Star Seekers

Difference Named, Judgment Deferred

This article is a structural reading of the Qur’an.

“As for the believers, those who follow
the Jewish faith, the Sabians, the Christians, the Magians, and the idolaters,
God will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection; God witnesses all things.”

Qur’an 22:17

This verse is often read as a classification.
It is not.

At first glance, the list appears familiar: believers, Jews, Christians. But it does not behave like a taxonomy of religions. It is internally uneven. It mixes inner states with inherited traditions, named communities with ambiguous paths, recognizable forms of devotion with practices that resist definition. The Qur’an offers guidance, not a scheme for classification.

Difference is named — and then the authority to resolve it is explicitly removed from human hands.

One detail is decisive.
The word Muslim does not appear in this list.

Not because submission is absent — but because submission is not a group.

In the Qur’an, muslim names a posture rather than an identity. The word derives from the root S-L-M, associated with wholeness, soundness, and entering into peace through yielding. A muslim is one who turns themselves toward God, regardless of communal label.

To understand why this list refuses closure, the Qur’an must be read on its own terms — not through modern identity categories, but through the logic of difference and judgment it repeatedly establishes elsewhere.

Difference by Design

“If your Lord had pleased, He would have made all people a single community,
but they continue to have their differences“
(Q 11:118)

The Qur’an does not treat difference as an accident, a failure of guidance, or a temporary condition awaiting correction. Difference persists not because God failed to guide humanity, but because uniformity was never the design.

At the same time, the Qur’an draws a sharp boundary around what humans are permitted to do with difference. While distinctions between peoples, paths, and forms of remembrance are acknowledged, the authority to resolve those differences is consistently withheld from human hands.

Again and again, the scripture affirms two things at once:
difference is real, and judgment belongs to God.

“On the Day of Resurrection, God will judge between you regarding your differences.”
(Q 22:69)

This is not a theological aside.
It is a structural limit placed on the human role.

You may differ.
You may recognize difference.
You may even name it.

But you may not turn it into stone.

The Qur’an consistently warns against one particular injustice: standing between another person and their turning toward God.

“those who turned others away from God’s path and tried to make it crooked,
those who denied the Hereafter.”
(Q 7:45)

The transgression is not that people remember differently, but that some place themselves between a soul and its return.

The danger is not diversity.
It is usurpation.

Difference Without Human Judgment

Sūrat ash-Shūrā articulates this ethic with clarity.

“If God had so pleased, He could have made them a single community,
but He admits to His mercy whoever He will;
the evildoers will have no one to protect or help them.”
(Q 42:8)

Difference exists by design, and mercy is the governing logic.

The boundary is then drawn explicitly:

“Whatever you may differ about is for God to judge.
[Say], ‘Such is God, my Lord. In Him I trust and to Him I turn,”
(Q 42:10)

The Qur’an does not collapse difference into sameness.
Nor does it license humans to rank difference.

Later in the surah, the shared core of revelation is named:

“In matters of faith, He has laid down for you [people] the same commandment that
He gave Noah, which We have revealed to you [Muhammad]
and which We enjoined on Abraham and Moses and Jesus:
‘Uphold the faith and do not divide into factions within it’– what you [Prophet] call upon the idolaters to do is hard for them; God chooses whoever He pleases for Himself and guides towards Himself those who turn to Him.”
(Q 42:13)

Division does not arise from ignorance.

“They divided, out of rivalry, only after knowledge had come to them,
and, if it had not been for a decree already passed by your Lord to reprieve them until an
appointed time, they would already have been judged.
Those after them, who inherited the Scripture, are in disquieting doubt about it.”
(Q 42:14)

This is a crucial correction.
Factionalism is not born from confusion, but from certainty weaponized.

The Prophet is therefore instructed to hold conviction without domination:

“So [Prophet] call people to that faith and follow the straight path as you have been commanded.
Do not go by what they desire, but say, ‘I believe in whatever Scripture God has sent down.
I am commanded to bring justice between you.
God is our Lord and your Lord – to us our deeds and to you yours,
so let there be no argument between us and you – God will gather us together,
and to Him we shall return.’”
(Q 42:15)

Humans are responsible for sincerity and justice, not for sorting souls.

Meaning Before Identity

To understand why Q 22:17 resists closure, the terms must be read as the Qur’an uses them: not as modern identities, but as fields of meaning.

The Qur’an does not define these words to fix people in place.
It uses them to describe how remembrance takes shape.

This is made possible by the Qur’an’s root-logic, in which words derive meaning from shared three-letter roots that encode motion, direction, and response rather than static identity.

