5. Al-Maaida

When they, the hypocrites from among the Jews, come to you, they say, ‘We believe’; but they have entered, unto you ensconced, in disbelief, and so they have departed, from you ensconced, in it, and they have not believed. And God knows very well what they were hiding, of hypocrisy.

And you see many of them, namely, the Jews, vying, falling headlong, in sin, in calumny, and enmity, wrongdoing, and their consuming of unlawful gain, what is illicit, like bribes; evil is that, deed of theirs, which they have been committing.

Why do the rabbis and the priests, among them, not forbid them from uttering sin, calumny, and consuming unlawful gain? Evil is what they have been doing, in refraining from forbidding them.

But had the People of the Scripture believed, in Muhammad (s), and feared unbelief, We would have absolved them of their evil deeds and We would admitted them to Gardens of Bliss.

And had they observed the Torah and the Gospel, by implementing what is in them, including believing in the Prophet (s), and what was revealed to them, of scriptures, from their Lord, they would surely have received nourishment from above them and from beneath their feet, by their being given provision in abundance, with it pouring forth from every place. Some of them, a group [among them], are a just community, implementing it [the Torah], and they are the ones who believed in the Prophet (s), the likes of ‘Abd Allāh b. Salām and his companions; but many of them — evil is that, thing, which they do.

O Messenger, make known, all of, that which has been revealed to you from your Lord, and do not conceal any of it out of fear that you may suffer some harm; for if you do not, that is, if you do not make known all of what has been revealed to you, you will not have conveyed His Message (risālatahu, or read plural, risālātihi, ‘His Messages’) since to conceal some of it is to conceal it all. God will protect you from people, who may try to kill you. The Prophet (s) used to have guards up until [the time that] this [verse] was revealed, then he said, ‘Depart, for God protects me now’, as reported by al-Hākim. God does not guide the unbelieving folk.

Say: ‘O People of the Scripture, you have no basis, in religion, on which to rely, until you observe the Torah and the Gospel and what was revealed to you from your Lord’, by implementing what is therein, including believing in me [Muhammad (s)]. And what has been revealed to you from your Lord, of the Qur’ān, will surely increase many of them in insolence and disbelief, because of their disbelief in it; so do not grieve for the disbelieving folk, if they do not believe in you, in other words, do not be concerned with them.

Surely those who believe and those of Jewry ([this constitutes] the subject of the clause), namely, the Jews, and the Sabaeans, a sect among them, and the Christians (and [what follows] substitutes for the [above] subject): whoever, of them, believes in God and the Last Day and behaves righteously — no fear shall befall them, neither shall they grieve, in the Hereafter (this [fa-lā khawfun ‘alayhim wa-lā hum yahzanūn, ‘no fear shall befall them, neither shall they grieve’] is the predicate of the subject and also indicates the predicate of [the clause beginning with] inna, ‘surely’).

And We made a covenant with the Children of Israel, to believe in God and His messengers, and We sent messengers to them. Every time a messenger came to them, from among them, with what their souls did not desire, in the way of truth, they denied it; some, of them, they denied, and some, of them, they slay, such as Zachariah and John (the use of [the present tense] yaqtulūn, ‘they slay’, instead of [the perfect tense] qatalū is to narrate past events [as if in the present] and to conclude [in harmony with] the end-rhyme of the verses).