After Judgment: the Ummah's Witness over People

Introduction: The Judgment Is Not the End of the Case

The trial concluded with two clear judgments:

The first judgment: establishing the “allotted share” and identifying the group accused, namely the group that the Qur'an describes as “those who became Jews”—the Jews—in accordance with the evidence, descriptions, and acts on which the judgment was based.

The second judgment: establishing the function associated with this share:

Misguidance → filling with wishes → command → alteration.

But the judgment is not the end of the case.

For God appointed this ummah:

﴿لِّتَكُونُوا شُهَدَاءَ عَلَى النَّاسِ﴾ (so that you may be witnesses over humankind) [البقرة: 143]

And appointed the Messenger:

﴿وَيَكُونَ الرَّسُولُ عَلَيْكُمْ شَهِيدًا﴾ (and the Messenger may be a witness over you) []

Thus, after the judgment was issued, the question was no longer:

Who is the allotted share?

Rather, it became:

What has the ummah done with what the Qur'an disclosed?

And has it fulfilled its witnessing (shahāda) over humankind, or left the case that the Qur'an disclosed concealed from them?

First: From the “Allotted Share” to “Altering God's Creation”

Iblis said:

﴿لَأَتَّخِذَنَّ مِنْ عِبَادِكَ نَصِيبًا مَّفْرُوضًا﴾ (I shall surely take an allotted share of Your servants) [النساء: 118]

The Qur'an then immediately disclosed the function of this share:

﴿وَلَأُضِلَّنَّهُمْ وَلَأُمَنِّيَنَّهُمْ وَلَآمُرَنَّهُمْ فَلَيُبَتِّكُنَّ آذَانَ الْأَنْعَامِ وَلَآمُرَنَّهُمْ فَلَيُغَيِّرُنَّ خَلْقَ اللَّهِ﴾ (And I shall surely lead them astray, and fill them with wishes, and command them, so they will surely slit the ears of livestock; and I shall surely command them, so they will surely alter God's creation) [النساء: 119]

The end of the verse must not be separated from its beginning.

The Qur'anic sequence is clear:

Allotted share → misguidance → filling with wishes → command → action upon a living organism → altering God's creation.

The Qur'an did not mention “altering God's creation” in the abstract; rather, it preceded it with a specific example:

﴿فَلَيُبَتِّكُنَّ آذَانَ الْأَنْعَامِ﴾ (so they will surely slit the ears of livestock) []

Then came the broader judgment:

﴿فَلَيُغَيِّرُنَّ خَلْقَ اللَّهِ﴾ (so they will surely alter God's creation).

The Qur'an thus first discloses the act in a tangible form performed upon a living organism, then places it under the broader concept of altering God's creation.

Here the importance of the verse emerges in an age when the human capacity to intervene in a living organism extends beyond its external form to its internal structure.

Why Did the Warning about the “Allotted Share—the Jews” Take the Form of Command and Threat?

Here the function of the Qur'anic reference to the “allotted share” becomes clearer at a deeper level: the command to convey and warn does not appear to concern a marginal matter, but one that affects the course of the message itself. The message that brings mercy, light, and guidance can be built as a house is built; then someone comes who works to demolish what has been built and corrupt its purpose. Hence, knowing the trajectory of the “allotted share” becomes part of protecting the message, rather than merely knowledge of persons or history.

From this perspective, one can understand the intensity of the Qur'anic formulation in commanding, threatening, warning, and conveying: failing to disclose this trajectory may mean leaving the forces of demolition to operate against the divine project of construction without the ummah knowing what it faces. The Qur'an does not merely present the message; it also discloses the corruption, arrogance, and distortion of direction that obstruct its path, and asks those who bear the message to convey, warn, and disclose the facts. Thus, conveying the matter of the “allotted share” becomes, in this reading, connected to conveying the message itself: the message is mercy and light for all worlds, and knowing what works to demolish it or corrupt its effects is a condition for understanding how to preserve its purpose. Here the Qur'anic reference is not merely a report about the future, but a warning to the ummah to know the trajectory of demolition just as it knows the trajectory of construction, lest it carry the message in one hand while its meaning is demolished by the other.

Here the importance of the “allotted share” emerges within the question of the message itself.

The Qur'an does not present this share as a transient presence; rather, it discloses an organized function that begins with misguidance, filling with wishes, and command, and ends in an act that alters God's creation.

