“And if you judge, then judge between them with justice” (5:42). Justice here means “a life for a life.” After that the verse was revealed: “Do they, then, seek the judgment of the Age of Ignorance?” (5:50). Abu Dāwūd said, “Qurayzah and al-Naḍīr were descendants of Aaron.”

A fuller treatment of this issue belongs elsewhere, yet whatever position one adopts, Allah—Mighty and Majestic—has declared that the Torah still in circulation after the Messiah, peace be upon him, contains the ruling of Allah, and that the People of the Book, the Jews, abandoned that ruling found in the Torah while also disbelieving in the Messiah. This is Allah’s rebuke of them for forsaking His command that had come in the first Book and had not been abrogated by the second Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.

This is the second kind of alteration for which they are censured, and it shows that the Torah available after the mission of the Messiah does include a divinely revealed ruling they were ordered to enforce—and the same can be said regarding the Gospel.