Now, why did the Jews invite Sabaean to Judaism then? Because this verse mentions all these various religions and the essence is, which we have described already in so many words, so in that case the inference should not be why Islam should invite others. The question should be why any religion then should invite any other religion. You follow this point or no? Because all these religions are mentioned together in a relationship. So the correct question which would arise would not be why Islam should preach to others.
The question which is genuine should be framed like this, why then any religion or followers of any religion should invite others to follow them when everybody is good in his own place. Now this is not the meaning or import of the verse at all. This is why this has been misunderstood by many and has been made an object of debate by many scholars earlier too. The fact is that Islam is a universal religion which speaks of all the religions revealed variously at various times to various people and it does not monopolise the truth in the sense that whoever is not a Muslim would definitely go to hell. That is, this verse is a negation of that fear and it says that if somebody is born among the Jews, now his good acts would have a relative meaning if Islam is not conveyed to such a people or they are unable genuinely to understand the last message of God, then if within their own framework of laws they do good deeds, they have no fear.
But if Islam reaches them and because it is truth and understandable truth, Allah has made it manifestly clear, the Holy Quran claims this as well, and they deny the truth and it is not a man who is to judge, Allah is the judge in this case, then their very denial is not a good deed. And they will not be accepted from this verse then, they will not be included in this verse because by denying the truth you act wrongly. You can’t be a righteous person while you are intentionally, consciously denying or defying the truth. So the word good deeds is a highly important word. If somebody is noble-minded in the sight of Allah, he is not wrongly built or crooked within and if he is born in religions other than Islam and he is not given chance enough genuinely to understand the last truth as revealed by Allah, then he is not to be censured. This is what is meant.
But in other places the Holy Quran also makes it clear, whoever rejects Islam and wants at the cost of Islam or in preference to Islam some other religion, his religion will not be accepted by Allah. Now when that religion comes into conflict with Islam, then the inference is a very different inference drawn by the Holy Quran. So there was not a situation of conflict between various religions. It was a situation independent of other religions, not relatively to them. But when other religions come into clash with the final truth and Islam is rejected and another religion is accepted after this conflict, then the Holy Quran is very clear about it, that that other religion then will not be accepted. Rarely Islam obviously shows a situation of conflict between the two.
