Long Study
Believer (Mu'min) or Muslim?
Returning from Religious Identity to the Truth of Faith in the Qur’an
2026-07-09
Introduction
In contemporary juristic and sectarian Islam, perhaps few concepts have been taken as far away from their Qur’anic station as the concepts of “Believer (Mu'min)” and “Muslim.” In the Qur’an, these two words carry a particular spiritual, ethical, and existential weight. But through the path of history and distortion, they gradually became signs of identity, sect, politics, and law, and were exploited. As a result, today human beings have labeled one another not on the basis of faith, truthfulness, righteous action, taqwā, pure intention, and real orientation toward The-God, but on the basis of name, group, madhhab, fiqh, religious ID, or belonging to a historical order.
The Qur’an does not express its logic through these labels. Instead, the Qur’an asks the human being: What truth do you believe in? Before which object of worship have you bowed? Do you believe in the Last Day? Do you perform righteous action? Are truthfulness, justice, mercy, taqwā, and responsibility alive in your heart?
Faith in the Qur’an is not merely a surface-level concept. Faith is an existential state in the human heart that must become visible in one’s actions, behavior, and speech. For this reason, the Qur’an distinguishes between someone who has only outwardly submitted under pressure and someone into whose heart faith has entered.
Generations after the death of the Prophet removed the word “Believer (Mu'min)” from the first community of the Prophet and, in order to distort the concepts of the religion, replaced it with the word “Muslim.” They then made this counterfeit identity of “Muslim” so prominent that they even claimed this name itself was sufficient for the salvation of a human being. In contrast, the word “Believer (Mu'min),” which has a deeper place in the Qur’an, was placed under the shadow of the official and social identity of “Muslim.” But the Qur’an distinguishes between faith and submission. The Qur’an says that a group said, “We have believed”; they were told: You have not believed. Rather say, “We have submitted,” because faith has not yet entered your hearts. This verbal distinction and correction made by the Qur’an is not small. This difference forms the foundation and basis of the Qur’anic understanding of religion.
The Prophet founded the first community of Believers (Mu'minun) in Yathrib; a city that, in the horizon of this new experience, became Madinah: not merely a geographical place, but the place where a new order was formed on the basis of faith, covenant, security, and shared responsibility. Like every human society, this society needed order, law, covenant, and civic boundaries to administer public life. The Qur’an also does not want social life to be structureless and without responsibility.
But later problems began where, in later generations, these legal and political boundaries gradually took the place of the truth of faith and became the criterion of otherworldly salvation and of human value before The-God. Entering a social order, or accepting a civic covenant, is one truth; inner faith, truthfulness, righteous action, and living taqwā are another truth. The Qur’an does not allow us to make these two identical. Civic submission can bring a person into the society of the Believers (Mu'minun), but becoming a Believer (Mu'min) has meaning when faith enters the heart and becomes visible in human conduct as justice, fidelity, good, and avoidance of wrongdoing.
The main question of this study is exactly this: Does the Qur’an define religion from the beginning as a closed, sectarian, and exclusive identity, or is its criterion faith in God, faith in the Last Day, and righteous action? Is “Muslim” in the Qur’an the same historical and political label that later took shape, or is it the description of someone who, in the Abrahamic path, willingly and truthfully submits himself to the Lord of the worlds? Is “Believer (Mu'min)” in the Qur’an only the name of the official followers of Muhammad, or is it a wider truth that can include every monotheistic, truth-seeking, and righteous human being?
In the verses of salvation, the Qur’an places several groups with known religious names beside one another: those who believed, the Jews, the Christians, and the Sabians. In later history, these names became hard religious borders; sometimes each group considered itself the people of salvation and imagined others outside the mercy of God. But after mentioning these names, the Qur’an does not hand the criterion over to the names themselves. It says: whoever believes in The-God and the Last Day and performs righteous action, their reward is with their Lord; no fear shall be upon them, nor shall they grieve.
The precise point is here: in these verses, even the expression “those who believed” is mentioned as a known group alongside the Jews, Christians, and Sabians. Therefore this name too, if it is only a social identity or verbal claim, is not sufficient. After the names, the Qur’an states the criterion again: real faith in The-God, belief in the Last Day, and righteous action. Therefore even those who consider themselves followers of Muhammad are not saved by their name; they too must be faithful to the truth of faith and righteous action.
This statement does not mean that the mission of Muhammad or the Qur’an is unimportant. On the contrary, it is the Qur’an itself that makes the criterion of truth-seeking more serious. If someone recognizes the truth and rejects it out of stubborn hostility, arrogance, self-interest, or enmity, his problem is not merely that he has not joined a group; his problem is corruption in truthfulness and faith. But this is different from excluding human beings from the mercy and justice of God merely because of name, family inheritance, ethnicity, or being outside a religious ID. The Qur’an distinguishes between hostility toward the truth and ignorance, distance, historical conditions, or the incomplete sincerity of human beings.
One of the important signs of this distortion is the fate of the Sabians in Muslim religious memory. The Qur’an mentions them several times. Therefore, for the first audience of the Qur’an, this name must have been understandable. If such a group had been completely unknown to them, mentioning it alongside the Jews and Christians, without additional explanation, would have had no meaning. But in later history, their identity became so dark and erased that the very systems that claimed their narration, opinion, and fiqh explained the Qur’an could not even preserve the clear place of one of the groups whom the Qur’an named several times. This is not a small historical issue; it is a sign that later religious understanding was not always the clarifier of the Qur’an, but sometimes narrowed the horizon of the Qur’an.
On the other hand, the Qur’an does not consider Abraham to have been Jewish or Christian; rather, it calls him ḥanīf and muslim. This means that being muslim, before being the name of a historical community, is a monotheistic and existential orientation. Abraham submitted to the Lord of the worlds; not to a tribe, institution, monarchy, madhhab, or later fabricated reports. Therefore, any understanding of “Muslim” that forgets this Abrahamic root and turns it into a tool of separation, takfīr, discrimination, taxation, domination, or ethnic superiority has moved away from the spirit of the Qur’an.
In this study, our concern is not to discard the word “Muslim” or negate it. Our focus is to return this word to its Qur’anic station. Being muslim in the Qur’an must serve faith, not replace faith. Submission must lead the human being to truthfulness, taqwā, justice, and righteous action, not become a covering for religious pride, exclusivism, or feeling no need for self-reform.
The aim of this study is a return to a simple but foundational question: In the view of the Qur’an, who is the saved human being? Is it someone who has merely placed the name “Muslim” upon himself, or someone who believes in God and the Last Day, performs righteous action, is submitted before the Lord of the worlds, and races ahead of others in goodness?
The Qur’anic Criterion of Salvation: Faith in The-God, the Hereafter, and Righteous Action
One of the clearest principles of the Qur’an is that it does not bind human salvation to religious names, ethnicity, family inheritance, or attachment to a religious apparatus. The Qur’an repeatedly returns the criterion to three foundational principles: faith in The-God, faith in the Last Day, and righteous action.
In this writing, when we speak of faith in The-God, we do not mean a vague belief in any kind of heavenly force, deity, or sacred thing. What is meant is the same Qur’anic tawḥīd: faith in the object of worship who is the Lord, Owner, Judge, and final refuge of the human being; the object of worship beside whom no partner, equal, independent intermediary, or parallel power has any place in servitude. Therefore faith in the Qur’an is not faith in just any “god”; it is faith in The-God.
Faith in The-God frees the human being from servitude to anything other than Him. Faith in the Last Day removes human life from irresponsibility and awakens the human being before truth, justice, and the outcome of his actions. Righteous action also shows that faith is not merely a claim. Faith must become visible in human behavior: in justice, mercy, honesty, fidelity, giving, reform, and goodwill.
The Qur’an states this criterion so clearly that it cannot be ignored:
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَالَّذِينَ هَادُوا وَالنَّصَارَىٰ وَالصَّابِئِينَ مَنْ آمَنَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ وَعَمِلَ صَالِحًا فَلَهُمْ أَجْرُهُمْ عِندَ رَبِّهِمْ وَلَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ
Indeed, those who believed, and those who became Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians; whoever believed in The-God and the Last Day and performed righteous action, their reward is with their Lord; no fear shall be upon them, nor shall they grieve.
In this verse, the Qur’an mentions several groups together: those who believed, the Jews, the Christians, and the Sabians. Then it does not return the criterion of salvation to the names of the groups, but says: whoever believed in The-God and the Last Day and performed righteous action, his reward is with his Lord. This structure is very important. The Qur’an first mentions the names, but does not entrust salvation to the names. It entrusts salvation to a truth that must be realized within the human being and in his action.
The more precise point is that even “those who believed” is mentioned at the beginning of the verse as a group alongside the other groups. This means that even those who considered themselves among the Believers (Mu'minun) who followed Muhammad are not saved merely by name and outward belonging. They too must return to the same criterion: faith in The-God, faith in the Last Day, and righteous action. Therefore the verse is not only about the Jews, Christians, and Sabians; it is about everyone. Even the name “Believer (Mu'min),” if it is emptied of the truth of faith, is not sufficient.
The same principle is repeated in Sūrat al-Mā’idah:
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَالَّذِينَ هَادُوا وَالصَّابِئُونَ وَالنَّصَارَىٰ مَنْ آمَنَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ وَعَمِلَ صَالِحًا فَلَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ
Indeed, those who believed, and those who became Jews, and the Sabians, and the Christians; whoever believed in The-God and the Last Day and performed righteous action, no fear shall be upon them, nor shall they grieve.
The repetition of this meaning shows that we are not facing a passing sentence. This is a Qur’anic principle. If the Qur’an had said this only once, perhaps someone would attempt to portray it as limited, temporary, or exceptional. But the Qur’an repeats this logic and places it alongside dozens of other verses that make faith and righteous action the criterion of reward and salvation.
In Sūrat al-Ḥajj, the Qur’an mentions different religious groups together and leaves final judgment to The-God Himself:
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَالَّذِينَ هَادُوا وَالصَّابِئِينَ وَالنَّصَارَىٰ وَالْمَجُوسَ وَالَّذِينَ أَشْرَكُوا إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَفْصِلُ بَيْنَهُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ شَهِيدٌ
Indeed, those who believed, and those who became Jews, and the Sabians, and the Christians, and the Magians, and those who associated partners, The-God will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection; indeed He is witness over all things.
This verse reveals another important point: final judgment belongs to the same The-God who is witness over all things. Human beings, jurists, states, sects, and historians have no right to sit in His place and determine the final boundary of salvation and destruction with their own labels. The Qur’an says He will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection. Therefore the duty of the human being is not final judgment over hearts; his duty is recognition of truth, righteous action, justice, truthfulness, and calling to good.
The Qur’an even breaks the religious pride of both sides. Neither the followers of Muhammad can consider mere affiliation to be a guarantee of salvation, nor can the People of the Book rely upon their name, history, and inheritance:
لَّيْسَ بِأَمَانِيِّكُمْ وَلَا أَمَانِيِّ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ ۗ مَن يَعْمَلْ سُوءًا يُجْزَ بِهِ وَلَا يَجِدْ لَهُ مِن دُونِ اللَّهِ وَلِيًّا وَلَا نَصِيرًا
It is not according to your wishes, nor according to the wishes of the People of the Book. Whoever does evil will be repaid for it, and apart from The-God he will find for himself no guardian and no helper.
This verse cuts religion based on wishes and labels from the root. Salvation is neither according to the wishes of “us” nor the wishes of “them.” No group has the right to place its name in the position of truth. Immediately after this, the Qur’an states the criterion:
وَمَنْ يَعْمَلْ مِنَ الصَّالِحَاتِ مِن ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنثَىٰ وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَأُولَـٰئِكَ يَدْخُلُونَ الْجَنَّةَ وَلَا يُظْلَمُونَ نَقِيرًا
And whoever performs righteous deeds, male or female, while being a Believer (Mu'min), those will enter the Garden, and they will not be wronged even by the smallest speck.
These two verses together show a very just principle. First, the Qur’an negates the illusion of sectarian superiority: neither your wishes, nor the wishes of the People of the Book. Then it clarifies the path: righteous action together with faith. Here, gender, tribe, ethnicity, class, and social name are not the principle. The criterion is righteous action together with faith. The Qur’an even emphasizes that no one will be wronged by the slightest thing. This means that the divine system is founded upon justice, not group prejudice.
Here the meaning of “while being a Believer (Mu'min)” must be understood carefully. If we reduce “Believer (Mu'min)” in these verses to an administrative, sectarian, or ID-card title, the verses of Al-Baqarah 2:62 and Al-Mā’idah 5:69 become meaningless or contradictory; because in those verses, the Qur’an places the Jews, Christians, and Sabians also under the criterion of faith in The-God, the Last Day, and righteous action. Therefore “Believer (Mu'min)” in such a context, before being the name of a legal class, is the description of a human being in whose heart faith is alive; a human being who has turned toward truth, accountability, justice, and his Lord. “While he is a Believer (Mu'min)” means that his righteous action has arisen from within faith, not merely that he has been registered within a religious border.
The Qur’an states the same criterion in Sūrat al-Naḥl with the expression of a good and pure life:
مَنْ عَمِلَ صَالِحًا مِّن ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنثَىٰ وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَلَنُحْيِيَنَّهُ حَيَاةً طَيِّبَةً وَلَنَجْزِيَنَّهُمْ أَجْرَهُم بِأَحْسَنِ مَا كَانُوا يَعْمَلُونَ
Whoever performs righteous action, male or female, while being a Believer (Mu'min), We shall surely make him live a good and pure life, and We shall surely reward them according to the best of what they used to do.
Here, faith and righteous action do not relate only to the Hereafter; their result appears in this life as well. True faith must make life purer, more humane, more responsible, and brighter. If a religious name draws a person toward pride, takfīr, humiliation of others, oppression, fanaticism, and irresponsibility, then whatever that name may be, it is far from the Qur’anic ḥayāh ṭayyibah.
In Sūrat Ṭā-Hā, the same principle appears:
وَمَن يَعْمَلْ مِنَ الصَّالِحَاتِ وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَلَا يَخَافُ ظُلْمًا وَلَا هَضْمًا
And whoever performs righteous deeds while being a Believer (Mu'min), he will fear neither injustice nor deprivation of his right.
Again the criterion is the same: righteous action together with faith. God does not waste the right of the human being. If someone, to the extent of his capacity, has moved toward The-God, good, justice, and truthfulness, his judgment is in the hand of his Lord, not in the hand of religious apparatuses.
In Sūrat al-Anbiyā’ we also read:
فَمَن يَعْمَلْ مِنَ الصَّالِحَاتِ وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَلَا كُفْرَانَ لِسَعْيِهِ وَإِنَّا لَهُ كَاتِبُونَ
So whoever performs righteous deeds while being a Believer (Mu'min), there is no denial or ingratitude toward his striving; and We are writing it for him.
This verse is very subtle. God says that the righteous striving of the human being is not lost. This differs from the sectarian gaze. A sectarian gaze may ignore all the good of a human being because he is outside its religious border, but the Qur’an says righteous striving is preserved with The-God.
The same principle is repeated in Sūrat Ghāfir:
مَنْ عَمِلَ سَيِّئَةً فَلَا يُجْزَىٰ إِلَّا مِثْلَهَا وَمَنْ عَمِلَ صَالِحًا مِّن ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنثَىٰ وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَأُولَـٰئِكَ يَدْخُلُونَ الْجَنَّةَ يُرْزَقُونَ فِيهَا بِغَيْرِ حِسَابٍ
Whoever does evil will not be repaid except with its like; and whoever performs righteous action, male or female, while being a Believer (Mu'min), those will enter the Garden, and they will be provided therein without measure.
