5.77. Qul ya ahla alkitabi lataghluu fii diinikum ghayra alhaqqi wala tattabiAAuuahwaa qawmin qad dalluu min qablu waadalluukathiiran wadalluu AAan sawa-i alssabiili
5.77. Say: O People of the Scripture! Stress not in your religion other than the truth, and follow not the vain desires of folk who erred of old and led many astray, and erred from a plain road. (Pickthall)
5.77. Sag: Ihr, Leute der Schrift, übertreibt nicht in eurer Religion, über die Wahrheit hinaus, und folgt nicht den eigenen Wünschen von Leuten, die schon vorher fehlgegangen sind und viele fehlgehen liessen, und sie sind fehlgegangen vom ebenen Weg. (Ahmad v. Denffer)
5.77. Sag: O Leute der Schrift, übertreibt nicht in eurer Religion außer in (dem Rahmen) der Wahrheit und folgt nicht den Neigungen von Leuten, die schon zuvor irregegangen sind und viele (andere mit ihnen) in die Irre geführt haben und vom rechten Weg abgeirrt sind. (Bubenheim)
5.77. Sage: "Ihr Schriftbesitzer! ?berschreitet nicht die Grenzen der Wahrheit in eurer Religion zu falschen Behauptungen! Folgt nicht den Launen von Menschen, die sich verirrt und viele irregeführt haben und vom rechten Weg abgekommen sind!" (Azhar)
5.77. Sag: ‚Ihr Schriftbesitzer! Übertreibt nicht in eurem Din (und sagt nichts) außer der Wahrheit und folgt nicht den Neigungen von Leuten, die bereits vorher irregegangen sind, viele in die Irre verleitet haben und vom rechten Weg abgekommen sind.‘ (Zaidan)
5.77. Sag: Ihr Leute der Schrift! Treibt es in eurer Religion nicht zu weit (und sagt nichts aus) außer der Wahrheit (laa taghlun fie dienikum ghaira l-haqqi)! Und folgt nicht der (persönlichen) Neigung von Leuten, die (schon) früher irregegangen sind und viele irregeführt haben und vom rechten Weg abgeirrt sind! (Paret)
5.77. Sprich: "O Leute der Schrift, übertreibt nicht zu Unrecht in eurem Glauben und folgt nicht den bösen Neigungen von Leuten, die schon vordem irregingen und viele irregeführt haben und weit vom rechten Weg abgeirrt sind." (Rasul)
Tafsir von Maududi für die Ayaat 76 bis 77
Say to them, "Do you worship instead of Allah that which has no power to harm nor benefit you'? In fact, it is Allah alone Who hears everyone and knows everything." Say, "O people of the Book, do not transgress the bounds of truth in your religion, and do not follow the fancies of those who themselves went astray before you and led astray many others and strayed away from the Right Way." ( 101 )
Desc No: 101 This refers to the mis-guided nations from whom the Christians picked up wrong creeds and false ways. The reference is especially to the Greek philosophers whose fancies misled the Christians from the Right Way which had been shown to them at the start. The beliefs of the first followers of the Messiah conformed to .a great extent to the reality they themselves had witnessed and to what had been taught to them by their Prophet. But later on the Christians went so much beyond the limits in showing reverence and veneration to the Messiah and were so influenced by the fancies and philosophical interpretations of their beliefs that they invented a new religion that had nothing in common with the real teachings of the Messiah. In this connection, the following extracts from Jesus Christ, by the Rev. Charles Anderson Scott (Encyclopaedia Britannica, Fourteenth Edition) are worth reading :- "Apart from the Birth stories at the opening of Matthew, Mark and Luke (the exact signiticance of which in this respect is ambiguous) there is nothing in these three Gospels to suggest that their writers thought of Jesus as other than human, a human being specially endued with the spirit of God and standing in an unbroken relation to God which justified His being spoken of as the "Son of God". Even Matthew refers to him as a carpenter's son and records that after Peter had acknowledged Him as Messiah he "took him and began to rebuke Him" (Matt. XVI. 22). And in Luke the two disciples on the way to Emmaus can still speak of Him as "a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people" (Luke, XXIV. 19). It is very singular that inspite of the fact that before Mark was composed, "the Lord" had become the description of Jesus common among Christians; he is never so described in the second Gospel (nor yet in the first, though the word is freely used to refer to God). AlI three relate the Passion of Jesus with a fulness and emphasis of its great significance, but except the "ransom" passage (Mark, X. 45) and certain words at the Last Supper. there is no indication of the meaning which was afterwards attached to it. It is not even suggested that the death of resus had any relation to sin or forgiveness. Had the "ransom" saying been suggested by Paul, it would not stand as it does in its isolated vagueness." The same author says, "That He ranked Himself as a Prophet appears from a few passages such as `I have to go on my way today, tomorrow or day after tomorrow, because it cannot be that a Prophet perish out of Jerusalem." (Luke, 13 : 33) He frequently referred to himself as "the Son of Man. '...... "Jesus never refers to Himself as the "Son of God", and the title when bestowed upon Him by others probably involves no more than the acknowledgement that He was the Messiah. But He does describe himself "as the Son" absolutely.....Moreover, he uses the word "Father" in the same absolute way to define His relationship to God. It is conceivable that He did not always realise the uniqueness of this relationship, that in early life He thought of the privilege as one which He shared with other men, but that experience of life and deeper knowledge of human nature forced upon Him the discovery that in this He stood alone. "Certain words of Peter spoken at the time of Pentecost, `A man approved of God,' describe Jesus as He was known and regarded by His contemporaries......The Gospels leave no room for doubt as to the completeness with which these statements are to be accepted. From them we learn that Jesus passed through the natural' stages of development, physical and mental, that He hungered, thirsted, was weary and slept, that He could be surprised and require information, that He suffered pain and died. He not only made no claim to omniscience, He distinctly waived it. Indeed any claim to omniscience would be not only inconsistent with the whole impression created by the Gospels, it could not be reconciled with the cardinal experiences of the Temptation, of