al Baqarah

Agus Subandi,Drs.MBA

2
(Al-Baqarah)
[2:1]
Alif lām mīm: God knows best what He means by these [letters].
[2:2]
That, meaning, this, Book, which Muhammad (s) recites, in it there is no doubt, no uncertainty, that it is from God (the negation [lĀ rayba fĪhi] is the predicate of dhĀlika; the use of the demonstrative here is intended to glorify [the Book]). A guidance (hudĀ is a second predicate, meaning that it [the Book] ‘guides’), for the God-fearing, namely, those that tend towards piety by adhering to commands and avoiding things prohibited, thereby guarding themselves from the Fire;
[2:3]
who believe in, that is, who accept the truth of, the Unseen, what is hidden from them of the Resurrection, Paradise and the Fire; and maintain the prayer, that is to say, who perform it giving it its proper due; and of what We have provided them, that is, of what we have bestowed upon them, expend, in obedience to God;
[2:4]
and who believe in what has been revealed to you, namely, the Qur’ān; and what was revealed before you, that is, the Torah, the Gospel and other [scriptures]; and of the Hereafter, they are certain, that is, they know [it is real].
[2:5]
Those, as described in the way mentioned, are upon guidance from their Lord, those are the ones that will prosper, that is, who will succeed in entering Paradise and be saved from the Fire.
[2:6]
As for the disbelievers, the likes of Abū Jahl, Abū Lahab and such; alike it is for them whether you have warned them or have not warned them, they do not believe, as God knows very well, so do not hope that they will believe (read a-andhartahum pronouncing both hamzas, or by not pronouncing the second, making it an alif instead, and inserting an alif between the one not pronounced and the other one, or leaving [this insertion]; al-indhār [‘warning’] is to give knowledge of something, and simultaneously instil an element of fear).
[2:7]
God has set a seal on their hearts, impressing on them and making certain that no good enters them; and on their hearing, [in which He has] deposited something so that they cannot profit from the truth they hear; and on their eyes is a covering, that is, a veil so that they do not see the truth; and for them there will be a mighty chastisement, that is, intense and everlasting.
[2:8]
The following was revealed concerning the hypocrites: and some people there are who say, ‘We believe in God and the Last Day’, that is, in the Day of Resurrection because it is the very last day; but they are not believers (the [plural] import of man [in man yaqūl, ‘who says’] is taken into account here, as expressed by a pronoun [hum] that expresses this [plural] meaning).
3
[2:9]
They would deceive God and the believers, by manifesting the opposite of the unbelief they hide, so that they can avoid His rulings in this world; and only themselves they deceive (yukhādi‘ūn), for the evil consequences of their deception will rebound upon them, as they are disgraced in this world when God makes known to His Prophet what they are hiding, and they will be punished in the Hereafter; and they are not aware, and they do not know that they are actually deceiving themselves (mukhāda‘a [although a third verbal form, from khāda‘a] actually denotes a one-way action, such as [when one says] ‘āqabtu al-lissa, ‘I punished the thief’ [using the third verbal form ‘āqaba]; the mention of ‘God’ in [this statement] is for [rhetorical] effect; a variant reading [for wa-mā yukhādi‘ūna] has wa-mā yakhda‘ūna).
[2:10]
In their hearts is a sickness: doubt and hypocrisy, which ails their hearts, debilitating them; and God has increased their sickness with what He has revealed in the Qur’ān, since they disbelieve it; and there awaits them a painful chastisement because they used to lie (read yukadhdhibūn to imply [that they used to call] the Prophet of God [a liar], or yakdhibūn to imply their [mendacity when] saying ‘we believe’).
[2:11]
When it is said to them, that is, these latter, ‘Do not spread corruption in the land’, through unbelief and hindering [people from] faith, They say, ‘We are only putting things right’, that is, ‘we are not engaging in corruption’. God, exalted be He, refutes them, saying:
[2:12]
Truly (a-lā, ‘truly’, is for alerting), intended emphatically, they are the agents of corruption, but they perceive, this, not.
[2:13]
When it is said to them, ‘Believe as the people believe’, that is, as the Companions of the Prophet (s), They say, ‘Shall we believe as fools believe?’, that is, as the ignorant do? No we do not follow their way. The exalted One refutes them, saying: Truly, they are the foolish ones, but they know, this, not.
