Al-Baqarah 2:87

The Torah was the Book of God revealed to the Jews. Gradually, however, they ceased to treat it as a source of divine guidance and came to regard it as a sacred relic of their national heritage, a symbol of ethnic superiority; it became more a guarantee of salvation than a guide as to how salvation could be earned. After Moses, several prophets arose among the Jewish people—Joshua, David, Zachariah, John the Baptist and finally Jesus, to name but a few—all of whom pointed out to the Jews that it was not enough just to revere the Torah as a holy book. Its teachings had to be actually practised. It is futile to believe in the sacredness of the holy scriptures if one does not implement their message in one’s everyday life. But the Jews, the very people who held the Torah in such high esteem, were extremely intolerant of the Prophet’s exhortations. The reason for such a reaction on their part was that they had allowed self-interest and worldly ambitions to rule their lives, while passing themselves off as bearers and upholders of the true faith. As long as religion served to consolidate their worldly status, they welcomed it, but were loath to accept the message of truth—presented to them in all its purity—which they saw as a threat to the hegemony they had secured for themselves on the basis of religion. It was their egoism which came in the way of true religiosity. Instead of being the first to believe in it, they rejected the message as well as the messenger, subjecting God’s prophets to scorn and victimisation. They called them impostors and even went to the extent of killing them.