These verses together form a clear picture. The Qur’an does not define salvation through an ethnic, religious, or sectarian formula. Its criterion is faith and righteous action. Faith without righteous action is nothing but a claim. Action without orientation toward truth may remain separated from its deep root. But when faith in The-God, awareness of the Hereafter, and righteous action come together, the human being enters the path of salvation and mercy.
Even regarding the People of the Book, the Qur’an does not have a one-dimensional and labeling gaze. It does not judge them all with one collective ruling:
لَيْسُوا سَوَاءً ۗ مِّنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ أُمَّةٌ قَائِمَةٌ يَتْلُونَ آيَاتِ اللَّهِ آنَاءَ اللَّيْلِ وَهُمْ يَسْجُدُونَ
They are not all the same; among the People of the Book is an upright and standing community who recite the signs of The-God during the hours of the night, and they prostrate.
And then it says:
يُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ وَيَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَيَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ وَيُسَارِعُونَ فِي الْخَيْرَاتِ وَأُولَـٰئِكَ مِنَ الصَّالِحِينَ
They believe in The-God and the Last Day, command what is recognized as right, forbid what is rejected as wrong, and hasten in good works; and those are among the righteous.
This verse is one of the clearest Qur’anic documents for breaking group judgments. The Qur’an says about a group from the People of the Book: they believe in The-God and the Last Day, command right and forbid wrong, hasten in good works, and are among the righteous. Therefore one cannot say that whoever is outside the official boundary of “Muslim” is outside the circle of faith and righteousness. The Qur’an does not accept such generalization.
Here an important doubt must also be answered. It may be said: If the criterion of salvation is faith in The-God, the Hereafter, and righteous action, then what becomes of the role of the Qur’an and the mission of Muhammad? Is every person, with any belief, saved if he performs a few good deeds?
The answer is that the Qur’an does not make such a simplification. Faith in The-God in the Qur’an is connected with truth-seeking, sincerity, humility, acceptance of divine signs, and avoidance of hostile denial. If someone recognizes the truth of Muhammad and the Qur’an, understands the sign, and then denies it out of tribalism, envy, obstinacy, interest, pursuit of power, or fanaticism, this is not merely “religious difference”; it is conscious kufr before the truth. Such a human being has not dealt truthfully with The-God, because he recognized the truth and turned away from it.
But this state should not be confused with the condition of a human being to whom the truth of the Qur’an and the message of Muhammad has never reached in a pure and clear form. Someone who has known Islam not through the Qur’an, but through the distorted face of oppressive governments, inconsistent reports, compulsion in belief, humiliation of women, religious violence, political corruption, sectarian discrimination, or the behavior of claimants to religion, has in reality not encountered Qur’anic Islam. He may have rejected something that the Qur’an itself rejects.
If a Christian in Afghanistan, under the Taliban system, sees someone calling himself Amīr al-Mu’minīn while making a harsh, closed, and oppressive face of religion under the name of Islam; or if a seeker of truth looks at Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or any other religious government and imagines that Islam is the very thing political powers have displayed; or if a human being, like hundreds of millions of others, does not know Islam through the Qur’an but receives it through reports, hadiths, fanaticisms, and the corrupt behavior of claimants to religion, can it be said that the clear truth of the Qur’an has been completed against him? Such a human being may have faced not the Qur’an, but a dark shadow of historical Islam.
Therefore, if he distances himself from the name of Islam because he has seen injustice, compulsion in belief, violation of women’s rights, corruption of rulers, sectarian violence, or humiliation of human beings, while still remaining committed to The-God, the Last Day, justice, mercy, and righteous action, he cannot be considered the same as someone who recognized the truth and denied it out of hostile stubbornness. He may be the same Christian, Jew, ḥanīf, Sabian, or sincere seeker for whom the Qur’an has clarified the criterion: faith in The-God, faith in the Last Day, and righteous action. His final judgment is with his Lord.
The verses that condemn those who believe in some and disbelieve in some are about the conscious division of truth; that is, a human being who recognizes divine messengership, but on the basis of desire, fanaticism, or interest accepts some messengers and denies others. This differs from the state of someone to whom the correct image of the message has not reached, or who has seen the message from behind the veil of distortion, violence, and historical corruption. The Qur’an struggles against hostile denial before truth, not against the sincerity of a human being for whom the clear proof has not yet been completed.
Therefore, the Qur’anic criterion of salvation is neither name-worship nor group-worship. The Qur’an accepts neither the pride of the followers of Muhammad nor the pride of the People of the Book. “It is not according to your wishes, nor according to the wishes of the People of the Book.” The criterion is faith in The-God, faith in the Last Day, and righteous action. Any name, even the name Muslim or Believer (Mu'min), if emptied of this truth, is not salvific. And every human being who turns sincerely toward The-God, the Last Day, and righteous action, his judgment is with his Lord; the same Lord who has said: no fear shall be upon them, nor shall they grieve.
From here it becomes clear that the discussion of “Believer (Mu'min)” and “Muslim” must begin with the Qur’an, not with historical claims after the death of the Prophet. The Qur’an first speaks of the truth of faith. Every discussion of community, law, society, messengership, qiblah, pilgrimage, the People of the Book, the Sabians, or Muslims must be read under the light of this same criterion: faith in The-God, faith in the Last Day, and righteous action.
The Qur’an Dialogues with the Existing Scripture of the People of the Book, Not with a Lost Version
Here we must also answer a common claim. It is usually said that the Qur’anic verses about the Torah and the Gospel refer to their first, untouched, and lost versions, not to the books that were in the hands of the Jews and Christians at the time of the Prophet. But this answer is not compatible with the language of the Qur’an itself. The Qur’an repeatedly speaks of books that are present among the People of the Book and can be referred to; of what is “between their hands,” of what they read, of what they judge by, and of what they must uphold. Therefore, the Qur’an is not speaking with an absent and unreachable book; it enters into dialogue with the existing scriptural tradition among the People of the Book.
The Qur’an says about itself that it confirms the book that is “between its hands”; meaning something that stands before it, present in the religious space of the People of the Book and available for reference, not something entirely destroyed, missing, and unreachable. For example, it says:
نَزَّلَ عَلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ بِالْحَقِّ مُصَدِّقًا لِّمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ وَأَنزَلَ التَّوْرَاةَ وَالْإِنجِيلَ
He sent down upon you the Book in truth, confirming what is between its hands; and He sent down the Torah and the Gospel.
This expression is repeated in other verses as well; including in Al-Mā’idah 5:48, Al-Anʿām 6:92, Yūnus 10:37, Yūsuf 12:111, Fāṭir 35:31, and Al-Aḥqāf 46:30. The repetition of this expression shows that the Qur’an is not speaking with a completely absent and inaccessible book. If the Torah and Gospel existing in the religious space of the People of the Book had no relation at all to revelation and guidance, expressions such as “confirmation,” “judgment,” “guidance,” “light,” and the call to the People of the Book to uphold what had been sent down to them would lose their semantic weight.
The Qur’an does two things at the same time: it confirms what remains of truth and light in the earlier scriptural tradition, and it confronts concealment, distortion of meaning, exaggeration, and unjust judgment. This view is neither blind acceptance of the tradition of the People of the Book nor absolute denial of every trace of revelation among them.
The height of this meaning is seen in Sūrat al-Mā’idah:
وَكَيْفَ يُحَكِّمُونَكَ وَعِندَهُمُ التَّوْرَاةُ فِيهَا حُكْمُ اللَّهِ ثُمَّ يَتَوَلَّوْنَ مِن بَعْدِ ذَٰلِكَ ۚ وَمَا أُولَـٰئِكَ بِالْمُؤْمِنِينَ
And how do they call you to judge, while they have the Torah with them, in which there is the judgment of The-God? Then after that they turn away; and those are not the Believers (Mu'minun).
This verse is very clear. The Qur’an does not say that the Torah which is with them is completely invalid, without judgment, and severed from revelation. On the contrary, it asks in astonishment: How do they take you as judge while the Torah is with them and in it is the judgment of The-God? Therefore, at least in part of what was with them, divine judgment was still recognizable and available for reference. This verse weakens the claim of those who want to refer every positive Qur’anic mention of the Torah and Gospel to a lost version, and every Qur’anic criticism to the existing version.
In the same sūrah, the Qur’an says about the Torah:
إِنَّا أَنزَلْنَا التَّوْرَاةَ فِيهَا هُدًى وَنُورٌ
Indeed, We sent down the Torah, in which there was guidance and light.
And about the Gospel it says:
وَآتَيْنَاهُ الْإِنجِيلَ فِيهِ هُدًى وَنُورٌ
And We gave him the Gospel, in which there was guidance and light.
The People of the Gospel are even asked to judge according to what was sent down in it:
وَلْيَحْكُمْ أَهْلُ الْإِنجِيلِ بِمَا أَنزَلَ اللَّهُ فِيهِ
And let the People of the Gospel judge by what The-God sent down in it.
If the Qur’an meant only an untouched but lost version, such an address to the People of the Gospel existing at the time of revelation would become meaningless. The Qur’an calls them to something that is still referable within their scriptural tradition; although it also does not consider that same tradition free of concealment, misreading, exaggeration, forgetting the covenant, and unjust judgment.
From here, two meanings must be distinguished: one is distortion in the sense of the total destruction of the book and the disappearance of every sign of guidance; the other is distortion in the sense of concealment, displacement of meaning, misreading, writing human speech in the name of revelation, or using the text in a power-seeking manner. The Qur’an repeatedly criticizes the second meaning, but it does not affirm the first meaning in a way that would mean no guidance or light remains in the earlier books.
For example, the Qur’an says:
فَوَيْلٌ لِّلَّذِينَ يَكْتُبُونَ الْكِتَابَ بِأَيْدِيهِمْ ثُمَّ يَقُولُونَ هَـٰذَا مِنْ عِندِ اللَّهِ
So woe to those who write the book with their own hands, then say: This is from The-God.
This verse condemns the conduct of a group who present their own writing in the name of revelation. But from this one cannot conclude that the entire Torah and Gospel throughout the world were destroyed and that no judgment, guidance, or light remained in them. If that were so, the verses of Al-Mā’idah that speak of the existence of divine judgment in the Torah that was with them, or that mention guidance and light in the Torah and Gospel, would become meaningless. Therefore the Qur’anic criticism is directed at concealment, fabrication, misreading, distortion of meaning, and religious betrayal; not at the absolute negation of all traces of revelation in the earlier books.
This issue is also understandable historically. The Torah and the Jewish scriptural tradition, in their historical form, passed through complex paths of transmission, compilation, rereading, and preservation. The Babylonian exile and the periods after it played an important role in the formation and reorganization of the Jewish tradition. Therefore, it is simplistic for someone to imagine that the text existing at the time of the Prophet, without any history of transmission, compilation, and interpretation, was exactly the first unmediated version. But on the other hand, this complex history also does not mean the complete destruction of divine guidance and judgment within it. The Qur’an takes precisely this middle and careful position: it neither surrenders unconditionally to the existing tradition of the People of the Book, nor declares it entirely rootless, lightless, and without guidance.
Regarding the Gospel, there is also an important linguistic point. The Qur’an uses the word “Injīl”; a word whose root goes back to the Greek Christian tradition and the meaning of “good news” or “glad tidings.” Jesus, in his historical setting, spoke Aramaic, but the written Christian tradition in the Mediterranean world and in common Christianity became known through a Greek name and language. If the Qur’an were referring only to a completely first, hidden name outside the existing tradition of Christians, it could have brought another name closer to the mother tongue of Jesus. But the Qur’an speaks with the same name known in the religious space of the People of the Book. This shows that the Qur’an does not ignore their existing historical and linguistic reality.
Therefore, distortion in the Qur’anic view does not mean the complete fall of the People of the Book from every relation to revelation. The Qur’an holds several truths together at once: there was guidance and light in the Torah and the Gospel; concealment, exaggeration, misreading, and distortion also occurred in the tradition of the People of the Book; the People of the Book are not all the same; some of them are people of faith, prostration, good, and righteousness; and the Qur’an, as the final criterion, confirms what remains of truth and corrects what has arisen from concealment and exaggeration.
Therefore, one cannot say whenever the Qur’an speaks positively of the Torah and the Gospel that it means a lost and untouched version, and whenever it criticizes, that it means the existing version. This is a selective reading. The Qur’an dialogues with the existing book and tradition of the People of the Book; it criticizes that same tradition, calls that same tradition to uphold the truth, and measures that same tradition in the light of the Qur’an. This view is more compatible with Qur’anic justice: neither complete denial, nor blind acceptance; rather, confirmation of truth, criticism of falsehood, and returning everyone to The-God, the Last Day, and righteous action.
The Special Place of the People of the Book in the Qur’an
After the Qur’anic criterion of salvation has become clear, we must pay attention to another important witness: the special place of the People of the Book in the Qur’an. If, in the Qur’anic view, the People of the Book were generally and absolutely placed in the same category as the mushrikīn, or if they had no relation at all to faith, guidance, and revelation, the Qur’an should not have given them separate rulings, privileges, and modes of treatment. But the Qur’an has done exactly that. In the Qur’an, the People of the Book are a special group: they are not presented as faultless, they are not accepted as one undifferentiated whole, and they are not made identical with the mushrikīn.
The Qur’an dialogues with the People of the Book, calls them, criticizes them, and in some cases accuses some of them of concealment, distortion, exaggeration, wrongdoing, and rebellion. Yet at the same time, it counts some of them among the people of faith, prostration, recitation of the signs, hastening in good works, humility, and righteousness. This is the method of the Qur’an: neither collective sanctification nor collective takfīr; rather, a differentiated, just judgment based upon truth.
One of the clearest witnesses to this special place is the fifth verse of Sūrat al-Mā’idah:
الْيَوْمَ أُحِلَّ لَكُمُ الطَّيِّبَاتُ ۖ وَطَعَامُ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ حِلٌّ لَّكُمْ وَطَعَامُكُمْ حِلٌّ لَّهُمْ ۖ وَالْمُحْصَنَاتُ مِنَ الْمُؤْمِنَاتِ وَالْمُحْصَنَاتُ مِنَ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ مِن قَبْلِكُمْ إِذَا آتَيْتُمُوهُنَّ أُجُورَهُنَّ مُحْصِنِينَ غَيْرَ مُسَافِحِينَ وَلَا مُتَّخِذِي أَخْدَانٍ ۗ وَمَن يَكْفُرْ بِالْإِيمَانِ فَقَدْ حَبِطَ عَمَلُهُ وَهُوَ فِي الْآخِرَةِ مِنَ الْخَاسِرِينَ
Today the good and pure things have been made lawful for you; and the food of those who were given the Book is lawful for you, and your food is lawful for them; and the chaste women from among the Believers (Mu'minun), and the chaste women from among those who were given the Book before you, when you give them their dowries, while being chaste, not fornicators and not taking secret lovers. And whoever rejects faith, his work has become void, and in the Hereafter he is among the losers.
This verse is not merely a simple dietary ruling. When the Qur’an makes the food of the People of the Book lawful for the Believers (Mu'minun) and also makes the food of the Believers (Mu'minun) lawful for them, it makes possible a social, civic, and human relationship. Eating from one another’s tables means the possibility of coexistence, social interaction, relative trust, and shared life. If the People of the Book were generally the same as the rejected mushrikīn, such openness would have no meaning.
