Surah Al-Baqarah 2:72-82 - Quran Translation Commentary

(2:72) And when you murdered a person and then contended among yourselves over the issue,¹⁶⁴ but Allah was to bring out that which you were concealing.¹⁶⁵

(2:73) So We said: ‘Strike him with a part of her.'¹⁶⁶ That is how He will quicken the dead. He shows His signs to you haply that you will think.

(2:74) But your hearts hardened thereafter so that they are as if of stones or even harder;¹⁶⁷ while there are stones from which springs gush forth, and there are some of them that split and water issues from them, and yet there are some that fall to the ground in Allah's fear.¹⁶⁸ Surely, Allah is not unaware of what you do.

(2:75) Do you then (O Muslims) entertain the hopes that these (people) will believe in you,¹⁶⁹ while a party of them used to hear the words of Allah and then tamper with them¹⁷⁰ after they had well comprehended them and they knew?¹⁷¹

(2:76) These, when they fall in with those who have believed, say, ‘We have (also) believed.'¹⁷² But when some of them are in privy with the others they reproach them: ‘Do you disclose to these (Muslims) what God has revealed to you, so that they will dispute with you thereby before your Lord?¹⁷³ Do you not think?'

(2:77) Do they not know that Allah is aware of what they conceal and what they reveal?

(2:78: And, among them are unlettered ones who have no knowledge of the Scripture save their fancies, and they do nothing but conjecture.¹⁷⁴

(2:79) Woe then unto those who write the Book with their hands and then proclaim,¹⁷⁵ ‘This is from God,' in order that they may barter with it a paltry sum. So woe unto them for what their hands write and woe unto them for what they earn.

(2:80) And they claim, ‘The Fire will not touch us but for a few days.'¹⁷⁶ Ask them, ‘Have you taken a pledge from your Lord, so that Allah will not break His pledge, or do you ascribe to Allah what you do not know?'

(2:81) Nay indeed, he who earned evil¹⁷⁷ to the extent that the evil girt round him¹⁷⁸ they, such are the people of the Fire; they shall abide therein forever.

(2:82) As for those who believed and did righteous works, they are the people of Paradise; they shall abide therein for ever.

Commentary

164. The incident of the Israelite's murder had, according to most commentators, preceded the order to slaughter the cow, but as the story is not important, rather the lesson, the sequence was altered. Zamakhshari gives another reason for the change in the sequence. The unwillingness of the Israelites to do the bidding of their Lord is one story with one lesson; and the murder of a man and then what followed is another story with several other lessons. Now, if they both had been stated in one sequence, they would have sounded like one story, while in actual fact they are two episodes with two different sets of lessons to be drawn; hence the change in the sequence.

165. That is, Allah was to expose the murderer whom a group of the Israelites were trying to shield.

166. That is, touch a part of the cow with the murdered man's corpse.

Zamakhshari raises a question: "It may be argued, why Allah did not quicken the man without involving the slaughtering of the cow?" Then he answers that in the adoption of means and in attaching conditions to it are reasons and benefits (that cannot be obtained otherwise). First, the slaughtering of the cow by the command of Allah was a means to gain His nearness (which is obtained by doing Allah's bidding). Second, to teach the lesson that when one is ordered to do something, it should be done well. Third, to impress on the slaves of Allah that when one is ordered to do something, he should hasten to act, and not seek details that may make it harder for him to act. Fourth, to help the orphan (who owned the cow). Fifth, for the ignorant not to treat the words of the wise as mockery, (as the Israelites did when Musa (asws) ordered them to slaughter the cow). Sixth, for the man seeking nearness to Allah by his offerings to choose the best that he can offer, as is reported of Ibn `Umar that he used to select an animal best of its kind and the most expensive for sacrifice. And seventh, to demonstrate that in the final analysis it is the One who controls the means that is Himself important and not the means themselves, for it is only death that can be obtained from the dead (but Allah gave life to one dead, through the touch of another).

