Surah An-Nisa, Ayah 152

Believing in Some Prophets and Rejecting Others is Pure Kufr

Allah threatens those who disbelieve in Him and in His Messengers, such as the Jews and Christians, who differentiate between Allah and His Messengers regarding faith. They believe in some Prophets and reject others, following their desires, lusts and the practices of their forefathers. They do not follow any proof for such distinction, because there is no such proof. Rather, they follow their lusts and prejudices. The Jews, may Allah curse them, believe in the Prophets, except `Isa and Muhammad, peace be upon them. The Christians believe in the Prophets but reject their Final and Seal, and the most honored among the prophets, Muhammad, peace be upon him. In addition, the Samirah (Samaritans) do not believe in any Prophet after Yuwsha` (Joshua), the successor of Musa bin `Imran. The Majus (Zoroastrians) are said to believe only in a Prophet called Zoroaster, although they do not believe in the law he brought them casting it behind them, and Allah knows best. Therefore, whoever rejects only one of Allah's Prophets, he will have disbelieved in all of them, because it is required from mankind to believe in every prophet whom Allah sent to the people of the earth. And whoever rejects one Prophet, out of envy, bias and personal whim, he only demonstrates that his faith in other Prophets is not valid, but an act of following desire and whim. This is why Allah said,

In the concluding verse (15:22), it has been reaffirmed that salvation in the Hereafter is the lot of those who believe in Him and in all of His prophets as well. Therefore, the Holy Prophet ﷺ said:

اِنَ القُرٰانَ یُفَسِرُ بعصُہ بَعضاً

One part of the Qur'an explains the other.

It is not permissible for anyone to explain the Qur'an in any way contrary to the Tafsir of the Qur'an itself.

The Makkans believed in the prophethood of Abraham. Similarly, the Jews and the Christians believed respectively in the prophethood of Moses and Jesus. But none of them would acknowledge the prophethood of Muhammad. All of them were willing to accept the prophets of the past, but none of them were ready to accept the Prophet of their own times—mindful as they were of the fact that the prophets they believed in had also been faced with the same hostile reactions in their times as were now being faced by the Arab prophet. All such attempts to reject the contemporary prophet amounted to finding a middle course between truth-worship and self-worship, so that entry to Paradise should be secured without any sacrifice of self-interest. The truth of the matter is that the prophethood of the past is an established fact. Whereas, to acknowledge the contemporary prophet one needs to undertake a new intellectual journey. The prophethood of the past after the passage of time becomes so accepted that it becomes a part of one’s thinking process right from the time of one’s birth. But the prophet of the day is a controversial personality. He appears to be an ‘ordinary human being.’ So, to believe in a prophet in the garb of an ordinary human being, it is essential for man to have a complete change of mindset. He has to find God again at the level of awareness. Belief in the prophet of the past entails only a belief in one’s own heritage, following in the footsteps of one’s forefathers. Their faith was not by choice, but by birth. They had not made a conscious discovery of God. So, belief in the prophet of the past is only a continuation of one’s forefather’s ways, while belief in the prophet of one’s own times means a conscious acceptance of faith. What is of importance in the eyes of God is the faith adopted by choice and not by birth.