Question
Regarding the verse:
“Surely those who believe, those of Jewry, the Christians, and the Sabaeans—whoever has faith in Allah and the Last Day and works righteousness, their wage awaits them with their Lord; no fear shall be upon them, nor shall they sorrow” (Qur’an 2:62),
Tabari says that God does not abrogate a promise, though He may abrogate a particular religious usage. Is there a contradiction between Nawawi’s saying in the Rawda:
Someone who does not believe that whoever follows another religion besides Islam [today] is an unbeliever (such as Christians), or doubts that such a person is an unbeliever, or considers their sect to be valid, is himself an unbeliever (kafir) even if he manifests Islam and believes in it (Rawda al-talibin, 10.70),
and what Tabari says on this verse?
Response
The significance of the above verse and indeed wider context of this question is the universality of Islam. One cannot understand what it means, and does not mean, without reflecting for a moment on the exaggerated parochialism that Islam corrected when it came, expressed by Allah in Sura al-Baqara with the words
“And they say: ‘No one shall enter paradise but Jews or Christians’—such are their fancies. Say: ‘Produce your proof if you are telling the truth.’ Nay, but whoever submits his will to God, being a good-doer, his wage shall be with his Lord, and no fear shall be upon them, nor shall they grieve. The Jews say, ‘The Christians are based on nothing,’ and the Christians say, ‘The Jews are based on nothing,’ yet they recite the Book. And those who do not know say the like of what they say. God shall decide between them on Judgement Day regarding what they used to differ about” (Qur’an 2:111–13).
The Jews said, ‘The Christians are based on nothing,’ because for the Jews salvation entailed being racially Jewish, and they did not acknowledge Jesus (upon whom be peace) as a prophet. The Christians said ‘The Jews are based on nothing,’ because Judaism originated long before the “Great Redemption” of mankind by Jesus Christ (upon whom be peace) that rendered their heritage irrelevant and they could have no historical share in. The point of the verse
“Surely those who believe, those of Jewry, the Christians, and the Sabaeans—whoever has faith in Allah and the Last Day and works righteousness, their wage awaits them with their Lord; no fear shall be upon them, nor shall they sorrow” (Qur’an 2:62)
is that the message of Islam, as “submission” to God, is not exclusive but rather universal, for all men and for all time. Its followers were commanded to say:
“We believe in God and in that which He has sent to us, and to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and which was given to Moses, Jesus, and the prophets by their Lord: we make no distinction between any of them, and to Him we surrender” (Qur’an 2:136).
Islam was a universal message addressed to all peoples of the world, affirming that all previous peoples who believed in the messenger of their time were also saved, and that none was disadvantaged by being born before the times of the prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace). Rather, all who had followed Allah’s revealed religion in their times “shall have their reward with their Lord”; and “no fear shall be upon them” for having missed out on salvation because of not being racially Jewish or because of being born prior to Christ’s “redemption” of subsequent Christian mankind; and “nor shall they grieve,” because Allah does not send those of faith and works to hell for not belonging to a group physically impossible to belong to.
In the First Question above, we identified three types of religious truth:
(1) the truth of believing in the oneness of God and eternal verities of faith, a truth which pertains to the mind;
(2) the truth of working righteousness by submitting to the rules of God revealed by His messenger, the prophet of one’s time, which pertains to the body; and
(3) the truth of being, the consciousness of closeness to the Divine, that results from sincerity in practicing the previous two kinds of truth, and which pertains to the inmost soul.
Now, the present question deals with abrogation (naskh), which, if we think about it for a few moments, can only concern the second of these types of truth, as Tabari observes in his commentary on the verse
“Whatever verse We abrogate or make forgotten, We bring a verse superior or equal to it: Do you not know that Allah has power over everything?” (Qur’an 2:106)
of which he explains:
That is to say, He makes the permissible impermissible, the impermissible permissible, the lawful unlawful, or the unlawful lawful—which only applies to commands or prohibitions, interdictions or lifting interdictions, forbidding things or making them permissible. As for descriptions (akhbar), nothing can abrogate or be abrogated by them (Tabari, 1.475).