This same verse goes even further and mentions marriage with chaste women from the People of the Book beside chaste women from among the believers. This point is very important, because elsewhere the Qur’an forbids marriage with the mushrikīn:
وَلَا تَنكِحُوا الْمُشْرِكَاتِ حَتَّىٰ يُؤْمِنَّ ۚ وَلَأَمَةٌ مُّؤْمِنَةٌ خَيْرٌ مِّن مُّشْرِكَةٍ وَلَوْ أَعْجَبَتْكُمْ ۗ وَلَا تُنكِحُوا الْمُشْرِكِينَ حَتَّىٰ يُؤْمِنُوا ۚ وَلَعَبْدٌ مُّؤْمِنٌ خَيْرٌ مِّن مُّشْرِكٍ وَلَوْ أَعْجَبَكُمْ ۗ أُولَـٰئِكَ يَدْعُونَ إِلَى النَّارِ ۖ وَاللَّهُ يَدْعُو إِلَى الْجَنَّةِ وَالْمَغْفِرَةِ بِإِذْنِهِ ۖ وَيُبَيِّنُ آيَاتِهِ لِلنَّاسِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَتَذَكَّرُونَ
Do not marry mushrik women until they believe; and surely a believing bondwoman is better than a mushrik woman, even if she impresses you. And do not marry your women to mushrik men until they believe; and surely a believing bondsman is better than a mushrik man, even if he impresses you. Those call toward the Fire, while The-God calls toward the Garden and forgiveness by His permission; and He makes His signs clear for the people, so that they may remember.
If the People of the Book were generally the same as the mushrikīn, how could the Qur’an in one place forbid marriage with the mushrikīn and in another place allow marriage with chaste women from the People of the Book? The correct path is to understand the Qur’an through the Qur’an itself: the People of the Book are not identical with the mushrikīn. There may be exaggeration, practical shirk, concealment, distortion, or wrongdoing among the People of the Book; but the Qur’an does not place them collectively in the same category as idol-worshiping mushrikīn. That is why their ruling is separate.
This separation is not limited to the rulings of food and marriage. The Qur’an even sets a separate manner of dialogue with the People of the Book:
وَلَا تُجَادِلُوا أَهْلَ الْكِتَابِ إِلَّا بِالَّتِي هِيَ أَحْسَنُ إِلَّا الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا مِنْهُمْ ۖ وَقُولُوا آمَنَّا بِالَّذِي أُنزِلَ إِلَيْنَا وَأُنزِلَ إِلَيْكُمْ وَإِلَـٰهُنَا وَإِلَـٰهُكُمْ وَاحِدٌ وَنَحْنُ لَهُ مُسْلِمُونَ
Do not argue with the People of the Book except in the way that is best, except those among them who did wrong; and say: We have believed in what was sent down to us and what was sent down to you; and our object of worship and your object of worship is one, and to Him we are submitted.
This verse places the principle of dialogue with the People of the Book upon the best manner. Then it brings an exception: except those among them who did wrong. This very exception shows that not all of them are wrongdoers. If all the People of the Book, in the Qur’anic view, were people of wrongdoing and absolute kufr, there would be no need for this distinction. The Qur’an says to speak with them from the shared point: what was sent down to us and what was sent down to you; our object of worship and your object of worship is one; and we are submitted to Him.
Here the language of the Qur’an is not the language of erasure; it is the language of invitation to the shared principle of tawḥīd. The Qur’an does not tell the followers of Muhammad to consider the People of the Book wholly destroyed, humiliated, or outside every possibility of guidance. It says: dialogue with them in the best manner and emphasize the shared principle: our object of worship and your object of worship is one.
The same logic appears in another verse with the expression “a word that is equal”:
قُلْ يَا أَهْلَ الْكِتَابِ تَعَالَوْا إِلَىٰ كَلِمَةٍ سَوَاءٍ بَيْنَنَا وَبَيْنَكُمْ أَلَّا نَعْبُدَ إِلَّا اللَّهَ وَلَا نُشْرِكَ بِهِ شَيْئًا وَلَا يَتَّخِذَ بَعْضُنَا بَعْضًا أَرْبَابًا مِّن دُونِ اللَّهِ ۚ فَإِن تَوَلَّوْا فَقُولُوا اشْهَدُوا بِأَنَّا مُسْلِمُونَ
Say: O People of the Book, come to a word that is equal between us and you: that we worship none except The-God, that we associate nothing with Him, and that some of us do not take others as lords instead of The-God. Then if they turn away, say: Bear witness that we are submitted.
The Qur’an calls the People of the Book to a shared principle: worshiping none except The-God, associating no partner with Him, and not taking human beings as lords in place of Him. This is not only a religious invitation; it is also an invitation to the liberation of the human being from religious, class-based, and clerical domination. When the Qur’an says that some of us should not take others as lords in place of The-God, it is in reality confronting the same systems that drag human beings, under the name of religion, into servitude to other human beings.
This verse shows that the main boundary of the Qur’an is the boundary of tawḥīd and shirk, not the boundary of names. The Qur’an does not say: simply change your name so that you may be saved. It says: let us worship none except The-God, let us not associate anything with Him, and let us not take human beings as our lords. This is exactly the point from which later religious and political Islam repeatedly moved away; because instead of breaking human lords, it created new religious and political lords of its own.
The Qur’an also explicitly states about the People of the Book themselves that they are not all the same:
لَيْسُوا سَوَاءً ۗ مِّنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ أُمَّةٌ قَائِمَةٌ يَتْلُونَ آيَاتِ اللَّهِ آنَاءَ اللَّيْلِ وَهُمْ يَسْجُدُونَ
They are not all the same; among the People of the Book is an upright and standing community who recite the signs of The-God during the hours of the night, and they prostrate.
And it continues:
يُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ وَيَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَيَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ وَيُسَارِعُونَ فِي الْخَيْرَاتِ وَأُولَـٰئِكَ مِنَ الصَّالِحِينَ
They believe in The-God and the Last Day, command what is recognized as right, forbid what is rejected as wrong, and hasten in good works; and those are among the righteous.
These verses break collective and labeling judgment. The Qur’an does not say that because they are the People of the Book, they all have one ruling. It says they are not all the same. Among them there is an upright community; they recite the signs of The-God, they prostrate, they believe in The-God and the Last Day, they command right and forbid wrong, they hasten in good works, and they are among the righteous.
If the Qur’an counts such people among the righteous, no religious apparatus has the right to generally place all the People of the Book outside the circle of faith and righteousness. If the Qur’an itself distinguishes between righteous People of the Book and wrongdoing People of the Book, then any apparatus that condemns them as one undifferentiated whole has moved away from Qur’anic justice.
The Qur’an continues in the same passage:
وَمَا يَفْعَلُوا مِنْ خَيْرٍ فَلَن يُكْفَرُوهُ ۗ وَاللَّهُ عَلِيمٌ بِالْمُتَّقِينَ
And whatever good they do will never be denied or treated with ingratitude; and The-God knows the people of taqwā.
This verse speaks about that same righteous group from the People of the Book and emphasizes that their good will not be ignored. Therefore the Qur’an not only leaves open the possibility of faith and righteousness for them; it also preserves and validates their good. This is the same earlier logic of the Qur’an: the righteous striving of the human being is not lost with The-God.
In Sūrat al-Mā’idah, this same differentiated gaze continues:
وَلَوْ أَنَّهُمْ أَقَامُوا التَّوْرَاةَ وَالْإِنجِيلَ وَمَا أُنزِلَ إِلَيْهِم مِّن رَّبِّهِمْ لَأَكَلُوا مِن فَوْقِهِمْ وَمِن تَحْتِ أَرْجُلِهِم ۚ مِّنْهُمْ أُمَّةٌ مُّقْتَصِدَةٌ ۖ وَكَثِيرٌ مِّنْهُمْ سَاءَ مَا يَعْمَلُونَ
And if they had upheld the Torah and the Gospel and what was sent down to them from their Lord, they would have eaten from above them and from beneath their feet. Among them is a moderate and balanced community, while many of them do evil in what they do.
In this verse also, the Qur’an does not make everyone one. It says: among them is a moderate and balanced community, and many of them do evil. This structure of the sentence reveals the method of the Qur’an: it does not call all of them righteous, and it does not call all of them corrupt. The criterion is upholding the Book, action, justice, moderation, and fidelity to revelation.
But the expression “many of them” must not be turned into a tool of religious prejudice. When the Qur’an criticizes “many,” it does not use this language only about the People of the Book; it uses it about human beings generally as well. For example:
وَمَا أَكْثَرُ النَّاسِ وَلَوْ حَرَصْتَ بِمُؤْمِنِينَ
And most people, even though you are eager, are not Believers (Mu'minun).
Therefore, “many” in the language of the Qur’an is not a criterion for the superiority of one group over another; it is a warning about the condition of the human being. The same meaning is seen in other verses as well: that most people do not know, most of them are not grateful, most of them do not reason, or they turn away from the truth; including Al-Aʿrāf 7:187, Yūnus 10:60, Yūsuf 12:21, Al-Rūm 30:6, and Al-Mu’min 40:57.
Therefore no one has the right to conclude from the phrase “many of them” that “therefore we are inherently superior.” The Qur’an fights such pride. If many of the People of the Book acted badly, many of the People of the Qur’an can also act badly. If they did not uphold the Book correctly, Muslims too may abandon the Qur’an and seek refuge in narration, royal fiqh, sectarianism, and fanaticism. The criterion of The-God is not majority and label; His criterion is truth, taqwā, justice, and righteous action.
In the same Sūrat al-Mā’idah, the Qur’an says something very subtle about a group of Christians:
وَلَتَجِدَنَّ أَقْرَبَهُم مَّوَدَّةً لِّلَّذِينَ آمَنُوا الَّذِينَ قَالُوا إِنَّا نَصَارَىٰ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّ مِنْهُمْ قِسِّيسِينَ وَرُهْبَانًا وَأَنَّهُمْ لَا يَسْتَكْبِرُونَ
And you will surely find the nearest of them in affection to those who believed to be those who said: We are Christians. That is because among them are priests and monks, and because they are not arrogant.
Here the criterion of nearness is not merely a name; it is an ethical and spiritual quality: they are not arrogant. The Qur’an shows that among the Christians there are people who, because of humility, reverence, and absence of arrogance, are closer to the Believers (Mu'minun). Arrogance is one of the greatest barriers to faith; and the absence of arrogance is one of the doors of drawing near to truth. So once again the Qur’an measures human beings by the quality of their heart, behavior, and reaction before truth, not only by their historical name.
On the other hand, the Qur’an also does not present the earlier books as absolutely false and worthless. About the Torah it says:
إِنَّا أَنزَلْنَا التَّوْرَاةَ فِيهَا هُدًى وَنُورٌ ۚ يَحْكُمُ بِهَا النَّبِيُّونَ الَّذِينَ أَسْلَمُوا لِلَّذِينَ هَادُوا وَالرَّبَّانِيُّونَ وَالْأَحْبَارُ بِمَا اسْتُحْفِظُوا مِن كِتَابِ اللَّهِ وَكَانُوا عَلَيْهِ شُهَدَاءَ
Indeed, We sent down the Torah, in which there was guidance and light; the prophets who had submitted judged by it for those who became Jews, as did the rabbānīyūn and the scholars, because of what they had been entrusted to preserve from the Book of The-God, and they were witnesses over it.
And about the Gospel it says:
وَقَفَّيْنَا عَلَىٰ آثَارِهِم بِعِيسَى ابْنِ مَرْيَمَ مُصَدِّقًا لِّمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ مِنَ التَّوْرَاةِ ۖ وَآتَيْنَاهُ الْإِنجِيلَ فِيهِ هُدًى وَنُورٌ وَمُصَدِّقًا لِّمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ مِنَ التَّوْرَاةِ وَهُدًى وَمَوْعِظَةً لِّلْمُتَّقِينَ
And We sent, following in their traces, Jesus son of Mary, confirming what was between his hands of the Torah; and We gave him the Gospel, in which there was guidance and light, confirming what was before it of the Torah, and as guidance and admonition for the people of taqwā.
These verses show that the Qur’an does not present itself in a vacuum. The Qur’an does not reject the earlier books altogether; rather, it speaks of guidance and light in them. Of course, the Qur’an stands as confirmer and guardian criterion over the earlier books, and it criticizes distortion, concealment, and unjust judgment; but this criticism is different from the complete negation of the principle of guidance in those books.
The People of the Gospel are even asked to judge according to what was sent down in the Gospel:
وَلْيَحْكُمْ أَهْلُ الْإِنجِيلِ بِمَا أَنزَلَ اللَّهُ فِيهِ ۚ وَمَن لَّمْ يَحْكُم بِمَا أَنزَلَ اللَّهُ فَأُولَـٰئِكَ هُمُ الْفَاسِقُونَ
And let the People of the Gospel judge by what The-God sent down in it; and whoever does not judge by what The-God sent down, those are the defiantly disobedient.
If the Gospel, in the Qur’anic view, had no relation to guidance, such a command would have no meaning. The Qur’an asks the People of the Gospel to be faithful to what was sent down in it from The-God. Therefore, the problem of the Qur’an with the People of the Book is not the principle of having a book or the principle of their connection with revelation; the problem is concealment, distortion, exaggeration, wrongdoing, forgetting the covenant, and taking human beings as lords instead of The-God.
At the same time, the Qur’an is not indifferent toward doctrinal deviations among the People of the Book. The Qur’an rejects the idea that The-God has a child, rejects making Jesus divine, and negates every form of making divinity into a triad:
لَّقَدْ كَفَرَ الَّذِينَ قَالُوا إِنَّ اللَّهَ ثَالِثُ ثَلَاثَةٍ ۘ وَمَا مِنْ إِلَـٰهٍ إِلَّا إِلَـٰهٌ وَاحِدٌ
They have certainly committed kufr who said that The-God is the third of three; and there is no object of worship except one object of worship.
And elsewhere, Jesus answers the divine question in this way:
وَإِذْ قَالَ اللَّهُ يَا عِيسَى ابْنَ مَرْيَمَ أَأَنتَ قُلْتَ لِلنَّاسِ اتَّخِذُونِي وَأُمِّيَ إِلَـٰهَيْنِ مِن دُونِ اللَّهِ ۖ قَالَ سُبْحَانَكَ مَا يَكُونُ لِي أَنْ أَقُولَ مَا لَيْسَ لِي بِحَقٍّ
And when The-God said: O Jesus son of Mary, did you say to the people, “Take me and my mother as two objects of worship besides The-God?” He said: Glory be to You; it is not for me to say what I have no right to say.
Here it must be noted carefully that the Qur’an rejects every kind of exaggeration about Jesus, Mary, the idea of The-God having a child, and every form of making divinity into a triad. But without historical and theological care, we should not reduce all Christian formulations to one simple expression. In common Christianity, the Trinity is usually explained through the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; but verse 5:116 specifically speaks of Jesus and his mother beside The-God. The Qur’an clarifies the principle: The-God has no child, no partner, no equal, and cannot be divided into a triadic form.
Regarding the Spirit also, the Qur’an calls the human being to epistemic caution:
وَيَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الرُّوحِ ۖ قُلِ الرُّوحُ مِنْ أَمْرِ رَبِّي وَمَا أُوتِيتُم مِّنَ الْعِلْمِ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا
And they ask you about the Spirit. Say: The Spirit is from the command of my Lord, and you have not been given of knowledge except a little.
Therefore, in discussions related to the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and theological formulations, the Qur’an both preserves the principle of tawḥīd and prevents the human being from making baseless claims about the reality of the Spirit. The knowledge of the Spirit is with the Lord, and the human being knows only a little.
The main point is that the Qur’an strongly criticizes doctrinal exaggerations, but it does not turn this criticism into collective takfīr, civic erasure, or negation of every possibility of faith and righteousness among the People of the Book. The same sūrah that criticizes Trinity, exaggeration, and making Jesus divine also, in that same sūrah, makes the food of the People of the Book and marriage with their chaste women lawful. This co-presence of verses is not accidental. The Qur’an distinguishes between criticizing a deviant belief and completely negating the human, civic, and faith-related place of the People of the Book.