[2:14]
When they meet (laqū is actually laquyū, but the damma has been omitted, being too cumbersome for pronunciation; likewise the yā’ [is omitted], because it is unvocalised and is followed by a wāw); those who believe, they say, ‘We believe’; but when they go apart, away from them and return, to their devils, their leaders, they say, ‘We are with you, in religion; we were only mocking, them [the believers] by feigning belief.
[2:15]
God [Himself] mocks them, requiting them for their mockery, leaving them, that is, giving them respite, in their insolence, that is, in their transgressing the limits of unbelief; bewildered, wavering, in perplexity (ya‘mahūn is a circumstantial qualifier).
[2:16]
Those are they who have bought error for guidance, that is, they have exchanged the latter for the former;
so their commerce has not profited them, that is to say, they have gained nothing from it, indeed, they have
lost, because their destination is the Fire, made everlasting for them; nor are they guided, in what they did.
[2:17]4
Their likeness, the way they are in their hypocrisy, is as the likeness of one who kindled, that is, [one who] lit a fire in darkness, and when it illumined all about him, so that he is able to see, and to feel warm and secure from those he feared, God took away their light, extinguishing it (the plural pronoun [in nūrihim] takes into account the [plural] import of alladhī); and left them in darkness, unable to see, what is around them, confused as to the way, in fear; likewise are those who have found [temporary] security by professing faith, but who will meet with terror and punishment upon death; these [last] are:
[2:18]
deaf, to the truth, so that they cannot hear it and accept it; dumb, mute as regards goodness, unable to speak of it; and, blind, to the path of guidance, so that they cannot perceive it; they shall not return, from error.
[2:19]
Or, the likeness of them is as a cloudburst, that is, [the likeness of them is] as people are during rain (kasayyib: the term is originally sayyūb, from [the verb] sāba, yasūbu, meaning ‘it came down’); out of the heaven, out of the clouds, in which clouds is darkness, layer upon layer, and thunder, the angel in charge of them [sc. the clouds]; it is also said that this [thunder] is actually the sound of his voice; and lightning, the flash caused by his voice which he uses to drive them — they, the people under the rain, put their fingers, that is, their fingertips, in their ears against, because of, the thunderclaps, the violent sound of thunder, in order not to hear it, cautious of, fearful of, death, if they were to hear it. Similar is the case with these: when the Qur’ān is revealed, in which there is mention of the unbelief that is like darkness, the threat of punishment that is like the sound of thunder, and the clear arguments that are like the clear lightning, they shut their ears in order not to hear it and thereby incline towards [true] faith and abandon their religion, which for them would be death; and God encompasses the disbelievers in both knowledge and power, so they cannot escape Him.
[2:20]
The lightning well-nigh, almost, snatches away their sight, that is, takes it away swiftly; whensoever it gives them light, they walk in it, in its light; and when the darkness is over them, they stop, that is, they stand still: a simile of the perturbation that the Qur’ānic arguments cause in their hearts, and of their acknowledging the truths of what they love to hear and recoiling from what they detest; had God willed, He would have taken away their hearing and their sight, that is, the exterior faculty, in the same way that He took away their inner one; Truly, God has power over all things, [that] He wills, as for example, His taking away of the above-mentioned.
[2:21]
O people, of Mecca, worship, profess the oneness of, your Lord Who created you, made you when you were nothing, and created those that were before you; so that you may be fearful, of His punishment by worshipping Him (la‘alla, ‘so that’, is essentially an optative, but when spoken by God it denotes an affirmative),
[2:22]
He Who assigned to you, created [for you], the earth for a couch, like a carpet that is laid out, neither extremely hard, nor extremely soft so as to make it impossible to stand firm upon it; and heaven for an edifice, like a roof; and sent down from the heaven water, wherewith He brought forth, all types of, fruits for your provision; so set not up compeers to God, that is partners in worship, while you know that He is the Creator, that you create not and that only One that creates can be God.
