Al `Imran 121-130

The Qur’an is not revealed to human minds and hearts cut off from their pasts. It is not revealed to blank minds, but to minds already shaped and constrained by their culture, inherited from their ancestors, and by present, ongoing relationships and commitments.

For example, an Arab may have lent money from which he expects a return in the form of interest. Another may have long experience of taking advice or receiving military help from other Arabs who may be polytheists, or perhaps monotheists such as the Jews or Christians. Yet another may have ties by blood or marriage. What should happen to such relationships, and the spoken and unspoken understandings that arise from them, after someone accepts Islam and the guidance of God’s Messenger?

The Qur’an and existing social realities

Compare the situation of the Ansar, of the Aws and Khazraj tribes, with that of the Muhajirun. The latter had already made a decisive break with the familial, economic, political, and military relationships that had existed in Makkah. The situation for the Ansar was very different. They had not been compelled to leave their homes and suffer the sudden disruption of their former relationships, together with the manners and commitments embedded within them.

The situation in Madinah

The Madinan Muslims had made a pledge of allegiance to the Messenger, which they honoured by welcoming and sacrificing for the Muslims of Makkah. Even so, many of their relationships with the non-Muslim residents of Madinah remained as they had been.

A very important factor in the management of these relationships was the authority of the Jews of Madinah. They were not ummi. Rather, they were learned people who possessed a Scripture, enabling them to claim an established understanding with God and a privileged relationship with Him. It would therefore have been entirely natural for many of the Ansari Muslims in Madinah to seek the Jews’ help and advice, military and financial support against common enemies, and arbitration in tribal disputes.

Reorienting relationships

This Surah’s dominant concern is to make clear to the believers that all such inherited relationships must be judged according to what is commanded or commended in the Qur’an and in the example of God’s Messenger. Some customs and practices must be abandoned altogether, others modified, but all must be reoriented so that people consciously intend and act in the hope of earning God’s pleasure in the Hereafter.

This goes to the very heart of what it means, or should mean, to call oneself Muslim. Obedience to God and His Messenger is not merely a matter of adopting a new group identity alongside, or mixed with, one’s existing identities. Being Muslim requires complete trust in, and reliance upon, what has come from God and His Messenger.

Muslims are commanded to distance themselves from the religious doctrines of Jews and Christians. They are also instructed, insofar as this is compatible with universal (maʿruf) norms of civility, kindness, and justice, to avoid forms of commercial, military, and cultural involvement with non-Muslims that make them dependent upon non-Muslim approval.

To align themselves inwardly and outwardly with the commands and preferences of God and His Messenger, Muslims must distance themselves from the manners and tastes, aspirations and ambitions, of non-Muslims. A historical and bodily expression of that distancing was the command to leave the qiblah of the Jews and direct Muslim worship, indeed their entire human effort, towards the qiblah of Makkah, which thereafter became exclusively the qiblah of the Muslims.

Learning from the Israelites

Recall that after the Israelites were liberated from Egypt, they not only longed for the foods and lifestyle to which generations of slavery had accustomed them, but were also attracted to the rituals and worship they had witnessed there. During the brief absence of their Messenger, they were easily seduced into worshipping the calf.

Their condition may be described as weak iman struggling, often unsuccessfully, against a powerful cultural inheritance. Much of the teaching of this Surah consists of admonitions and exhortations intended to help the Muslims avoid falling into a similar condition.

The means employed to address this condition are:

• Explicit admonition and exhortation.
• Correction of false narratives and false doctrines, namely the stories and teachings wrongly attributed by the People of the Book to God and His Messengers and Prophets.
• The assurance that the events unfolding around the Muslims in Madinah, including military alliances forming against them, tensions and divisions among Muslims, and the overt and covert plots of their enemies, the Jews and the Hypocrites, are all witnessed and encompassed by God.

Divine guidance through testing

God makes it clear that sincere acceptance of Islam, together with genuine belief, is not sufficient by itself. He intends that this sincere acceptance should be tested and proven. In itself, accepting Islam is only a potential good.

What transforms that potential into reality is engagement with present and historical realities: former beliefs and forms of worship, together with the language associated with them, how people speak and think about God and the Hereafter; past alliances and enmities; past commercial involvements and their associated trading practices, particularly riba. The believer must strive to reshape these realities in obedience to God and His Messenger.

This effort carries no guarantee of reward in this world. Success lies in the sincerity of the effort itself, demonstrated through resolve and perseverance in times of trial.

Realising the potential of Islam

In time, the Ansar and Muhajirun fully realised the potential of their islam. It was manifested in their shukr and sabr, alike in defeat and in victory. Indeed, victory proved to be the greater test.