ربع الحزب 47

You who believe, do not take the Jews and Christians as allies:they are allies only to each other. Anyone who takes them as an ally becomes one of them- God does not guide such wrongdoers-

yet you [Prophet] will see the perverse at heart rushing to them for protection, saying, ‘We are afraid fortune may turn against us.’ But God may well bring about a triumph or some other event of His own making: then they will rue the secrets they harboured in their hearts,

and the believers will say, ‘Are these the men who swore by God using their strongest oaths that they were with you?’ All they did was in vain: they have lost everything.

You who believe, if any of you go back on your faith, God will soon replace you with people He loves and who love Him, people who are humble towards the believers, hard on the disbelievers, and who strive in God’s way without fearing anyone’s reproach. Such is God’s favour. He grants it to whoever He will. God has endless bounty and knowledge.

Your true allies are God, His Messenger, and the believers- those who keep up the prayer, pay the prescribed alms, and bow down in worship.

Those who turn for protection to God, His Messenger, and the believers [are God’s party]: God’s party is sure to triumph.

You who believe, do not take as allies those who ridicule your religion and make fun of it- whether people who were given the Scripture before you, or disbelievers- and be mindful of God if you are true believers.

When you make the call to prayer, they ridicule it and make fun of it: this is because they are people who do not reason.

Say [Prophet], ‘People of the Book, do you resent us for any reason other than the fact that we believe in God, in what has been sent down to us, and in what was sent before us, while most of you are disobedient?’

Say, ‘Shall I tell you who deserves a worse punishment from God than [the one you wish upon] us? Those God distanced from Himself, was angry with, and condemned as apes and pigs, and those who worship idols: they are worse in rank and have strayed further from the right path.

When they come to you [believers], they say, ‘We believe,’ but they come disbelieving and leave disbelieving- God knows best what they are hiding.

You [Prophet] see many of them rushing into sin and hostility and consuming what is unlawful. How evil their practices are!

Why do their rabbis and scholars not forbid them to speak sinfully and consume what is unlawful? How evil their deeds are!

The Jews have said, ‘God is tight-fisted,’ but it is they who are tight-fisted, and they are rejected for what they have said. Truly, God’s hands are open wide: He gives as He pleases. What has been sent down to you from your Lord is sure to increase insolence and defiance in many of them. We have sown enmity and hatred amongst them till the Day of Resurrection. Whenever they kindle the fire of war, God will put it out. They try to spread corruption in the land, but God does not love those who corrupt.

If only the People of the Book would believe and be mindful of God, We would take away their sins and bring them into the Gardens of Delight.

If they had upheld the Torah and the Gospel and what was sent down to them from their Lord, they would have been given abundance from above and from below: some of them are on the right course, but many of them do evil.