[2:23]5
And if you are in doubt, in uncertainty, concerning what We have revealed to Our servant, Muhammad (s), of the Qur’ān, that it is from God, then bring a sūra like it, that is also revealed (min mithlihi: min is explicative, that is, a sūra like it in its eloquence, fine arrangement and its bestowal of knowledge of the Unseen; a sūra is a passage with a beginning and end made up of a minimum of three verses); and call your witnesses, those other gods that you worship, besides God, that is, other than Him, so that it can be seen, if you are truthful, in [your claim] that Muhammad (s) speaks it from himself. So do this, for you are also fluent speakers of Arabic like him. When they could not do this, God said:
[2:24]
And if you do not, do what was mentioned because you are incapable, and you will not (a parenthetical statement), that is, never [will you be able to], because of its inimitability, then fear, through belief in God and [belief] that this is not the words of a human, the Fire, whose fuel is men, disbelievers, and stones, like their very idols, indicating that its heat is extreme, since it burns with the [stones] mentioned, unlike the fires of this world that burn with wood and similar materials; prepared, and made ready, for disbelievers, so that they are punished in it (this [phrase, u‘iddat li’l-kāfirīna, ‘prepared for disbelievers’] is either a new sentence or a sustained circumstantial qualifier).
[2:25]
And give good tidings to, inform, those who believe, who have faith in God, and perform righteous deeds, such as the obligatory and supererogatory [rituals], that theirs shall be Gardens, of trees, and habitations, underneath which, that is, underneath these trees and palaces, rivers run (tajrī min tahtihā’l-anhāru), that is, there are waters in it (al-nahr is the place in which water flows [and is so called] because the water carves [yanhar] its way through it; the reference to it as ‘running’ is figurative); whensoever they are provided with fruits therefrom, that is, whenever they are given to eat from these gardens, they shall say, ‘This is what, that is, the like of what we were provided with before’, that is, before this, in Paradise, since its fruits are similar (and this is evidenced by [the following statement]): they shall be given it, the provision, in perfect semblance, that is, resembling one another in colour, but different in taste; and there for them shall be spouses, of houris and others, purified, from menstruation and impurities; therein they shall abide: dwelling therein forever, neither perishing nor departing therefrom. And when the Jews said, ‘Why does God strike a similitude about flies, where He says, And if a fly should rob them of anything [Q. 22:73] and about a spider, where He says, As the likeness of the spider [Q. 29:41]: what does God want with these vile creatures? God then revealed the following:
[2:26]
God is not ashamed to strike, to make, a similitude (mathal: is the first direct object; mā either represents an indefinite noun described by what comes after it and constitutes a second direct object, meaning ‘whatever that similitude may be’; or it [the mā] is extra to emphasise the vileness [involved], so that what follows constitutes the second direct object); even of a gnat, (ba‘ūda is the singular of ba‘ūd), that is, small flies; or anything above it, that is, larger than it, so that this explanation is not affected [by the size of the creature] with regard to the judgement [God is making]; as for the believers, they know it, the similitude, is the truth, established and given in this instance, from their Lord; but as for disbelievers, they say, ‘What did God desire by this for a similitude?’ (mathalan is a specification, meaning, ‘by this similitude’; mā is an interrogative of rejection and is the subject; dhā means alladhī, whose relative clause contains its predicate, in other words, ‘what use is there in it?’). God then responds to them saying: Thereby, that is, by this similitude, He leads many astray, from the truth on account of their disbelieving in it, and thereby He guides many, believers on account of their belief in it; and thereby He leads none astray except the wicked, those that reject obedience to Him.
[2:27]
Those such as, He has described, break the covenant of God, the contract He made with them in the [revealed] Books to belief in Muhammad (s), after its solemn binding, after it has been confirmed with them, and such as cut what God has commanded should be joined, of belief in the Prophet, of kinship and other 6 matters (an [in the phrase an yūsala, ‘that it be joined’] substitutes for the pronoun [suffixed] in bihi [of the preceding words mā amara Llāhu bihi, ‘that which God has commanded’]); and such as do corruption in the land, by way of their transgressing and impeding faith, they, the ones thus described, shall be the losers, since, they shall end up in the Fire, made everlasting for them.
