"And those who came after them say, 'Our Lord! Forgive us and our brothers who preceded us in faith, and place no rancor in our hearts toward those who believe. Our Lord! Truly Thou art Kind, Merciful.'"
Quran 59:10
Here's another brief verse from surah 59, often rendered as "The Gathering." On one level it is a call that all Muslims should respect and love other Muslims, no matter when they converted. Specifically it relates to those who accepted Islam in the very earliest days as compared to those who converted after the Prophet emigrated from Mecca to Medina as part of the Hejira. Here in Vermont the running joke is that unless you can trace your Vermont ancestry back at least seven generations then you're just a damn flat-lander. Inside of religions there can often be the same snobbery between those who grew up in the faith as compared to the more recent convert. Clearly, on the most basic level, this message is designed to avoid that level of religious division. On a broader sense, however, it's also another reminder of the connection between the Muslim and the Jews and Christians who made up the Peoples of the Book. As Nasr points out, ""But it can also be understood to impart an attitude that all Muslims should have toward one another. Those who came after them can be read as a reference to everyone who enters Islam until the Day of Resurrection, while our brothers who preceded us in faith can be read as a reference to the People of the Book, who preceded the Muslims in belief." (SQ, p. 1353) No matter the level that you read it, the passage emphasizes a universality, but also the importance of what you're doing now, the life you're leading, and not an ancestry which somehow is supposed to grant you a moral authority that you're not earning on a daily basis.
Quran 59:10
Here's another brief verse from surah 59, often rendered as "The Gathering." On one level it is a call that all Muslims should respect and love other Muslims, no matter when they converted. Specifically it relates to those who accepted Islam in the very earliest days as compared to those who converted after the Prophet emigrated from Mecca to Medina as part of the Hejira. Here in Vermont the running joke is that unless you can trace your Vermont ancestry back at least seven generations then you're just a damn flat-lander. Inside of religions there can often be the same snobbery between those who grew up in the faith as compared to the more recent convert. Clearly, on the most basic level, this message is designed to avoid that level of religious division. On a broader sense, however, it's also another reminder of the connection between the Muslim and the Jews and Christians who made up the Peoples of the Book. As Nasr points out, ""But it can also be understood to impart an attitude that all Muslims should have toward one another. Those who came after them can be read as a reference to everyone who enters Islam until the Day of Resurrection, while our brothers who preceded us in faith can be read as a reference to the People of the Book, who preceded the Muslims in belief." (SQ, p. 1353) No matter the level that you read it, the passage emphasizes a universality, but also the importance of what you're doing now, the life you're leading, and not an ancestry which somehow is supposed to grant you a moral authority that you're not earning on a daily basis.
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