— with special distinctions by which He preferred him over all the prophets and messengers, and He assigned to him a law and a way, the finest law and the most perfect way.

Likewise, He made his nation the best nation ever raised for humankind; they complete the number of seventy nations— they are the best of them and the most honored by Allah among all peoples. Allah guided them, through His Book and His Messenger, to the very truth about which those before them had differed, and He made them a balanced, just, chosen community. Thus they hold the middle course in tawhid (monotheism) and in affirming Allah’s names and attributes, in their faith in His messengers and His books, and in the rulings of His religion—its commands and prohibitions, what is lawful and what is unlawful.

He enjoined upon them what is right and forbade them what is wrong. He made wholesome things lawful for them and declared foul things unlawful. He did not forbid them any wholesome thing as He had forbidden it to the Jews, nor did He permit for them any foul thing as the Christians had deemed lawful. He did not burden them with excessively narrow rules on purity and impurity as He burdened the Jews, nor did He remove from them the requirement of cleansing from ritual and physical impurity as the Christians removed it—for they do not deem the ritual bath (ghusl) after major impurity obligatory, nor ablution (wudu) for prayer, nor the avoidance of filth while praying.

On the contrary, many of their ascetics regard direct contact with impurities as a form of devotion and obedience, to the point that it is said in praise of a monk:

“Forty years have passed and water has never touched him,”

and for that very reason they abandoned circumcision.