statement in John 7:24.
Then the discussion of previous revelations gets underway. The sentiment of 2:41 is re-stated and expanded. The text says that the Torah contains "the plain Decision of Allah" and "guidance and light." Verse 45 explicitly quotes either Exodus 21:23-24 or Leviticus 24:19-20 or Deuteronomy 19:21 (though one might quibble that the Qurans quotation includes the phrase "nose for nose," which is not found in any of those passages).
Verses 46-47 say that Jesus "confirmed the Torah," and this is in sync with Matthew 5:17-18. It also says, "We gave him the Injeel, in which was guidance and light and confirmation of the Torah." Christians are instructed to "Judge by what Allah has revealed therein." A couple of things are interesting here: first, the definition of "Injeel" that seems to be at work here is not the gospel-message in general. Nor is it the Four Gospels; it is one Gospel. It is a book that was given to Jesus, and which according to the text was available to Arabian Christians for consultation. Question: to what book does the text refer?
Answer: almost certainly, the Diatessaron. You can read a detailed description of this book at www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-10/anf10-06.htm . The Diatessaron was a one-volume Gospel-account which was made by a man named Tatian in about A.D. 172. He basically combined material from the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John into one continuous narrative. The extant Arabic text of the Diatessaron is probably a translation from a Syriac copy of the Diatessaron. The Diatessaron was popular in the Eastern churches, until it was systematically replaced with copies of the four Gospels upon which it was based in the 400s. It seems extremely likely that Muhammad encountered "The Injeel" as an Arabic oral translation of a Syriac text of the Diatessaron (i.e., he heard someone probably Waraqa read or recollect, in Arabic, the contents of a Syriac copy of the Diatessaron). This would explain why the Quran says nothing about "The Four Gospels," and it explains why "The Gospel" is perceived as one book. It also provides some grounds for the idea that Muhammad (and perhaps Waraqa) innocently misunderstood the word "Paracletos" (in John 14:26, 15:26, etc.) because of a misapprehension which arose as the text was transferred from Greek to Syriac to Arabic, with the result that Muhammad viewed those passages in John as prophecies about himself. (At www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-10/anf10-07.htm one can read an English translation of the extant text of the Arabic version of the Diatessaron. Notice that in Section XLVI, the word "Paraclete" is transliterated, not translated.)
The second interesting thing here is that the Quran instructs Christians to "judge by what Allah has revealed" in the Gospel. This is a Big Clue that Muhammad never studied the Gospel (either as the Diatessaron, or as the four Gospels) firsthand. It seems highly unlikely to me that anyone who had closely studied the Gospel-book would appeal to Christians to judge by the Gospel-book expecting them to conclude that Muhammads message was in agreement with it.
Verse 48, however, has the remedy for that: it says that the Quran is a confirmation of previous revelations, and is "Muhaimin" over them. The usual interpretation of this is that the Quran "safeguards" the text of the earlier works: when they all agree, the Quran verifies the older texts, and when they disagree, the Quran overrules the earlier text. The general effect of this is that the command to "Judge by what Allah has revealed in the Torah and the Gospel" is qualified by the notion that only the material in the Torah and the Gospel which agrees with the Quran was actually revealed by Allah.
This passage proposes that Christians can test the veracity of the Quran by studying the Injil, but when the Quran and the Injil disagree, the Quran is always right. (Muhammad Sarwars Quran-paraphrase at al-shia.com/html/eng/books/quran-and-hadith/5.htm makes this perfectly clear: it says that the Quran "confirms the (original) Bible and has the authority to preserve or abrogate what the Bible contains.") The persuasive force of such an approach is nil, because the approach is self-contained (i.e., the premise that the Quran is true ends up leaning upon itself).
Verse 48 seems to affirm that Allah wants some people to follow Judaism, some people to follow Christianity, and some people to follow Islam: "To each among you, we have prescribed a law and a clear way. If Allah had willed, he would have made you one nation, but that He may test you in what He has given you; so compete in good deeds." Yet other verses such as 3:85 explicitly state that only Islam will be accepted by Allah.
