7:166. When in their insolence they transgressed (all) prohibitions, We said to them: “Be ye apes, despised and rejected.”

167. Behold! Thy Lord did declare that He would send against them, to the Day of Judgment, those who would afflict them with grievous penalty. Thy Lord is quick in retribution, but He is also Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.

Sura 7 or ‘The Heights’ is a chapter which rejects Christianity.  It repeatedly assures the reader that the Christians are losers, will fill up hell, that Christ is not divine nor associated with Al Lah and that Al Lah will reward Muslims and lead others astray whom he will punish.  Jews are described as Sabbath breaking apes and pigs.

This Sura is translated into English here (Translated by Yusuf Ali, a fanatical Muslim apologist, so there is no ‘mistranslations’ which so bemuse Muslimophiles when discussing problematic texts).

Sura excerpts from Robert Spencer’s book are below and explanations on key verses within this Sura provided by Spencer.  This link can be used to read the translation of the verses which are not copied out in their entirety.  Spencer’s commentary is against that specific verse (italics).

Spencer: “The Heights” is traditionally considered to be another Meccan sura, dating from around the same time as sura 6: Muhammad’s last year in Mecca before the Hijra to Medina. The Tafsir al-Jalalayn states that verses 163 to 170, which deal with the Sabbath-breaking Jews who were transformed into apes, are from Medina.

Verse 3: There are no protectors (as in Christian theology)

Follow what has been sent down to you from your Lord, and follow no protecting friends besides him. Little do you remember.  Yet another warning of the dreadful judgment; here “you” is plural, while in 7:2 it was singular. Bell suggests that there may be a textual break between verses 2 and 3, as “appears from the change of address.”

Sura 4: Destruction for the unbelievers

How many a town have we destroyed? As a raid by night, or while they slept at noon, our terror came to them.  See 3:137 and 6:6. Such verses about divine judgment do not necessarily refer solely to thunderbolts from heaven: see 9:14. Jihad terrorists consider themselves to be the instruments of Allah’s judgment, destroying cities and punishing unbelievers in accord with the Qur’an.

Sura 16: Adam was a Muslim

He said, Now, because you have led me astray, indeed I will lurk in ambush for them on your right path.  Satan, banished, says he will spend his time tempting the Muslims away from the straight path. A hadith details how he would confront “the Son of Adam” and chide him for considering converting to Islam, abandoning his ancestral religion. “However,” the story goes, “the Son of Adam disobeyed Shaytan and embraced Islam.”

…the Son of Adam once again disobeyed Satan and went on jihad. The hadith continues: “Therefore, whoever among them (Children of Adam) does this and dies, it will be a promise from Allah that He admits him into Paradise. If he is killed, it will be a promise from Allah that He admits him into Paradise.”

Verse 18: Non-Muslims will fill up Hell

He said, Go forth from here, degraded, banished. As for those who follow you, surely I will fill Gehenna with all of you.

Sura 41: Repeats verse 18

Theirs will be a bed of Gehenna, and over them coverings. In this way we repay wrongdoers. On Gehenna, see 2:206.

Verse 54: Allah creates everything in 6 days or is it 8 days?

Indeed, your Lord is Allah, who created the heavens and the earth in six days, and then mounted the throne. He covers the night with the day, which is in haste to follow it, and has made the sun and the moon and the stars submissive by his command. All creation and command is indeed his. Blessed be Allah, the Lord of the worlds. Allah here creates the universe in six days, as he does at 10:3, 11:7, 25:59, 32:4, and 50:38. However, at 41:9-12, he does it in eight days.

Verse 81: Homosexuality is punished by death

Indeed, you come with lust to men instead of to women. No, but you are wanton people.  Lot’s story bears traces of the Sodom and Gomorrah incident in the Bible, as this verse recalls Genesis 19:5. The punishment for homosexual activity in Islamic law is death, based on a statement attributed to Muhammad: “If you find anyone doing as Lot’s people did, kill the one who does it, and the one to whom it is done.”

Verse 99:  Al Lah is a great schemer

Are they then secure from Allah’s scheme? No one thinks of himself as secure from Allah’s scheme except people that perish. Allah is also depicted as a schemer or plotter at 3:54, 8:30, and 10:21.

Verse 124: Transgressors will have their hands and feet cut off and crucified

Surely I will have your hands and feet cut off upon alternate sides. Then I will crucify every one of you.  This is the same punishment Allah prescribes for those who wage war against Allah and Muhammad (5:33).