You are right. I had written that part incorrectly from the angle of retaliation in the Torah, while what you meant was the Qur’anic verse of accidental killing and expiation; the place where the Qur’an itself distinguishes between a “believing people,” an “enemy people,” and a “people with whom there is a covenant.” This argument is much more precise for the legal place of the People of the Book and those under covenant.
In legal matters also, the Qur’an does not place everyone into one bowl. For example, in the matter of accidental killing, the Qur’an distinguishes between several situations: if the killed person is from the community of Believers (Mu'minun); if he is from an enemy people but is himself a Believer (Mu'min); and if he is from a people between whom and the Believer (Mu'min)s there is a covenant. This difference shows that the Qur’an does not judge only by general labels; it also considers covenant, pact, social relation, and the real condition of human beings.
وَمَا كَانَ لِمُؤْمِنٍ أَن يَقْتُلَ مُؤْمِنًا إِلَّا خَطَأً ۚ وَمَن قَتَلَ مُؤْمِنًا خَطَأً فَتَحْرِيرُ رَقَبَةٍ مُّؤْمِنَةٍ وَدِيَةٌ مُّسَلَّمَةٌ إِلَىٰ أَهْلِهِ إِلَّا أَن يَصَّدَّقُوا ۚ فَإِن كَانَ مِن قَوْمٍ عَدُوٍّ لَّكُمْ وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَتَحْرِيرُ رَقَبَةٍ مُّؤْمِنَةٍ ۖ وَإِن كَانَ مِن قَوْمٍ بَيْنَكُمْ وَبَيْنَهُم مِّيثَاقٌ فَدِيَةٌ مُّسَلَّمَةٌ إِلَىٰ أَهْلِهِ وَتَحْرِيرُ رَقَبَةٍ مُّؤْمِنَةٍ ۖ فَمَن لَّمْ يَجِدْ فَصِيَامُ شَهْرَيْنِ مُتَتَابِعَيْنِ تَوْبَةً مِّنَ اللَّهِ ۗ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ عَلِيمًا حَكِيمًا
And it is not for a Believer (Mu'min) to kill a Believer (Mu'min) except by mistake. And whoever kills a Believer (Mu'min) by mistake must free a believing neck and pay blood-money delivered to his family, unless they give it in charity. But if he is from a people hostile to you while he is a Believer (Mu'min), then freeing a believing neck is required. And if he is from a people between whom and you there is a covenant, then blood-money must be delivered to his family and a believing neck must be freed. And whoever does not find the means must fast two consecutive months as repentance from The-God. And The-God is knowing and wise.
This verse is very important. Here the Qur’an does not create only a simple binary of “Muslim and kāfir.” If the killed person is from an enemy people but is himself a Believer (Mu'min), one ruling applies. If he is from a people between whom and the community of Believers (Mu'minun) there is a covenant, another ruling is mentioned: blood-money is paid to his family, even if that people are not within the circle of the community of Believers (Mu'minun) (Mu'minun). Therefore covenant has legal weight in the Qur’an.
Right here it becomes clear that the Qur’an distinguishes between a hostile mushrik and a covenant-breaker, and groups who stand in a covenantal relation with the believers. The People of the Book and other covenantal groups cannot be thrown outside the sanctity of life, blood-money, justice, and legal responsibility by one general label. In this verse, the Qur’an shows that the sanctity of the human being and legal responsibility are not measured only by religious name; covenant, pact, real condition, and justice also enter into the ruling.
This view is also in harmony with the spirit of the Constitution of Medina. The community of Believers (Mu'minun) can have a covenant with groups whose religion is not one with theirs; and when a covenant exists, their lives, families, security, and rights are not counted as worthless in the Qur’anic order. Therefore, the simple and harsh division of human beings into “saved insider” and “dishonored outsider” is not compatible with this verse. The Qur’an has legal and ethical precision even in the ruling of accidental killing; how much more in final judgment regarding faith and salvation.
Elsewhere, the Qur’an says about some of the People of the Book that if a great trust is entrusted to them, they return it, while some others, if a small trust is entrusted to them, do not return it:
وَمِنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ مَنْ إِن تَأْمَنْهُ بِقِنطَارٍ يُؤَدِّهِ إِلَيْكَ وَمِنْهُم مَّنْ إِن تَأْمَنْهُ بِدِينَارٍ لَّا يُؤَدِّهِ إِلَيْكَ إِلَّا مَا دُمْتَ عَلَيْهِ قَائِمًا
And among the People of the Book is one who, if you entrust him with a great amount, will return it to you; and among them is one who, if you entrust him with a dinar, will not return it to you unless you remain standing over him.
This verse also shows that the Qur’an does not see the People of the Book as one undifferentiated whole. Among them there is the trustworthy, and there is also the treacherous. There is the righteous, and there is also the wrongdoer. There are people of prostration, and there are people of concealment. This is the method of the Qur’an: just and differentiated judgment, not collective and blind judgment.
Even in Sūrat al-Baqarah, after many criticisms of the Children of Israel, the Qur’an still preserves the individual and ethical principle:
تِلْكَ أُمَّةٌ قَدْ خَلَتْ ۖ لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتْ وَلَكُم مَّا كَسَبْتُمْ ۖ وَلَا تُسْأَلُونَ عَمَّا كَانُوا يَعْمَلُونَ
That was a community that has passed away; for them is what they earned, and for you is what you earned; and you will not be asked about what they used to do.
This verse is a great principle: no group should be crushed forever under the burden of the historical sin of another group, and no group should escape today’s responsibility by boasting of its ancestors. Each person is measured by his own earning. This principle applies to the followers of Muhammad, to the People of the Book, and to every other community.
Therefore, the special place of the People of the Book in the Qur’an is a clear witness against their general takfīr and against generally declaring them mushrik. The Qur’an criticizes them, but it does not erase them. It calls them, but it does not drag them into compulsion. It draws boundaries with them, but it does not close the path of dialogue. It shows their errors, but it does not ignore their righteous ones. It speaks of distortion and concealment, but also remembers guidance and light in their books. It argues with them about tawḥīd, but says: our object of worship and your object of worship is one.
From this it becomes clear that if later religious and political Islam placed the People of the Book generally within the circle of absolute kufr or general shirk, this was not the exact continuation of the Qur’an; it was a narrowing of the horizon of the Qur’an. The Qur’an does not allow us to see the People of the Book as one undifferentiated whole. The Qur’an asks us to distinguish between the righteous and the wrongdoer, the trustworthy and the treacherous, the truth-seeker and the hostile denier, the people of prostration and the people of concealment.
But this criterion is not only for the earlier People of the Book. The same strict criteria by which the Qur’an examines Jews and Christians are the same criteria by which the People of the Qur’an are also examined. If the People of the Book are criticized because of moving away from the Book, concealing the truth, exaggeration, lord-making, sectarianism, and not judging according to revelation, the followers of the Qur’an are not outside this same measure. Is the Qur’an not a Book? And if we consider ourselves followers of the Qur’an, are we not the people of this Book?
Therefore, the name “Muslim” is no more sufficient than the name “Jew” or “Christian” is sufficient. If Jews and Christians are criticized because of abandoning their Book, then the People of the Qur’an too, if they abandon their Book and seek refuge in narration, fiqh, monarchy, ethnicity, madhhab, imitation, and power, will not remain safe from the same divine questioning. The Qur’an creates no identity-based immunity for any group. The criterion is fidelity to The-God, the Book, justice, truthfulness, humility, truth-seeking, and righteous action.
This section is foundational for the discussion of “Believer (Mu'min)” and “Muslim.” Because if the People of the Book had no relation at all to faith, the Qur’an would not make their food lawful, would not permit marriage with their chaste women, would not command dialogue with them in the best manner, would not invite them to the shared word, would not count some of them among the righteous, and would not speak of guidance and light in their books.
The conclusion is clear: in the Qur’an, the People of the Book are not outside every possibility of faith and salvation. They stand before the same criterion before which others stand: faith in The-God, faith in the Last Day, righteous action, truthfulness before the truth, and distance from concealment, wrongdoing, exaggeration, arrogance, and hostile denial. This is Qur’anic justice; a justice that neither considers the name “Muslim” sufficient for salvation, nor considers the name “Jew” or “Christian” sufficient for condemnation.
The Sabians: A Witness to the Lost Horizon of the Qur’an
Alongside the People of the Book, the Qur’an also mentions another group several times: the Sabians. This name appears in the Qur’an beside those who believed, the Jews, and the Christians. This very placement shows that, for the first audience of the Qur’an, the Sabians were not a completely unknown and meaningless group. The Qur’an mentions their name without additional explanation, just as it speaks of the Jews and Christians. Therefore, our present uncertainty about them is not a weakness of the Qur’an; it is a sign of the decline of later historical and religious memory.
The Qur’an first says in Sūrat al-Baqarah:
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَالَّذِينَ هَادُوا وَالنَّصَارَىٰ وَالصَّابِئِينَ مَنْ آمَنَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ وَعَمِلَ صَالِحًا فَلَهُمْ أَجْرُهُمْ عِندَ رَبِّهِمْ وَلَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ
Indeed, those who believed, and those who became Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians; whoever believed in The-God and the Last Day and performed righteous action, their reward is with their Lord; no fear shall be upon them, nor shall they grieve.
The same meaning is also repeated in Al-Mā’idah 5:69.
In Sūrat al-Ḥajj, the Sabians are mentioned for a third time alongside other religious groups:
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَالَّذِينَ هَادُوا وَالصَّابِئِينَ وَالنَّصَارَىٰ وَالْمَجُوسَ وَالَّذِينَ أَشْرَكُوا إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَفْصِلُ بَيْنَهُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ شَهِيدٌ
Indeed, those who believed, and those who became Jews, and the Sabians, and the Christians, and the Magians, and those who associated partners, The-God will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection; indeed He is witness over all things.
In this verse, the Qur’an expands the circle of religious and belief-based groups and leaves final judgment to the Resurrection. The Sabians are among the groups between whom The-God Himself will judge.
The issue of the Sabians becomes important precisely from here. The Qur’an names them; but later religious history either forgets them, creates confusion about them, removes their original identity, or absorbs them into its own ready-made categories. In the tafsīr inheritance, very different statements have been made about the Sabians: sometimes they have been placed between the Jews and the Magians; sometimes they have been brought close to the Christians; sometimes they have been described as people of prayer and qiblah; sometimes they have been counted as star-worshipers or angel-worshipers; and sometimes they have been connected to groups with rites of washing and purification. This dispersion itself shows that later exegetical memory did not preserve their Qur’anic place with clarity.
But the Qur’an here is not pursuing ethnic curiosity or mere historiography. The importance of the Sabians in this study is not that all their ethnic, linguistic, or historical details must necessarily be reconstructed. Their importance lies in the fact that the Qur’an preserved the name of a group that later Muslim memory almost erased or left ambiguous, while placing that same group beside the criterion of salvation. This means that the truth of faith is not limited to our sectarian memory. A group may have a place before The-God and within the horizon of the Qur’an, while later religious history has lost, erased, or humiliated it.
The presence of the Sabians in the Qur’an also shows that the people of faith in the Qur’anic world are not necessarily only those who were later recognized under one official name. There may have been groups committed, in some form, to tawḥīd, restraint, purity, worship, belief in the Hereafter, and righteous action, yet official Islamic history did not leave a clear place for them. The Qur’an preserved their name in order to keep its own criterion free from later monopolies.
Another important point is that the verses of the Sabians always come together with ethical and faith-based criteria, not with ethnic and polemical definitions. The Qur’an does not say what race the Sabians are from, what their language is, where their geographical center is, or what their branches of fiqh are. The Qur’an highlights what matters for salvation: faith in The-God, faith in the Last Day, and righteous action. This itself is a methodological lesson. The Qur’an moves the human being away from identity obsession toward ethical and faith-based truth.
The weakness of the narrative and religious apparatuses is also revealed through this discussion of the Sabians. The people of reports and exaggeration sometimes wrote hundreds of pages about legal branches, boundaries of impurity and purity, the ruling of marriage, jizyah, classes of kāfirs, and sectarian divisions; yet they could not keep the Qur’anic horizon of the Sabians alive. If later reports and fiqhs were truly the complete and reliable explanation of the Qur’an, why did such an important name, mentioned several times in the Qur’an, remain so unknown in the general memory of Muslims?
The Sabians are also a hidden criticism of later religious politics. When religion entered the apparatus of monarchy, taxation, governmental boundaries, and imperial identity, groups that did not have a clear place in the structure of power easily became marginal or invisible. The political apparatus needed controllable classifications: this one is Muslim, that one is dhimmī, that one is a hostile kāfir, that one is subject to jizyah. But through the name of the Sabians, the Qur’an shows that the world of faith is wider than the administrative divisions of states. All truth cannot be placed inside tax registers, governmental borders, or fiqh categories.
This point is very important for understanding “Believer (Mu'min)” and “Muslim.” If the Qur’an brings the Sabians beside the Jews and Christians and makes the criterion of salvation for all of them faith and righteous action, then being a Believer (Mu'min) cannot be limited to a later closed identity. In the Qur’an, the Believer (Mu'min) is someone who believes in truth and performs righteous action, even if his historical name is strange, ambiguous, or forgotten in later religious memory.
The Difference between Faith and Submission in the Qur’an
After the criterion of salvation, the place of the People of the Book, and the presence of the Sabians in the horizon of the Qur’an have become clear, we must now arrive at one of the most important Qur’anic distinctions: the difference between faith and submission. This difference is the key to understanding the two words “Believer (Mu'min)” and “muslim.” If these two words are taken as one, a large part of the precision of the Qur’an is lost; and if one is placed in the position of the other, religion is reduced from its inner and ethical truth to an outward and social identity.
In the language of the Qur’an, faith is not merely accepting a name or entering a community. Faith is connected with the heart, truthfulness, assurance, reverent fear, righteous action, fidelity, and responsibility. Faith must settle inside the human being and then become visible in his behavior. But submission in the Qur’an does not always have one meaning. Sometimes submission means outward acceptance and entry into a social order; sometimes it means the voluntary and Abrahamic submission before the Lord of the worlds; and sometimes it means the creational submission of all existence before the law and command of The-God.
The Qur’an itself distinguishes between faith and outward submission:
قَالَتِ الْأَعْرَابُ آمَنَّا ۖ قُل لَّمْ تُؤْمِنُوا وَلَـٰكِن قُولُوا أَسْلَمْنَا وَلَمَّا يَدْخُلِ الْإِيمَانُ فِي قُلُوبِكُمْ ۖ وَإِن تُطِيعُوا اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ لَا يَلِتْكُم مِّنْ أَعْمَالِكُمْ شَيْئًا ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ
The desert Arabs said: We have believed. Say: You have not believed; rather say: We have submitted, for faith has not yet entered your hearts. And if you obey The-God and His Messenger, He will not diminish anything from your deeds. Indeed, The-God is forgiving and merciful.
This verse is one of the clearest verses of the Qur’an regarding the difference between faith and submission. A group claims that they have believed, but the Qur’an corrects this claim. They are told: Do not say, “We have believed”; rather say, “We have submitted,” because faith has not yet entered your hearts. Therefore, the Qur’an distinguishes between outward entry into a religious order and the entry of faith into the heart.
This difference is very great. If someone outwardly enters the community of Muslims, socially he may be placed inside a covenant, an order, or a society; but this does not mean inner faith. Faith must enter the heart. Faith must change the human being from within. Faith must produce truthfulness, trustworthiness, justice, taqwā, humility, and righteous action. Without this truth, a name and outward submission are not sufficient.
