Website: www.aaiil.uk
What is meant by “a
religion other than Islam” in the Quran?
Friday
Khutba by Dr Zahid Aziz,
for Lahore
Ahmadiyya UK, 26 July 2024
|
“Do they then seek other than Allah’s religion? And
to Him submits whoever is in the heavens and the earth, willingly or
unwillingly, and to Him they will be returned. Say: We believe in Allah and
(in) what is revealed to us, and (in) what was revealed to Abraham and
Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes, and (in) what was given to Moses
and Jesus and to the prophets from their Lord; we make no distinction between
any of them, and to Him we submit. And whoever seeks a religion other than
Islam, it will not be accepted from him, and in the Hereafter he will be one
of the losers.” — ch. 3, Āl-i ‘Imrān, v. 83–85. |
اَفَغَیۡرَ
دِیۡنِ
اللّٰہِ یَبۡغُوۡنَ
وَ لَہٗۤ
اَسۡلَمَ
مَنۡ فِی
السَّمٰوٰتِ
وَ
الۡاَرۡضِ
طَوۡعًا وَّ
کَرۡہًا وَّ
اِلَیۡہِ یُرۡجَعُوۡنَ
﴿۸۳﴾ قُلۡ
اٰمَنَّا
بِاللّٰہِ
وَ مَاۤ
اُنۡزِلَ عَلَیۡنَا
وَ مَاۤ
اُنۡزِلَ
عَلٰۤی
اِبۡرٰہِیۡمَ
وَ اِسۡمٰعِیۡلَ
وَ اِسۡحٰقَ
وَ یَعۡقُوۡبَ
وَ
الۡاَسۡبَاطِ
وَ مَاۤ
اُوۡتِیَ
مُوۡسٰی وَ
عِیۡسٰی وَ
النَّبِیُّوۡنَ
مِنۡ
رَّبِّہِمۡ
۪ لَا
نُفَرِّقُ
بَیۡنَ
اَحَدٍ
مِّنۡہُمۡ ۫
وَ نَحۡنُ
لَہٗ
مُسۡلِمُوۡنَ
﴿۸۴﴾ وَ مَنۡ یَّبۡتَغِ
غَیۡرَ
الۡاِسۡلَامِ
دِیۡنًا
فَلَنۡ یُّقۡبَلَ
مِنۡہُ ۚ وَ
ہُوَ فِی
الۡاٰخِرَۃِ
مِنَ
الۡخٰسِرِیۡنَ
﴿۸۵﴾ |
Last week I dealt with the words in
the Quran: “Surely the religion with Allah is Islam”, which occur at the start
of v. 19 of ch. 3. I explained that by “Islam” in these words is meant the act
of submitting to God, and that this teaching was the fundamental teaching of
previous religions as well. In the verses I have now recited, people often
highlight the words “And whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will not
be accepted from him”. When these words are taken out of context, and quoted on
their own, they can create the impression that Islam totally rejects all other
religions and dismisses them as untrue and useless. To correct this
misimpression I have also read the verses which occur immediately before these
words.
The first
verse I read, verse 83, tells people to look at the world around them and says
that everything follows the laws of God, either “willingly or unwillingly”.
This expression can have different interpretation which are equally valid. It
can be said that things in the world around us, like the sun, the moon, the
earth, animals, plants etc. follow the laws of God willingly. This is
because they have no ability to resist the laws of God and be unwilling. On the
other hand, human beings follow the laws of God unwillingly because they
have to overcome their own laxity and their own desires in order to act on
God’s teachings.
A
different interpretation is that it is humans who follow the laws of God willingly
because they do it out of their own choice, but things in nature follow the
laws of God unwillingly because they have no choice in the matter.
Whichever interpretation you prefer, the meaning is that there are laws of God
for the entire universe and creation which His creation must follow. The
concept of following the laws of God has not been invented by the religion of
Islam, or any other religion. Human beings can see it in operation in the
natural world around them.
Then the next verse, verse 84, defines
what Islam is in terms of its beliefs and it tells us what makes someone a
Muslim. After mentioning belief in God and in the sending of revelation to all
His prophets, Muslims are told to declare: “we make no distinction between any
of them, and to Him we submit.” The words “to Him we submit” occurring at the
end of this verse, show that it is the holding of these beliefs which makes us Muslims.
Before the Holy Prophet Muhammad appeared, prophets had appeared in various
nations of the world and revelation from God had come to these nations
separately and individually. Each nation believed only in its prophets and
scriptures, and considered itself as the favourite of God. Jews and Christians
considered the Israelite people as the ones specially chosen to have prophets
arising in it. Hindus considered God as having specially favoured the land of
India over other countries. Such views didn’t matter too much in the times when
different nations lived separately with little communication and dealings
between them.
