The Message of the Quran

reckon that they have a special relationship with God that others do not enjoy: one who belongs to a particular community is sure to be saved, notwithstanding the standard of his faith and deeds; paradise is for “us,” hell for “them.” But God does not have a special relationship with any particular community. He has regard solely for man’s thoughts and deeds. In his presence people will be judged according to the manner in which they themselves have acted, and not on the basis of the group of which they belonged. And when We made a covenant with you, and raised the Mount above you, saying: ‘Hold on to that which We have given you firmly and bear in mind its precepts, that you may guard yourselves against evil.’ Yet after that you turned away, and but for God’s grace and mercy you would have surely been among the lost. You have surely heard of those of you who violated the Sabbath. We said to them: ‘You shall be changed into detested apes.’ We made them an example to their own generation and to those who followed them, and a lesson to the God fearing. (Quran, 2:63-66) A covenant was made with Moses’ people that they would faithfully carry out the Ten Commandments. The Talmud tells how, at this time, God turned the Mount upside down on top of them and told them either to accept the teachings of the Torah, or be destroyed there and then. The same is the case with everyone who embraces true faith. To have faith is to make a contract with God that one will live and die in accordance with His will. What a grave contract this is. On the one hand there is man—a tiny, helpless speck in God’s world—and on the other, God, whose might upholds the universe. If man fulfills his contract he will be granted God’s eternal blessings. But if he turns away from the contract he has made, he is in grave danger of being cast into hell-fire, never to emerge again. Everyone who believes in God should go through the same experience as Moses’ people. Everyone who ties himself to the contract of faith should live in trepidation of breaking his contract, and bringing catastrophe down on himself as a result. Sometimes those entrusted with the law of God go astray by contradicting it in practice, while finding words to prove that they are following it to the letter. The Jews, for instance, were commanded to keep holy the Sabbath day, and refrain from worldly pursuits on that day. But they violated it and went about their work on the Sabbath as on any other day. Furthermore, they sought to justify their actions