For this reason, the verbs appear in an exceptionally explicit form:

﴿وَلَأُضِلَّنَّهُمْ﴾ (And I shall surely lead them astray) []

﴿وَلَأُمَنِّيَنَّهُمْ﴾ (And I shall surely fill them with wishes) []

﴿وَلَآمُرَنَّهُمْ﴾ (And I shall surely command them) []

﴿فَلَيُبَتِّكُنَّ﴾ (So they will surely slit) []

﴿وَلَآمُرَنَّهُمْ﴾ (And I shall surely command them) []

﴿فَلَيُغَيِّرُنَّ﴾ (So they will surely alter).

These are not static descriptions, but trajectories of action, command, execution, and alteration.

Here we understand why disclosing this trajectory was important for the ummah.

For the divine message builds:

Guidance → mercy → light → rectification.

And the allotted share works in the opposite direction:

Misguidance → filling with wishes → command → corruption → alteration.

Hence, knowing this trajectory becomes part of protecting the message.

Someone who builds a house and then learns that someone is working to demolish it does not confine himself to knowing how it is built, but also discloses the route of demolition.

So it is with the message.

If the message is mercy and light for all worlds, protecting its purpose requires knowing the forces and trajectories that work to corrupt it and alter its effects.

For this reason, the Qur'an did not disclose the message alone; it also disclosed what obstructs its path.

Knowing the “allotted share” is therefore not marginal knowledge; it is part of knowing what confronts the message itself.

Hence comes the responsibility of witnessing (shahāda):

For the ummah to know what the Qur'an has disclosed, convey it to people, and disclose the trajectory of corruption when it manifests in reality.

Second: When “Altering God's Creation” Became a Scientific Capability

Today, human beings no longer engage with living organisms only from the outside.

Intervention has moved to deeper levels:

Altering form → selecting traits → hybridization → controlling hereditary traits → genetic engineering → genome editing → cell modification → gene therapy.

Human beings have become capable of targeting specific segments of DNA, disabling, activating, or modifying genes, or replacing genetic segments.

Here the phrase:

﴿فَلَيُغَيِّرُنَّ خَلْقَ اللَّهِ﴾ (so they will surely alter God's creation) []

moves from a concept read only through forms belonging to the past to a concrete issue within contemporary human capability.

Human beings have become capable of altering the characteristics of a living organism at the genetic level itself.

Third: Israel and the Genome-Editing Project

Here a central piece of circumstantial evidence emerges in the case.

In 2020, the Israel Innovation Authority announced the establishment of a consortium:

CRISPR-IL

It is a national consortium bringing together Israeli companies, academic groups, and hospitals with the aim of developing an advanced genome-editing system that combines:

Artificial intelligence + CRISPR + genome editing.

Upon the consortium's establishment, the Authority announced funding of 36 million shekels for 18 months, with the possibility of extension.

The aim was not to develop one treatment for one disease, but to develop tools to improve:

Gene-editing precision → editing efficiency → safety → industrial and research applications.

The announced applications included:

Medicine → agriculture → animals.

Thus, we are dealing with an organized system, not an isolated laboratory experiment.

Fourth: The Project Extends beyond Humans to Living Organisms

The Israeli national report on the Bio-Convergence program presents a broader picture.

During 2020–2023, the CRISPR-IL consortium worked to develop an artificial intelligence-based system to support genome editing in cells and living organisms.

Its areas of work included:

Gene therapy → pharmaceuticals → plants → insects → crustaceans → improved agricultural products.

Thus, the field does not stop at humans.

Rather, it encompasses:

Human cells → plants → animals → multiple living organisms.

This point brings us directly back to the verse:

﴿فَلَيُبَتِّكُنَّ آذَانَ الْأَنْعَامِ﴾ (Then they will surely slit the ears of livestock) []

Then:

﴿فَلَيُغَيِّرُنَّ خَلْقَ اللَّهِ﴾ (Then they will surely alter Allah’s creation).

The Qur'an places the living organism within the context of alteration, and modern science has carried alteration to the level of the genome itself.

Fifth: Artificial Intelligence Enters the Process of Alteration

The matter is no longer merely one of using CRISPR.

Artificial intelligence has become part of the genome-editing process itself.

It is involved in:

Selecting the modification → designing it → improving its precision → analyzing its results → reducing unintended modifications.

Three elements have thus come together within a single system:

Artificial intelligence + genome editing + the living organism.

This changes the nature of human capacity.

Humans no longer merely observe living organisms or alter their form; they now possess tools that enable them to intervene in the genetic information that determines their biological traits.

Sixth: From Animals to Humans

Here, research on human genome editing and gene therapy at advanced Israeli institutions comes into view, including the research of Professor Ayal Hendel at Bar-Ilan University.

