RENAISSANCE SEPTEMBER 2020

Faith & Beliefs 28 Monthly Renaissance September 2020 between us and you: That we worship none but Allah; that we associate no partners with him; that we erect not, from among ourselves, Lords and patrons other than Allah.” If then they turn back, say you: “Bear witness that we [at least] are Muslims [bowing to Allah’s Will].” (3:64) From this, we know that worshipping one God, not ascribing associates to Him, not accepting a Lord other than God was common between the Muslims and People of the Book. Neither Jews nor Muslims denied any of these points. But they considered not accepting anyone as Lord other than God as merely not calling anyone else as Lord. For them it made no difference if others were included in the attributes and characteristics reserved for God. For example, framing of the shar ī ‘ah laws is one of God’s specific rights. It is not legitimate for anyone else to intervene in any way in this right. If any person does so, he is daring to share the Godly attributes of God. If we accept this as the right of someone else, although we many not call him Lord or God, in reality we are considering him to be sharing the power and Godliness of God. However, the Jews and Christians did not consider this association of others in God’s rights to be wrong. Hence, the Qur’ ā n indicted them both as committing this crime, in the sense that they considered their scholars to be the Lord other than God: They take their priests and their anchorites to be their lords in derogation of Allah, and [they take as their Lord] Christ the son of Mary; yet they were commanded to worship but One Allah. There is no god but He. Praise and glory to Him: [Far is He] from having the partners they associate [with Him]. (9:31) Related to this verse, a question of ‘Ad ī ibn Ḥā tim to the Prophet (sws) has been quoted in Ḥ ad ī th: he said to the Prophet that the Jews and Christians did not believe that their scholars and monks were their Lord. The Prophet (sws) asked: was it not true that they had declared things that were stated to be ḥ al ā l by God to be ḥ ar ā m and things that were stated as ḥ ar ā m by God to be ḥ al ā l ? ‘Ad ī replied that this was so. The Prophet (sws) said that this was akin to worshipping them. From this, it is evident that ‘Ad ī thought that unless a person is