[2:28]
How do you, people of Mecca, disbelieve in God, when you were dead, semen inside loins, and He gave you life, in the womb and in this world by breathing Spirit into you (the interrogative here is either intended to provoke amazement at their [persistent] unbelief despite the evidence established, or intended as a rebuke); then He shall make you dead, after your terms of life are completed, then He shall give you life, at the Resurrection, then to Him you shall be returned!, after resurrection, whereupon He shall requite you according to your deeds; and He states, as proof of the Resurrection, when they denied it:
[2:29]
He it is Who created for you all that is in the earth, that is, the earth and all that is in it, so that you may benefit from and learn lessons from it; then, after creating the earth, He turned to, that is, He made His object, heaven and levelled them (fa-sawwāhunna: the pronoun [-hunna] refers to ‘heaven’, since, it [heaven] is implicit in the import of the sentence attributed to it [the pronoun]), that is to say, He made them thus, as [He says] in another verse, [fa-qadāhunna] so He determined them [Q. 41:12]) seven heavens and He has knowledge of all things, in their totality and in their individual detail, so do you not then think that the One who has the power to create this to begin with, which is much greater than what you are, also has the power to bring you back [after death]?
[2:30]
And, mention, O Muhammad (s), when your Lord said to the angels, ‘I am appointing on earth a vicegerent’, who shall act as My deputy, by implementing My rulings therein — and this [vicegerent] was Adam; They said, ‘What, will You appoint therein one who will do corruption therein, through disobedience, and shed blood, spilling it through killing, just as the progeny of the jinn did, for they used to inhabit it, but when they became corrupted God sent down the angels against them and they were driven away to islands and into the mountains; while we glorify, continuously, You with praise, that is, “We say Glory and Praise be to You”, and sanctify You?’, that is, ‘We exalt You as transcendent above what does not befit You?; the lām [of laka, ‘You’] is extra, and the sentence [wa-nuqaddisu laka, ‘We sanctify You’] is a circumstantial qualifier, the import being, ‘thus, we are more entitled to be Your vicegerents’); He, exalted be He, said, ‘Assuredly, I know what you know not’, of the benefits of making Adam a vicegerent and of the fact that among his progeny will be the obedient and the transgressor, and justice will prevail between them. They said, ‘God will never create anything more noble in His eyes than us nor more knowledgeable, since we have been created before it and have seen what it has not seen. God then created Adam from the surface of the earth (adīm al-ard [adīm literally means ‘skin’]), taking a handful of all its colours and mixing it with different waters, then made him upright and breathed into him the Spirit and he thus became a living being with senses, after having been inanimate.
[2:31]
And He taught Adam the names, that is, the names of things named, all of them, by placing knowledge of them into his heart; then He presented them, these names, the majority of which concerned intellectual beings, to the angels and said, to them in reproach, ‘Now tell Me, inform Me, the names of these, things named, if you speak truly’, in your claim that I would not create anything more knowledgeable than you, or that you are more deserving of this vicegerency; the response to the conditional sentence is intimated by what precedes it.
[2:32]
They said, ‘Glory be to You!, exalting You above that any should object to You, We know not except what 7 You have taught us. Surely You are (innaka anta emphasises the [preceding suffixed pronoun] kāf) the Knower, Wise’, from whose knowledge and wisdom nothing escapes.
[2:33]
He, exalted be He, said, ‘Adam, tell them, the angels, their names’, all of the things named; so, he named each thing by its appellation and mentioned the wisdom behind its creation; And when he had told them their names He, exalted, said, in rebuke, ‘Did I not tell you that I know the Unseen in the heavens and the earth?, what is unseen in them, And I know what you reveal, what you manifested when you said, ‘What, will You appoint therein …’, and what you were hiding, what you were keeping secret when you were saying that God would not create anything more knowledgeable or more noble in His eyes than us.
[2:34]
And, mention, when We said to the angels, ‘Prostrate yourselves to Adam’, a prostration that is a bow of salutation; so they prostrated themselves, except Iblīs, the father of the jinn, who was among the angels, he refused, to prostrate, and disdained, became proud and said, I am better than he [Q. 7:12]; and so he became one of the disbelievers, according to God’s knowledge.
