addressed only those who associate partners with Allah. Rather, He said:

“O disbelievers.”

Thus, it encompasses every disbeliever, whether one who openly associates partners with Allah or one who denies Allah what is due to Him and arrogantly refuses to worship Him. Such denial is worse than associating partners with Him, and everyone guilty of it must also associate partners with Him. Despite their association of partners with Allah, the Christians perform many acts of worship, whereas the Jews are among the nations least given to worship and furthest removed from worshipping Allah alone. They may, however, know things that the Christians do not, but without worship or putting their knowledge into practice. Thus, they have incurred Allah’s anger, while the others have gone astray. Allah has declared His Messenger and the believers free of both groups.

Among this community, too, are people who know things that the Jews and Christians do not, yet fail to act upon their knowledge. They therefore bear a resemblance to them, as Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah said:

“Those of our scholars who become corrupt resemble the Jews, and those of our worshippers who become corrupt resemble the Christians.”

Indeed, Abū Hurayrah said:

“How closely tonight resembles last night! You are the people most like the Children of Israel.”

Indeed, an authentic hadith states:

“You will surely follow the ways of those before you, span by span and cubit by cubit, so much so that if they entered a lizard’s burrow, you would enter it too.”

They asked, “The Jews and the Christians?”

He replied, “Who else?”

In another narration: “The Persians and the Romans?”

He replied, “Who else among mankind but those?”

He also said:

“The Jews split into seventy-one sects, and so too did