concerned with the submission of Christian and Jewish communities, may be
fairly taken as his final and deliberate opinion as to the future relation of
Islam to these creeds and people.
The last Sura, Sura Al-Ma'idah (v), contains a verse (56) similar in tone to
those just quoted, but it is probably an interpolation in this Sura and its date
is said to be just after the battle of Uhud.1 If this is so, it
simply shows that the final injunction in the ninth Sura regarding Jews and
Christians was no hasty opinion, called forth by special circumstances, but the
development of a principle settled some years before. The verse is:
O ye who believe, take not the Jews and Christians as your friends, for they
are but one another's friends;