The next verse defines the real Believers (Mu'minun) (Mu'minun):
إِنَّمَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ ثُمَّ لَمْ يَرْتَابُوا وَجَاهَدُوا بِأَمْوَالِهِمْ وَأَنفُسِهِمْ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ ۚ أُولَـٰئِكَ هُمُ الصَّادِقُونَ
The Believers (Mu'minun) are only those who believed in The-God and His Messenger, then did not doubt, and strove with their wealth and their selves in the way of The-God. Those are the truthful ones.
Here, the Qur’an defines the believers with several signs: faith in The-God and His Messenger, absence of doubt after recognition, striving with wealth and self in the way of The-God, and truthfulness. At the end it says: those are the truthful ones. Therefore, faith is not a verbal claim. Faith requires truthfulness. A person who says “I believed” but whose heart is empty of truthfulness, certainty, responsibility, and action has not reached the Qur’anic station of a Believer (Mu'min).
This difference has very important consequences. In later religious history, “Muslim” gradually became the main social, legal, and political identity. Someone who entered the ruling order, spoke the shahādah, paid tax in a particular form, or belonged to the political community was called Muslim. This title could have a civic and legal function; but the mistake began when this social title was turned into the criterion of salvation and the substitute for inner faith.
The Qur’an does not allow this substitution. The Qur’an says a person may have submitted, but faith has not yet entered his heart. Therefore, if a person is called Muslim in the social sense, this still does not mean that he is a Believer (Mu'min) in the Qur’anic sense. The social name and the inner truth must not be confused.
On the other hand, submission in the Qur’an also has a lofty and sacred meaning. When Abraham is told, “Submit,” his submission is not outward, political, or coerced; it is the submission of the soul before the Lord of the worlds:
إِذْ قَالَ لَهُ رَبُّهُ أَسْلِمْ ۖ قَالَ أَسْلَمْتُ لِرَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ
When his Lord said to him, “Submit,” he said: I have submitted to the Lord of the worlds.
This submission is not the same outward submission of Al-Ḥujurāt 49:14. Here, Abraham submits willingly, knowingly, and existentially before the Lord of the worlds. This is the root of true Islam: submission to the Lord of the worlds, not submission to tribe, monarchy, clerical class, inherited fiqh, or political identity.
The same Abrahamic submission is passed on to his children:
وَوَصَّىٰ بِهَا إِبْرَاهِيمُ بَنِيهِ وَيَعْقُوبُ يَا بَنِيَّ إِنَّ اللَّهَ اصْطَفَىٰ لَكُمُ الدِّينَ فَلَا تَمُوتُنَّ إِلَّا وَأَنتُم مُّسْلِمُونَ
And Abraham instructed his sons with it, and Jacob: O my sons, indeed The-God has chosen the dīn for you, so do not die except while you are submitted.
Here, being muslim existed before the historical community of Muhammad. Abraham and Jacob speak of “muslim” long before the later identity called “Muslim” in history. Therefore, muslim in the Qur’an, at its root, is not the name of a sect or an empire; it is the description of someone who has submitted to The-God.
In the same context, the sons of Jacob answer:
قَالُوا نَعْبُدُ إِلَـٰهَكَ وَإِلَـٰهَ آبَائِكَ إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَإِسْمَاعِيلَ وَإِسْحَاقَ إِلَـٰهًا وَاحِدًا وَنَحْنُ لَهُ مُسْلِمُونَ
They said: We worship your object of worship and the object of worship of your fathers, Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac: one object of worship; and to Him we are submitted.
This verse shows that submission is tied to worship of the one object of worship. The sons of Jacob do not say: We belong to a particular national label; rather, they say: We worship one object of worship and we are submitted to Him. This is tawḥīdic submission, not political or sectarian identity.
The Qur’an also says about the disciples of Jesus:
فَلَمَّا أَحَسَّ عِيسَىٰ مِنْهُمُ الْكُفْرَ قَالَ مَنْ أَنصَارِي إِلَى اللَّهِ ۖ قَالَ الْحَوَارِيُّونَ نَحْنُ أَنصَارُ اللَّهِ آمَنَّا بِاللَّهِ وَاشْهَدْ بِأَنَّا مُسْلِمُونَ
When Jesus sensed kufr from them, he said: Who are my helpers toward The-God? The disciples said: We are the helpers of The-God; we have believed in The-God, and bear witness that we are submitted.
The disciples also call themselves muslimūn, while historically they are before the later Muslim community. Therefore, “muslim” in the Qur’an is wider than the later identity. It is the description of someone who has submitted to The-God, whether in the time of Abraham, Jacob, Jesus, or Muhammad.
In another verse, the disciples say:
وَإِذْ أَوْحَيْتُ إِلَى الْحَوَارِيِّينَ أَنْ آمِنُوا بِي وَبِرَسُولِي قَالُوا آمَنَّا وَاشْهَدْ بِأَنَّنَا مُسْلِمُونَ
And when I inspired the disciples: Believe in Me and in My messenger, they said: We have believed, and bear witness that we are submitted.
Here, faith and submission come together: “We have believed” and “bear witness that we are submitted.” This shows that true submission must be connected with faith. Submission without faith may be outward; but submission with faith is the Abrahamic and prophetic path.
Therefore, the Qur’an contains at least two levels of submission. The first is outward or social submission, which may exist before faith enters the heart. The second is true, voluntary, and tawḥīdic submission, which is the path of Abraham, Jacob, Jesus, the disciples, and all righteous servants. The mistake of history was to take the outward level and place it in the position of the inner and Abrahamic level.
This distinction is vital for understanding “Believer (Mu'min)” and “Muslim.” If being muslim means Abrahamic submission, its station is high and sacred; because it is the same path of Abraham, Jacob, Jesus, the disciples, the prophets, and the righteous. But if being Muslim only means a social name, family inheritance, religious ID, or membership in a political apparatus, such being Muslim still does not guarantee faith. The Qur’an itself says that someone may have submitted, while faith has not yet entered his heart.
With this distinction, the greatest fallacy in religious history becomes visible: confusing legal and ID-based submission with Abrahamic submission and inner faith. When the Qur’an says that the dīn with The-God is Islam, it does not mean becoming the subject of an empire or membership in a historical group; rather, it means the same free, tawḥīdic, and ethical submission before the Lord of the worlds that Abraham, Jacob, Jesus, the disciples, and all the righteous of history were upon.
In this context, the verse of Āl ʿImrān must be understood precisely:
إِنَّ الدِّينَ عِندَ اللَّهِ الْإِسْلَامُ
Indeed, the dīn with The-God is Islam.
If Islam here is turned into a later sectarian and political label, the verse is narrowed. But if it is understood in the Qur’anic and Abrahamic sense, its meaning becomes clear: the true dīn with The-God is submission to Him; a submission that breaks shirk, arrogance, lord-making, and servitude to human beings.
In another verse it says:
وَمَن يَبْتَغِ غَيْرَ الْإِسْلَامِ دِينًا فَلَن يُقْبَلَ مِنْهُ وَهُوَ فِي الْآخِرَةِ مِنَ الْخَاسِرِينَ
And whoever seeks a dīn other than Islam, it will never be accepted from him, and in the Hereafter he will be among the losers.
This verse also must be read in the same Qur’anic horizon. “Other than Islam” does not mean merely being outside the later political identity of Muslims. It means seeking a way other than submission to The-God; a way in which the human being submits to idols, desires, human lords, ethnic pride, religious arrogance, or power. Anyone who turns away from true submission to The-God and seeks another foundation has stepped outside the accepted dīn.
This is also why the Qur’an describes Abraham as neither Jew nor Christian, but ḥanīf and muslim:
مَا كَانَ إِبْرَاهِيمُ يَهُودِيًّا وَلَا نَصْرَانِيًّا وَلَـٰكِن كَانَ حَنِيفًا مُّسْلِمًا وَمَا كَانَ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ
Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian; rather, he was ḥanīf, submitted, and he was not of the mushrikīn.
Here, being muslim stands before later religious names. Abraham is not confined inside Jewish or Christian identity, nor is he the property of a later Muslim identity in the political sense. He is ḥanīf and muslim: turned away from falsehood toward The-God, submitted to Him, and free from shirk. This is the root.
From this point, the difference between faith and submission must not be understood as hostility between the two concepts. The Qur’an does not place true faith and true submission against one another. On the contrary, true faith leads to true submission, and true submission reveals faith. The issue is that every submission is not faith, and every social label is not true submission.
The Qur’an also speaks of the submission of the entire existence:
أَفَغَيْرَ دِينِ اللَّهِ يَبْغُونَ وَلَهُ أَسْلَمَ مَن فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ طَوْعًا وَكَرْهًا وَإِلَيْهِ يُرْجَعُونَ
Do they then seek other than the dīn of The-God, while to Him has submitted whoever is in the heavens and the earth, willingly and unwillingly, and to Him they will be returned?
This verse shows another layer of submission: creational submission. All beings, willingly or unwillingly, stand within the order and command of The-God. No creature can escape His dominion. But this creational submission is different from moral and voluntary faith. A mountain, a star, or a body may be submitted to the creational command of The-God, but it is not being tested in the human sense of moral faith. The human being is called not only to be within the order of creation, but to freely, consciously, and ethically submit to The-God.
Therefore, the Qur’anic word “submission” has layers. If these layers are not distinguished, confusion occurs. Outward submission, creational submission, and Abrahamic submission are not one thing. The highest human station is when faith enters the heart and the human being willingly submits to The-God with truthfulness and righteous action.
From here we can also understand why the Qur’an says:
لَا إِكْرَاهَ فِي الدِّينِ ۖ قَد تَّبَيَّنَ الرُّشْدُ مِنَ الْغَيِّ
There is no compulsion in the dīn; right guidance has become clear from error.
This principle is very important for the discussion of Believer (Mu'min) and Muslim. If faith cannot be coerced, then no political or juristic system can make a human being a Believer (Mu'min) by compulsion. It may force a person to say a name with his tongue, pay a tax, take an outward mark, or enter a social rank; but faith does not enter the heart by force. The Qur’an itself has distinguished between outward submission and inner faith. Therefore religious coercion, if it produces anything, produces at most outward submission, not Qur’anic faith.
In Sūrat al-Shūrā, this same truth appears from another angle:
وَلَوْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ لَجَعَلَهُمْ أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً وَلَـٰكِن يُدْخِلُ مَن يَشَاءُ فِي رَحْمَتِهِ ۚ وَالظَّالِمُونَ مَا لَهُم مِّن وَلِيٍّ وَلَا نَصِيرٍ
And if The-God had willed, He would have made them one community; but He admits whom He wills into His mercy; and the wrongdoers have no guardian and no helper.
If The-God had wanted a single outward identity for all human beings, He could have made them one community. But the world of the Qur’an is a world of testing, choice, responsibility, and differentiation. Therefore, the duty of the Believer (Mu'min) is not to force all human beings into one social name; his duty is to call to truth, act with justice, and race in good works.
The Qur’an also says:
لِكُلٍّ جَعَلْنَا مِنكُمْ شِرْعَةً وَمِنْهَاجًا ۚ وَلَوْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ لَجَعَلَكُمْ أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً وَلَـٰكِن لِّيَبْلُوَكُمْ فِي مَا آتَاكُمْ ۖ فَاسْتَبِقُوا الْخَيْرَاتِ
For each of you We appointed a law and a way. And if The-God had willed, He would have made you one community; but He tests you in what He has given you. So race ahead in good works.
This verse shows that the multiplicity of communities is not an accident outside divine knowledge. The test of human beings occurs in what they have been given. The Qur’an’s answer to difference is not coercion into one name, but racing in good works. This is very close to the same criterion of salvation: faith and righteous action.
Therefore, if later history turned “Muslim” into a rigid political and legal identity and made this identity the main boundary of salvation, it moved away from the precision of the Qur’an. In the Qur’an, being muslim in the true sense means submission to The-God; and being a Believer (Mu'min) means the entry of faith into the heart and its appearance in righteous action. These two, when they are true, support one another. But when they become merely names and social marks, they can even become veils over truth.
The Qur’an repeatedly warns against mere claim. The People of the Book also had claims; the Arabs also had claims; later Muslims also have claims. But the Qur’an does not accept claim without truth:
وَقَالُوا لَن يَدْخُلَ الْجَنَّةَ إِلَّا مَن كَانَ هُودًا أَوْ نَصَارَىٰ ۗ تِلْكَ أَمَانِيُّهُمْ ۗ قُلْ هَاتُوا بُرْهَانَكُمْ إِن كُنتُمْ صَادِقِينَ
And they said: None will enter the Garden except one who is a Jew or a Christian. Those are their wishes. Say: Bring your proof, if you are truthful.
This verse breaks the monopoly of salvation by religious name. But the same warning applies to anyone who says: none will enter the Garden except one who carries our later label. The Qur’an does not accept wishes. It asks for proof, truthfulness, faith, and righteous action.
Immediately after that, the Qur’an states the true criterion:
بَلَىٰ مَنْ أَسْلَمَ وَجْهَهُ لِلَّهِ وَهُوَ مُحْسِنٌ فَلَهُ أَجْرُهُ عِندَ رَبِّهِ وَلَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ
Yes indeed; whoever submits his face to The-God while being a doer of good, his reward is with his Lord; no fear shall be upon them, nor shall they grieve.
This verse is one of the most important verses in this discussion. It does not say: whoever carries a particular inherited name. It says: whoever submits his face to The-God while being muḥsin. “Submitting the face” means directing the whole orientation of the human being toward The-God. And “while being muḥsin” means this submission must become visible in goodness, beauty, justice, and righteous action. Submission without iḥsān is not the Qur’anic ideal.
The same meaning appears in Sūrat Luqmān:
وَمَن يُسْلِمْ وَجْهَهُ إِلَى اللَّهِ وَهُوَ مُحْسِنٌ فَقَدِ اسْتَمْسَكَ بِالْعُرْوَةِ الْوُثْقَىٰ ۗ وَإِلَى اللَّهِ عَاقِبَةُ الْأُمُورِ
And whoever submits his face to The-God while being a doer of good has grasped the firmest handhold; and to The-God belongs the outcome of all matters.
Here also, the firmest handhold is not merely a name. It is submission of the face to The-God together with iḥsān. This is the Qur’anic Islam: surrendering one’s direction to The-God, while embodying goodness and moral beauty. Therefore, a person who has the name Muslim but whose face is turned toward power, ethnicity, sect, desire, and oppression has not grasped the firmest handhold merely by his name.
This distinction also helps us understand why the Qur’an places faith and righteous action together again and again. Faith is inner truth; righteous action is its outward sign. Submission is the orientation of the human being before The-God; iḥsān is the beauty and correctness of that orientation in action. These concepts must not be separated from one another.
From here, the later historical change becomes clearer. When the religious apparatus made the word “Muslim” the main identity, it gradually pushed the word “Believer (Mu'min)” into the background. Yet in the Qur’an, the community of the Prophet is repeatedly called the Believers (Mu'minun) (Mu'minun). The Qur’an speaks of “O you who have believed,” “the believing men and believing women,” “the Believers (Mu'minun),” “the community of Believers (Mu'minun),” and “the brotherhood of the Believers (Mu'minun) (Mu'minun).” This shows that the axis of the Qur’anic community is faith, not merely a social name.
Of course, the Qur’an also uses the word muslimūn. But this use is rooted in submission to The-God, not in a later national or imperial identity. When this word was separated from its Abrahamic root and turned into a political label, the danger began. A person could be called Muslim, yet be oppressive, arrogant, bloodthirsty, unjust, or empty of faith; and another person could be outside this social label, yet have truthfulness, belief in The-God and the Last Day, and righteous action.
