﴿ وَقَالَتِ ٱلْيَهُودُ يَدُ ٱللَّهِ مَغْلُولَةٌ ۚ غُلَّتْ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَلُعِنُوا۟ بِمَا قَالُوا۟ ۘ بَلْ يَدَاهُ مَبْسُوطَتَانِ يُنفِقُ كَيْفَ يَشَآءُ ۚ وَلَيَزِيدَنَّ كَثِيرًۭا مِّنْهُم مَّآ أُنزِلَ إِلَيْكَ مِن رَّبِّكَ طُغْيَٰنًۭا وَكُفْرًۭا ۚ وَأَلْقَيْنَا بَيْنَهُمُ ٱلْعَدَٰوَةَ وَٱلْبَغْضَآءَ إِلَىٰ يَوْمِ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ ۚ كُلَّمَآ أَوْقَدُوا۟ نَارًۭا لِّلْحَرْبِ أَطْفَأَهَا ٱللَّهُ ۚ وَيَسْعَوْنَ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ فَسَادًۭا ۚ وَٱللَّهُ لَا يُحِبُّ ٱلْمُفْسِدِينَ ﴾

“And the Jews say, "God's hand is shackled!" It is their own hands that are shackled; and rejected [by God] are they because of this their assertion. Nay, but wide are His hands stretched out: He dispenses [bounty] as He wills. But all that has been bestowed from on high upon thee [O Prophet] by thy Sustainer is bound to make many of them yet more stubborn in their overweening arrogance and in their denial of the truth. And so We have cast enmity and hatred among the followers of the Bible, [to last] until Resurrection Day; every time they light the fires of war, God extinguishes them; and they labour hard to spread corruption on earth: and God does not -love the spreaders of corruption.”

In the Quran, when stress was laid on spending in charity for God’s sake and when people were urged to give gratuitous loans to God, the Jews made this the subject of ridicule. They used to say that God is a pauper and his subjects are rich; God’s hands are empty these days. They knew full well that God was above suffering a shortage of anything; so such statements were not directed against God, but against the Prophet and the Quran, and were meant actually to show that the Prophet was not the true Prophet and that Quran was not the Book of God. According to them, had the Quran truly been sent down on behalf of God, its content would have been quite different. But those who hold forth in this way only prove that they are devoid of the spirit of real religion; they are living in a state of insensitivity. When the Jews refused to accept the guidance offered by the Quran, it was not a simple refusal. It was actually a claim that they already enjoyed salvation and did not need any further guidance. An extreme type of egotism develops in people who have such a conceited mentality. In their dealings with others, even in their everyday lives, they are not prepared to give up their ego. As a result, the whole of society falls a prey to mutual differences and enmity. The call of a prophet is that man should also adopt that religion of obedience to God which has already been adopted by all things of the universe. This means keeping a peaceful balance in the world (islah). Now, those who place impediments in the way of the prophetic call seek to create a disturbance in this world of God. However, man has the freedom only to deal with his own inner turmoil. Nobody has that right over another’s fate.