بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم والحمد لله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام على النبيئين و على من تبعهم من الصالحين حتى يوم الدين
I start as all Muslims traditionally start writing, by mentioning the name of Allah, wishing for and trusting in His blessing, and praising Him, the Lord of all the inhabitants of this wondrous world filled with His signs, and I ask for peace and blessings to be sent upon all of the prophets who were sent to them, and on those who follow them, maintaining harmony in the world, healing it and mending it, making things right between people, until the very last day of this existence.
Some people of the book are not the same: they are a nation who stand reciting the signs of Allah during the night falling prostrate in prayer. They believe in Allah and the Last Day and they enjoin goodness and forbid the bad, and they rush to do good deeds. Those are people who are making things better and whatever they do of good will never be rejected, and Allah knows best those who protect themselves.
These ayaat are found in the third Surah of the Qur’an, the family of Imran, in the third of thirty parts of the Qur’an and their reference is therefore surah 3:113-115.
Firstly, it mentions the people of the book, (ahl-ul kitab) so who are they? The people of the book means any people who have religious scriptures or revelation sent down to them by God. It applies to Christians and Jews, who share the same source as Islam because they are Abrahamic religions going back to the Prophet Abraham or Ibrahim. However, the Prophet told us that hundreds of thousands of prophets have been sent to different peoples around the world over the years. At the beginning of Surah Al Fatiha, we say Alhamdulillahi rabb-il-aalameen and this means All praise be to the Lord of all the worlds. Now the word aalam means a world which can be understood, that means a world of signs or meaning (there are other words for world). And aalameen is the plural of this, and is usually used in Arabic traditionally to mean all the peoples of the world (but it means more than this also).
Islam has never been a religion for the Arabs or believing that only Muslims can be saved. It has always had a universalist outlook, embracing all the creatures of the world and worlds. This was the reason for the convivencia of the three faiths in Al-Andalus and the reason for the religious tolerance in the Ottoman Empire so admired by John Locke and the Founding fathers of America. See Thomas-Jeffersons-Quran-Islam-Founders by Denise Spellberg.
And what about the other great religions of the world? When the Muslims went into distant lands and encountered Buddhists and Hindus, they decided that these two were also “people of the book” because they had scriptures. See this book for more information: Common-Ground-Between-Islam-Buddhism by Reza Shah Kazemi.
Now people of the book in Islam have rights and have a special title, which is “dhimmy” ذمي. We know that this they were protected because in a very famous poem written in the Middle Ages, the Burdah of Imam Busairi, the author says that he wants to be a dhimmy of the Prophet Muhammad (thereby gaining protection). Their persons and places of worship were protected because it explicitly tells us in the Qur’an that places where Allah’s name is mentioned should be protected. In fact, the Prophet used to insist on the Muslims putting the rights of the people of the book above their rights, because they would be questioned if they were wronged on the day of judgement. To give the most famous example from Umar, (may Allah be pleased with him) close companion of the Prophet Muhammad, (peace be upon him) who became the second Caliph, or ruler after the Prophet had passed away. The Byzantine Empire attacked the Muslims and shortly after the Prophet had passed away, the Muslims conquered the and took Damascus. When Umar was given the keys to the city, he was invited to pray in the Church of St John by the Christian leaders in the city. However, Umar refused, because he said that if he did that, some Muslims who came after him might want to turn the Church into a Mosque. So until this day, the Mosque in Damascus is next to the Church, and the Church remains.
I think the general meaning of these ayaat is clear, which is that the people of the book are of two kinds: and some are very good. They ayaat describe what “good” looks like. The reason why the Qur’an is saying this is to point out to people the truth, which is that many people of the book are sincere believers who are really trying their best, and who their Lord is pleased with, but also as an example to future generations of Muslims. Muslims are also people of the book, and our religion is no longer fresh and new, so we too fall into two kinds. Which group do we belong to?
After mentioning that they rush to do good deeds, Allah praises them be calling them Saaliheen. Saaliheen is often translated into English as righteous, but the word righteous reminds me of that Victorian Christianity which looked down on sinners, and because it is misleading because it makes it sounds like they have arrived, they have passed the finishing line. SaaliH (SaaliHeen is the plural) means someone who does things, who makes things better, who fixes things, and to reform them in a good sense and not in a way that changes things for the worse. This is one of the many Arabic words for good.
This reminds me of the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, “healing the world.” Note how the Hebrew word olam is similar to the word Aalam. This is because they are both Semitic languages. According to an article in the Jewish Chronicle, Olam comes from alam, a verb meaning to hide or conceal. https://www.thejc.com/judaism/jewish-words/olam-1.8049. The olam conceals the presence of God in the world. And in Arabic, Alam means what that which can be known meaning that it reveals the presence of God in the world through signs. So I will end on this harmonious note of symmetry, from the two siblings, Judaism and Islam.
