Muslims by and large believe that the prophethood of Muhammad was foretold in the Torah and in the Gospels (Al-A’raf 157), but they claim that both Jews and Christians omitted it from their books. Another reason is the Muslim belief that Christians made up the idea of the Holy Trinity and falsely presented Jesus as the Son of God (e.g., An-Nissa’ 171). The Quran condemns both of those Christian allegations, stating that those who connect God to the Trinity are disbelievers (Al-Ma’idah 73). The Quran also condemns Jews for (in the Quran’s view) claiming that Ezra is the Son of God, and in the same verse it also condemns Christians for claiming that Jesus is the Son of God (At-Touba 30). To begin with, there seems to be no evidence to support the first Muslim claim regarding the alleged omission of Muhammad’s prophethood from the Gospels and the Torah. And while most Christians do believe in the Trinity and that Jesus is the Son of God, there are some Christians- most notably from the Unitarian Church- who do not embrace either view. The assertion that Jews believe that Ezra is the Son of God appears to be unsubstantiated. Jews, including one of Judaism’s foremost scholars, Ibn Maymoun (Maimonides), have consistently denied that they ever held that belief, and they retorted by saying that Muhammad had made up that claim in order to demonstrate that Islam was the only truly monotheistic religion. This view seems to be supported by the fact that it is Moses, not Ezra, who is the most important religious figure in Judaism; if Judaism had believed in a man being the Son of God, Moses would certainly have been the one to earn that honour. Furthermore, in Jewish scripture, The Book of Ezra itself states that Ezra was descended from humans, and traces his lineage to Aaron, the brother of Moses (Ezra 7:1-5). It is also instructive that in the polemics between Christians and Jews, Christians have not been known to use that allegation against the Jews, particularly in view of the fact that Jews have often been scathingly critical of Christians for claiming that Jesus is the Son of God. Moreover, Quranic exegetes such as At-Tabari, Az-Zamakhshari, and Al-Qurtubi said that what was meant in the said Quranic verse was not all Jews, but only four Jewish men who told Muhammad that they regarded Ezra as the Son of God. There is, however, yet another very important reason which may help explain why many Islamists regard Jews and Christians as kuffar and, therefore, believe that their eternal abode is Hell: It is a specific verse in the Quran (Aal ‘Imran 85).

The above-mentioned verse apparently states that “Whoever desires a religion other than Islam, it shall not be accepted from him, and in the Hereafter he shall be among the losers.” To Islamists, this is a clear proof that non-Muslims, including Jews and Christians, are going to Hell. Consequently, they regard non-Muslims as people who have disobeyed and rejected God, something which has caused God in his capacity as the supreme dispenser of eternal justice to decree that they are so evil and sinful that they deserve to burn in Hell forever and ever. Those Islamists, therefore, generally see no affinity between themselves and non-Muslims. As a result, it is rare to see an Islamist having close relations of friendship with a non-Muslim. And while Muslims by and large believe that their way is the only right way and that others have been led astray from what they deem as the Straight Path, there are many Muslims who do not go out of their way to hurt non-Muslims, their religious beliefs notwithstanding. Even the ones who do hurt non-Muslims mostly commit psychological, rather than physical, violence, especially if those non-Muslims live as minorities in Muslim-majority countries. Yet there is a significant minority of Muslims- Islamists in particular- who do not have any qualms about inflicting physical violence on non-Muslims if they can. Their willingness and readiness to do so are fueled by the content of the aforementioned verse (Aal ‘Imran 85) which they understand as an outright condemnation of non-Muslims. Thus, they see no wrong in degrading and dehumanizing non-Muslims, simply because God, who embodies for them the highest form of justice, sees fit to make non-Muslims eternally suffer the fires of Hell. But, we may ask, does the verse in question really say what many Muslims think it says?

The word “Islam” has more than one meaning. The original meaning is “submission to God”. The Quran does, however, more than once use the verb of the word “Islam”- like aslamna (“We submit to God”)- in a slightly different sense, e.g., in a verse where some Bedouins were accused by the Quran of hypocrisy by pretending to really believe in Islam when in fact they accepted Islam only forcibly (Al-Hujurat 14). Yet there is another sense in which the word “Islam” and its derivatives are used, and this does not refer to Islam and Muslims in the conventional sense. In fact, whenever the Quran wants to talk to or about Muslims and Islam, it uses different words. In this last verse above (Al-Hujurat 14), the Quran mentions the word iman to mean (true belief in) Islam. Likewise, whenever the Quran addresses Muslims, it says ya ayuha alladheena amanu (“O you who believe!”). This is mentioned many times in the Quran, e.g., in a verse where the Quran tells Muslims to verify information brought to them by a reprobate lest they do harm to others out of ignorance (Al-Hujurat 6), and in another that tells Muslims not to mock one another, cast aspersions on one another, or call each other bad, derogatory names (Al-Hujurat 11). Muslim men, and also a group of Muslim men and Muslim women together, are referred to as mu’minoon or mu’mineen  (“believers”), depending on the word’s grammatical type within the sentence. Examples of this include a verse which says that Muhammad and his followers believe in God’s new revelation, his angels, his scriptures, and his messengers, and that no distinction is to be made by Muslims between one messenger and another (Al-Baqarah 285). Muslim women are referred to as mu’minat (“believers”). This can be found, for example, in a verse which makes lawful for Muslim consumption the food of the People of the Book, and which also permits the marriage of Muslim men to Christian and Jewish women (Al-Ma’idah 5). A Muslim male is referred to as mu’min and a Muslim female as mu’mina (with each meaning “a believer”). This can, for instance, be seen in a verse that tells both Muslim men and Muslim women not to marry a polytheist unless he or she converts to Islam first. In fact, the verb for “to believe (in Islam)” is mentioned in this same verse as yu’minu (the masculine for “they believe”) and yu’minna (the feminine for “they believe”) (Al-Baqarah 221). But, one may ask, what does the Quran then mean when it uses the word “Islam” and its derivatives, e.g., muslim (“a Muslim”) and muslimoon/ muslimeen (both mean “Muslims”, depending on their grammatical role in the sentence)?