In v. 51, the text instructs Muslims not to take Jews and Christians as friends ("Auliya," helpers). This section might reflect conditions after the Battle of Uhud, when some Muslims may have felt that it would be worthwhile to make close alliances with Jews and Christians. The text states, "They are but Auliya of each other." This may have been true in regard to the Arabian pseudo-Christians in Muhammads time, but Christians are instructed to befriend their enemies to love them and pray for them. Many Christians share food, medicine, and shelter with non-Christians. In 3:28, a provision was given: "unless you indeed fear a danger from them." That provision in 3:28 has led some Muslim interpreters to advocate Taqiyya or Taqqiyya (strategic lying) about which one can read at www.al-islam.org/encyclopedia/chapter6b/1.html . Some Sunni Muslims perhaps because of the contents of verses 51-52 here do not advocate Taqiyya, but I think the usual Shiite interpretation of 5:51 (influenced by 16:106) is that Taqiyya is permissible even though in verse 52 the fear of misfortune or disaster is not considered a sufficient reason to take Jews or Christians as "Auliya."
Verse 53 forbids Muslims from taking Hypocrites (the modern term for this would be nominal Muslims) as friends. Doing so is, it seems, regarded as a sign that one is turning away from Islam. Verse 54 (which is grammatically challenged in the Hilali-Khan translation) promises that Allah will replace any backslider with someone better. Verse 57 continued the Not-Your-Friends list, adding to it those who mock Islam and taunt the call to prayer. Such people, the text states, are unreasonable.
There is a backstory to verse 59, which asks the People of the Book why they criticize the Muslims for believing in Allah and in the revelations He has given to previous prophets and to Muhammad: a group of Jews asked Muhammad to state his creed, and he said that he believed in Allah and in what was revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Jesus, and all the holy prophets, without making distinctions among them (i.e., he said something like 2:136). But they said that they had never encountered a religion worse than Muhammads religion. Perhaps they figured that that those who are spiritually penniless, so to speak, are closer to the riches of truth than those whose pockets are full of counterfeit prophecies. After this, 5:59 was "revealed."
Verses 60-65 re-state some objections against the Jews. Verse 60 recalls the punishment mentioned in 2:65 (which mentions that Allah turned some Jews into monkeys). Verse 61 is similar to 2:76. The text points out that the rabbis were not prohibiting their people from using abusive language and eating non-kosher foods.
In verse 64, the text says that the Jews say that "Allahs hand is tied up." (This probably meant something like "God is withholding His blessings because of the peoples sin.") The forceful response is that this is untrue "both His hands are widely outstretched." This is an example of anthropomorphism in the Quran; Allah is described as if He has a body. Then, as in 5:14, Allah is said to have put enmity and hatred amongst the opponents of Muhammad.
Verse 66 (re-stating 3:199 somewhat) states that if the People of the Book had acted according to the Torah and the Injil, and Muhammads recitations, then "they would surely have gotten provision from above them and from under their feet." This self-endorsement serves as the platform of the next section, in which the People of the Book are again addressed.
Some miscellaneous observations: theres a distinct refrain, or chorus, at the end of verses 44, 45, and 47 "Whosoever does not judge by that which Allah has revealed, such are the Kafirun (v. 44), Zalimun (v. 45) and Fasiqun (v. 47)." Also, I estimate that in these 25 verses, the text endorses either itself or Muhammad fourteen times (by referring to itself as a divinely given message or to Muhammad as a divinely commissioned messenger). And in these same 25 verses, the text negatively describes those who oppose Muhammad 32 times.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
Verse 41 has a remarkable statement about the will of Allah. The New Testament states that God wants all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth (First Timothy 2:3-4). But the God of the New Testament and the Allah of the Quran apparently disagree about this. The text says, "Whoever Allah wants to put in Al-Fitnah [error, objection], you can do nothing for him against Allah. Those are the ones whose hearts Allah does not want to purify." The clear meaning of this statement is that Allah wants to keep some people in error (the result of which is eternal damnation); it is not merely a matter of Allah allowing people to abandon Him. Allah does not want to purify their hearts. This personality-trait of Allah is different from the mercifulness of God as described in Ezekiel 18:23 and 32: "Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? says the Lord God, and not that he should turn from his ways and live?" and "I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies," says the Lord God.