[2:35]
And We said, ‘Adam, dwell (anta, ‘you’ [of ‘dwell you’] here reiterates the concealed pronoun [of the person of the verb uskun], so that it [wa-zawjuk] may be made a supplement to it); and your wife, Eve (Hawwā’) — who was created from his left rib — in the Garden, and eat thereof, of its food, easefully, of anything without restrictions, where you desire; but do not come near this tree, to eat from it, and this was wheat or a vine or something else, lest you be, become, evildoers’, that is, transgressors.
[2:36]
Then Satan, Iblīs, caused them to slip, he caused them to be removed (fa-azallahumā: a variant reading has fa-azālahumā: he caused them to be away from it) therefrom, that is, from the Garden, when he said to them, ‘Shall I point you to the tree of eternity’ [cf. Q. 20:120], and swore to them by God that he was only giving good advice to them, and so they ate of it; and brought them out of what they were in, of bliss; and We said, ‘Go down, to earth, both of you and all those comprised by your seed; some of you, of your progeny, an enemy to the other, through your wronging one another; and in the earth a dwelling, a place of settlement, shall be yours, and enjoyment, of whatever of its vegetation you may enjoy, for a while’, [until] the time your terms [of life] are concluded.
[2:37]
Thereafter Adam received certain words from his Lord, with which He inspired him (a variant reading [of Ādamu] has accusative Ādama and nominative kalimātu), meaning they [the words] came to him, and these were [those of] the verse Lord, we have wronged ourselves [Q. 7:23], with which he supplicated, and He relented to him, that is, He accepted his repentance; truly He is the Relenting, to His servants, the Merciful, to them.
[2:38]
We said, ‘Go down from it, from the Garden, all together (He has repeated this [phrase qulnā ihbitū] in order to supplement it with), yet (fa-immā: the nūn of the conditional particle in [‘if’] has been assimilated with the extra mā) there shall come to you from Me guidance, a Book and a prophet, and whoever follows My guidance, believing in me and performing deeds in obedience of Me, no fear shall befall them, neither shall they grieve, in the Hereafter, since they will be admitted into Paradise.
[2:39]8
As for the disbelievers who deny Our signs, Our Books, those shall be the inhabitants of the Fire, abiding therein’, enduring perpetually, neither perishing nor exiting therefrom.
[2:40]
O Children of Israel, sons of Jacob, remember My favour wherewith I favoured you, that is, your forefathers, saving them from Pharaoh, parting the sea, sending clouds as shelter and other instances, for which you should show gratitude by being obedient to Me; and fulfil My covenant, that which I took from you, that you believe in Muhammad (s), and I shall fulfil your covenant, that which I gave to you, that you shall be rewarded for this with Paradise; and be in awe of Me, fear Me and not anyone else when you have abandoned belief in him [the Prophet].
[2:41]
And believe in what I have revealed, of the Qur’ān, confirming that which is with you, of the Torah, by its agreement with it, in respect to [affirmation of] God’s Oneness and prophethood; and be not the first to disbelieve in it, from among the People of the Scripture, for those who will come after you will depend on you and so you will bear their sins. And do not sell, exchange, My signs, those that relate to the description of Muhammad (s) in your Book; for a small price, for a trivial and temporary affair of this world; that is to say, do not suppress this for fear of losing what you hope to earn from lowly individuals among you; and fear Me, and none other in this matter.
[2:42]
And do not obscure, confuse, the truth, that I have revealed to you, with falsehood, that you fabricate; and do not conceal the truth, the description of Muhammad (s), wittingly, that is, knowing it to be the truth.
[2:43]
And establish prayer, and pay the alms, and bow with those that bow, that is, pray with those who pray, Muhammad (s) and his Companions: this was revealed concerning their religious scholars, who used to say to their kin from among the Muslims, ‘Stay firm upon the religion of Muhammad (s), for it is the truth’.
[2:44]
Will you bid others to piety, to belief in Muhammad (s), and forget yourselves, neglecting yourselves and not bidding them to the same, while you recite the Book?, in which there is the threat of chastisement, if what you do contradicts what you say. Do you not understand? the evil nature of your actions, that you might then repent? (the sentence about ‘forgetting’ constitutes the [syntactical] locus of the interrogative of disavowal).