It appears that the Quran mostly uses the word “Islam” and its derivatives as mentioned above in a monotheistic sense. In other words, the Quran seems to distinguish between the Muhammadan Islam and the monotheistic Islam. The Muhammadan Islam is Islam as we know it. The monotheistic Islam is essentially the doctrine of monotheism, namely the belief that there is only one God in the universe, regardless of one’s religion or otherwise. This can be seen in a number of verses, e.g., in one verse, the Quran states that Abraham was not a Jew or a Christian, but that he was musliman, i.e., a monotheist who worshipped the one and only God (Aal ‘Imran 67). In another verse, the Quran says Abraham and Jacob enjoined their children to live and die as muslimoon (“monotheists”) (Al-Baqarah 132). In a third verse, Moses tells the Israelites to trust God if they are true muslimeen (“monotheists”) (Yunus 84). In a fourth verse, Jesus’s disciples tell Jesus that they will support him in spreading God’s message and urge him to bear witness to their being muslimoon (“monotheists”) (Aal ‘Imran 52). A fifth verse states that the Egyptian Pharaoh who chased Moses and his followers on land and through the sea parted by Moses said, when he was drowning, that he now believed in the God of Israel and that he was now one of muslimeen (“monotheists”) (Yunus 90). Needless to say, neither Abraham, nor Jacob, nor Moses, nor Jesus, nor the Egyptian Pharaoh was a believer in Muhammad’s Islam, given that, according to religious accounts, those men had preceded Muhammad by many centuries. The usage of the word “Islam” and its derivatives in the above-mentioned verses indicates, therefore, that the word "Islam" as mentioned in the earlier verse (Aal 'Imran 85) does not mean Islam in the Muhammadan sense, but in the monotheistic sense. In other words, what the verse actually says is that “Whoever desires a belief other than monotheism, it shall not be accepted from him, and in the Hereafter he shall be among the losers.”

This fresh interpretation of the verse in question resolves earlier contradictions between it and some other verses in the Quran that Muslims have hitherto not been able to resolve. In two of those verses, the Quran says that God forgives not that other gods be associated with him, but he forgives other than that of sins to whomever he wishes (An-Nissa’ 48, 116). These two verses suggest that as long as a person does not deny God’s oneness, he may go to Heaven. In another couple of verses, the Quran says that Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Sabians who believe in God and in the Hereafter, and who perform good deeds, shall be rewarded by God and shall have no cause to fear or grieve (Al-Baqarah 62; Al Ma’idah 69). Here, again, we find that as long as Christians, Jews, and Sabians are believers in the one God, believe in the Hereafter, and do good deeds, they have nothing to worry about in the life to come. In a nutshell, and unlike what many Muslims believe, the Quran actually states that anybody who believes in anything other than monotheism shall go to Hell, but that if he does believe in monotheism, God shall forgive this person’s other sins and he shall enter Heaven if God wills it. The Islamists’ older interpretation of the aforementioned verse (Aal ‘Imran 85), namely that only Muslims in the Muhammadan sense shall go to Heaven, is further undermined by some Quranic interpretations made by some prominent Quranic exegetes, such as Ibn ‘Abbas, Mujahid, Assuddi, and Al-Qurtubi who explain that the said verse was revealed in respect of someone by the name of Al-Harith bin Suyaid, the brother of Al-Julass bin Suyaid, who apostatised, became a polytheist along with twelve other individuals, and left Medina for Mecca. In other words, the aforementioned Quranic exegetes interpreted that verse in a way that shows that it has nothing to do with non-Muslims going to Hell.

Muslims in general- and Islamists in particular- would do well to understand that in the eyes of the Quran, non-Muslim monotheists are legitimate believers worthy of their respect and recognition and, while they may not share with Muslims all of their particular beliefs, they are nevertheless individuals and communities that deserve to be welcomed and valued by Muslims as God’s creations and not be dismissed- let alone hated- as infidels. That would undoubtedly be a very sensible path to a better world.                    

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Husam Dughman is a Libyan Canadian political scientist, religious thinker, linguist, and an expert on immigrants and refugees. He received his formal education in Libya and the UK. Mr. Dughman later worked as a university professor of political science in Libya. Due to confrontations with the Qaddafi regime, he resigned from his university position and subsequently worked in legal translation. Mr. Dughman has been working with new immigrant and refugee services in both Canada and the US since 2006.

Husam Dughman has published a book entitled Tête-à-tête with Muhammad. He has also written numerous articles on politics and religion. He has just completed the full manuscript of a book which he hopes to have published in the near future. The new book is an in-depth examination of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and the non-religious school of thought.