Verse 145:  Moses receives the Commandments from Al Lah but none are listed

And we wrote for him upon the tablets the lesson to be drawn from all things and the explanation of all things, then, Hold it fast, and command your people, Take what is better in it. I will show you the abode of transgressors.  Moses goes up on Mount Tur (28:46) to converse with Allah and receive laws, which the Qur’an does not enumerate, on stone tablets. The Ten Commandments never appear in the Qur’an and are a notable omission from its multiple retellings of the Exodus.

Verse 156: Al Lah chooses who will disobey and punishes them….

And ordain for us what is good in this world, and in the hereafter. Indeed, we have turned to you. He said, I strike those whom I will with my punishment, and my mercy embraces all things, therefore I will ordain it for those who fear Allah and give alms, and those who believe our signs. “Give alms” is zakat, and “signs” once again is the word used of the verses of the Qur’an, so this passage strongly suggests that Allah shows mercy only to those who are Muslims.

Verse 157: Muhammad is illiterate

Those who follow the messenger, the unlettered prophet, whom they will find described in the Torah and the Gospel with them. He will command for them what is right and forbid them what is wrong.

The fact that Muhammad is not actually described in the Jewish or Christian scriptures has helped give rise to the Islamic claim that the Jews and Christians have corrupted their scriptures to remove references to him; see 61:6. The declaration that the messenger commands what is right and forbids what is wrong is one of the foundations for the belief in the hadiths, despite the fact that they date from two to three centuries after Muhammad is supposed to have lived, and thus have dubious historical value at best. Muslims are told to follow what Muhammad commands, and only in the hadith can those commands be discovered.

Verse 165: Non-Muslims, or impious Muslims face a dreadful punishment

And when they forgot that about which they had been reminded, we rescued those who forbade wrong, and visited those who did wrong with dreadful punishment, because they were transgressors.

Verse 172:  All humans are born Muslim

Everyone on earth is born Muslim, as a hadith has Muhammad saying: “No child is born but has the Islamic Faith, but its parents turn it into a Jew or a Christian.”  In another hadith, Allah produces all of the multitudes of the children of Adam from his back and asks them, “Am I not your Lord?”  All affirm that he is. Therefore, says the Tafsir Anwarul Bayan, “None will be able to claim that he had no knowledge of the fact that Allah is his Lord.”

Verse 177: Al Lah leads the losers astray to be punished

The people who denied our signs are an evil example, and were inclined to wrong themselves. He whom Allah leads, he is indeed led rightly, while he whom Allah leads astray, they indeed are losers.

Verse 179:  Al Lah creates humans and Jinns to torture

Allah has created a large number of human beings and jinns solely in order to torture them in hellfire. Those who suffer this fate are entirely bestial. However, Ibn Kathir does not see anything arbitrary about Allah’s judgment here: “We prepared them for it by their performance of the deeds of its people. When Allah intended to create the creation, He knew what their work will be before they existed. He wrote all this in a Book, kept with Him, fifty thousand years before He created the heavens and earth.” The difficulty remains, however, in that he nonetheless created those who were to reject him. On Gehenna, see 2:206.

Verse 181: Muslims will guide the world

And among those whom we created, there is a nation that guides with the truth and establishes justice with it.  The believers, on the other hand, shall guide mankind with Allah’s truth and establish justice by means of it. This is a foundation of Islam’s moral critique of the non-Muslim world.

Verse 190: Jesus is not a partner with God

But when he gave them a good child, they ascribed partners to him in regard to what he had given them. He is highly exalted above all that they associate.

Verse 191: There are no partners with Al Lah

Do they attribute as partners to Allah those who created nothing, but are themselves created, And cannot give them help, and cannot help themselves?

Verse 195: Al Lah or Muhammad dares the Christians to use their partners against him

Do they have feet with which they walk, or do they have hands with which they hold, or do they have eyes with which they see, or do they have ears with which they hear? Say, Call upon your partners, and then plot against me, do not spare me.

This chapter conveys a rather clear and unambiguous set of doctrines and paints a rather lurid picture of Al Lah for the reader.  Christian and Jews are going to fill up hell and can be tortured in this lifetime and crucified.  Impious Muslims who blasphemy will suffer a similar fate.  Al Lah is a schemer who leads humans astray to torture them.  All humans including the first human Adam, are born Muslim, but for some reason Al Lah through Satan, leads them from the true path of worship to Shirk or unbelief and due to this are to be condemned, punished, and destroyed.  This is obviously not the God of the Old or New Testaments.  There is no relationship, spiritual awakening, free-will declaration of faith on the part of the human.  This Al Lah is impersonal, a trickster, a deity that is uninterested in you as a distinct human and one which does not allow questions or inquiry.  Blind obedience and a rejection of free-will is what is demanded.