The Qur’an does not allow the first person to be saved by his label, nor does it allow the second person to be condemned merely because of his label. Final judgment belongs to The-God, but the criterion of the Qur’an is clear: faith, righteous action, truthfulness, submission to The-God, iḥsān, taqwā, and avoidance of shirk and wrongdoing.
This is why the discussion of “Believer (Mu'min)” and “Muslim” is not a linguistic luxury. It is a foundational discussion about the meaning of religion, salvation, community, identity, and justice. If “Muslim” becomes the substitute for “Believer (Mu'min),” religion may become an ID card. If “Believer (Mu'min)” is understood only as a sectarian name, faith loses its inner truth. But if both words are returned to the Qur’an, their relationship becomes clear: true Islam is submission to The-God, and true faith is the living truth of the heart that appears in righteous action.
The Qur’an calls the human being to pass beyond the hard shell of names and return to the living core of faith, truthfulness, true submission, and righteous action. The problem is not in the word “Muslim”; the problem is in the history that separated this word from its Abrahamic and tawḥīdic root and turned it into a label of power, ethnicity, fiqh, and social boundary-making.
Therefore, whenever “Muslim” is mentioned, one must ask: Which meaning? Muslim in the sense of Abrahamic submission before The-God? Or Muslim in the sense of membership in a historical and political identity? And whenever “Believer (Mu'min)” is mentioned, one must ask: Has faith entered the heart and become visible in righteous action? Or is it only a name that the human being has placed upon himself?
The Qur’an asks the human being to go behind the names and measure the truth. A human being may have the name Believer (Mu'min) while faith has not entered his heart. A human being may have the name Muslim while his submission is only outward. And a human being may stand outside sectarian borders, yet have turned toward The-God, the Last Day, and righteous action. Final judgment belongs to The-God; but the criterion of the Qur’an is clear: faith, truthfulness, true submission, negation of ṭāghūt, and righteous action.
Abraham: A Transhistorical Model and the Negation of Religious Exclusivism
One of the clearest ways by which the Qur’an breaks religious monopolies is by returning the human being to Abraham. The Qur’an repeatedly shows that the truth of the dīn existed before historical, sectarian, and ethnic names. If Jews and Christians each wanted to place Abraham inside the frame of their own name, the Qur’an broke that claim. If later Muslims also wanted to consider Abraham their exclusive property, the same Qur’anic logic applies to them as well. Abraham does not belong to names; Abraham is a sign of being ḥanīf, of tawḥīd, submission, iḥsān, and departure from shirk and lord-making.
مَا كَانَ إِبْرَاهِيمُ يَهُودِيًّا وَلَا نَصْرَانِيًّا وَلَـٰكِن كَانَ حَنِيفًا مُّسْلِمًا وَمَا كَانَ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ
Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian; rather, he was ḥanīf, submitted, and he was not among the mushrikīn.
This verse is not only about Jews and Christians. It establishes a methodological principle: the Abrahamic truth cannot be imprisoned inside later historical names. Abraham had submitted before the Lord of the worlds before these names took shape. Therefore, if historical Judaism and Christianity cannot monopolize Abraham under their names, later religious and political Islam also has no right to imprison Abraham inside a closed, ethnic, royal, or sectarian identity.
إِنَّ أَوْلَى النَّاسِ بِإِبْرَاهِيمَ لَلَّذِينَ اتَّبَعُوهُ وَهَـٰذَا النَّبِيُّ وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا ۗ وَاللَّهُ وَلِيُّ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ
Indeed, the nearest of people to Abraham are those who followed him, and this Prophet, and those who believed; and The-God is the Guardian of the Believers (Mu'minun).
Relation to Abraham in this verse is based on following, not on claim, blood, name, tribe, history, or religious ownership. The nearest people to Abraham are those who follow his way. Therefore, if someone mentions Abraham’s name but is far from tawḥīd, ḥanīf-ness, the negation of shirk, the negation of oppression, and iḥsān, he is not near to Abraham. And if someone, in any time and under any name, follows Abraham’s way in tawḥīd, truthfulness, and true submission, he is nearer to the Abrahamic horizon.
وَقَالُوا كُونُوا هُودًا أَوْ نَصَارَىٰ تَهْتَدُوا ۗ قُلْ بَلْ مِلَّةَ إِبْرَاهِيمَ حَنِيفًا ۖ وَمَا كَانَ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ
And they said: Become Jews or Christians and you will be guided. Say: Rather, the millah of Abraham, ḥanīf; and he was not among the mushrikīn.
Here the Qur’an states clearly that guidance is not dependent upon becoming a historical name. They said: become Jews or Christians so that you may be guided. The Qur’anic response is not merely to replace one name with another. The Qur’anic response is return to the millah of Abraham: the ḥanīf path, the path of tawḥīd, the path of leaving shirk, the path of turning directly toward The-God.
This verse is foundational for criticizing every kind of religious label-worship. If someone says guidance lies only in taking my name, accepting my madhhab, following my fiqh, joining my party, or standing under the flag of my tribe and monarchy, his logic is the same logic of “become Jews or Christians and you will be guided.” Against this logic the Qur’an says: rather, the millah of Abraham, ḥanīf.
The millah of Abraham in the Qur’an is not a race, state, official madhhab, or juristic apparatus. The millah of Abraham is the orientation of the human being toward tawḥīd. Abraham distanced himself from fabricated lords, inherited idols, tribal powers, and imitative religion. He did not inherit truth from his fathers and people; rather, before what he found among them, he asked, measured, broke, and returned to the Lord of the worlds.
إِنِّي وَجَّهْتُ وَجْهِيَ لِلَّذِي فَطَرَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ حَنِيفًا ۖ وَمَا أَنَا مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ
Indeed, I have turned my face toward the One who originated the heavens and the earth, as a ḥanīf; and I am not among the mushrikīn.
This verse is the summary of Abraham’s way: turning the whole being toward the Originator of the heavens and the earth. Here “face” is not merely the outward face; it is the direction of the human being, the existential qiblah of the human being, the destination of the heart, intellect, and action. Abraham turned his face toward The-God, not toward tribe, inheritance, power, star, moon, sun, idol, or ancestral custom.
The word ḥanīf, in its Qur’anic meaning, is not merely a religious title. It is the orientation of a human being who separates from the dominant crookedness of his age and turns toward the straightness of tawḥīd. The ḥanīf is one who, when his society moves toward shirk, imitation, power-worship, ethnic pride, or dead traditions, has the courage to separate from that crooked path and turn his face toward the Originator of the heavens and the earth. Abraham was ḥanīf because he was not imprisoned by the dominant current of his people.
وَإِذِ ابْتَلَىٰ إِبْرَاهِيمَ رَبُّهُ بِكَلِمَاتٍ فَأَتَمَّهُنَّ ۖ قَالَ إِنِّي جَاعِلُكَ لِلنَّاسِ إِمَامًا ۖ قَالَ وَمِن ذُرِّيَّتِي ۖ قَالَ لَا يَنَالُ عَهْدِي الظَّالِمِينَ
And when his Lord tested Abraham with words, and he completed them, He said: I am making you an imam for the people. He said: And from my descendants? He said: My covenant does not reach the wrongdoers.
This verse breaks genealogical and ethnic exclusivism. Even when Abraham asks about his descendants, the divine answer is clear: My covenant does not reach the wrongdoers. Therefore, Abrahamic imamate is not a blind inheritance of blood. Even the children of Abraham, if they are wrongdoers, do not reach the divine covenant. This principle prevents Jews from genealogical pride, Christians from historical monopoly, and Muslims from communal and ID-card pride.
If Abraham is an imam for the people, not merely for one tribe, then his way is also universal. He is imam for the people. This expression harmonizes with the wide horizon of the Qur’an: the same Qur’an that considers the Sacred Mosque for the people, the same Qur’an that presents the message for the worlds, and the same Qur’an that makes the criterion of salvation faith, the Hereafter, and righteous action. Abraham is the imam of truth, not the imam of monopoly.
إِنَّ إِبْرَاهِيمَ كَانَ أُمَّةً قَانِتًا لِّلَّهِ حَنِيفًا وَلَمْ يَكُ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ
Indeed, Abraham was himself an ummah, devoutly obedient to The-God, ḥanīf, and he was not among the mushrikīn.
Abraham himself was an ummah because he carried within himself a truth that exceeded tribe, time, and crowd. He was one person, but his orientation was so clear that before a world trapped in imitation and shirk, he stood with the weight of an ummah. This verse shows that the value of the human being in the Qur’an is not based on population, power, majority, or official apparatus. One ḥanīf human being, if he stands truthfully before The-God, can weigh more than a misguided ummah.
شَاكِرًا لِّأَنْعُمِهِ ۚ اجْتَبَاهُ وَهَدَاهُ إِلَىٰ صِرَاطٍ مُّسْتَقِيمٍ
He was grateful for His blessings; He chose him and guided him to a straight path.
ثُمَّ أَوْحَيْنَا إِلَيْكَ أَنِ اتَّبِعْ مِلَّةَ إِبْرَاهِيمَ حَنِيفًا ۖ وَمَا كَانَ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ
Then We revealed to you: Follow the millah of Abraham, ḥanīf; and he was not among the mushrikīn.
This verse places the station of the message of Muhammad in continuity with the millah of Abraham. The Prophet is commanded to follow the millah of Abraham. This means that the message of Muhammad does not present itself in the Qur’an as severed from the Abrahamic root. The message of Muhammad is the continuation of the ḥanīf path, not the beginning of a rootless sectarian identity. Therefore, every understanding of Islam that separates it from Abraham has been separated from its Qur’anic root.
From here the meaning of muslim also becomes clearer. Being muslim in the Qur’an begins with Abraham, not with states. Abraham was muslim, the children of Jacob were muslim, the disciples of Jesus called themselves muslim, and the Prophet was commanded to follow the millah of Abraham. Therefore, before being the name of a political community, being muslim is the state of tawḥīdic submission before The-God.
وَجَاهِدُوا فِي اللَّهِ حَقَّ جِهَادِهِ ۚ هُوَ اجْتَبَاكُمْ وَمَا جَعَلَ عَلَيْكُمْ فِي الدِّينِ مِنْ حَرَجٍ ۚ مِّلَّةَ أَبِيكُمْ إِبْرَاهِيمَ ۚ هُوَ سَمَّاكُمُ الْمُسْلِمِينَ مِن قَبْلُ وَفِي هَـٰذَا
And strive in The-God with the striving due to Him. He chose you and placed no hardship upon you in the dīn: the millah of your father Abraham. He named you the submitted ones before, and in this.
This verse connects the word muslimīn to a deeper history. “Before” and “in this” show that being muslim did not begin only at the moment of the Qur’an’s revelation. This name has meaning in continuity with the millah of Abraham. Therefore, if later political and religious Islam turned this name into an official identity, legal boundary, social privilege, or instrument of monarchy, that historical transformation must not be made identical with the Qur’anic meaning of the word.
In the same verse another important expression appears: He placed no hardship upon you in the dīn. A dīn established upon the millah of Abraham is not a dīn of constriction and hardship. Therefore, every apparatus that turns dīn into sectarian tightness, coercion, takfīr, humiliation, legal obsession, clerical domination, and erasure of other Believers (Mu'minun) (Mu'minun) has moved away from the mercy and breadth of the way of Abraham.
لَّيْسَ الْبِرَّ أَن تُوَلُّوا وُجُوهَكُمْ قِبَلَ الْمَشْرِقِ وَالْمَغْرِبِ وَلَـٰكِنَّ الْبِرَّ مَنْ آمَنَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ وَالْمَلَائِكَةِ وَالْكِتَابِ وَالنَّبِيِّينَ وَآتَى الْمَالَ عَلَىٰ حُبِّهِ ذَوِي الْقُرْبَىٰ وَالْيَتَامَىٰ وَالْمَسَاكِينَ وَابْنَ السَّبِيلِ وَالسَّائِلِينَ وَفِي الرِّقَابِ وَأَقَامَ الصَّلَاةَ وَآتَى الزَّكَاةَ وَالْمُوفُونَ بِعَهْدِهِمْ إِذَا عَاهَدُوا ۖ وَالصَّابِرِينَ فِي الْبَأْسَاءِ وَالضَّرَّاءِ وَحِينَ الْبَأْسِ ۗ أُولَـٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ صَدَقُوا ۖ وَأُولَـٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُتَّقُونَ
Righteousness is not that you turn your faces toward the east and the west. Rather, righteousness is one who believes in The-God, the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets; and gives wealth, despite loving it, to relatives, orphans, the needy, the traveler, those who ask, and for freeing necks; and establishes ṣalāt and gives zakāt; and those who fulfill their covenant when they make a covenant; and those who are patient in hardship, harm, and at the time of battle. Those are the ones who were truthful, and those are the people of taqwā.
This verse does not negate ritual form, but it does not place ritual form in the position of truth. Turning toward a direction, if it is not accompanied by faith, giving, fulfillment of covenant, patience, justice, and taqwā, is not true birr. Therefore even qiblah and ritual signs must not become tools of identity pride. The outward direction must carry the human being to the inward direction; otherwise, the form of dīn has taken the place of the truth of dīn.
The millah of Abraham liberates the human being from human lords. Just as the Qur’an called the People of the Book to the common word that some of us should not take others as lords, the way of Abraham also negates all false lords. Abraham stood against the idols of his people, but idols are not only stone and wood. Every power that takes the place of The-God in judgment, absolute obedience, fear, hope, and servitude is an idol. Every jurist, ruler, madhhab, tribe, report, or custom that places itself alongside the command of The-God is broken by the Abrahamic logic.
وَمَنْ أَحْسَنُ دِينًا مِّمَّنْ أَسْلَمَ وَجْهَهُ لِلَّهِ وَهُوَ مُحْسِنٌ وَاتَّبَعَ مِلَّةَ إِبْرَاهِيمَ حَنِيفًا ۗ وَاتَّخَذَ اللَّهُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ خَلِيلًا
And who is better in dīn than one who submits his face to The-God while being a doer of good, and follows the millah of Abraham, ḥanīf? And The-God took Abraham as an intimate friend.
This verse places three pillars together: submitting the face to The-God, iḥsān, and following the millah of Abraham. This is the main structure of Qur’anic dīn. Submission without iḥsān is not sufficient. Claiming to follow Abraham without goodness and righteous action is meaningless. Turning toward The-God must appear in ethics, justice, mercy, and good.
With this view, Abraham becomes the measure of all claimants to religion. If Jews monopolize Abraham under their name, the Qur’an rejects it. If Christians do so, the Qur’an rejects it. Muslims too, if they turn Abraham into sectarian property, the same logic rejects them as well. Abraham belongs to whoever is ḥanīf: whoever turns back from crookedness toward tawḥīd. Abraham belongs to whoever does not commit wrongdoing, because the divine covenant does not reach the wrongdoers. Abraham belongs to whoever has iḥsān, because the best dīn is joined to iḥsān.
Therefore the millah of Abraham is a path out of religious enclosures. This does not mean that all differences become meaningless; it means that no name takes the place of truth. A Jew who is ḥanīf, monotheistic, truthful, and righteous is nearer to Abraham than someone who has the name Muslim but is oppressive, arrogant, sect-worshiping, and heedless of the Book. A Christian who turns toward The-God, believes in the Last Day, and performs righteous action is nearer to the horizon of the Qur’an than someone who merely boasts in the name of Islam while being a person of wrongdoing and concealment. And if a Muslim is truly a follower of the Qur’an, before anything else he must learn from the millah of Abraham: tawḥīd, ḥanīf-ness, negation of shirk, negation of human lords, iḥsān, and fidelity to truth.
