Being One of The Foremost

Being One of The Foremost

1989 10 October 5-6 Being One of The Foremost (495) The Quran divides the People of Paradise into two broad categories. In one will be those nearest to God and in the other will be those who are rewarded in a more general sense. In the first category, the greater part will be made up of the earlier followers of the true religion. Those of later generations will mostly be placed in the second category.

This is expressed thus in the Quran:

You shall be divided into three multitudes; those on the right how happy shall be those to the right; and those on the left – how wretched shall be those on the left; and those to the fore shall be foremost. These will be those nearest to God in gardens of delight: a number of people from those of old and a few of those from later times (56:7-14).

Ibn Kathir, the Quranic commentator, explains the above verse as follows:

Without doubt, the first ones of every1 community excel those of later times. Perhaps the verse refers to all communities in relation to their own particular status. To this effect, the Prophet of God said: ‘The best generation is my generation, then those who come after them and those who follow later.2

Some religious historians have ascribed this difference to the fact that those who were the first converts to Islam had the benefit of the Prophet’s company, or else were nearer to being his contemporaries, and so were especially blessed. Later adherents were presumably less and less imbued with this special grace. This interpretation, however, is flawed, for it loses sight of the Quran’s assertion that there will be a mixture of people, some from earlier, some from later times in both categories, with those from earlier times forming the greater part of the “foremost” group.

The period in which the devotees lived is not actually the crucial factor in creating this difference. What really causes it is the status of the faith in the eyes of its adherents. During the time of the Prophet, the message of Islam was being taught to the world as something absolutely new. Those who heard that message and accepted it, were doing so as a result of a conscious decision. For them Islam was a discovery and a challenge. In that sense, their commitment to Islam was on a superior plane, and placed them in the ranks of the “foremost” in the eyes of God. Later as Islam was handed down from one generation to the next, it began to assume an ethnic character. It was something inherited, as opposed to being a discovery. And clearly, those two attitudes towards Islam are not equal. It is only those of later times who are able truly to discover Islam who will prove themselves worthy, as their predecessors were, of being admitted to the ranks of the ‘foremost’.

1. Ibn Kathir is referring here to every community following Prophet. 2. Ibn Kathir, Tafseer, vol. 4, p. 284.