are those who deny part of it. Say, “I have been commanded only to worship Allah and never to associate anything with Him; to Him I call, and to Him is my return. And thus We have sent it down as an Arabic ruling, and were you to follow their desires after the knowledge that has come to you, you would have from Allah neither ally nor protector.”

The pronoun in “their desires” refers—Allah knows best—to the very factions just mentioned who reject part of the revelation. This, therefore, includes anyone who denies anything in the Qur’an, whether Jew, Christian, or anyone else. Allah the Exalted also says, “And if you were to follow their desires after the knowledge that has come to you…” (al-Raʿd 13:37). To follow them in what is peculiar to their religion or its offshoots is to follow their desires; indeed, a person may be deemed a follower of their desires for matters even less than that.

And He, Most High, says in [al-Hadid 57:16]:
3- “Has the time not come for those who believe that their hearts should humble themselves to the remembrance of Allah and to what has been revealed of the truth, and that they should not be like those who were given the Scripture before: the term was prolonged for them, so their hearts grew hard, and many of them are defiantly disobedient?”

Shaykh al-Islam ⦗43⦘ said:
“His words ‘and that they should not be’ constitute an unqualified prohibition against resembling them, and in particular a prohibition against resembling them in the hardness of their hearts; hard-heartedness is one of the fruits of sin.”

Ibn Kathir, commenting on this verse ⦗4/310⦘, wrote:
“For this reason Allah forbade the believers from imitating them in any matter, whether fundamental or secondary.”