Tabari rightly observes that descriptions are inabrogable because a description of something, in Arabic khabar, literally “report,” can only be true or false, so intrinsically precludes abrogation. As for promises, Tabari does not mention them in the above passage about abrogation, though he apparently sees no objection to their being abrogated, since he ascribes such an opinion to Ibn ‘Abbas regarding the very verse we are examining (Qur’an 2:62), relating through his chain of transmission that
Ibn ‘Abbas reports that the verse “Surely those who believe, those of Jewry, the Christians, and the Sabaeans—whoever has faith in Allah and the Last Day, and works righteousness, their wage awaits them with their Lord; no fear shall be upon them and neither shall they sorrow” (Qur’an 2:62), was followed by Allah’s revealing “Whoever seeks other than Islam as a religion shall never have it accepted of him, and he shall be of those who have truly failed in the next life” (Qur’an 3:85)—this report [of Ibn ‘Abbas] indicating that Allah (Exalted be His praise) had promised whoever did righteous deeds of the Jews, Christians, and Sabaeans that they would attain to paradise in the next world for their works, but then abrogated this (thumma nasakha dhalika) by saying, “Whoever seeks other than Islam as a religion shall never have it accepted of him”(Qur’an 3:85) (Tabari, 1.323).
Tabari however does not seem to believe that the promise had been abrogated, as Ibn ‘Abbas thought, but rather that the correct understanding of the verse “Surely those who believe . . .” (Qur’an 2:62) is conditioned upon two other reports, one conveyed by Suddi (d. 127/745) and the other by Mujahid (d. 104/722), to each of which we now turn.
The Suddi Hadith
Suddi relates the lengthy story of Salman the Persian’s coming to Islam, telling of his conversion first to Christianity from Zoroastrianism after meeting a Christian monk, and how he travelled to one sage after the next, serving each until their death, until the last one told him that a prophet was about to appear, saying: “I do not think that I shall live to see him, but you are a young man, and are likely to live to see him. He will come forth in the land of the Arabs. The account continues to when at last Salman meets the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) in Medina, and
while he was talking with him, Salman remembered his former companions, and told the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) how they had been, saying, “They used to fast, pray, and believe in you, and they testified that you would be sent as a prophet.” When Salman had finished praising them, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) told him, “Salman, they are of the denizens of hell.” And that distressed Salman greatly, for he had said to him, “Had they met you they would have believed and followed you.” So Allah revealed this verse: “‘Surely those who believe, those of Jewry, the Christians, and the Sabaeans—whoever has faith in Allah and the Last Day . . .” (Tabari, 1.323).
The Mujahid Hadith
The second hadith is from Mujahid, also about the conversion of Salman to Islam and the subsequent revealing of the verse “Surely those who believe . . .” In this account:
Salman told the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) about those Christians and what he had seen of their works, and he replied, “They did not die upon Islam.” Salman said, “The whole earth darkened around me,” and he recounted their spiritual rigors. Then this verse was revealed, so the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) summoned Salman and told him, “This verse has been revealed about your companions.” Then he added, “Whoever dies upon the religion of Jesus and in submission [lit. “upon Islam”] before he hears of me is in goodly state. But whoever hears of me today and does not believe in me has perished” (Tabari, 1.323).
Tabari comments:
Therefore, the correct interpretation (ta’wil) of the verse is what we have just mentioned from Mujahid and Suddi; that those who believe of this Umma, and those who were Jews, and the Christians, and Sabaeans: whoever believed—of the Jews, Christians, and Sabaeans—in God and the Last Day, “their wage awaits them with their Lord; no fear shall be upon them, nor shall they sorrow.” The interpretation we first mentioned [in his Qur’anic exegesis a few pages earlier, that “whoever believes in and acknowledges the Resurrection after death on Judgement Day, and does good deeds, obeying God, shall have their reward with their Lord”] is closest to the literal content of the text, for Allah (exalted is His praise) has not chosen one segment of humanity above the rest in rewarding good works when they are accompanied by true faith (Tabari, 1.320, 323–24).
Abrogation and Promise
For Tabari, it is not Allah’s promises but rather His akhbar or “descriptions” that are in principle inabrogable; for example, descriptions of the divine attributes, paradise, hell, the lives of the prophets, the fate of previous peoples, and so forth, none of which are subject to abrogation because they merely describe what is, and to change such information in any way would not “abrogate” it, but falsify it.
But even if Tabari does not say that Allah’s promises are inabrogable—indeed, as we have seen above he believes that “Ibn ‘Abbas was of the opinion that Allah (exalted be His praise) first promised whoever did righteous deeds of the Jews, Christians, and Sabaeans that they would attain to paradise in the next world for their works, but then abrogated this by saying, ‘Whoever seeks other than Islam as a religion shall never have it accepted of him’” (Tabari, 1.323)—it is nevertheless certainly true that Allah does not break promises, for He says:
“Allah does not break His promise, but most people know not” (Qur’an 30:6),
and says,
“Verily, the promise of Allah is true, yet most of them know not” (Qur’an 10:55).