167. "They (the hearts) are as if of stones or even harder:" that is, they are all not the same in hardness, rather some are like stones, while some others harder, such as iron (Alusi).

168. Is the comparison of the hardness of hearts with the stones real or figurative? According to Qurtubi there is no reason to believe that it is figurative since it is quite possible that the stones fear the Lord. After all we have authentic ahadith confirming feelings attributed to lifeless things, as in the hadith of Muslim in which the Prophet (saws) said: عَنْ جَابِرِ بْنِ سَمُرَةَ قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ إِنِّي لَأَعْرِفُ حَجَرًا بِمَكَّةَ كَانَ يُسَلِّمُ عَلَيَّ قَبْلَ أَنْ أُبْعَثَ "I know the rock that used to greet me in Makkah those days when I had not been addressed by Allah yet."

It is also reported of the date palm trunk on which the Prophet (saws) used to recline during his sermons in the Madinan Mosque that it began to cry when the Prophet (saws) abandoned it in favor of a column. To this Ibn Kathir adds that we know of the hadith in which the Prophet said about Mount Uhud: عَنْ عَبَّاسٍ عَنْ أَبِيهِ عَنْ النَّبِيِّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَالَ أُحُدٌ جَبَلٌ يُحِبُّنَا وَنُحِبُّهُ - صحيح البخاري "This Mount loves us and we love it." Allah (swt) Himself says in the Qur'an (33: 72): إِنَّا عَرَضْنَا الْأَمَانَةَ عَلَى السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَالْجِبَالِ فَأَبَيْنَ "And We offered this Trust unto the heavens and the earth, but they declined," and (17: 44): تُسَبِّحُ لَهُ السَّمَاوَاتُ السَّبْعُ وَالأَرْضُ وَمَن فِيهِنَّ "The seven heavens and all that they contain sing His Glory."

Sayyid Qutb writes: "Further, weren't they the witness to the springing forth of twelve streams from a stone?"

Commenting on the stones from which gush forth springs, those that split and water issues from them, and those that fall to the ground in Allah's fear, Majid states: "A beautiful description, in parable, of three grades of a righteous people:

(a) those who do universal good, such as the prophets (like big rivers in their beneficence).

(b) those whose outlook is not so broad, yet who do immense service within their limited sphere, such as the saints and martyrs (like smaller streams and rivulets); and,

(c) those who are true and faithful at least to their own selves: the general community of the faithful (like stones which are impressionable)."

169. "Here the Muslims are addressed. In the early period of Islam and especially after their exodus to Medina, where many Jews were then living the Muslims expected that the Jews, with their monotheistic beliefs, would be the first to rally to the message of the Qur'an: a hope that was disappointed because the Jews regarded their own religion as a kind of national heritage reserved to the children of Israel alone, and did not believe in the necessity or possibility of a new revelation" (Asad).

170. That is, they used to tamper with the meaning and interpretation of the words, not because of any ambiguity, but after they had well understood the purport (Zamakhshari). It is reported of Ibn Zayd that he said: They used to declare the lawful unlawful and vice versa and declare the truth as falsehood and falsehood as the truth. So that, when someone approached them with bribes seeking judgment in a case in which he was not in the right, they read from the Scriptures to demonstrate how the right was on his side. But when he did not offer them bribes, they ruled without the need to look into them. It is the rabbis, therefore, who have been alluded to as those who committed these crimes (Ibn Jarir).

171. This means that they knew of their crimes but vainly hoped that they would be let off easily.

Majid comments: "I.e., their act of perverting their text was deliberate and with a set purpose, so that far from being ashamed of it they were proud of their performance."

172. This refers to the Jewish response to the Companions. When they asked them the basis for their rejection of the Prophet, although he had all the signs on him that the Jews narrated as prophesied in their Scriptures. The Jews would answer that they too had an inkling that he could be a true Prophet. But if that was so, then he seemed to have been sent to the Arabs alone. However, when they met better knowing Jews they would be reproached for having conceded even that little (Ibn Kathir). That does not rule out other religious matters that came under discussion when the Jews sat in the company of Muslims. In those sessions they disclosed some Scriptural information, but it met with the disapproval of their religious authorities (Qurtubi).