His research encompasses:

Genetic engineering → genome editing → stem cells → gene correction → gene therapy → immune cell modification.

The sequence has thus become clear:

Genome editing → the cell → the gene → genetic disease → the human cell → gene therapy.

Humans are no longer merely observers of living organisms.

Rather, they have become capable of intervening in their genetic material.

Seventh: Here the Verse Connects with the Entire Trajectory

When we set the Qur'anic text against this reality, the sequence emerges:

The Qur'an:

﴿نَصِيبًا مَّفْرُوضًا﴾ (An allotted share) → ﴿وَلَأُضِلَّنَّهُمْ﴾ (And I will surely misguide them) → ﴿وَلَأُمَنِّيَنَّهُمْ﴾ (And I will surely fill them with wishes) → ﴿وَلَآمُرَنَّهُمْ﴾ (And I will surely command them) → ﴿فَلَيُبَتِّكُنَّ آذَانَ الْأَنْعَامِ﴾ (Then they will surely slit the ears of livestock) → ﴿وَلَآمُرَنَّهُمْ﴾ (And I will surely command them) → ﴿فَلَيُغَيِّرُنَّ خَلْقَ اللَّهِ﴾ (Then they will surely alter Allah’s creation).

Modern reality:

The living organism → genetic engineering → genome editing → CRISPR → artificial intelligence → plants → animals → humans → gene therapy.

Here a fundamental point emerges:

The Qur'an did not name CRISPR, but it disclosed a trajectory that culminates in altering Allah’s creation.

Modern science did not discover “the verse”; rather, it disclosed a new human capacity that makes this trajectory a reality capable of being put into practice.

Here the true test of the text begins.

Eighth: Why Israel?

Here the case enters the stage on which this adjudication rests.

If the first adjudication concluded that the “allotted share” is connected to the group the Qur'an describes as “those who Judaized,” and we then find, in the modern era, an organized national system in Israel for developing genome editing, bringing together:

The state → the Innovation Authority → universities → hospitals → companies → artificial intelligence → CRISPR → genome editing → humans, animals, and plants,

then this piece of evidence enters directly into the case file.

We are not speaking of an individual Israeli scientist.

Nor of a separate laboratory.

But of an organized national system.

This is what makes Israel an essential part of testing the hypothesis.

Ninth: The Project Does Not Stop at Humans

This point must not be omitted from the case.

For the CRISPR-IL system and the Israeli Bio-Convergence programs are not confined to human treatment.

They extend to:

Plants → animals → agriculture → aquaculture → human cells → gene therapy.

This brings us back once again to the sequence of the verse:

﴿فَلَيُبَتِّكُنَّ آذَانَ الْأَنْعَامِ﴾ (Then they will surely slit the ears of livestock) []

Then:

﴿فَلَيُغَيِّرُنَّ خَلْقَ اللَّهِ﴾ (Then they will surely alter Allah’s creation).

The verse begins with a concrete image relating to a living organism, then opens the concept out to “Allah’s creation.”

Modern scientific reality has expanded human capacity from external alteration to genetic alteration, and from animals and plants to humans.

Tenth: Israel Is Not the Starting Point, but the Outcome of the Inquiry

This is a decisive methodological point.

The inquiry did not begin with Israel and then search for a verse that suited it.

Rather, it began with the Qur'an:

﴿لَأَتَّخِذَنَّ مِنْ عِبَادِكَ نَصِيبًا مَّفْرُوضًا﴾ (I will surely take an allotted share of Your servants) []

Then:

﴿فَلَيُبَتِّكُنَّ آذَانَ الْأَنْعَامِ﴾ (Then they will surely slit the ears of livestock) []

Then:

﴿فَلَيُغَيِّرُنَّ خَلْقَ اللَّهِ﴾ (Then they will surely alter Allah’s creation).

The inquiry then turned to reality:

Have humans become capable of altering living organisms?

Yes.

Has alteration reached the genome?

Yes.

Has CRISPR become an actual tool for genome editing?

Yes.

Has artificial intelligence entered this process?

Yes.

Have the applications encompassed humans, animals, and plants?

Yes.

Is there an organized national system bringing these fields together in Israel?

Yes.

Thus, Israel was not the inquiry’s point of departure.

Rather, it emerged at the end of the sequence of testing.

Eleventh: Here the Responsibility of the Ummah Begins

After all this, the Qur'an returns to the ummah:

﴿لِّتَكُونُوا شُهَدَاءَ عَلَى النَّاسِ﴾ (So that you may be witnesses over people).

