“Those to whom people said, ‘The people have united against you, so fear them,’ but it only increased them in faith and they replied, ‘Allah is sufficient for us, and what an excellent Guardian He is.’” [Āl ‘Imrān 3:173]

It is as though a certain set of “people” said to them, “Indeed, a (different) set of people has massed against you.” Universal inclusion is impossible, for the one who speaks is himself a person, the one addressed is a person, and the one spoken about is a person. It cannot be that every single human being told every single human being, “All humans have gathered against you.”

A similar case is His statement, Exalted is He: “The Jews say, ‘Ezra is the son of Allah’” [al-Tawbah 9:30]—meaning: a Jewish group said this; it was not uttered by every individual Jew.

From this we see that among the Christians there is a tenderness of heart that inclines some of them to faith in a way not found among the Jews—and this is true.

As for their claim, “He has removed from us the label of polytheism,” there is no doubt that Allah distinguishes, in several verses, between the polytheists and the People of the Book, while in other places He describes some of them as having committed polytheism. Indeed, He even differentiates the Sabeans and the Magians from the polytheists in certain passages. Both points are correct. The first is illustrated by His saying, Exalted is He: “Those who disbelieved from among the People of the Book and the polytheists were not to desist…” [al-Bayyinah 98:1].