Today’s excerpt from the Qur’an covers the period just before Muhammed fled Mecca, when he was preaching his stern new monotheism to increasingly cranky tribal relatives, the Quraysh:
Then verses 13-32 emphasize the oneness of Allah, and claim that “those to whom We have given the Book” – that is, the Jews and Christians – “know this” – that is, the truth of Muhammad’s message – “as they know their own sons” (v. 20). This is because, says Ibn Kathir, “they received good news from the previous Messengers and Prophets about the coming of Muhammad, his attributes, homeland, his migration, and the description of his Ummah.” That is, their unbelief in Islam is not a sincere rejection based on honest conviction, but sheer perversity: they “lie against their own souls” (v. 24).
And there is nothing worse than this. Nothing. Allah asks, “Who doth more wrong than he who inventeth a lie against Allah or rejecteth His signs?” (v. 21). “Signs,” once again, is ayat, the name used for the verses of the Qur’an. This verse emphasize that there can be no greater sin than shirk, the association of partners with Allah. The Tafsir al-Jalalayn asks, “And who, that is, none, does greater evil than he who invents a lie against God, by ascribing to Him an associate, or denies His signs?”
Christianity holds that blaspheming the Holy Spirit is unforgiveable. (See MT 12:31-32 and a commentary and meditation on that same passage.)
The ideas are cognate, but the worm in the apple (so to speak) is that Islam judges the Christian concept of the Trinity (“ascribing to Him an associate”) as just such a lie. No attempt at explanation seems to touch the Muslim assertion that Trinity turns Christians into polytheists.
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Previous posts:
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Sura 2, Part 1
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Sura 2, Part 2
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Sura 2, Part 3
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Sura 2, Part 4
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Sura 2, Part 5
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Sura 2, Part 6
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Sura 3, Part 1
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Sura 3, Part 2
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Sura 3, Part 3
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Sura 3, Part 4
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Sura 4, Part 1
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Sura 4, Part 2
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Sura 4, Part 3
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Sura 4, Part 4
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Sura 5, Part 1
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Sura 5, Part 2
