Overview (Verses 78 - 80)

When Men of Religion Become Corrupt 

There are some among them who twist their tongues when quoting the Scriptures, so that you may think that [what they say] is from the Scriptures, when it is not from the Scriptures. They say: ‘It is from God”, when it is not from God. Thus, they deliberately say of God what they know to be a lie. It is not conceivable that any human being to whom God had given revelation and wisdom and prophethood would subsequently say to people: “Worship me instead of God.” But rather: ‘Be devoted servants of God, by virtue of spreading the knowledge of the Scriptures and your constant study of them.” Nor would he bid you to take the angels and the Prophets as your gods. Would he bid you to be unbelievers after you have surrendered yourselves to God? (Verses 78-80)
 
These verses speak of a certain type of people of earlier revelations, namely, the deceivers who make use of God’s revelations in order to lead other people astray. They twist their tongues when they read or quote it, and interpret its statements so that they may be made to agree with certain prejudices. In return for all this, they receive a paltry price, a trifling worldly gain. One example of such distortion and deliberate misinterpretation relates to their invented beliefs about Jesus, son of Mary, in order to make people’s beliefs agree with the prejudices of the Church and political rulers.
 
When religious men are corrupt they allow themselves to be used as a tool for the falsification of facts. In this manner, they take advantage of their guise as men of religion. The example employed by the Qur’ān in relation to the people of earlier revelations is well known to us today. They impose on the verses and statements of their own revelations arbitrary interpretations and conclusions, claiming that these represent the precise meaning intended and that, as such, they constitute God’s message. In actual fact, however, their conclusions are in sharp conflict with the very essence of Divine faith. They are able to achieve this contortion because the majority of people cannot differentiate between the true essence of faith and the true meaning of these statements on the one hand, and the fabricated conclusions they arbitrarily impose on these same statements on the other.
 
We are today well aware of such people who are wrongly described as religious. Indeed, they are religious professionals who look upon religion as a profession and who use it in order to satisfy all sorts of prejudice. They do not hesitate to make use of any religious text when it seems to them that by so doing they serve their own material interests. It does not concern them that their arbitrary interpretations of God’s revelations contradict the basic principles of faith. They try hard to detect even the slightest hint of linguistic ambiguity in a Qur’ānic verse so that they can endorse any desire, tendency or prejudice which serves their immediate interests: “They say: It is from God’, when it is not from God. Thus, they deliberately say of God what they know to be a lie.” (Verse 78)
 
This sort of corruption is not exclusive to the people of earlier revelations. It is evident in every nation where religious faith has been greatly devalued as a result of the relentless pursuit of trifling worldly gains. It gains currency in any nation where people are so dishonest that they do not hesitate to deliberately and knowingly tell a lie about God and distort His words in order to win favours and satisfy their own perverted desires. Here God warns the Muslim community against falling into this slippery way; a path on which the Children of Israel fell and which led them to be deprived of what they had been entrusted with, namely the leadership of mankind.
 
Taken together, these verses suggest that this element of the Children of Israel deliberately misquoted God’s revelations which express their intent in a figurative way and instead attributed arbitrary interpretations to them. In so doing, they deluded the masses into believing that the conclusions they stated were taken from the Divine Book. They, who subsequently became the Christians we know today, indeed say that “It is from God”, when God has said nothing of the sort. Their aim was to prove the Divine nature of Jesus and to attribute the same to the “Holy Spirit”. They alleged that there are three elements, namely, the father, the son and the Holy Spirit, constituting the trinity which is God. Limitless is God in His glory, far be it for Him to be as they falsely describe.
 
They also attributed certain statements to Jesus confirming their allegations. God here refutes their false interpretations. He states that it is not possible for a prophet whom God has honoured with prophethood and chosen for such a great task to order people to make him or the angels as gods. “It is not conceivable that any human being to whom God had given revelations and wisdom and prophethood would subsequently say to people: ‘Worship me instead of God.’ But rather: Be devoted servants of God, by virtue of spreading the knowledge of the Scriptures and your constant study of them.’ Nor would he bid you to take the angels and the Prophets as your gods. Would he bid you to be unbelievers after you have surrendered yourselves to God?” (Verses 79-80)
 
A prophet knows that he is a servant of God, and that God alone is the only Lord to whom people should address their worship. It is not conceivable for a prophet to claim for himself the quality of Godhead which requires people to surrender themselves to him. Hence, no prophet would ever say to people: “Worship me instead of God.” What he will always say to them is: “Be devoted servants of God.” Declare your allegiance to God as servants who surrender themselves to Him. Address your worship to Him alone and adopt only the way of life He has approved for you so that you can be totally devoted to Him. You can achieve this devotion by virtue of your knowledge of the Scriptures and your constant study of what God has revealed. The more you understand your Scriptures, the clearer this task becomes to you.
 
No prophet would ever instruct people to take the angels or the prophets as lords or gods. For no prophet would ever instruct people to be unbelievers after they have surrendered themselves to God and acknowledged His Divinity. Prophets come to provide guidance for men, not to lead them astray. They set the example for people to be good believers and surrender themselves to God. It is far removed from them to encourage people to be unbelievers.
 
The impossibility of what these people of earlier revelations attribute to Jesus is thus made apparent. Equally apparent is their deliberate lie when they allege that this is from God. At the same time, all what these people allege in order to create doubts and suspicions within the Muslim community are shown to be baseless once the Qur’ān has revealed the true nature of these lies and the people who spread them.
 
Today there are still people who purport to be Muslims and who claim to be well read in Islam but who do the same thing as those people of earlier revelations. These Qur’ānic verses, then, are equally applicable to them. For they try to distort Qur’ānic statements and impose arbitrary interpretations on them in order to create all sorts of idols to be worshipped instead of God. They make use of every connivance in order to make their allegations plausible: “They say: ’It is from God’, when it is not from God. Thus, they deliberately say of God what they know to be a lie.”