Gethsemane and of Calvary. Unless such experiences were to be utterly unreal, Jesus must have entered into them and passed through them under the ordinary limitations of human knowledge. subject only to such modifications of human knowledge as might be due to prophetic insight or the sure vision of God. There is still less reason to predicate omnipotence of Jesus. There is no indication that He ever acted independently of God, or as an independent God. Rather does He acknowledge dependence upon God, by His habit of prayer and in such words as "this kind goeth not forth save by prayer". He even repudiates the ascription to Himself of goodness in the absolute sense in which it belongs to God alone. It is a remarkable testimony to the truly historical character of these Gospels that though they were not finally set down until the Christian Church had begun to look up to the risen Christ as to a Divine Being, the records on the one hand preserve all the evidence of His true humanity and on the other nowhere suggest that He thought of Himself as God..... " "lt may not be possible to decide whether it was the primitive community or Paul himself who first put fully religious content into the title "Lord" as used of Christ. Probably it was the former. But the Apostle undoubtedly adopted the title in its full meaning and did much to make that meaning clear by transferring to "the Lord Jesus Christ" many of the ideas and phrases which in the Old Testament had been specifically assigned to the Lord Jehovah. He gave unto him that name that is above every name the name of "Lord." At the same time by equating Christ with the Wisdom of God and with Glory of God, as well as ascribing to Him Sonship in an absolute sense, Paul claimed for Jesus Christ a relation to God which was inherent and unique, ethical and personal, eternal. While, however, Paul in many ways and in many aspects, equated Christ with God, he definitely stopped short of speaking of him as God....." (Pages 22-25, Enc. Britt., Vol. 13, 1946). The moulds of thought (of Trinity) are those of Greek philosophy and into these were run the Jewish teachings. We have thus a peculiar combination the religious doctrines of the Bible, as culminating in the person of Jesus, run through the forms of alien philosophy....." For the Doctrine of Trinity, "The Jewish source furnished the terms Father, Son and Spirit. Jesus seldom employed the last term and Paul's use of it is not altogether clear. Already in Jewish literature it has been all but personified. Thus the material is Jewish, though already doubtless modified by Greek influence: but the problem is Greek; it is not primarily ethical nor even religious but it is metaphysical. What is the ontological relationship between these three factors'? The answer of the Church is given in the Nicene formula, which is characteristically Greek....." (Enc. Britannica, Vol. 5, page 633 last line, Article "Christianity"') In the same connection, the following passage from "Church History" (Enc. Britannica, Vol 5, Copy Right 1946) is also worth reading: "The recognition of Christ as the incarnation of the "logos" was practically universal before the close of the 3rd century, but His deity was still widely denied and the Arian controversy which distracted the Church of the 4th century concerned the latter question. At the council of Nicaea in 325 the deity of Christ received official sanction and was given formulation in the original Nicene creed. Controversy continued for some time, but finally the Nicene decision was recognised both in East and West as the only orthodox faith. The deity of the Son was believed to carry with it that of the Spirit, who was associated with Father and Son in the baptismal formula and in the current symbols and so the victory of the Nicene Christology meant the recognition of the doctrine of the Trinity as a part of orthodox faith. "The assertion of the deity of the Son incarnate in Christ raised another problem which constituted the subject of dispute in the Christological controversies of the 4th and following centuries. What is the relation of the divine and human natures in Christ? At the council of Chalcedon in 451 it was declared that in the person of Christ are united two complete natures, divine and human, which retain after the union all their properties unchanged. This was supplemented at the third council of Constantinople in 680 by the statement that each of the natures contains a will, so that Christ possesses two wills. The Western Church accepted the decisions of Nicaea, Chalcedon and Constantinople and so the doctrines of the Trinity and of the two natures in Christ were handed down as orthodox dogma in West as well as East....... "Meanwhile in the Western Church the subject of sin and grace and the relation of divine and human activity in salvation, received special attention and finally, at the 2nd Council of Orange in 529, after both Pelagianism and semi- Pelagianism had been repudiated, a moderate form of Augustinianism was adopted, involving the theory that every man as a result of the Fall is in such a condition that he can take no steps in the direction of salvation until he has been renewed by the divine grace given in baptism, and that he cannot continue in the good thus begun except by the constant assistance of that grace which is mediated only by the Catholic Church". (Page 677-678). It has become very clear from the above quotations from Christian Scholars that the first thing which misled the Christians was their exaggerated credulity. Accordingly, they went beyond the limits in their reverence and love of Christ. That is why they began to apply epithets like "Lord" and "Son of God" to Jesus Christ (Allah's peace be upon him) and to ascribe Divine Attributes to him and to invent the Doctrine of Atonement, when, in fact, there was absolutely no room, for such things in his teachings. Afterwards when they came under the influence of philosophy, they began to put forward interpretations to justify the errors of their former religious leaders and went on inventing new creeds, one after the other, in utter disregard of the real teachings of Jesus Christ, merely on the strength of Philosophy and Logic, whereas the right thing for them would have been to turn to the real teachings of Christ. It is against such wrong beliefs that the Qur'an warns in vv. 72-77. "
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