Sabians — Leaving to Remember

The Arabic term commonly rendered Sabians comes from the root S-B-ʾ, associated with departing, emerging, and leaving an established orientation.

A Ṣābiʾ is defined not by where they belong, but by the fact that they leave. Seeking, here, is not rebellion but fidelity through motion — a refusal to let remembrance become rigid into habit.

By naming the Sabians, the Qur’an protects a form of remembrance that cannot remain still when inherited forms grow dry. They are, in this sense, lovers of leaving: those who depart not to escape truth, but to keep it alive.

Magians — Vigilance Without Inheritance

The term Majūs refers to the ancient Persian Magians. Unlike the other names in Q 22:17, it does not arise from an Arabic three-letter root. It is a loanword, carried into the Qur’an without being linguistically absorbed.

This matters.

The Qur’an does not translate the Magians into its own root-system, nor does it redefine them through an internal verb. It names them as they are, preserving their difference rather than assimilating it.

Historically, the Magians were trained guardians of ritual fire and observers of cosmic order. Fire here is not framed as destruction, but as vigilance: sustained attention, discipline, and watchfulness — light kept alive without becoming wildfire.

A quiet resonance appears in later tradition. In the Gospel of Matthew, the figures commonly known as the “three wise men” are explicitly called magoi (μάγοι) — the Greek term for Persian Magians. They are not kings, not prophets, and not heirs to covenantal scripture. They are watchers of the heavens, readers of signs, drawn not by lineage but by attentiveness.

The Qur’an does not confirm this account, nor does it need to. The parallel simply highlights a recurring pattern: remembrance can be sustained not only through inheritance or scripture, but through disciplined vigilance — the capacity to recognize when something true appears.

By naming the Majūs without absorbing them, the Qur’an acknowledges this mode of attentiveness without ranking it, legitimizing it, or enclosing it.

Again, no hierarchy is introduced.
Only recognition.

Jews and Christians — Qur’anic Terms, Not Modern Identities

The Qur’an names Jews and Christians without polemic, commentary, or qualification. But it also does something more precise: it uses these terms functionally, not sociologically.

In Qur’anic usage, these names do not describe modern political identities, ethnic groups, or institutional religions. They describe modes of response to revelation.

“Those who are Jews”

The Qur’an does not primarily use a static noun equivalent to “Jew” in the modern sense. Instead, it repeatedly employs the verbal construction:

ٱلَّذِينَ هَادُوا
alladhīna hādū — those who became / turned Yahūd

The verb hāda belongs to a semantic field that includes:

• turning back,
• returning after deviation,
• re-orienting oneself,
• acknowledging and responding.

In this usage, Yahūd is not a racial or civilizational essence. It names a movement of return — a way a community oriented itself toward God through covenant, law, and ethical restraint.

This functional meaning is reflected in how the Qur’an evaluates them.

Where remembrance is upheld, it is affirmed:

“The believers, the Jews, the Christians, and the Sabians – all those who believe in God and the Last Day and do good – will have their rewards with their Lord.
No fear for them, nor will they grieve.”
(Q 2:62)

Here, those who follow the Jewish faith are not treated as an identity bloc, but as participants in a moral and spiritual response. Reward is linked to belief and action, not to inherited naming.

At the same time, the Qur’an issues sharp critique where covenant is distorted:

“We revealed the Torah with guidance and light, and the prophets,
who had submitted to God, judged according to it for the Jews.
So did the rabbis and the scholars in accordance with that part of God’s Scripture
which they were entrusted to preserve, and to which they were witnesses.
So [rabbis and scholars] do not fear people, fear Me; do not barter away
My messages for a small price; those who do not judge according to
what God has sent down are rejecting [God’s teachings].”
(Q 5:44)

This verse is decisive. The Torah is affirmed as guidance and light. The prophets are described as those who submitted themselves to God. But authority is not insulated. Failure is named when trust is violated.

The Qur’an can praise and criticize those who became Yahūd without contradiction because the term does not guarantee alignment. It describes how revelation was carried, not who permanently “counts.”

Inheritance is acknowledged. Accountability remains.

Thus, Yahūd functions in the Qur’an not as a fixed identity marker, but as a descriptor of a particular historical and ethical orientation — one that can be lived faithfully, neglected, or distorted.

The name does not decide.
The response does.

“Christians”

The Qur’an uses ٱلنَّصَـٰرَىٰ (al-Naṣārā), tied to the root N-Ṣ-R:
to help, to support, to stand with.

