AHL AL-KITÂB - أهل الكتاب

 

Literally: Ahl is a man's family. A household. A kindred. Friends. People. A nation. A man's family and descendants.  A wife. The people of a place, condition, profession, religion or quality. A person or thing closely related to some particular thing mentioned.

Literally: Kitâb is a book. A letter. An epistle. A writing. The Sacred Scriptures. The Qur'an.

Ahl Al-Kitâb is a believer in the revealed books, as distinguished from pagans. The people of the book. The people who believe in the books sent by Allah (‘Azza wa jalla). Muslims, Jews and Christians. (The people who still believe in real and true Christianity and Judaism.)

 

1 وَمَا اُنْزِلَ مِنْ قَبْلِكَ : Know that the descriptions2 like these contain encouragement, and encouragement contains constructive decrees, such as "Believe in such-and-such… Make no distinction…"

The positioning of the phrase and its relations with the other phrases comprise four subtle points:

Firstly: To refer the deduction to the evidence. It is as follows:

"O man! If you believe in the Qur'an, you should also believe in the previous books, as the Qur'an affirms their veracity and testifies to them." The evidence of this deduction is the âyah مُصَدِّقًا لِمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ3

Secondly: To refer the evidence to the deduction. It is as follows:

“O Ahl al-Kitâb! If you believe in the former prophets and previous books, you should also believe in the Qur'an and Muhammad ‘Alayhissalâm because the former prophets and their books gave the good tidings of his (asm) coming. Moreover, the affirmation of the former prophets and their books and the evidences of their nubuwwah are to be found more perfectly in the Qur'an with their haqiqah and rûh and more clearly in Muhammad ‘Alayhissalâm. Thus, according to this excellent reasoning, the Qur'an is the Kalâm of Allâh, and Muhammad ‘Alayhissalâtu Wassalâm is His Rasûl.”

Thirdly: In it, there is an indication that the possession of the Qur'an — that is, Islam that emerged from it in the Era of Bliss — is a tree, the origin of which is rooted in the depths of the past. Its spreading roots get water from the sources of its life and strength. And the branches of that tree spread out in the skies of the future and spread their fruitful branches. That is to say, Islam embraces the past and the future.

Fourthly: In it, there is an indication of urging ahl al-Kitâb to îmân, making it familiar to them and facilitating their embracing îmân. It is as though it says, “O Ahl al-Kitâb! There should not be any difficulty in entering this path because you are not casting away your shell entirely but only completing your beliefs and building on the beliefs established in you.” Because the Qur'an equalises and perfects the fundamentals and aqâid, it combines within itself the virtues of all the previous books and the principles of previous Sharî’ahs. It only establishes new decrees in secondary matters, which are subject to change due to differences in time and place. Because just as the ways of medical treatments and dresses change in four seasons, and the manners of training and tarbiyyah change according to the stages of life of a person, in the same way, hikmah and benefit necessitate that the laws concerning secondary matters change according to the stages of life of mankind. Because many of these secondary matters were once beneficial and were effective medicines in the infancy of mankind, and they eventually ceased to be beneficial. They are not medicines during its youth. Because of this mystery, the Qur'an repealed some previous secondary matters. That is to say, it decreed that their time had finished and that the turn had come for other decrees.

Signs of Miraculousness-108-109