[2:45]
Seek help, ask for assistance in your affairs, in patience, by restraining the soul in the face of that which it dislikes; and prayer. The singling out of this for mention is a way of emphasising its great importance; in one hadīth, [it is stated], ‘When something bothered the Prophet (s), he would immediately resort to prayer’; it is said that the address here is to the Jews: when greed and desire for leadership became impediments to their faith, they were enjoined to forbearance, which constituted fasting and prayer, since, the former stems from lust and the latter yields humility and negates pride. For it, prayer, is grievous, burdensome, except to the humble, those that are at peace in obedience,
[2:46]
who reckon, who are certain, that they shall meet their Lord, at the Resurrection, and that to Him they are returning, in the Hereafter, where He will reward them. 9
[2:47]
O Children of Israel, remember My favour wherewith I favoured you, by giving thanks through obedience to Me, and that I have preferred you, your forefathers, above all the worlds, of their time;
[2:48]
and fear, be scared of, the day when no soul for another shall give satisfaction, which is the Day of Resurrection, and no intercession shall be accepted (read either tuqbal or yuqbal) from it, that is, it is not the case that it has power to intercede, for it then to be accepted from it [or rejected, as God says], So now we have no intercessors [Q. 26:100]; nor any compensation, ransom, be taken, neither shall they be helped, to avoid God’s chastisement.
[2:49]
And, remember, when We delivered you, your forefathers: the address here and henceforth directed to those living at the time of the our Prophet, is about how God blessed their forefathers, and is intended to remind them of God’s grace so that they might believe; from the folk of Pharaoh who were visiting you with, that is, making you taste, evil chastisement, of the worst kind (the sentence here is a circumstantial qualifier
referring to the person of the pronoun [suffixed] in najjaynākum, ‘We delivered you’); slaughtering your, newly-born, sons: this is explaining what has just been said; and sparing, retaining, your women, [doing so] because of the saying of some of their priests that a child born among the Israelites shall bring about the end of your rule [Pharaoh]; and for you therein, chastisement or deliverance, was a tremendous trial, a test or a grace, from your Lord.
[2:50]
And, remember, when We divided, split in two, for you, on account of you, the sea, such that you were able to cross it and escape from your enemy; and We delivered you, from drowning, and drowned Pharaoh’s folk, his people with him, while you were beholding the sea crashing down on top of them.
[2:51]
And when We appointed for (wā‘adnā or wa‘adnā) Moses forty nights, at the end of which We shall give him the Torah for you to implement, then you took to yourselves the calf, the one which the Samaritan fashioned for you as a god, after him, that is, after he departed for Our appointment, and you were evildoers, for taking it [in worship], because you directed your worship to the wrong place.
[2:52]
Then We pardoned you, erasing your sins, after that, act of worship, so that you might be thankful, for Our favour upon you.
[2:53]
And when We gave to Moses the Scripture, the Torah, and the Criterion (wa’l-furqān is an explicative supplement [of Torah]), that is, the one that discriminates (faraqa) between truth and falsehood and between what is licit and illicit, so that you might be guided, by it away from error.
[2:54]
And when Moses said to his people, those who worshipped the calf, ‘My people, you have done wrong against yourselves by your taking the [golden] calf, for a god; now turn to your Creator, away from that worship [of the calf] and slay one another, that is, let the innocent of you slay the guilty; That, slaughter, will be better for you in your Creator’s sight’, who made it easier for you to accomplish this and sent down a dark cloud over you, so that none of you was able to see the other and show him mercy, such that almost 10 seventy thousand of you were killed; and He will turn to you [relenting], before your [turning in] repentance; truly He is the Relenting, the Merciful.
[2:55]
And when you said, having gone out with Moses to apologise before God for your worship of the calf, and having heard what he had said [to you]; ‘O Moses, we will not believe you till we see God openly’, with our own eyes; and the thunderbolt, the shout, took you, and you died, while you were beholding, what was happening to you.
[2:56]
Then We raised you up, brought you back to life, after you were dead, so that you might be thankful, for this favour of Ours.
[2:57]
And We made the cloud overshadow you, that is, We sheltered you with fine clouds from the heat of the sun while you were in the wilderness; and We sent down, in them [the clouds], upon you manna and quails — which are [respectively, a type of citrus known as] turunjabīn and the quail — and We said: ‘Eat of the good things We have provided for you’, and do not store any of it away, but they were not grateful for this favour and stored the food, and so they were deprived of it; And they did not wrong Us, in this, but themselves they wronged, since the evil consequences [of this] befell them.
