In between Adam and Muhammad, there were numerous other communities to whom God sent guidance. This guidance was sometimes in the form of warners. At other times, it was in scriptures revealed to messengers. When the Qur’an refers to “those who received the book before,” it is understood to be referring to Christians and Jews, with the books being (primarily) the Torah, revealed to Moses, and the Gospels (Injil), revealed to Jesus.
(The Qur’an also makes reference to the “pages” of Abraham and the Zabur, the Psalms of David.) The People of the Book as a category are given a special status in the Qur’an. Certain types of interactions with them are permissible that are not permissible with “disbelievers” or those who associate partners with God (mushrikun—polytheists, pagans). Q. 5:5 permits Muslims to eat the food of, and marry women from, the People of the Book. The Qur’an makes no explicit reference to Muslim women’s marriage to men from the People of the Book, but scholars have forbidden it; they have, however, considered the permission of eating food to apply to both males and females. There is room for variation of belief and practice among the People of the Book. The Qur’an refers to “those who believe from among the People of the Book” (3:199), suggesting that some may believe while others do not. Generations of scholars debated whether belief and ultimate reward in the afterlife were contingent on People of the Book coming to accept the Prophethood of Muhammad, or whether it was legitimate for them to continue following their own faith. For some, surah 109, “The Disbelievers,” which states “to you, your religion and to me, the religion,” is suffi cient to describe the fate of any non- Muslim.
Others hold that those who believe in previous revealed religions must come to believe in the prophethood of Muhammad if they are to achieve everlasting success. Setting aside the theological issues, jurists dealt with the realities of minority Christian and Jewish populations. In legal terms, People of the Book living in the dar al-Islam were accorded the status of dhimmi, a protected but subordinate minority. Though originally conceived as limited to Christians and Jews and often, but not always, Zoroastrians, in practice most large populations were effectively treated as dhimmi rather than being viewed as subject to forced conversion or jihad. With regard to Christians (and Jews, though this was of less import given the scarcity of conversions), some made a distinction between those communities that had already been adherents at the time of Muhammad versus those who only converted later, with the latter being illegitimate. Likewise, freedom of faith for a Christian only meant to remain a Christian or become a Muslim, not to convert to Judaism (or vice versa). A convert to Islam who wished to revert to her or his original religion would be considered an apostate.
Islamic Notion of Divorce: the Process and the Perspective
