Al Qaṣaṣ

الَّذِينَ ءَاتَيْنَاهُمُ الْكِتَابَ مِن قَبْلِهِ هُم بِهِ يُؤْمِنُونَ

52. “Those to when We gave the Book before this (Qur’an), they believe in it.”

Occasion of Revelation

Upon the occasion of revelation of these verses, it is narrated from Sa‘id-ibn-Habir who said that these verses were sent down about seventy Christian priests whom Najashi sent from Ethiopia to Mecca in order to search. When the Prophet of Islam (S) recited Surah Yasin for them, they shed tears of joy and embraced Islam.¹ Some other commentators have said that these verses have been sent down in relation to a group of Christians from Najran, (a city in the North of Yemen), who came to the Prophet of Islam (S) and heard the verses of the Qur’an and believed in Islam;² while some others believe that they are in relation to Najashi and his companions.³

However, these verses are a lively witness to the fact that a group of the learned persons of the People of the Book believed in Islam when they heard the verses of the Qur’an, because it was impossible that the Prophet (S) to say such a thing while no one of the people of the Book had believed in him. If it were so, the pagans of Mecca would immediately reject it and could protest it earnestly. The Holy Qur’an implies that the People of the Book (from among the Jews and Christians) may believe in the Qur’an because they find it consistent with the signs that they have found in their own heavenly Book.

It says:

It is interesting that these people were a group of the People of the Book, but the verse refers to them as ‘the People of the Book’ without mentioning any quality. Perhaps it means that the real people of the Book were only those ones who believed, and others were naught.