Adam's Two Sons, and Warnings to Two Communities

Hizb 12 opens with the narrative of Adam's two sons, one of whom kills the other out of envy over an accepted offering, and a raven sent to teach the killer how to bury his brother's body, a scene the sura uses to introduce its own law against taking a life unjustly, stating that whoever kills one soul without cause has, in effect, killed all mankind. From there the sura sets out the punishment for those who wage war against God and spread corruption in the land, and the penalty for theft.

Much of the remaining material is addressed directly to Jews and Christians, urged repeatedly to judge by what God has actually revealed to them in the Torah and the Gospel rather than by their own altered preferences, and criticized where the text holds that they have concealed or distorted parts of their own scripture. The sura frames itself as confirming and safeguarding what came before it rather than replacing it outright.

The hizb also carries a much debated verse cautioning believers against taking Jews and Christians as protecting allies against their own community in a context of active hostility, language later scholarship has read in sharply different ways depending on the historical circumstance assumed for its revelation.