However Allah’s keeping His promises is not contradicted by the position reported from Ibn ‘Abbas that the promise itself contained in the verse “Surely those who believe . . .” (Qur’an 2:62) was subsequently abrogated. For reflection shows that there are two kinds of promises: “unconditional” and “conditional.”
An example of an unconditional promise is promising one’s son a gift. Here, if no conditions exist, not to give him the gift would amount to breaking one’s promise.
An example of a conditional promise is offering one’s son a few dollars to do some grocery shopping. In such a case, if one had to get the groceries oneself because the son didn’t have time, the offer would obviously no longer stand. It would be abrogated by the mere fact that it was not taken advantage of, and this would not be a “broken promise.” The promise would only be broken by letting one’s son do the shopping, then not giving him the money. It seems plain that such a conditional promise is an “offer” that as such may be rescinded or changed at any time before the recipient avails himself of it without this breaking the promise.
Religious practices take the form of conditional promises from God to man. To attain God’s favor, mercy, or love, man is told that he must do something. The wisdom in this is that the aim of religion is to bind the heart of man to God, and people naturally exalt whatever their will is directed to. For this reason no prophet has ever confined himself to high-flown words or sentiments, but rather all taught mankind spiritual works, such as prayer, fasting, helping the oppressed, and so forth. Preaching may be forgotten, but not one’s own hopes and works. When, for example, Abraham (upon whom be blessings and peace) asked God to extend His covenant unconditionally to all his descendants, he was told, “Verily, My covenant does not extend to wrongdoers” (Qur’an 2:124). That is, in order to “work” on them, the covenant had to be specifically religious, that is, based upon performance.
This conditionality of religious covenants is why God’s abrogation of one religion with another does not break His promise to followers of the first. If we reflect for a moment upon this as a historical process, we find that first, most of those to whom the initial conditional promise was made are different people from those to whom the subsequent one is made; and second, those living between the two religions in time or place have either the capacity to accept the new message if they hear of it, or the favor of a divine amnesty if they do not, as previously remarked. Abrogation, then, entails three things:
(1) that Allah has made and kept His promise to a previous people, as in the verse “Surely those who believe, those of Jewry, the Christians, and the Sabaeans—whoever has faith in Allah and the Last Day, and works righteousness, their wage awaits them with their Lord; no fear shall be upon them, and neither shall they sorrow” (Qur’an 2:62);
(2) that this entails, when taken with Allah’s word “We do not punish until We send a messenger” (Qur’an 17:15), that Allah continues to keep His ancient promise to those unreached by the new covenant until they are able to hear and understand it;
(3) and that a new faith has been given to subsequent peoples that more than fulfills the promise of the first one, as Allah says of abrogation in a more particular, though relevant, context: “Whatever verse We abrogate or make forgotten, We bring a verse superior or equal to it: Do you not know that Allah has power over everything?” (Qur’an 2:106).
The Old and New Testament
That God’s promise is fulfilled rather than broken by abrogation is familiar to Christians, who universally acknowledge that the promise of the Old Testament has now been abrogated, or in their words “fulfilled” by the promise of the New Testament. Jesus (upon whom be peace) is reported to have said therein,
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Matthew 5:17–18);
meaning that if men follow the new covenant, they shall have everything they were promised for following the previous law and more. Far from denying this, Muslims raise it to a universal principle, affirming that to adhere to the true religion of one’s time means to follow the precept and example of the messenger sent to it. For Muslims, the words of Jesus Christ (upon whom be peace)
“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6),
could have been said by any prophet whatsoever—understanding “Father” according to the ancient Semitic idiom to signify not one’s immediate male ancestor, but rather the fatherly concern of God for the faithful, as Christ himself (upon whom be peace) used the word when he taught men to pray: “Our Father which art in heaven . . .” (Matthew 6:9). That is, Jesus’ words (upon him be peace)
“No man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6)
were no less inexorable, categorical, and absolute for everyone reached by his message in those times than the words of the prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace) are for everyone reached by his message in ours:
By Him in whose hand is the soul of Muhammad, no one of this Community, or any Jew or any Christian shall hear of me and then die without believing in what I have been sent with, except that he shall be of the inhabitants of hell (Muslim, 1.134: 153. S).