This view does not diminish the message of Muhammad; rather, it places it in its correct Qur’anic station. The message of Muhammad is a return to the same ḥanīf path: confirming earlier truth, correcting distortions, breaking religious and political lords, and calling again to The-God. The Qur’an does not separate the Prophet from Abraham. Therefore, no Qur’anic Muslim has the right to consider himself independent of Abraham or to turn Islam into an identity separated from the millah of Abraham.
From here it becomes clear that the central conflict of the Qur’an is not with names; it is with shirk, wrongdoing, concealment, arrogance, and lord-making. The Qur’an does not want the human being merely to move from the name Jew to the name Christian, or from the name Christian to the name Muslim, while the same spirit of fanaticism, imitation, and exclusivism remains within him. The Qur’an wants the human being to be liberated from servitude to anything other than The-God. If the name changes but the lords remain, the truth of dīn has not changed.
Abraham is the transhistorical measure of the Qur’an. He shows that dīn, before being an identity system, is direction toward The-God; before being family inheritance, it is a choice born of responsibility; before being official fiqh, it is submission embodied in iḥsān; before being a political border, it is ḥanīf-ness before The-God.
Therefore, every understanding of “Muslim” that does not return to Abraham is incomplete. And every understanding of “Believer (Mu'min)” that forgets faith, truthfulness, iḥsān, and righteous action is only a name. Through Abraham, the Qur’an teaches the human being that the path of salvation does not pass through names; it is traveled through tawḥīd, truthfulness, true submission, iḥsān, and righteous action.
Abraham is neither the flag of a sect nor the property of a people. Abraham is the imam of people and all human beings; an ummah of the human kind; ḥanīf and submitted; the breaker of religious and juristic idols; and a witness that The-God does not give His covenant to wrongdoers. This principle measures everyone: the People of the Book, the People of the Qur’an, Muslims, and every human being who claims the way of God. The final criterion is the same one the Qur’an repeats again and again: faith in The-God, avoidance of shirk and ṭāghūt, true submission, iḥsān, and righteous action.
The Difference of Communities and Racing in Good Works
After returning to Abraham and the ḥanīf millah, the Qur’an clarifies another great principle: the difference of communities and ways is not an excuse for erasing one another; it is a field of testing, responsibility, and racing in good works. The Qur’an does not want human beings coerced, and it does not force all communities of faith into one single form. The Qur’anic way is not to destroy differences through political power, religious coercion, or juristic domination. The Qur’anic way is to test human beings and communities in what they have been given and to call them to outdo one another in goodness.
وَأَنزَلْنَا إِلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ بِالْحَقِّ مُصَدِّقًا لِّمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ مِنَ الْكِتَابِ وَمُهَيْمِنًا عَلَيْهِ ۖ فَاحْكُم بَيْنَهُم بِمَا أَنزَلَ اللَّهُ وَلَا تَتَّبِعْ أَهْوَاءَهُمْ عَمَّا جَاءَكَ مِنَ الْحَقِّ ۚ لِكُلٍّ جَعَلْنَا مِنكُمْ شِرْعَةً وَمِنْهَاجًا ۚ وَلَوْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ لَجَعَلَكُمْ أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً وَلَـٰكِن لِّيَبْلُوَكُمْ فِي مَا آتَاكُمْ ۖ فَاسْتَبِقُوا الْخَيْرَاتِ ۚ إِلَى اللَّهِ مَرْجِعُكُمْ جَمِيعًا فَيُنَبِّئُكُم بِمَا كُنتُمْ فِيهِ تَخْتَلِفُونَ
And We sent down to you the Book in truth, confirming what was between its hands of the Book and as a guardian criterion over it. So judge between them by what The-God sent down, and do not follow their desires away from the truth that has come to you. For each of you We appointed a law and a way. And if The-God had willed, He would have made you one community; but He tests you in what He has given you. So race ahead in good works. To The-God is the return of all of you, and He will inform you about that in which you used to differ.
This verse is one of the main pillars for understanding religious difference in the Qur’an. The Qur’an first clarifies its own station: a Book sent down in truth, confirming what came before it of the Book, and being muhaymin over it; that is, a criterion, guardian, and judge over earlier traditions. Therefore, the Qur’an neither negates the earlier books entirely, nor does it surrender unconditionally to whatever later appeared in their traditions. The Qur’an confirms truth, corrects falsehood, and returns the matter to The-God.
Then the verse states a principle that is often forgotten: for each of you We appointed a law and a way. This means that the existence of different communities, ways, and revealed paths lies within divine knowledge and testing. The Qur’an does not say that all difference must be crushed by force. It says that The-God could have made all of you one community, but He did not do so, because the test takes place in what each has been given.
The command that follows is decisive: “So race ahead in good works.” The answer of the Qur’an to difference is not mutual erasure, humiliation, coercion, or sectarian war; it is racing in good works. The community that claims truth must show its truth through justice, mercy, faithfulness, truthfulness, reform, generosity, and righteousness, not through boasting in names or destroying others.
This principle also prevents the People of the Qur’an from falling into the same disease that the Qur’an criticized in earlier communities. If the Jews and Christians were criticized for making salvation exclusive to their own names, the followers of the Qur’an have no right to repeat the same logic under another name. The Qur’an has already broken the logic of “only us.” It does not permit anyone to revive that logic merely by changing the label.
At the end of the verse, the Qur’an returns final judgment to The-God: “To The-God is the return of all of you, and He will inform you about that in which you used to differ.” This means that human beings do not possess the final court over every hidden matter of religious difference. They must judge by what has been revealed, uphold justice, call to truth, and avoid desire; but the final unveiling of disputed matters belongs to The-God.
The same meaning appears in another verse:
وَلِكُلٍّ وِجْهَةٌ هُوَ مُوَلِّيهَا ۖ فَاسْتَبِقُوا الْخَيْرَاتِ ۚ أَيْنَ مَا تَكُونُوا يَأْتِ بِكُمُ اللَّهُ جَمِيعًا ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ
And for each there is a direction toward which he turns. So race ahead in good works. Wherever you may be, The-God will bring you all together. Indeed, The-God is capable over all things.
Here too, the Qur’an does not make the difference of directions an excuse for pride or hatred. It says: race ahead in good works. The gathering of all belongs to The-God. Therefore, a community’s worth is not proven by merely claiming that its direction is correct; it is proven by its fidelity to truth and its racing in good works.
This is why the Qur’an repeatedly brings together faith and righteous action. The measure of religious identity is not only what name a person carries, what qiblah he faces, or which historical group he belongs to. The measure is whether faith has become alive in the heart and has become visible in action. If a community claims guidance but produces injustice, cruelty, corruption, arrogance, and sectarian hatred, that community has failed the test of what it was given.
The Qur’an’s recognition of different laws and ways does not mean that all claims are equally true or that falsehood is accepted as truth. The Qur’an remains a criterion. It confirms truth and corrects deviation. But being a criterion is not the same as becoming an instrument of coercion. The Qur’an calls, clarifies, warns, distinguishes, and judges by revelation; but it also says there is no compulsion in the dīn, and it returns final judgment over hearts and disputes to The-God.
The command to race in good works also breaks empty theological boasting. If a Muslim claims the Qur’an but does not do justice, if a Christian claims the Gospel but does not act with mercy, if a Jew claims the Torah but does not uphold covenant and justice, and if any community claims God while serving power, wealth, tribe, or clergy, then the claim has become a veil. The Qur’an asks for the fruit of faith: good works, justice, truthfulness, and taqwā.
Therefore, difference among communities is not a license for chaos, nor is it a license for coercive uniformity. It is a field of responsibility. Each community is tested in what it has received. Each must return to The-God, uphold what is true, abandon concealment and exaggeration, and compete in what is good.
This principle is central for the question of “Believer (Mu'min)” and “Muslim.” If The-God wanted all human beings to be one outward community, He could have made them so. But the Qur’an tells us that the test occurs within difference, and the response to difference is racing in good works. Therefore, salvation cannot be reduced to the mere external name of one community. The deeper criterion remains: faith in The-God, the Last Day, righteous action, true submission, and iḥsān.
The House of God Is for the People, Not the Property of a Nation or a Monarchy
After the Qur’an returns us to Abraham and teaches us to race in good works despite the difference of communities, it brings us to one of the clearest symbols of the Abrahamic path: the House of God. The Qur’an does not present the Kaʿbah and the Sacred Mosque as the property of one tribe, state, monarchy, clerical class, or closed religious identity. It is a House placed for the people; a sign for servitude to The-God, not an instrument of ownership, politics, sectarian boundary-making, and power.
إِنَّ أَوَّلَ بَيْتٍ وُضِعَ لِلنَّاسِ لَلَّذِي بِبَكَّةَ مُبَارَكًا وَهُدًى لِّلْعَالَمِينَ
Indeed, the first House placed for the people is the one at Bakkah, blessed and a guidance for the worlds.
In this verse, two very important expressions appear together: for the people and guidance for the worlds. The House was placed for the people and is guidance for the worlds. The Qur’an does not say that this House was placed for Arabs, Quraysh, a state, an official madhhab, or a special class. Therefore, every transformation of the Kaʿbah into ethnic property, an instrument of monarchy, a sign of religious superiority, or a boundary between insiders and outsiders conflicts with the language of the Qur’an itself.
فِيهِ آيَاتٌ بَيِّنَاتٌ مَّقَامُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ ۖ وَمَن دَخَلَهُ كَانَ آمِنًا ۗ وَلِلَّهِ عَلَى النَّاسِ حِجُّ الْبَيْتِ مَنِ اسْتَطَاعَ إِلَيْهِ سَبِيلًا
In it are clear signs: the station of Abraham. And whoever enters it is secure. And for The-God, upon the people, is pilgrimage to the House, for whoever is able to find a way to it.
Again the expression “upon the people” appears; upon the people, not only upon ID-card Muslims, not only Arabs, not only followers of one fiqh or madhhab. Pilgrimage is connected with the people, ability, security, and the station of Abraham. A House known through the station of Abraham cannot become the property of those who themselves have moved away from the way of Abraham. Abraham was neither Jew nor Christian; he was ḥanīf and submitted. Therefore, the Abrahamic House also must not become an instrument for monopolizing one historical name or one political power.
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا وَيَصُدُّونَ عَن سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ وَالْمَسْجِدِ الْحَرَامِ الَّذِي جَعَلْنَاهُ لِلنَّاسِ سَوَاءً الْعَاكِفُ فِيهِ وَالْبَادِ
Indeed, those who committed kufr and obstruct from the way of The-God and from the Sacred Mosque, which We made for the people, equal therein are the resident and the visitor from outside.
This verse does not only say that the Sacred Mosque is for the people; it goes one step further and says that the resident and the outsider are equal in it. The one who lives in Makkah is not the spiritual owner of the House. The one who comes from outside is not a stranger to that House. Geographical nearness to the sanctuary does not create exclusive right. The criterion is taqwā, tawḥīd, sanctity, security, and truthfulness; not soil, tribe, state, citizenship, or certificate of power.
In the same verse, obstructing people from the Sacred Mosque is placed beside kufr. This is a heavy point. Kufr is not only an abstract mental belief; sometimes it appears as closing the way of people toward a House that God placed for the people. Every power that considers the Sacred Mosque its own property and closes its path before God-seeking people, monotheists, People of the Book, or sincere seekers must be measured by this verse.
وَمَن يُرِدْ فِيهِ بِإِلْحَادٍ بِظُلْمٍ نُّذِقْهُ مِنْ عَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ
And whoever intends deviation therein through wrongdoing, We shall make him taste a painful punishment.
The matter of the sanctuary, therefore, is not only outward entry and exit; it is the matter of wrongdoing, deviation, and violation of sanctity in the House of God. A House placed for the people and guidance for the worlds must not become a field of oppression, humiliation, trade in power, display of superiority, or religious monopoly. The sanctity of the House is not preserved by stones and walls; it is preserved by tawḥīd, justice, security, purity, and the negation of oppressive domination.
وَإِذْ بَوَّأْنَا لِإِبْرَاهِيمَ مَكَانَ الْبَيْتِ أَن لَّا تُشْرِكْ بِي شَيْئًا وَطَهِّرْ بَيْتِيَ لِلطَّائِفِينَ وَالْقَائِمِينَ وَالرُّكَّعِ السُّجُودِ
And when We settled for Abraham the place of the House: Do not associate anything with Me, and purify My House for those who circle, those who stand, and those who bow and prostrate.
The first command in this verse is the negation of shirk. The purity of the House is not only washing walls or arranging the outward order of rites; it is purification from everything that takes the place of The-God. A stone idol is the clearest form of shirk, but not the only form. Every power that claims for itself the right of legislation, absolute obedience, ownership over the dīn, or the right to close the way of God before people stands in danger of shirk. The House must remain pure from idol, ruler, tribe, class, report-worship, royal fiqh, and every apparatus that pulls people away from The-God toward human lords.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِنَّمَا الْمُشْرِكُونَ نَجَسٌ فَلَا يَقْرَبُوا الْمَسْجِدَ الْحَرَامَ بَعْدَ عَامِهِمْ هَـٰذَا
O you who believed, the mushrikīn are only impurity, so let them not come near the Sacred Mosque after this year of theirs.
This verse is not about a vague and general title called “non-Muslims.” Its immediate subject is the idol-worshiping mushrikīn of Makkah and its surroundings; the same currents that had covenants with the Prophet and the community of Believers (Mu'minun), while in the atmosphere of Sūrat al-Tawbah the discussion is covenant-breaking, hostility, obstruction from the way of God, and preventing the Believers (Mu'minun) from pilgrimage and the Sacred Mosque. The opening verses of Sūrat al-Tawbah themselves show that the issue is not an abstract theological dispute only; it is the matter of treaty-breaking, war, insecurity, and contaminating the center of tawḥīd with the power of idolatry.
This ruling must not be extended to the People of the Book, monotheists, ḥanīfs, Sabians, or every non-mushrik seeker of God. The Qur’an does not say here that Jews, Christians, or other monotheists should be expelled from a House that is for the people. The speech concerns idol-worshiping mushrikīn who had placed the center of tawḥīd under idolatrous rites, tribal power, and covenant-breaking.
Therefore, the prohibition regarding the mushrikīn in Al-Tawbah 9:28 is not the negation of the House being “for the people”; it is the purification of the Abrahamic House from the domination of covenant-breaking shirk and idolatry. The House is for the people, but not so that idolatry, lord-making, covenant-breaking, and obstruction from the way of God continue within it. Later religionists and exclusivists expanded this verse as though the Qur’an had closed the doors of the House of God to the People of the Book and all monotheists, while such a generalization does not arise from the text of the Qur’an.
Thus Al-Tawbah 9:28 is not a title deed for one madhhab or one government. It does not say that the House ceased to be for the people and became the property of one sectarian identity. It says that the House which is for the people must not become a center of shirk. The universality of the House does not mean borderlessness before shirk; but shirk must not be seen only in the other. If the criterion is shirk, everyone must measure himself by it first.
If shirk is truly made the criterion for excluding opposing sects, then a group that, in the name of Islam, places thousands of scattered sayings in the station of revelation, attributes them to the Prophet, and constructs beside the Qur’an a source of religious obligation has itself fallen into legislative shirk, and would therefore be impure and barred from the Sacred House by that logic. Shirk is not only prostration to stone; legislating in the dīn in the name of God without a clear authorization from God can be a more dangerous form of shirk. If Sunnis and people of opinion, or any other group, place scattered narrative, juristic, or sectarian sayings in the station of revelation and make from them a parallel religion beside the Qur’an, they too must measure themselves by the command: “Do not associate anything with Me.” A more detailed discussion appears in the article Confusing Obedience to the Messenger with Obedience to Scattered Hadith and Reports; Creating Parallel Religions and Sects Beside the Way of the Qur’an.
