Say (O Muhammad ﷺ to the Jews and Christians), "Dispute you with us about Allah while He is our Lord and your Lord? And we are to be rewarded for our deeds and you for your deeds. And we are sincere to Him (i.e. we worship Him alone and none else, and we obey His orders). (139)Or say you that Ibrahim, Isma'il, Ishaq, Ya'qub and Al-Asbat, were Jews or Christians? Say, "Do you know better or does Allah? And who is more unjust than he who conceals the testimony he has from Allah? And Allah is not unaware of what you do. (140)That was a nation who has passed away. They shall receive the reward of what they earned, and you of what you earn. And you will not be asked of what they used to do (141)
Allah directed His Prophet ﷺ to pre-empt the arguments with the idolators:
قُلْ أَتُحَاجُّونَنَا فِي اللَّهِ
(Say (O Muhammad ﷺ to the Jews and Christians), "Dispute you with us about Allah) meaning, "Do you dispute with us regarding the Oneness of Allah, obedience and submission to Him and in avoiding His prohibitions,
وَهُوَ رَبُّنَا وَرَبُّكُمْ
(while He is our Lord and your Lord?) meaning, He has full control over us and you, and deserves the worship alone without partners.
وَلَنَا أَعْمَالُنَا وَلَكُمْ أَعْمَالُكُمْ
(And we are to be rewarded for our deeds and you for your deeds.) meaning, we disown you and what you worship, just as you disown us. Allah said in another Ayah,
وَإِن كَذَّبُوكَ فَقُل لِّي عَمَلِي وَلَكُمْ عَمَلُكُمْ ۖ أَنتُم بَرِيئُونَ مِمَّا أَعْمَلُ وَأَنَا بَرِيءٌ مِّمَّا تَعْمَلُونَ
(And if they belie you, say: "For me are my deeds and for you are your deeds! You are innocent of what I do, and I am innocent of what you do!")(10:41), and,
فَإِنْ حَاجُّوكَ فَقُلْ أَسْلَمْتُ وَجْهِيَ لِلَّهِ وَمَنِ اتَّبَعَنِ
(So if they dispute with you (Muhammad ﷺ) say: "I have submitted myself to Allah (in Islam), and (so have) those who follow me")(3:20). Allah said about Ibrahim,
وَحَاجَّهُ قَوْمُهُ قَالَ أَتُحَاجُّونِّي فِي اللَّهِ
(His people disputed with him. He said: "Do you dispute with me concerning Allah")(6:80), and,
أَلَمْ تَرَ إِلَى الَّذِي حَاجَّ إِبْرَاهِيمَ فِي رَبِّهِ
(Have you not looked at him who disputed with Ibrahim about his Lord (Allah)?)(2:258). He said in this honorable Ayah,
وَلَنَا أَعْمَالُنَا وَلَكُمْ أَعْمَالُكُمْ وَنَحْنُ لَهُ مُخْلِصُونَ
(And we are to be rewarded for our deeds and you for your deeds. And we are sincere to Him.) meaning, "We disown you just as you disown us,"
وَنَحْنُ لَهُ مُخْلِصُونَ
(And we are sincere to Him), in worship and submission.
Allah then criticized them in the claim that Ibrahim, the Prophets who came after him and the Asbat were following their religion, whether Judaism or Christianity. Allah said,
قُلْ أَأَنتُمْ أَعْلَمُ أَمِ اللَّهُ
(Say, "Do you know better or does Allah?") meaning, Allah has the best knowledge and He stated that they were neither Jews, nor Christians. Similarly, Allah said in the Ayah,
مَا كَانَ إِبْرَاهِيمُ يَهُودِيًّا وَلَا نَصْرَانِيًّا وَلَٰكِن كَانَ حَنِيفًا مُّسْلِمًا وَمَا كَانَ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ
(Ibrahim was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but he was a true Muslim Hanifa (to worship none but Allah alone) and he was not of Al-Mushrikin)(3:67) and the following Ayat. Allah also said,
وَمَنْ أَظْلَمُ مِمَّن كَتَمَ شَهَادَةً عِندَهُ مِنَ اللَّهِ
And who is more unjust than he who conceals the testimony he has from Allah? (2:140) Al-Hasan Al-Basri said, They used to recite the Book of Allah He sent to them that stated that the true religion is Islam and that Muhammad ﷺ is the Messenger of Allah. Their Book also stated that Ibrahim, Isma'il, Ishaq, Ya'qub and the tribes were neither Jews, nor Christians. They testified to these facts, yet hid them from the people. Allah's statement,
وَمَا اللَّهُ بِغَافِلٍ عَمَّا تَعْمَلُونَ
(And Allah is not unaware of what you do), is a threat and a warning that His knowledge encompasses every one's deeds, and He shall award each accordingly. Allah then said,
تِلْكَ أُمَّةٌ قَدْ خَلَتْ
(That was a nation who has passed away.) meaning, existed before you,
لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتْ وَلَكُم مَّا كَسَبْتُمْ
(They shall receive the reward of what they earned, and you of what you earn.) meaning, they bear their deeds while you bear yours,
وَلَا تُسْأَلُونَ عَمَّا كَانُوا يَعْمَلُونَ
(And you will not be asked of what they used to do) meaning, the fact that you are their relatives will not suffice, unless you imitate their good deeds. Further, do not be deceived by the fact that you are their descendants, unless you imitate them in obeying Allah's orders and following His Messengers who were sent as warners and bearers of good news. Indeed, whoever disbelieves in even one Prophet, will have disbelieved in all the Messengers, especially if one disbelieves in the master and Final Messenger from Allah, the Lord of the worlds, to all mankind and the Jinns. May Allah's peace and blessings be on Muhammad ﷺ and the rest of Allah's Prophets.