Keeping the Faith
Being a “believer” in any time thus means following the prophet of that time. In our own time, it means believing in the prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace), to deny which is to deny the word of Allah in the Qur’an
“We have not sent you [O Muhammad] except to all people entirely (kaffatan li n-nas), as a bearer of good tidings and a warner, yet most men know not” (Qur’an 34:28),
in which the phrase kaffatan li n-nas has no other lexical sense than “to all people entirely,” which is why after the advent of Islam the words “whoever has faith in Allah and the Last Day and works righteousness” (Qur’an 2:62) can only refer to previous ages of followers of their own prophets, and in our times to the followers of the prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace) now that he has been sent to the entire world with Islam. In consequence of this unambiguous proof that Islam is addressed to all people without exception, Nawawi says,
someone who does not believe that whoever follows another religion besides Islam [today] is an unbeliever (such as Christians), or doubts that such a person is an unbeliever, or considers their sect to be valid, is himself an unbeliever (kafir) even if he manifests Islam and believes in it (Rawda al-talibin, 10.70).
The other four schools of Sunni jurisprudence, whose main legal works we have cited above in the Letter to ‘Abd al-Matin, unanimously concur with Nawawi on this, and that to deny it is to deny the Qur’an. As Ibn Kathir explains about the “faith” of the Jews and Christians in the verse “Surely those who believe, those of Jewry, the Christians, and the Sabaeans—whoever has faith in Allah and the Last Day and works righteousness . . .” (Qur’an 2:62):
The faith of the Jews was that of whoever adhered to the Torah and the sunna of Moses (upon whom be peace) until the coming of Jesus. When Jesus came, whoever held fast to the Torah and the sunna of Moses without giving them up and following Jesus was lost.
The faith of the Christians was that whoever adhered to the Evangel and precepts of Jesus, their faith was valid and acceptable until the coming of Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace). Those of them who did not then follow Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace) and give up the sunna of Jesus and the Evangel were lost.
The foregoing is not contradicted by the hadith relating that the verse “Surely those who believe, those of Jewry, the Christians, and the Sabaeans—whoever has faith in Allah and the Last Day . . .” (Qur’an 2:62), was followed by Allah’s revealing: “Whoever seeks other than Islam as a religion shall never have it accepted of him, and he shall be of those who have truly failed in the next life” (Qur’an 3:85), for the hadith merely confirms that no one’s way or spiritual works are acceptable unless they conform to the Sacred Law of Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace) now that he has been sent with it. As for people prior to this, anyone who followed the messenger of his own time was guided, on the right path, and was saved (Tafsir al-Qur’an al-‘Adhim, 1.283).
This is Islam’s universalism, and its particularism. While Islam is universalist in acknowledging the truth of faiths of other times and places, it is also particularist in its understanding that faith today is a conditional promise from God, in effect a new “offer” that one accepts by becoming Muslim. Its very conditionality, which is to say its specifically religious character, means that it is based on what a man does, not what a man is, meaning that it must apply equally to all people on the face of the earth regardless of race, creed, or circumstance. There is no disagreement among traditional scholars about this, or any discoverable contradiction between Tabari’s treatment of the verse and the words of Imam Nawawi.
A Conflict of Interpretations
The foregoing having been said, most of us know Muslims who, to paraphrase Nawawi, “do not believe that whoever follows another religion besides Islam is an unbeliever (such as Christians), or doubt that such a person is an unbeliever.” Indeed, writings of many Western Muslims other than those mentioned in the Letter to ‘Abd al-Matin seem to suggest this, such as the late Austrian convert to Islam Muhammad Asad, who in a footnote of his translation of the Qur’an comments upon the verse “Whoever has faith in Allah and the Last Day and works righteousness, their wage awaits them with their Lord; no fear shall be upon them, nor shall they sorrow” (Qur’an 2:62) as follows:
The above passage—which recurs in the Qur’an several times—lays down a fundamental doctrine of Islam. With a breadth of vision unparalleled in any other religious faith, the idea of “salvation” is here made conditional upon three elements only: belief in God, belief in the Day of Judgement, and righteous action in life. The statement of this doctrine at this juncture—that is, in the midst of an appeal to the children of Israel—is warranted by the false Jewish belief that their descent from Abraham entitles them to be regarded as “God’s chosen people” (The Message of the Qur’an, 14).
There are a few inaccuracies in this note, none of them as critical for our discussion as the profound conflict between what we have just characterized as Islamic orthodoxy and Muhammad Asad’s main point here—that any faith conventionally regarded to possess these “three elements” is acceptable to God. The legal position stated by Imam Nawawi and the other schools of fiqh seems to entail grave consequences for those who construe this Qur’anic verse as Asad and perhaps many other Muslims today do.
To these consequences my essay Iman, Kufr, and Takfir addresses itself.
MMVII © N. Keller
