Yusuf Ali: Ye are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah. If only the People of the Book had faith, it were best for them: among them are some who have faith, but most of them are perverted transgressors. (Q 3:110)
True religion invites us to become better people. False religion tells us that this has already occurred.
‘And by the soul and He who proportioned it and inspired it with discernment of its wickedness and its righteousness, He has succeeded who purifies it, And he has failed who instills it with corruption.’ Quran 91:7-10.
‘But those who feared the standing before their Lord and curbed their soul’s passions, the Garden is their abode.’ [79:40-41]
Perhaps what is meant here is the inner jihad (jihad al-nafs), the struggle to oppose the ego (nafs) and its impulses, until it is in submission to God. This inner jihad is known as the “greater” jihad, as per mainstream Sunni scholarship. It is therefore ‘false’ to think that just because we have testified that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is his prophet we have already reached sanctification. The verses cited above invite us to be ‘better people’.
As for verse 3:110 read Muhammad Asad’s translation and his note*
‘You are indeed the best community that has ever been brought forth for [the good of] mankind: you enjoin the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of what is wrong, and you believe in God. Now if the followers of earlier revelation had attained to [this kind of] faith, it would have been for their own good; [but only few] among them are believers, while most of them are iniquitous: (3:111) [but] these can never inflict more than a passing hurt on you; and if they fight against you, they will turn their backs upon you [in flight], and will not be succoured.’*
*As is obvious from the opening sentence of verse 110, this promise to the followers of the Qur’an is conditional upon their being, or remaining, a community of people who “enjoin the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of what is wrong, and [truly] believe in God”; and – as history has shown – this promise is bound to lapse whenever the Muslims fail to live up to their faith.
Blogging Theology 
Yusuf Ali: Ye are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah. If only the People of the Book had faith, it were best for them: among them are some who have faith, but most of them are perverted transgressors. (Q 3:110)
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Awkward lol
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True religion invites us to become better people. False religion tells us that this has already occurred.
‘And by the soul and He who proportioned it and inspired it with discernment of its wickedness and its righteousness, He has succeeded who purifies it, And he has failed who instills it with corruption.’ Quran 91:7-10.
‘But those who feared the standing before their Lord and curbed their soul’s passions, the Garden is their abode.’ [79:40-41]
Perhaps what is meant here is the inner jihad (jihad al-nafs), the struggle to oppose the ego (nafs) and its impulses, until it is in submission to God. This inner jihad is known as the “greater” jihad, as per mainstream Sunni scholarship. It is therefore ‘false’ to think that just because we have testified that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is his prophet we have already reached sanctification. The verses cited above invite us to be ‘better people’.
As for verse 3:110 read Muhammad Asad’s translation and his note*
‘You are indeed the best community that has ever been brought forth for [the good of] mankind: you enjoin the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of what is wrong, and you believe in God. Now if the followers of earlier revelation had attained to [this kind of] faith, it would have been for their own good; [but only few] among them are believers, while most of them are iniquitous: (3:111) [but] these can never inflict more than a passing hurt on you; and if they fight against you, they will turn their backs upon you [in flight], and will not be succoured.’*
*As is obvious from the opening sentence of verse 110, this promise to the followers of the Qur’an is conditional upon their being, or remaining, a community of people who “enjoin the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of what is wrong, and [truly] believe in God”; and – as history has shown – this promise is bound to lapse whenever the Muslims fail to live up to their faith.
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