﴿ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِٱللَّهِ وَٱلْيَوْمِ ٱلْءَاخِرِ وَيَأْمُرُونَ بِٱلْمَعْرُوفِ وَيَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ ٱلْمُنكَرِ وَيُسَٰرِعُونَ فِى ٱلْخَيْرَٰتِ وَأُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ مِنَ ٱلصَّٰلِحِينَ ﴾

“They believe in God and the Last Day, and enjoin the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of what is wrong, and vie with one another in doing good works: and these are among the righteous.”

This refers here to the conduct of the People of the Book (believers in former revealed scriptures), and their immediate recognition and acceptance, in all humility, of the divine truth as proclaimed from the lips of the Last Prophet. At that time there was, on the one hand, the religion of Moses, invested with all the strength of historical grandeur and sanctity of tradition. On the other hand stood the religion of the Prophet Muhammad, which had yet to acquire the force of argument, historical grandeur and traditional sanctity to support it. This difference between Moses’ religion and the religion of the Prophet of the time posed the greatest obstacle to the acknowledgment of the latter’s religion. Yet this obstacle was successfully overcome and the religion of the contemporary Prophet was welcomed.