The Qur’an’s View Of The Ahl Al-Kitab

The expression “ahl al-kitab,” which means “the people of the book, those with a scripture, and those who are given a scripture,” is used both to refer to the addressees of revelation prior to the advent of Islam and to describe a group who are literate. “The people of the book” is also referred to as “ahl al-dhikr” meaning those who have the knowledge of the previous revelations. The Qur’an used the expression “ahl al-kitab” to distinguish the Jews and the Christians, who had scriptures of divine origin, from those who had no divine scriptures at all. While Qur’an praises certain Christian “ahl al-kitab” of the period when it was revealed, it harshly criticizes them, particularly the Jewish part, in many places.