These three verses bring to an end the section of the Surah in which certain claims of the Jews and the Christians have been refuted -- for example, their assertion that Sayyidna Ibrahim (علیہ السلام) (Abraham), Sayyidna Ismail (علیہ السلام) (Ishmael), Sayyidna Ishaq (علیہ السلام) (Isaac), Sayyidna Ya` qub (علیہ السلام) (Jacob) and the prophets (علیہم السلام) in his lineage were either Jews or Christians, and the claim that they were the chosen people and would have the exclusive privilege of being sent straight to Paradise which would be denied to Muslims. The earlier verses have established that the religion of all these prophets was Islam, in the general sense of the term, but that the earlier Shari` ahs have now been abrogated, and the title of "Islam" been specially given to the religion of Sayyidna Muhammad ﷺ . Should the Jews and the Christians still continue, in their stubbornness, to deny, Allah asks the Holy Prophet ﷺ and the Muslims to declare in plain and simple words that Allah, being the Lord of All, cannot show any special favour to any particular group of His creatures, and that on the Day of Judgment He will assess the Jews and the Christians as well as the Muslims according to what each has believed in and how each has been behaving - a principle which was accepted by the People of the Book too. The Muslims have also been asked to announce that they on their part recognize no other god but Allah, and have purified their religion of all traces of association (Shirk شرک ) - as against the Jews and the Christians who consider Sayyidna ` Uzayr (علیہ السلام) (Ezra) and Sayyidna ` Isa (علیہ السلام) (Jesus) respectively to be "the Son of God", and whose religions have, moreover, been abrogated. In this respect at least, Muslims have a superiority over them. If the People of the Book should, on account of their affiliation with the earlier prophets, still keep insisting on their own rectitude, the Muslims may ask them a basic question - who knows the truth better, Allah or the People of the Book? Allah has definitely and finally announced the truth in the Last Revelation, and the People of the Book themselves know that the religion of the earlier prophets was Islam. Yet they are trying to conceal the truth, and being unjust, in the gravest sense of the term. Allah knows what they have been doing, and will judge them according to their own deeds, and not according to the deeds of their ancestors. Thus, at the end of this section, Verse 141, which is a repetition of Verse 134, warns them against the consequences of their vanity and pretentiousness, and advises them to take care of themselves rather than relying on ancestral glory.
Verse 139 brings out the essential and peculiar characteristic of the Islamic Ummah اُمَّت۔ it has purified itself of all possible admixture of Shirk شرک (association), and devoted itself, externally and internally, to Allah. The Arabic word in the text is Mukhlisun مُخلصون ، the plural of Mukhlis مخلص which signifies "one who has purified himself', and which is allied to the word Ikhlas اخلاص ، "the act of purifying oneself." According to Said ibn Jubayr, Ikhlas اخلاص consists in worshipping no one but Allah, associating no one with Allah, and doing good deeds only for the sake of obeying Allah, and not for the purpose of winning the admiration of the people. Certain spiritual masters have said that Ikhlas اخلاص is a deed which can be identified neither by men, nor by angels nor by Satan شیطان ، and that it is a "secret" between Allah and His servant.38
38. The word Ikhlas اخلاص is usually rendered into English as "sincerity" and Mukhlis مخلص as "sincere." It is to be doubted whether the word "sincerity" did, at any time and in any Western language, carry the full gamut of the meanings of the Arabic word Ikhlas اخلاص . Anyhow, the sense of the word "sincerity" has, in current usage, become not only perverted but some-times actually inverted. The word used to imply a harmony between external action and inner inclination, along with the tacit assumption that the external action concerned was, if nothing else, at least socially accept-able to some degree. But "sincerity", as employed in our days, suggests a compliance with one's emotions or even with one's instincts. As such, the concept of "sincerity" is being used to justify and authorize fornication, or even murder. It is easy to see that such an idea of "sincerity" is the exact anti-thesis of Ikhlas اخلاص . For, one cannot attain even the lowest degree of Ikhlas اخلاص without forming a clear intention to obey the injunctions of the Shaah as against letting oneself be guided by one's instinctual urges or emotional inclinations while the concept of "sincerity" in vogue requires one to ignore the Shari'ah or even mundane considerations and to do the bidding of one's impulse of the moment, thus reducing man to an automaton at the mercy of his reflexes.
Nor should we forget another serious aspect of the problem. There is another allied notion of "sincerity" which has been disturbing the peace of many pious people even in the past, but which has acquired a devastating intensity in our own days. This notion of "sincerity" demands one to seek fixity and unrelieved continuity in an emotional state, which is, of course, not possible for man as he is constituted. It so happens with some pious people that once they start seeking this kind of "sincerity" in offering their enjoined prayers, they find that they cannot keep up an unbroken concentration of mind, and are so frightened by this lapse that they sometimes give up offering their prayers, believing such worship to be "insincere" and hence invalid. Let us make it clear once for all that the only thing the Shari` ah requires from us is to have the correct intention and attitude when we begin our prayers or perform any other good deed. This alone is the pre-requisite for attaining Ikhlas اخلاص ، which, anyhow, is not a matter of emotions and affective states. In short, Islam requires us to perfect the quality of Ikhlas اخلاص as defined by the Shari'ah, and not to seek "sincerity" in the Western sense of the term, ancient or modern. For an elaborate treatment of the subject, see Tarbiyyah al-Salik تربیہ السالک by Maulana Ashraf ` Ali Thanavi (رح) .