Verse 42, instructing Muhammad to judge with justice, resembles Jesus statement in John 7:24.
Then the discussion of previous revelations gets underway. The sentiment of 2:41 is re-stated and expanded. The text says that the Torah contains "the plain Decision of Allah" and "guidance and light." Verse 45 explicitly quotes either Exodus 21:23-24 or Leviticus 24:19-20 or Deuteronomy 19:21 (though one might quibble that the Qurans quotation includes the phrase "nose for nose," which is not found in any of those passages).
Verses 46-47 say that Jesus "confirmed the Torah," and this is in sync with Matthew 5:17-18. It also says, "We gave him the Injeel, in which was guidance and light and confirmation of the Torah." Christians are instructed to "Judge by what Allah has revealed therein." A couple of things are interesting here: first, the definition of "Injeel" that seems to be at work here is not the gospel-message in general. Nor is it the Four Gospels; it is one Gospel. It is a book that was given to Jesus, and which according to the text was available to Arabian Christians for consultation. Question: to what book does the text refer?
Answer: almost certainly, the Diatessaron. You can read a detailed description of this book at www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-10/anf10-06.htm . The Diatessaron was a one-volume Gospel-account which was made by a man named Tatian in about A.D. 172. He basically combined material from the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John into one continuous narrative. The extant Arabic text of the Diatessaron is probably a translation from a Syriac copy of the Diatessaron. The Diatessaron was popular in the Eastern churches, until it was systematically replaced with copies of the four Gospels upon which it was based in the 400s. It seems extremely likely that Muhammad encountered "The Injeel" as an Arabic oral translation of a Syriac text of the Diatessaron (i.e., he heard someone probably Waraqa read or recollect, in Arabic, the contents of a Syriac copy of the Diatessaron). This would explain why the Quran says nothing about "The Four Gospels," and it explains why "The Gospel" is perceived as one book. It also provides some grounds for the idea that Muhammad (and perhaps Waraqa) innocently misunderstood the word "Paracletos" (in John 14:26, 15:26, etc.) because of a misapprehension which arose as the text was transferred from Greek to Syriac to Arabic, with the result that Muhammad viewed those passages in John as prophecies about himself. (At www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-10/anf10-07.htm one can read an English translation of the extant text of the Arabic version of the Diatessaron. Notice that in Section XLVI, the word "Paraclete" is transliterated, not translated.)
The second interesting thing here is that the Quran instructs Christians to "judge by what Allah has revealed" in the Gospel. This is a Big Clue that Muhammad never studied the Gospel (either as the Diatessaron, or as the four Gospels) firsthand. It seems highly unlikely to me that anyone who had closely studied the Gospel-book would appeal to Christians to judge by the Gospel-book expecting them to conclude that Muhammads message was in agreement with it.
Verse 48, however, has the remedy for that: it says that the Quran is a confirmation of previous revelations, and is "Muhaimin" over them. The usual interpretation of this is that the Quran "safeguards" the text of the earlier works: when they all agree, the Quran verifies the older texts, and when they disagree, the Quran overrules the earlier text. The general effect of this is that the command to "Judge by what Allah has revealed in the Torah and the Gospel" is qualified by the notion that only the material in the Torah and the Gospel which agrees with the Quran was actually revealed by Allah.
This passage proposes that Christians can test the veracity of the Quran by studying the Injil, but when the Quran and the Injil disagree, the Quran is always right. (Muhammad Sarwars Quran-paraphrase at al-shia.com/html/eng/books/quran-and-hadith/5.htm makes this perfectly clear: it says that the Quran "confirms the (original) Bible and has the authority to preserve or abrogate what the Bible contains.") The persuasive force of such an approach is nil, because the approach is self-contained (i.e., the premise that the Quran is true ends up leaning upon itself).