However, the circumstances of the
world began to change. Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad writes:
“Each of the
books before the Quran was limited to one nation. … The books and the
messengers which came among them were only for their own nation and had nothing
to do with any other nation. But the Holy Quran which came after them all is an
international book, and is not for a particular people but for all the
nations. The Quran came for a group of beings who were going to become a single
nation gradually. So in the present age those resources have come into
existence which are making the various nations into one. Meeting one another,
which is the real basis of becoming one nation, has become so easy that
journeys which were many years in length now take only days. Such means of
communication have come into existence that news from a distant country which
could not take less than a year to arrive, now reaches in an instant. There is
a great revolution taking place at this time. Civilisation is moving in a
direction which clearly shows that God Almighty now intends to make all the
nations spread over the earth into one nation.” (Chashma-i Ma‘rifa, pp.
67–68)
Having come for all nations, the Holy
Prophet Muhammad taught that God had not favoured any one nation above other
nations by sending His guidance only to that particular nation. He required his
followers to believe in previous prophets equally, without distinction as to
which nation they belonged to. This teaching establishes the equality of all
nations, and belief in all their prophets is the basis of peace and mutual
respect between followers of different religions.
The notion that revelation from God
came only to your own nation, because it is the favourite and chosen one of
God, leads to belief in your nation’s superiority over others, and to prejudice
and bigotry against people of other religions and nations, and looking down
upon them. This is what Islam rejects. This is called “a religion other than
Islam” in the words, “And whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will
not be accepted from him” — a religion of not accepting the prophets of all the
nations. Today enlightened human beings all over the world are totally
rejecting the concept that any particular nation is a favoured one of God and
superior to all others. Such concepts are also not accepted by God. We can see
this from the fact that beliefs of this kind of national or racial superiority
bring out the worst qualities of prejudice and bigotry in human beings,
qualities which God does not accept in humans.
I have already mentioned the two
verses, 83 and 84, which occur before these words of verse 85: “And whoever
seeks a religion other than Islam, it will not be accepted from him”. If we go
further back to verses 81 and 82, they inform us that when God raised prophets
in different nations before the Holy Prophet Muhammad, then through these
prophets He made a covenant or agreement with their followers, or you can say He
made a promise to their followers. That agreement or promise was this:
“And when Allah
made a covenant (or took a promise) through the prophets: Certainly what I have
given you of Book and Wisdom — then a Messenger comes to you verifying what is
(already) with you, you shall believe in him, and you shall aid him.”
These nations were given God’s
teachings and guidance through revelation to their prophets, and wisdom was
bestowed upon them by this means. The prophets prophesied to their people that
sometime in the future a messenger would arise who would verify the truth of
their scriptures. In other words, he would confirm through his own revelation
that these earlier prophets and their scriptures had also come from God, and
were not false. Then it would be the duty of these followers of the earlier
prophets to believe in that prophet as well and help him in his mission.
Just as that messenger, the Holy
Prophet Muhammad, confirmed that their scriptures were from God, and just as he
mentioned their prophets in his Book, those scriptures contained a mention of
him by prophesying his coming and testifying to his truth and to his greatness.
So we find that Moses and Jesus and Buddha and ancient Hindu religious sages all
prophesied to their followers that a great man, a much greater man than these
prophets themselves, would appear in the future. The followers had been
informed long beforehand that such a great teacher would appear and history
shows that many of them had been looking forward to his coming.
The Holy Prophet Muhammad did not
bring a religion out of nothing and he did not say to people: The religions you
are following are false, and I have brought the true religion which is brand
new and you haven’t seen anything like it before; so forget completely what you
have been following up to now and accept this new religion. Instead of this, he
said that his revelation from God was a continuation of the revelation that had
come to their prophets, and it was a completion and perfection of what was
there before. The Quran says right at the beginning that Muslims have to “believe
in what has been revealed to you (O Prophet) and what was revealed before you”
(2:4). And one of the last revelations in terms of time contains those famous
words: “This day have I perfected for you your religion and completed My favour
to you and chosen for you Islam as a religion” (5:3).
To sum up, when the Quran says, “And
whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will not be accepted from him”,
it is not talking about the names of religions, or about people calling
themselves Jew, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim. It is talking about what
lies behind these names. “Islam” means to believe in the prophets of all
nations without distinction and to believe that Allah sent revelation to all of
them, and that no one nation, land or country is favoured by Allah over
another. The meaning of “a religion other than Islam” is the belief that God
selected a particular nation, race or land for His spiritual favours. That
belief by each nation about itself was understandable and acceptable before the
coming of the Holy Prophet. But with his coming, Allah gave humanity the
knowledge that He treats all nations equally, and anyone’s belief in the
superiority of his own nation became unacceptable.
May Allah enable all nations and
races of the world to accept these broad and cosmopolitan teachings of the
Quran — Ameen.
Website: www.aaiil.uk