When “They” Becomes “We”
Rethinking Misguidance Across Abrahamic Traditions
Five times a day, Muslims around the world recite Sūrat al-Fātiḥah, the opening chapter of the Qur’an. The final verse includes a supplication asking God for guidance along the straight path—”not the path of those who have incurred wrath, nor of those who are astray.”
For centuries, a common interpretation identified these two groups as Jews and Christians respectively. This reading, rooted in classical exegesis, has shaped how many Muslims understand their relationship to the other Abrahamic communities. But what if this interpretation obscures a deeper, more challenging truth—one that speaks not about religious others but about ourselves?
A recent study by Satrio Nurbantara and Muhamad Iqzman Addif Su’aidi offers a compelling reframe. Using Paul Ricoeur’s narrative-hermeneutical method, they examine concepts of human deviation across all three Abrahamic scriptures: the Qur’anic terms al-maghḍūb and al-ḍāllīn, the Hebrew Bible’s qĕshēh ʿōref (”stiff-necked people”), and the Gospel’s parable of the Lost Sheep. Their conclusion challenges comfortable sectarian readings: these concepts describe universal human conditions, not markers of religious identity.
Two Modes of Going Wrong
The article identifies a moral spectrum that appears across traditions. On one end sits deliberate rebellion—those who recognize truth but consciously reject it. The Qur’an’s al-maghḍūb (those who incur divine wrath) parallels the Tanakh’s description of Israel as “stiff-necked,” a people who resist God’s will despite receiving the Torah at Sinai. Both traditions emphasize that proximity to revelation intensifies rather than diminishes moral responsibility.
On the other end lies a different kind of deviation: being lost through ignorance, vulnerability, or existential disorientation. The Qur’anic al-ḍāllīn (those who go astray) resonates with Jesus’s parable of the sheep that wanders off—not through malice but through the inherent fragility of creatures who depend on guidance they cannot provide for themselves.
The philological analysis is illuminating. The Hebrew term qĕshēh ʿōref draws on agrarian imagery: an ox that stiffens its neck against the yoke, refusing the plowman’s direction. The Greek apolōlos (the lost one) suggests not irreversible destruction but a state of relational dislocation open to restoration. These aren’t abstract theological categories but embodied metaphors rooted in the lived experience of ancient communities.
From Polemic to Mirror
The classical Islamic interpretation linking al-maghḍūb to Jews and al-ḍāllīn to Christians emerged in a specific historical context—the early Muslim community’s encounters with established religious communities in Arabia. But as contemporary scholars like M. Quraish Shihab and the Egyptian reformer Muhammad Abduh have argued, the Qur’an itself doesn’t explicitly make these identifications. The interpretive tradition did.
This matters enormously for interfaith dialogue. When sacred texts are read as condemnations of religious others, they become barriers. When they’re understood as mirrors reflecting universal human tendencies, they become bridges.
The Tanakh offers a powerful model here. The designation “stiff-necked people” functions as internal critique—Israel examining its own failures, not cataloging the faults of outsiders. The prophetic tradition’s harshest words are reserved for the covenant community itself. Similarly, the Gospel’s lost sheep isn’t an indictment of a competing religion but an acknowledgment of human vulnerability that calls forth divine compassion.
Read this way, the Qur’anic categories become questions each believer must ask themselves: Am I among those who recognize truth but resist it out of pride? Am I among those wandering without orientation, in need of guidance I cannot generate on my own?
Contemporary Resonances
The study’s application to modern contexts is particularly striking. The authors suggest that al-maghḍūb today might describe those who recognize justice and truth but manipulate these principles for power. The “stiff-necked” find contemporary expression in those who resist self-critique and reject accountability despite evidence. And al-ḍāllīn captures the condition of modern subjects overwhelmed by information, confronting ethical relativism, struggling to find moral orientation.
These aren’t descriptions of religious others. They’re diagnoses of conditions that cross every community boundary.
For those of us engaged in interfaith work, this reframe has immediate practical implications. When we approach dialogue partners assuming their scriptures condemn us, we bring defensive postures that inhibit genuine encounter. But when we recognize that their traditions—like our own—contain profound reflections on universal human failings, we can meet as fellow travelers grappling with the same existential challenges.
What This Means for Dialogue
The study’s methodological contribution deserves attention. By applying Ricoeur’s threefold framework—prefiguration (examining each concept in its original linguistic and historical context), configuration (synthesizing them into a coherent comparative structure), and refiguration (recontextualizing for contemporary ethics)—the authors model how comparative work can proceed without either erasing differences or weaponizing them.
The traditions remain distinct. The Qur’an and Tanakh emphasize moral responsibility and consequences. The Gospel foregrounds divine initiative toward restoration. These aren’t contradictions to be resolved but complementary perspectives on a shared human predicament. Different metaphors illuminate different aspects of the same existential terrain.
This suggests a principle for interfaith engagement: rather than debating which tradition’s account of the human condition is “correct,” we might ask what each tradition’s distinctive emphasis reveals about challenges we all face. Jewish insistence on covenant responsibility, Christian focus on grace and restoration, Islamic attention to both deliberate rejection and innocent error—each captures something true about moral experience.
The Challenge Ahead
I won’t pretend this reading is uncontroversial. Classical interpretations have deep roots and strong defenders. Many Muslims will point to hadith literature supporting the traditional identifications. Many will argue that reinterpretation dilutes scriptural authority.
These concerns deserve serious engagement, not dismissal. But the contemporary scholars cited in this study aren’t Western academics imposing foreign frameworks. They include major figures in Islamic exegesis—Shihab, Hamka, the legacy of Muhammad Abduh—working within the tradition’s own resources. The move from identificatory to ethical-universal reading isn’t innovation but recovery of interpretive possibilities that sectarian readings foreclosed.
Perhaps the most challenging implication is personal. If al-maghḍūb and al-ḍāllīn describe universal human conditions rather than religious others, then each time we recite al-Fātiḥah, we’re not asking God to keep us from becoming like “them.” We’re acknowledging our own susceptibility to pride-driven rejection and ignorant wandering. We’re asking for protection from tendencies that live within us.
That’s a harder prayer. It’s also a more honest one.
The study discussed here is: Nurbantara, S., & Su’aidi, M. I. A. (2025). From sectarian labels to universal ethics: Human deviance in Abrahamic scriptures. Basmala: Journal of Qur’an and Hadith, 1(2), 161–181.
Interesting, informative, and well written. I am a little embarrassed to admit I didn't know that those two terms were applies to Jews and Christians. I always thought it was implicit, but didn't have any background or contextual information.
This is excellent! Thank you for this. Ricouer was very important when I was in graduate school. Abduh is also part of my dissertation. Resonated with this. Thank you for your insights!