Interestingly, even today the Talmud is not available openly, although books dealing with "some" of its aspects and subjects are in no short circulation. Indeed, were it not for the Christians, even the Old Testament would not have seen the light of the day (Au.).

173. With reference to the words, "Do you disclose?" Mujahid reports that when Banu Qurayzah were besieged by the Prophet and his followers, the Prophet addressed them from the foot of the fort in words:

يا إخوان القردة والخنازير، ويا عبدة الطاغوت فقالوا من أخبر بهذا الأمر محمداً؟ ما خرج هذا القول إلا منكم.‏

"Ye the brothers of monkeys and swine", and, "Ye the worshippers of false gods," the Jews turned to each other over the wall and exclaimed in amazement: "Who passed this information on to Muhammad? This information has not gone out but from you." (Ibn Jarir, Ibn Kathir).

The last phrase of the verse: "Before your Lord" has also been interpreted by Hasan al Busri as: "in matters concerning your Lord" (Zamakhshari and Qurtubi). The verse would then mean: 'Do you disclose matters concerning your Lord, without realizing that the Muslims will use them in arguments against you to beat you on your own grounds?'

Majid writes: "This is how the more obdurate among the Jews remonstrated with their co religionists for opening their hearts to the Muslims. The allusion is to such matters as prophecies about the Prophet of Islam and any other information that the Muslims might have made use of and that might have proved damaging to the cause of Jewish unreason."

174. If the previous two verses describe the perversions of the elites of the Jewish society, this present one refers to the follies of their common folk, who, being unlettered, had no personal knowledge of the Scriptures, depended on their Doctors and rabbis for religious information, and did not but fancy that they were one hundred percent on the right requiring no modification in their attitudes toward God and His Messenger. If their priestly class did not follow the Word of God willfully, the common folk only used conjectures to determine the ways of their lives and fancied that they were right on top of the world (Au.).

175. "'Writing with their own hands' means inventing books themselves which had no divine authority" (Yusuf Ali).

Majid quotes from "The Jewish Encyclopedia:" 'The habit of literary forgeries had grown so strong with the Jews that in the new and second centuries of the Christian era they felt no scruple in composing works depicting the grandeur and moral elevation of Judaism, and ascribing their own writings to heathen poets and celebrities' (vol.II p.9). And: 'Pseudopigraphy the ascribing the authorship of a book, falsely, to some person of note in order to make it more popular has frequently been practiced in Jewish literary history' (VJE.p.542)."

Max I. Dimont, the well known Jewish scholar writes in "Jews, God and History": "The Biblical scholars have conjectured that the Old Testament is composed essentially of four major narratives, the 'J', 'E', 'JE' and 'P' documents woven into one. The 'J' documents are so named because in them God is always referred to as "Jehovah." They are the oldest, written around the ninth century B.C. written in the southern kingdom of Judah. The 'E' documents, so called because in them God is referred to as 'Elohim,' were written about a hundred years after the 'J' documents in the eight century in the northern kingdom of Israel. Scholars assume the "P" or 'Priestly,' documents were composed some two hundred years after the 'E', about 600 B.C. In the fifth century Jewish priests combined portions of the 'J' and 'E' documents, adding a little handiwork of their own (known as pious fraud) which are now referred to as the 'JE' documents, since God in these passages is referred to as 'Jehovah Elohim' (translated as 'Lord God')." [Page 40]

The author writes elsewhere, in the same book: "The final fusion of the five books of Moses, called the Pentateuch, occurred around 450 B.C. in other words, not eight to sixteen hundred years after some of the events narrated in them took place."