“You who believe, be God’s helpers.
As Jesus, son of Mary, said to the disciples, ‘Who will come with me to help God?’
The disciples said, ‘We shall be God’s helpers.’
Some of the Children of Israel believed and some disbelieved:
We supported the believers against their enemy and they were the ones who came out on top.”
(Q 61:14)

Here, Naṣārā does not function as a denominational label. It names a relational stance: those who aligned themselves with Jesus’ call and committed to supporting the divine mission. The Qur’an evaluates this stance dynamically, praising humility, mercy, and devotion where remembrance is alive, and warning where authority claims and doctrinal excess distort it.

Inheritance is recognized, but never treated as immunity.

This becomes explicit when the Qur’an interrupts disputes over religious naming altogether:

“People of the Book, why do you argue about Abraham when the Torah and the Gospels were not revealed until after his time? Do you not understand?
You argue about some things of which you have some knowledge, but why do you argue about things of which you know nothing? God knows and you do not.
Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian.
He was upright and devoted to God, never an idolater.”
(Q 3:65–67)

This passage does not deny Jewish or Christian inheritance. It relativizes it.

By placing Abraham prior to both labels, the Qur’an exposes a category error: later religious names cannot be projected backward as identity claims, nor can they function as guarantees of correctness. What matters is not retrospective affiliation, but orientation.

In this sense, Jews and Christians are not treated as competing identities alongside submission. They are addressed through it. What differs is not the posture demanded, but how faithfully it is sustained after revelation is received.

Thus, Naṣārā does not name a fixed group. It names a way of standing with revelation — one that remains accountable to remembrance rather than protected by inheritance.

The Believers — Terms Before Relations

The Qur’an uses several distinct terms when speaking about alignment with God. These terms are not interchangeable, and they do not function as fixed identities.

Islām names submission: the act of placing oneself under God’s authority and entering the field of obedience and accountability.
Linguistically, it is built on the root S-L-M, associated with wholeness, soundness, and entering into peace through surrender.

Īmān names faith: an inward condition of trust that enters the heart and may deepen, weaken, or fail to arrive.
Its root ʾ-M-N carries meanings of trust, security, and being made safe — pointing to an inner settling rather than an outward act.

Al-muʾminūn (the believers) names those in whom this inward faith is present, without implying permanence or immunity. The term describes a state, not a possession.

Only after these terms are distinguished does the Qur’an address how they may appear together in lived reality.

“The desert Arabs say, ‘We have faith.’ [Prophet], tell them, ‘You do not have faith.
What you should say instead is, “We have submitted,” for faith has not yet entered your hearts.’
If you obey God and His Messenger, He will not diminish any of your deeds:
He is most forgiving and most merciful.”
(Q 49:14)

The verse does not redefine the terms. It applies them.

Faith is named as an inward arrival that cannot be claimed by declaration alone. Submission is named as real and consequential even where faith has not yet entered. All states — from inward trust to outward obedience, from clarity to confusion — remain within divine witness.

Restraint as Mercy

The Qur’an does not resolve difference by erasing it, nor by forcing agreement. It resolves it by withholding judgment from human hands and placing responsibility where it belongs.

“Say, ‘Should I seek a Lord other than God, when He is the Lord of all things?’
Each soul is responsible for its own actions; no soul will bear the burden of another.
You will all return to your Lord in the end, and He will tell you the truth about your differences.”
(Q 6:154)

Responsibility is personal.
Judgment is divine.

This restraint does not close the door to return; it keeps it open.

“Say, ‘[God says], My servants who have harmed yourselves by
your own excess, do not despair of God’s mercy.
God forgives all sins: He is truly the Most Forgiving, the Most Merciful.
Turn to your Lord. Submit to Him before the punishment overtakes you and
you can no longer be helped.’”
(Q 39:53–54)

The horizon the Qur’an sets is not coercion, but invitation.

“But God invites [everyone] to the Home of Peace, and guides
whoever He will to a straight path.
Those who did well will have the best reward and more besides.
Neither darkness nor shame will cover their faces:
these are the companions in Paradise, and there they will remain.”
(Q 10:25–26)

The Qur’an does not flatten difference, nor does it sanctify it. It situates difference within a horizon where no one owns truth and no one finishes another soul’s story.

Whatever you differ about is for God to judge.

That refusal to let humans harden what God left open is not a loss of certainty.
It is the protection of mercy.

“There is no compulsion in religion:
true guidance has become distinct from error,
so whoever rejects false gods and believes in God
has grasped the firmest hand-hold, one that will never break.
God is all hearing and all knowing.
God is the ally of those who believe:
He brings them out of the depths of darkness and into the light.”

Qur’an 2:256-257