Today we will talk about verses 33 and 34 of Sura aal-Imran.

Indeed, Allah has selected Adam and Noah and Abraham’s folk and Imran’s folk over all communities: offspring of one another, for Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing

Allah creates whatever He wants and then selects from them.

Allah created seven days of the week and selected Friday to be the hero.

Allah created 12 months a year and selected the month of Ramadan to be the hero.

Likewise, Allah created the earth and selected Makkah to be the hero among all other geographies.

Moving to human being, Allah created all and selected the prophets, and from them selected messengers and from them selected five heroes: Noah, Ibrahim, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, and from the five, He further selected Ibrahim and Muhammad, and ultimate selection is the Prophet Muhammad – peace be upon him and upon all messengers and prophets.

So, creation and selection are the rules of Allah in nature and in societies.

Allah said in Sura al-Qasas 68:

And your Lord creates whatever He wills, and He chooses. Never could the choice be theirs.

More important Question then is: whom does Allah select and choose and promote to be heroes?

The answer is clear: those who loves Allah and follows the right religion which He conveyed through the messengers. It is not difficult then to see this in the context of our verses. The verses preceding it talks about love of Allah and showing that love via following Prophet Muhammad.

What is the thread that brings all these names in this verse “Adam”, “Noah”, “Ibrahim” and “Imran”? They were all selected human beings. They were leaders and they had left behind a manifesto for followers to follow. The broad title of that manifesto is “Islam”. A generic Islam which preceded the specific Islam that is the technical name given to the followers of the last of all messengers Prophet Muhammad – peace be upon him. In the heart of “Islam” lies the concept of submission to Allah. The heart of that submission is extreme love of Allah combined with extreme humiliation. Both together. It is not love without fear, nor fear and humiliation without love, rather a fine blend of the two. Like two wings of a bird flapping its journey in the air, a man makes the journey in this world with the two wings: hope and fear, and the head is Love.

The person who is successful in subscribing to this “Islam” is a chosen person. He becomes member of the elite club of Allah. In this club the alumni list is rooted back with famous names starting with Adam and passing by: Noah, Ibrahim, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad – peace be upon them all.

On the other hand, those who denied and willingly chose to avoid that club is automatically belonging to another club, the club of Satan which also has a deep and dark historical lineage starting with Satan and passing by other names like Nimrud, Pharaoh, Haman, Abu Jahal moving to more recent names like Hitler and Stalin.

Offspring biologically inherit genes and traits from their ancestors that determine their skin color and other biological traits. Similarly, the ideology is also inherited from one generation to other but not biologically and that is what is meant when Allah said in verse 34 of aal-Imran “offspring of one another”.

Imran was father of Maryam but Imran was also father of both Moses and Harun. Between the first Imran and the later Imran is probably 1500 years. Yet they are the offspring of one another both biologically but more importantly ideologically.

Noah had several biological sons. When one of them detached from ideology of Noah, he no longer remained ideological son of Noah and did not join his Ark.

The ideological lineage is very evident, and the chain is never broken. It exists today and will exist till end of times. At those times we know prominent names like Issa and Imam Mahdi, and in the opposite club we also know names like Dajjal – the anti-Christ.

Important question then is: under which lineage do we choose to subscribe today? The good news is that the ideological lineage is not hardcoded in DNA like the biological counterpart. We cannot go back to history and change our biological tribes or clans. But today we can choose to subscribe to the ideological lineage of prophets and messengers. It is as easy as a sincere intent followed by practice of Islam. The blueprint of this practice is kept original and intact in the Quran. Will you then go and read it today?