al-Māʾida 5:18

Wa qālati'l-yahūdu wa'n-naṣārā naḥnu abnāʾu'llāhi wa aḥibbāʾuh · Qul fa-lima yuʿadhdhibukum bi-dhunūbikum · Bal antum basharun mimman khalaq · Yaghfiru li-man yashāʾu wa yuʿadhdhibu man yashāʾ · Wa li'llāhi mulku's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍi wa mā baynahumā · Wa ilayhi'l-maṣīr

"They said, 'We are the sons of God and His beloved ones.' Say: then why does He punish you for your sins? No; you are human beings, part of what He has created. He forgives whom He wills and punishes whom He wills. To God belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth and what is between them; and to Him is the journey's end."

This verse takes up a different claim from the preceding one. The claim at 5/17 was about God; the claim here is about themselves: a claim to privilege.

And the answer has two steps, and both are short:

بَلْ — in Arabic the particle of iḍrāb: it cancels the preceding sentence and puts a new one in its place. "No, it is not so; it is thus."

بَشَرٌ مِّمَّنْ خَلَقَ — and this is the new description laid down.

The root ب-ش-ر: the outer surface of the skin; and from there a human being (the creature whose skin shows). From the same root comes bushrā (good news) — because the skin of the face of the one who receives good news changes. The root was treated in Maryam and al-Insān.

That is, the verse answers those making the claim with the most concrete, most bodily word for a human being.

And the qualification mimman khalaq — "part of what He has created" — comes with a partitive particle: one unit within a group. What is set against the claim of privilege is having a place inside the crowd.

I record this as my own reading; its ground is the form of the verse's answer: what this verse rejects is not a fault peculiar to a particular community but a way of thinking — the thought that belonging by itself provides a guarantee.

And this measure is put in the Qurʾān once more, this time directed at those being addressed. It was recorded at al-Baqara 2/221: what one receives is tied not to the name of a community but to an attribute. The same measure, in the same verse, looks both at the other party and — by the generality of the principle — at the reader.

This verse is one of the grounds within the Qurʾān for this commentary's refusal to issue blanket verdicts about a group: the verse rejects drawing a verdict from belonging in the mouths of those who claim it. To perform the same operation in the reverse direction would be inconsistent for the same reason.