Quran 43:65 · Az-Zukhruf

Here ‘wisdom’ means the spirit of religion and ‘straight path’ means the upholding of the virtues that are mentioned in the verse, namely, fear and worship of God, prayer to Him and obedience to the Prophet. This is the real religion. What the Jews did at a later stage was to lose the spirit of religion and indulge in hair-splitting over the basic principles of religion. Due to these totally contrived additions, differing sects developed among them. One sect laid stress on one controversial issue, another laid stress elsewhere. In this way, with them, one religion turned into several religions. Jesus Christ was sent to the Jews to tell them that the really important aspect of religion was its spirit and not form; and also to inform them that they would achieve salvation on following the true religion sent by God and not that religion which they had themselves devised. Jesus told them that the real religion was based on the fear of God, and that they should become worshippers of the one and only God and follow the example of the Prophet in everyday affairs. Beyond this, whatever innumerable problems they had created by their futile discussions and hair-splitting arguments were their own self-made additions. They were advised to give up all these additions and be steadfast in their adherence to the real religion. All these exhortations made by Jesus exist in the Bible even today.