Witnessing (shahāda) is not to know the text and then shut it away within books.

Witnessing (shahāda) is to see what the Qur'an has disclosed when it appears in reality.

Here the ummah must ask itself:

Have you read:

﴿فَلَيُغَيِّرُنَّ خَلْقَ اللَّهِ﴾ (Then they will surely alter Allah’s creation) []

and then followed the development of the human capacity to alter living organisms?

Have you followed the human transition from:

External alteration → genetic engineering → genome editing → cell modification → intervention in humans?

Have you investigated the centers and states leading this transformation?

Have you made it clear to people that genome editing has become an advanced scientific, industrial, and medical system?

And did it reveal that Israel has built a national system that brings together CRISPR, artificial intelligence, and genome editing, and operates in humans, animals, and plants?

If it did not, then the question is no longer one of knowledge.

Rather, it becomes a question of witnessing (shahāda).

Conclusion: The Trial of the Witnesses

The case has now become a single sequence:

The allotted share → misguidance → filling with wishes → command → slitting the ears of livestock → altering God's creation → the development of the human capacity to alter living organisms → genetic engineering → genome editing → CRISPR → artificial intelligence + CRISPR → plants, animals, and humans → gene therapy and the modification of human cells → an organized national system in Israel.

This is not a collection of separate pieces of information.

These are trajectories that intersect at a single point:

The human capacity to intervene in the creation of living organisms and alter it.

The Qur'an placed this capacity within the context of the “allotted share” more than one thousand four hundred years ago.

Then came an age in which human beings became capable of intervening in the genome itself.

Then an organized national system emerged in Israel, bringing artificial intelligence together with genome editing and extending its applications to humans, animals, and plants.

The case does not end here.

Here begins the trial of the witnesses.

For the accused has been brought before the court.

The evidence has been presented.

The judgment has been issued.

Now the witness stands before the court.

And the question addressed to the witness is not:

Did you read the Qur'an?

Rather:

Did you discharge your witnessing (shahāda) on the basis of what you read?

And it is not:

Did you hear of “altering God's creation”?

Rather:

Did you recognize when the capacity to alter the creation of living organisms became a scientific reality?

And it is not:

Did you know what was happening in the world?

Rather:

Did you convey to people what the Qur'an had revealed when its effect appeared in reality?

Here the verse returns to confront the ummah with its responsibility:

﴿لِّتَكُونُوا شُهَدَاءَ عَلَى النَّاسِ﴾ (so that you may be witnesses over people).

For the case no longer concerns the accused alone.

Rather, the case has become:

Did the ummah grasp what the Qur'an had placed before it?

And did it discharge its witnessing (shahāda) over people, or did “altering God's creation” remain a concept confined to reading the past, while the capacity that could make this concept a matter of the present was developing before the world, and in the heart of Israel, in a manner never before available to human beings?

Here arises the question that the second trial, the trial of the witnesses, must confront:

If the Qur'an revealed an “allotted share” more than one thousand four hundred years ago, and linked its function to the command that culminates in “altering God's creation,” and then, in the modern age, an advanced genome-editing project emerged in Israel itself, encompassing humans, animals, and plants and combining CRISPR with artificial intelligence, then where was the ummah's witnessing (shahāda) over people?

The Qur'an places the “allotted share” and “altering God's creation” within a single context. It then reveals an example involving a living organism. Centuries later, a human capacity to intervene in the genetic structure of organisms emerges. Then an organized national system for genome editing emerges in Israel, encompassing humans, animals, and plants and integrating artificial intelligence with this technology. Is this merely a historical coincidence, or are we facing one of the forms through which the Qur'an reveals the meaning of “altering God's creation”?

The Qur'an did not tell us the name of the technology. It did not tell us the name of the laboratory. It did not tell us that the trajectory would begin with animals and end with humans. But it placed before us: an allotted share, a command, an alteration in a living organism, and then the alteration of God's creation. Fourteen centuries later, human beings acquired the capacity to edit the genomes of living organisms, reaching as far as human cells, and an organized national project emerged in Israel that combines this capacity with artificial intelligence and applies it to humans, animals, and plants. Here the verse does not end; here the test begins.

The question is no longer merely what the Qur'an said, but whether the ummah read the indication, and whether it fulfilled its function as a witness over people when its form appeared in reality.

Here begins the second trial: the trial of the witnesses.

Previous Trials in This Case

The Allotted Share

The Final Trial: Can Artificial Intelligence Exonerate Israel?

The Decisive Trial