Therefore, Al-Tawbah 9:28 must not be made a tool of religious exclusivism. Later religionists read this verse as if God had closed His House against the People of the Book, other monotheists, and everyone outside their sectarian borders. But the text of the Qur’an does not say this. The Qur’an considers the House for the people, connects it to the station of Abraham, declares the resident and the visitor equal, and directs the prohibition toward shirk. If shirk is the criterion, then before anyone else this criterion must be presented to the claimants of religion themselves.
The Sacred House should not be merely the place of ritual entry and exit for one closed community. It should be a field for monotheists to draw nearer to one another, to remember The-God, to dialogue, recognize, reform, and grow. A House the Qur’an calls guidance for the worlds cannot be only a symbol of separation, humiliation, boundary-making, and monopoly. If this House is for the people and for the guidance of the worlds, then it should be a place where people of faith, People of the Book, ḥanīfs, and all God-seeking monotheists draw near to one another in an atmosphere of sanctity, security, and tawḥīd, listen to one another, distance themselves from historical fanaticisms, and under the remembrance of The-God create the ground for understanding, reform, and racing in good among communities.
وَلِكُلِّ أُمَّةٍ جَعَلْنَا مَنسَكًا لِّيَذْكُرُوا اسْمَ اللَّهِ عَلَىٰ مَا رَزَقَهُم مِّن بَهِيمَةِ الْأَنْعَامِ ۗ فَإِلَـٰهُكُمْ إِلَـٰهٌ وَاحِدٌ فَلَهُ أَسْلِمُوا ۗ وَبَشِّرِ الْمُخْبِتِينَ
And for every community We appointed a rite, so that they may mention the name of The-God over what He has provided them of grazing livestock. So your object of worship is one object of worship; therefore submit to Him, and give good news to the humble.
This verse is very important. In the same sūrah that speaks of the Sacred Mosque, pilgrimage, sacrifice, the purity of the House, and the negation of shirk, it reminds us that for every community rites have been appointed. But this diversity of rites must not become a war of identities and religious monopoly, because immediately it says: your object of worship is one object of worship. Therefore, the axis is not the rites themselves as marks of group superiority; the axis is remembrance of the name of The-God, submission before Him, and humility.
The same meaning continues in other verses of this sūrah, such as Al-Ḥajj 22:67, where it says that for every community a rite has been appointed and that these differences should not become a dispute with the Prophet; rather, the call must be toward the Lord. This Qur’anic line shows that difference of rites is not a reason for erasure and humiliation; it is a field of testing, recognition, invitation, humility, and return to tawḥīd.
Thus the Sacred House, if understood in the horizon of the Qur’an, must be a center for the nearness of monotheists, not a field of competition in religious pride. There communities can understand that despite differences in rites and histories, the object of worship is one, the criterion is taqwā, and the right path is racing in good works. Purifying the House from shirk must not become an excuse to close its doors to monotheists; on the contrary, true purification means that the House be freed from the domination of idolatry, lord-making, power-worship, and exclusivism so that the servants of The-God may draw nearer to guidance in a secure and pure space.
Then comes the command: purify My House. The expression “My House” returns ownership to God. Neither Abraham owns the House, nor Quraysh, nor Arabs, nor monarchy, nor jurist, nor state, nor any official madhhab. The House is the House of The-God. Because it is His House, no one has the right to consider himself the owner of the path toward it.
وَأَذِّن فِي النَّاسِ بِالْحَجِّ يَأْتُوكَ رِجَالًا وَعَلَىٰ كُلِّ ضَامِرٍ يَأْتِينَ مِن كُلِّ فَجٍّ عَمِيقٍ
And proclaim among the people the pilgrimage; they will come to you on foot and on every lean camel, coming from every distant path.
The proclamation is among the people. It is not the proclamation of a royal office, visa regime, tribal monopoly, or sectarian gatekeeping. The Qur’an imagines people coming from every distant path. This universal movement is not a commercial show of power, nor a class-based privilege. It is an Abrahamic response to the call of The-God.
Therefore, the House of God must be measured by the Qur’an, not by the ownership claims of states and religious institutions. Whoever controls access to the House carries a heavy trust, not ownership. If that control becomes a source of humiliation, exploitation, political display, sectarian exclusion, or enrichment of unjust systems, it has betrayed the Qur’anic meaning of a House placed for the people and guidance for the worlds.
The Constitution of Medina as a Historical Witness
Alongside the Qur’anic verses, the earliest civic experience of the Prophet in Medina is also an important historical witness. The Constitution of Medina, with all the historical discussions around its exact wording and transmission, reflects a basic reality: the first community formed around the Prophet was not a simple sectarian enclosure in which every person outside one religious name was erased. It was a civic covenant that brought different groups into a shared order of security, responsibility, and mutual obligation.
In that order, the Believers (Mu'minun) had their religious identity and responsibility, while Jewish groups also remained recognized as communities with their own religion and covenantal place. The important point here is not to build law today on every transmitted detail of that document; rather, the point is that the earliest political experience attributed to the Prophet was not built upon the total erasure of the People of the Book. It recognized covenant, mutual defense, civic responsibility, and the difference between religious communities inside one social order.
This historical witness harmonizes with the Qur’anic logic. The Qur’an distinguishes between the People of the Book and the mushrikīn, commands dialogue with the People of the Book in the best manner, recognizes the legal weight of covenant, and says that not all of them are the same. Therefore, a civic order that includes different religious communities under covenant is not alien to the Qur’anic horizon.
The significance of the Constitution of Medina for this study is that it prevents later Muslims from imagining that the Qur’anic community was from the beginning a closed religious nationalism. The Prophet’s community was founded upon faith, covenant, security, and responsibility. It had boundaries, but those boundaries were not identical to later sectarian arrogance. It had law, but law was tied to covenant and justice, not to the humiliation of every outsider.
Medina also shows the difference between entering a civic order and entering inner faith. A person or group may belong to a covenantal order without that belonging being identical to faith in the heart. This is exactly the distinction that the Qur’an itself makes between outward submission and faith entering the heart. A civic covenant can organize relations among human beings; but the salvation of the heart is measured by faith, truthfulness, righteous action, and accountability before The-God.
Therefore, the Constitution of Medina should be read as a witness to the Qur’anic breadth of covenant, not as a tool for later imperial domination. It reminds us that the Prophet’s movement did not begin as an empire of ethnic superiority, taxation, and sectarian humiliation. It began as a community of Believers (Mu'minun) seeking to live under divine guidance while managing a real society through covenant and responsibility.
This matters for the discussion of “Believer (Mu'min)” and “Muslim,” because later history often turned the word Muslim into a political membership marker and used it to divide humanity into classes of power and subordination. But the Medinan witness shows that belonging, covenant, faith, and civic order were more complex than that. The Qur’an asks for faith and righteous action; civic order asks for covenant and responsibility. Confusing these levels is one of the roots of later distortion.
Royal Islam, the Umayyads, Taxation, Political Arabness, and the Change in the Meaning of Muslim
After the death of the Prophet, and especially with the rise of royal and imperial structures, the meaning of religious belonging gradually changed. The living Qur’anic concepts of faith, submission, covenant, justice, and righteous action became mixed with the needs of rule, taxation, military expansion, ethnic hierarchy, administrative classification, and political loyalty. In such a context, the word “Muslim” could easily move away from its Abrahamic and Qur’anic root and become a political and legal identity.
Royal Islam needed controllable categories. The empire needed to know who belonged to the ruling community, who paid which tax, who had which legal rank, who was Arab, who was non-Arab, who was mawla, who was dhimmī, and who stood outside the imperial order. These administrative needs slowly affected the religious imagination. A word that in the Qur’an describes submission to The-God could become the mark of belonging to an imperial religious-political system.
This historical shift is one of the deep reasons why the word “Believer (Mu'min)” was pushed into the background and the word “Muslim” became the dominant identity. In the Qur’an, the central address to the community is often “O you who have believed.” The Qur’an asks whether faith has entered the heart. It measures people by faith, righteous action, truthfulness, taqwā, and responsibility. But in later legal and political systems, it was easier to work with outward markers: name, confession, tax category, inherited identity, and social affiliation.
The danger began when this outward identity was presented as if it were the same as Qur’anic faith. A person could become part of the Muslim political community, but this did not necessarily mean that he had become a Believer (Mu'min) in the Qur’anic sense. The Qur’an itself had already warned that some people say “we have believed” while faith has not yet entered their hearts. But later history often ignored this distinction because political administration needed visible categories more than inner truth.
In royal religion, names become useful instruments of power. The ruler can claim to protect “Islam” while violating the Qur’an. The jurist can claim to speak for “Islam” while giving binding force to human opinions and reports. The state can claim to govern Muslims while turning the Book of God into a ceremonial symbol. The crowd can claim superiority by the name Muslim while lacking the faith, justice, mercy, and righteous action that the Qur’an requires.
Political Arabness also played a role. The first expansion of Muslim rule occurred through Arab power, language, army, and administration. The Qur’an was revealed in Arabic, but the Qur’anic Arabic of guidance is not the same as ethnic Arab superiority. When Arab political power became mixed with religious authority, the danger emerged that the universal Abrahamic message would be narrowed into an Arab imperial identity. This narrowing conflicts with the Qur’an, which repeatedly speaks to people, the worlds, and the human being, and which makes Abraham an imam for the people.
Taxation also affected the meaning of belonging. When religious identity becomes connected to fiscal categories, the pressure to classify people increases. The question becomes not only “Who has faith?” but “Who pays what? Who belongs to which legal class? Who has political loyalty?” Such questions may be necessary in an administration, but they must not be confused with salvation before The-God. The Qur’an does not make tax category the criterion of salvation; it makes faith in The-God, the Last Day, and righteous action the criterion.
This is how a major inversion took place: instead of the name “Muslim” serving the truth of faith and submission, the truth of faith was often placed under the authority of the social name Muslim. The label became stronger than the heart. The inherited identity became stronger than the Qur’anic criterion. The legal system became stronger than the living Book. And the word “Believer (Mu'min)” became, in practice, less central than the political-religious identity of Muslim.
This shift also produced arrogance. Many began to imagine that being inside the Muslim identity was itself a guarantee of superiority, while being outside it was enough for condemnation. But the Qur’an had already broken this logic when it said: “It is not according to your wishes, nor according to the wishes of the People of the Book.” The Qur’an did not allow any community to turn its name into a guarantee of salvation.
Therefore, the critique of royal Islam is not a rejection of the word Muslim. It is a call to rescue this word from its political and imperial narrowing and return it to its Qur’anic root: submission to The-God. Being muslim in the Qur’anic sense means surrendering the face to The-God while doing iḥsān. It means following the millah of Abraham, negating shirk, refusing human lordship, and living faith through righteous action.
When “Muslim” becomes a weapon of domination, it has been emptied of the Abrahamic spirit. When it becomes a tax category, it must not be mistaken for salvation. When it becomes an ethnic badge, it betrays the universality of the Qur’an. When it becomes a sectarian wall, it contradicts the Qur’anic call to the common word, the recognition of righteous People of the Book, and the command to race in good works.
The Qur’an calls the human being back from this imperial distortion. It asks not merely: What is your inherited identity? It asks: Have you believed in The-God and the Last Day? Have you performed righteous action? Have you submitted your face to The-God while being a doer of good? Have you avoided shirk and ṭāghūt? Have you upheld justice? Have you fulfilled covenant? Have you refused to take human beings as lords besides The-God?
Therefore, the historical change in the meaning of Muslim must be recognized. The Qur’anic muslim is Abrahamic, ḥanīf, submitted, and oriented toward The-God. The imperial Muslim can become merely a subject of a religious-political order. The first belongs to the truth of dīn; the second belongs to history and administration. Confusing these two is one of the roots of religious distortion.
Conclusion: Returning from the Label to the Truth of Faith
The central aim of this study has been to return the words “Believer (Mu'min)” and “Muslim” to the Qur’an. In the Qur’an, these words are not empty labels, inherited slogans, or political identity markers. Faith is the living truth of the heart that must appear in righteous action. Submission, in its highest Qur’anic sense, is Abrahamic surrender before The-God, joined to iḥsān, tawḥīd, and freedom from human lordship.
The Qur’an does not tie salvation to mere names. It repeatedly returns the criterion to faith in The-God, faith in the Last Day, and righteous action. It mentions those who believed, the Jews, the Christians, and the Sabians, then brings all of them back to the same criterion. It breaks the wishes of all groups: not your wishes, nor the wishes of the People of the Book. It recognizes righteous people among the People of the Book. It names the Sabians and thereby preserves a horizon wider than later sectarian memory. It returns everyone to Abraham, who was neither Jew nor Christian, but ḥanīf and submitted.
The Qur’an also distinguishes between outward submission and inner faith. A person may say “we have believed,” while faith has not yet entered the heart. Therefore, entering a social identity called Muslim does not by itself equal Qur’anic faith. At the same time, true Islam is not rejected; rather, it is restored to its real meaning: submission to the Lord of the worlds, the path of Abraham, the disciples, the prophets, and the righteous.
From this perspective, the later historical transformation of the word Muslim must be examined critically. When the word became tied to empire, taxation, Arab political power, legal classification, and sectarian superiority, it moved away from its Qur’anic and Abrahamic root. The problem is not the word itself; the problem is the corruption of its meaning. Muslim must serve faith, not replace it. Submission must lead to truthfulness, justice, taqwā, and righteous action, not become a veil for arrogance and self-exemption.
The Qur’an’s horizon is wider and more just than the later religious imagination. It does not erase the People of the Book as one whole. It does not make the House of God the property of one state or sect. It does not turn difference among communities into an excuse for coercion. It says: for each We appointed a law and a way; if The-God had willed, He would have made you one community; but He tests you in what He has given you, so race ahead in good works.
Therefore, the saved human being in the Qur’anic view is not someone saved merely by a label. The saved human being is the one who believes in The-God and the Last Day, performs righteous action, submits his face to The-God while doing iḥsān, refuses shirk and ṭāghūt, fulfills covenant, seeks truth, avoids arrogance, and stands before his Lord with responsibility.
This does not make the mission of Muhammad small. On the contrary, it restores the mission of Muhammad to its Qur’anic greatness: the final Qur’anic call that confirms truth, corrects distortion, breaks false lords, returns people to the millah of Abraham, and establishes the Qur’an as criterion. But loyalty to Muhammad is not loyalty to a later imperial identity; it is loyalty to the revelation he delivered, the truth he called to, and the Book that warns against abandoning it.
The final return is from label to truth, from inherited identity to living faith, from sectarian pride to righteous action, from royal religion to the Book, from human lords to The-God, from name-worship to tawḥīd, and from outward claim to the entry of faith into the heart.
The Qur’an does not ask the human being merely: What did they call you? It asks: What did you believe? Whom did you worship? What did you do? Did you act with justice? Did you fulfill your covenant? Did you feed, free, give, forgive, reform, and stand for truth? Did you submit your face to The-God while being a doer of good?
Thus the question is not simply: Are you Muslim by name? The deeper Qur’anic question is: Are you a Believer (Mu'min) in truth? Has faith entered your heart? Has submission to The-God become visible in your action? Have you returned from the shell of identity to the living truth of faith?
That is the path of the Qur’an: faith in The-God, the Last Day, righteous action, true submission, iḥsān, taqwā, justice, and the Abrahamic turning away from every false lord toward the One Lord of the worlds.