[2:58]
And when We said, to them, after they came out of the wilderness, ‘Enter this city, either the Holy House [of Jerusalem] (Bayt al-Maqdis) or Jericho (Arīhā), and eat freely therein wherever you will, plentifully and without any restrictions, and enter it at the gate, its gate, prostrating, bowing, and say, ‘our request is for [an] exoneration’, that is, ‘That we be exonerated from our transgressions’, and We shall forgive (naghfir: a variant reading has one of the two passive forms yughfar or tughfar, ‘[they] will be forgiven’) you your transgressions and We shall give more to those who are virtuous’ — through obedience — in terms of reward.
[2:59]
Then the evildoers, among them, substituted a saying other than that which had been said to them, and said instead, ‘A grain inside a hair’ and entered [the town] dragging themselves on their rears; so We sent down upon the evildoers (the replacement of the second person [of the previous verse] with the overt identification in the third person alladhīna zalamū, ‘the evildoers’, is intended to emphasise the depravity of their action) wrath, a punishment of plague, from the heaven for their wickedness, for deviating from obedience, and within a very short period of time just under seventy thousand of them were dead.
[2:60]
And, mention, when Moses sought water for his people, for they suffered thirst in the wilderness, We said, ‘Strike with your staff the rock, (the one that ran off with his robe, a light cube-like [rock] about the size of a man’s head, made of marble) and he struck it, and there exploded, there burst and gushed forth, from it twelve fountains, equal to the number of tribes, each people, [each] tribe among them, came to know their drinking-place, which they did not share with any of the others. And We said to them, ‘Eat and drink of that which God has provided, and do not be degenerate in the earth, seeking corruption’ (mufsidīn is a circumstantial qualifier emphasising its operator, the subject of the verb [lā ta‘thaw, ‘do not be degenerate’] derived from ‘athiya, meaning afsada, ‘to corrupt’).
[2:61]11
And when you said, ‘Moses, we will not endure one sort of food, that is to say, manna and quails; pray to your Lord for us, that He may bring forth for us, something, of (min here is explicative) what the earth produces — green herbs, cucumbers, garlic, lentils, onions’, he, Moses, said, to them, ‘Would you exchange what is better, more noble, that is, do you substitute this, with what is lowlier?’ (the hamza of a-tastabdilūna is for rebuke); they thus refused to change their mind and he [Moses] supplicated to God, and He, exalted be He, said, ‘Go down to a city, whichever city it may be; you shall have, there, what you demanded’ of vegetable produce; And abasement, submissiveness, and wretchedness, that is, the signs of poverty on account of their submissiveness and debasement that always accompany them, even if they be rich, in the same way that a coin never changes its mint; were cast upon them, and they incurred, ended up with God’s wrath; that, that is, that affliction and wrath, was because they used to disbelieve the signs of God and slay prophets, such as Zachariah and John, without right, that is, unjustly; that was because they disobeyed, and they were transgressors, overstepping the bounds in disobedience (here the repetition [dhālik bi-mā ‘asaw wa-kānū ya‘tadūn] is for emphasis).
[2:62]
Surely those who believe, [who believed] before, in the prophets, and those of Jewry, the Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabaeans, a Christian or Jewish sect, whoever, from among them, believes in God and the Last Day, in the time of our Prophet, and performs righteous deeds, according to the Law given to him — their wage, that is, the reward for their deeds, is with their Lord, and no fear shall befall them, neither shall they grieve (the [singular] person of the verbs āmana, ‘believes’, and ‘amila, ‘performs’, takes account of the [singular] form of man, ‘whoever’, but in what comes afterwards [of the plural pronouns] its [plural] meaning [is taken into account]).
[2:63]
And, mention, when We made a covenant with you, your pledge to act according to what is in the Torah, and We, had, raised above you the Mount, which We uprooted from the earth [and placed] above you when you refused to accept it [sc. the Torah], and We said, ‘Take forcefully, seriously and with effort, what We have given you, and remember what is in it, acting in accordance with it, so that you might preserve yourselves’, from the Fire or acts of disobedience.