Verse 48 seems to affirm that Allah wants some people to follow Judaism, some people to follow Christianity, and some people to follow Islam: "To each among you, we have prescribed a law and a clear way. If Allah had willed, he would have made you one nation, but that He may test you in what He has given you; so compete in good deeds." Yet other verses such as 3:85 explicitly state that only Islam will be accepted by Allah.
In v. 51, the text instructs Muslims not to take Jews and Christians as friends ("Auliya," helpers). This section might reflect conditions after the Battle of Uhud, when some Muslims may have felt that it would be worthwhile to make close alliances with Jews and Christians. The text states, "They are but Auliya of each other." This may have been true in regard to the Arabian pseudo-Christians in Muhammads time, but Christians are instructed to befriend their enemies to love them and pray for them. Many Christians share food, medicine, and shelter with non-Christians. In 3:28, a provision was given: "unless you indeed fear a danger from them." That provision in 3:28 has led some Muslim interpreters to advocate Taqiyya or Taqqiyya (strategic lying) about which one can read at www.al-islam.org/encyclopedia/chapter6b/1.html . Some Sunni Muslims perhaps because of the contents of verses 51-52 here do not advocate Taqiyya, but I think the usual Shiite interpretation of 5:51 (influenced by 16:106) is that Taqiyya is permissible even though in verse 52 the fear of misfortune or disaster is not considered a sufficient reason to take Jews or Christians as "Auliya."
Verse 53 forbids Muslims from taking Hypocrites (the modern term for this would be nominal Muslims) as friends. Doing so is, it seems, regarded as a sign that one is turning away from Islam. Verse 54 (which is grammatically challenged in the Hilali-Khan translation) promises that Allah will replace any backslider with someone better. Verse 57 continued the Not-Your-Friends list, adding to it those who mock Islam and taunt the call to prayer. Such people, the text states, are unreasonable.
There is a backstory to verse 59, which asks the People of the Book why they criticize the Muslims for believing in Allah and in the revelations He has given to previous prophets and to Muhammad: a group of Jews asked Muhammad to state his creed, and he said that he believed in Allah and in what was revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Jesus, and all the holy prophets, without making distinctions among them (i.e., he said something like 2:136). But they said that they had never encountered a religion worse than Muhammads religion. Perhaps they figured that that those who are spiritually penniless, so to speak, are closer to the riches of truth than those whose pockets are full of counterfeit prophecies. After this, 5:59 was "revealed."
Verses 60-65 re-state some objections against the Jews. Verse 60 recalls the punishment mentioned in 2:65 (which mentions that Allah turned some Jews into monkeys). Verse 61 is similar to 2:76. The text points out that the rabbis were not prohibiting their people from using abusive language and eating non-kosher foods.
In verse 64, the text says that the Jews say that "Allahs hand is tied up." (This probably meant something like "God is withholding His blessings because of the peoples sin.") The forceful response is that this is untrue "both His hands are widely outstretched." This is an example of anthropomorphism in the Quran; Allah is described as if He has a body. Then, as in 5:14, Allah is said to have put enmity and hatred amongst the opponents of Muhammad.
Verse 66 (re-stating 3:199 somewhat) states that if the People of the Book had acted according to the Torah and the Injil, and Muhammads recitations, then "they would surely have gotten provision from above them and from under their feet." This self-endorsement serves as the platform of the next section, in which the People of the Book are again addressed.
Some miscellaneous observations: theres a distinct refrain, or chorus, at the end of verses 44, 45, and 47 "Whosoever does not judge by that which Allah has revealed, such are the Kafirun (v. 44), Zalimun (v. 45) and Fasiqun (v. 47)." Also, I estimate that in these 25 verses, the text endorses either itself or Muhammad fourteen times (by referring to itself as a divinely given message or to Muhammad as a divinely commissioned messenger). And in these same 25 verses, the text negatively describes those who oppose Muhammad 32 times.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
