23 Preface أَلَم تَرَ إِلَى الَّذينَ أوتوا نَصيبًا مِنَ الكِتابِ يُدعَونَ إِلىٰ كِتابِ اللَّهِ لِيَحكُمَ بَينَهُم ثُمَّ يَتَوَلّىٰ فَريقٌ مِنهُم وَهُم مُعرِضونَYusuf AliHast thou not turned Thy vision to those who have been given a portion1 of the Book? They are invited to the Book of God, to settle their dispute, but a party of them Turn back and decline (The arbitration)2.A portion of the Book. I conceive that God’s revelation as a whole throughout the ages is “The Book”. The Law of Moses, and the Gospel of Jesus were portions of the Book. The Qur-ān completes the revelation and is par excellence the Book of God (Cf. 4:44).The Commentators mention a particular incident when a dispute was submitted by the Jews for arbitration to the Prophet. He appealed to the authority of their own books, but they tried to conceal and prevaricate. The general lesson is that the People of the Book should have been the first to welcome in Muḥammad the living exponent of the Message of God as a whole, and some of them did so; but others turned away from guilty arrogance, relying on corrupted texts and doctrines forged out of their own fancies, though they were not conformable to reason and good sense.