And, at another place: "(In the fifth century B.C.) ... Ezra and Jeremiah decided not only to revise the Book of Deuteronomy but to add to it four other books of Moses. Under their directions, priests and scholars labored diligently to fuse the most important of the divergent Mosaic documents, including the Deuteronomy of Josiah, into the five books of the Pentateuch, namely, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. All five books of Moses were now made divine" (Au.).

176. Those "few days" according to the Jews of Madinah, are the same number of days that they worshipped the calf, i.e., forty (Ibn `Abbas Ibn Jarir, Ibn Kathir). According to another report, the Jews claimed that they will not remain in Hell but for forty days, after which Muslims will remain behind abiding therein forever (`Ikrimah, Ibn Jarir). Yet another belief was that the total life span of the world was seven thousand years. They believed that for every thousand year they would remain in the Fire for a day, i.e., a total of 7 days (Ibn `Abbas, Ibn Jarir).

Ibn Kathir reports on the authority of Sharh al Sunnah that when the Prophet's food was poisoned at the time of the Khayber campaign, he ordered his Companions to round up the Jews (probably the leaders: Au.). When they had assembled he asked them: "Who is your father?" They said: "So and so." The Prophet told them: "You have lied. Your father is so and so." They said: "You are right." Then he asked them: "Will you tell me the truth if I asked you something?" They said: "Yes, because if we lied, you would know." He asked them: "Who are the people of the Fire?" They replied: "Initially it is we. But after a while you will take over." The Prophet told them: "Begone. By Allah, we will never take your place there." Then he asked them: "Will you tell me the truth if I asked you something?" They said: "Sure, we will." He asked: "Did you poison this meat?" They said: "Yes." He asked them: "Why did you do it?" They said: "We reckoned that if you are phony we would get rid of you. But if you are a true Prophet, you will escape unhurt" (Imam Ahmad, Bukhari and Nasa'i have similar reports in their compilations).

Majid quotes present day belief of the Jews: "In the Hereafter Abraham will sit at the entrance of Gehinnom and will not allow any circumcised Israelite to descend into it" (Cohen's 'Everyman's Talmud'). And, 'The Fire of Gehinnom does not touch the Jewish sinners because they confess their sins before the gates of Hell and return to God' (JE. V. p.583)."

"The general application is also clear. If Unfaith claims some special prerogative, such as race, 'civilization', political power, historical experience, and so on, these will not avail in God's sight. His promise is sure, but His promise is for those who seek God in Faith, and show it in their conduct" (Yusuf Ali).

177. The word "sayyi'ah" of the original has been interpreted as "shirk" (assigning partners unto Allah) Abu Wa'il, Mujahid, Qatadah, Suddi, and `Ata'. In fact, even major sins are excluded. This is because, as clarified in the ahadith, those who do not assign partners unto Allah will not abide in the Fire forever, even if consigned to it initially because of their sins (Ibn Jarir).

Majid adds: "The implication of the word ahaatat is that not a trace is left of virtue, which is possible only in the case of those who are totally devoid of faith."

Nonetheless, according to a statement attributed to Mujahid and some others a major sin that completely engulfs a man is included in the definition (Ibn Jarir, Ibn Kathir).

In support of the above statement, Ibn Kathir quotes that hadith of Musnad Ahmad in which `Abdullah Ibn Mas`ud (ra) reports the Prophet (saws) as saying: إِنَّ مُحَقَّرَاتِ الذُّنُوبِ مَتَى يُؤْخَذْ بِهَا صَاحِبُهَا تُهْلِكْهُ (مجمع الزوائد ومنبع الفوائد - رواه كله أحمد ورجاله رجال الصحيح) "Surely, when one is held accountable for insignificant sins, they will destroy him."

The Prophet (saws) also struck an example of some travelers who encamped in a desert. One of the men brought a twig, another a stick, and so on, until they made quite a pile of it and were able to cook their food therewith.

178. The words, "the evil girt round him" mean that he remained in the state of shirk until his death (Ibn `Abbas, Rabi` b. Khaithum, Qatadah Ibn Jarir).