Transliteration:( Allazeena aatainaahumul kitaaba ya'rifoonahoo kamaa ya'rifoona abnaaa'ahum wa inna fareeqam minhum layaktumoonal haqqa wa hum ya'lamoon )
306. Faith is not in the knowing of the Holy prophet but to believe in him. To know and to believe are poles apart. In this verse the recognition of the Holy Prophetis compared with the father's recognition of the son although the Holy Prophet, is like a father. There are two reasons for this comparison.
1. The father recognizes his son from concrete proofs while the son accepts the father by word of mouth.
2. The father has knowledge about his son before his birth while the son recognises the
father only after reaching the age of discretion. These infidels knew about the Holy Prophet before his blessed birth through their religious scriptures.
307. There were two groups of Jewish religious scholars, one was envious of the Holy Prophet and out of this envy would try to conceal his beautiful attributes from the people, while the second group brought faith in him like Hazrat Abdullah bin Salaam, Hazrat Ka'b Ahbaar, etc. From this one can understand that the sin of a learned person is more despicable than common people.
145. And even if you were to bring to the People of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) all the Ayat (proofs, evidences, verses, lessons, signs, revelations, etc.), they would not follow your Qiblah (prayer direction), nor are you going to follow their Qiblah. And they will not follow each other’s Qiblah. Verily, if you follow their desires after that which you have received of knowledge (from Allah), then indeed you will be one of the wrongdoers.
Allah describes the Jews’ disbelief, stubbornness and defiance of what they know of the truth of Allah’s Messenger , that if the Prophet brought forward every proof to the truth of what he was sent with, they will never obey him or abandon following their desires. In another instance, Allah said:
(Truly, those, against whom the Word (wrath) of your Lord has been justified, will not believe. Even if every sign should come to them, until they see the painful torment.) (10:96, 97)
This is why Allah said here:
(And even if you were to bring to the People of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) all the Ayat (proofs, evidences, verses, lessons, signs, revelations, etc.), they would not follow your Qiblah (prayer direction)).
Allah’s statement:
(…nor are you going to follow their Qiblah ), indicates the vigor with which Allah’s Messenger implements what Allah commanded him. Allah’s statement also indicates that as much as the Jews adhere to their opinions and desires, the Prophet adheres by Allah’s commands, obeying Him and following what pleases Him, and that he would never adhere to their desires in any case. Hence, praying towards Bayt Al-Maqdis was not because it was the Qiblah of the Jews, but because Allah had commanded it. Allah then warns those who knowingly defy the truth, because the proof against those who know is stronger than against other people. This is why Allah said to His Messenger and his Ummah:
(Verily, if you follow their desires after that which you have received of knowledge (from Allah), then indeed you will be one of the wrongdoers.)
(2:146) Those to whom We have given the Scripture recognize the place (towards which one must turn in Prayer) as fully as they recognize their own sons,[148] this even though a group of them knowingly conceals the Truth.
148. ‘To recognize something as well as one recognizes one’s sons’ is an Arabic idiom. It is used with regard to things which one knows without the least shadow of a doubt. The Jewish and Christian scholars were well aware that the Ka’bah had been constructed by Abraham and that Jerusalem had been built by Solomon some thirteen hundred years after that, and that in his time it was made the qiblah. This is an unquestionable historical fact and they knew it to be so.
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