[2:64]
Then you turned away thereafter, and but for God’s bounty and His mercy towards you, you would have been among the losers [there is no commentary on this verse].
[2:65]
And verily (wa-la-qad: the lām is for oaths) you know that there were those among you who transgressed, violated, the Sabbath, by fishing, when We had forbidden you to do so — these were the inhabitants of Eilat — and We said to them, ‘Be apes, despised!’, rejected, and they became so: they died three days later.
[2:66]
And We made it, this punishment, an exemplary punishment, a lesson to dissuade others from doing what they did; for all the former times and for the latter, that is, for the people of that time or those that came later; and an admonition to such as who fear, God: these are singled out for mention here because they, in contrast to others, are the ones who benefit thereby.
[2:67]
And, mention, when Moses said to his people, when one among them was killed and the killer was not known, and so they asked Moses to pray to God to reveal the killer, which he did; ‘God commands you to sacrifice a cow’. They said, ‘Do you take us in mockery?’, that is, making fun of us when you answer us like this? He said, ‘I take refuge with, I seek defence with, God lest I should be one of the ignorant’, one of 12 those who indulge in mockery.
[2:68]
But when they realised that he was being serious, They said, ‘Pray to your Lord for us, that He may make clear to us what she may be’, its true nature, He, Moses, said, ‘He, God, says she is a cow neither old, nor virgin, that is, young, middling between the two, in terms of age; so do what you have been commanded’, by way of sacrificing it.
[2:69]
They said, ‘Pray to your Lord for us, that He make clear to us what her colour may be’ He said, ‘He says she shall be a golden cow, bright in colour, that is, of a very intense yellow, gladdening to beholders: its beauty will please those that look at it.
[2:70]
They said, ‘Pray to your Lord for us, that He make clear to us what she may be: does it graze freely or is it used in labour?; the cows (that is, the species described in the way mentioned), are all alike to us, because there are many of them and we have not been able to find the one sought after; and if God wills, we shall then be guided’ to it. In one hadīth [it is reported]: ‘Had they not uttered the proviso [inshā’a Llāh], it would never have been made clear to them’.
[2:71]
He said, ‘He says she shall be a cow not broken, not subdued for labour, that is, to plough the earth, churning its soil for sowing (tuthīr al-ard: the clause describes the word dhalūl, and constitutes part of the negation); or to water the tillage, that is, the land prepared for sowing; one safe, from faults and the effects of toil; with no blemish, of a colour other than her own, on her’. They said, ‘Now you have brought the truth’, that is, [now] you have explained it clearly; they thus sought it out and found it with a boy very dutiful towards his mother, and they eventually purchased it for the equivalent of its weight in gold; and so they sacrificed her, even though they very nearly did not, on account of its excessive cost. In a hadīth [it is stated that], ‘Had they sacrificed any cow, it would have sufficed them, but they made it difficult for themselves and so God made it difficult for them’.
[2:72]
And when you killed a living soul, and disputed thereon (iddāra’tum: the tā’ [of the root-form itdāra’tum] has been assimilated with the dāl) — and God disclosed what you were hiding (this is a parenthetical statement; the story begins here [with wa-idh qataltum nafsan, ‘and when you killed a soul’… and continues in the following]):
[2:73]
so We said, ‘Smite him, the slain man, with part of it’, and so when he was struck with its tongue or its tail, he came back to life and said, ‘So-and-so killed me’, and after pointing out two of his cousins, he died; the two [killers] were denied the inheritance and were later killed. God says: even so, is the revival, for, God brings to life the dead, and He shows you His signs, the proofs of His power, so that you might understand, [that you might] reflect and realise that the One capable of reviving a single soul is also capable of reviving a multitude of souls, and then believe.
[2:74]
Then your hearts became hardened, O you Jews, they [your hearts] became stiffened against acceptance of the truth, thereafter, that is, after what is mentioned of the bringing back to life of the slain man and the other signs before this; and they are like stones, in their hardness, or even yet harder, than these; for there 13 are stones from which rivers come gushing, and others split (yashshaqqaq: the initial tā’ [of the root-form yatashaqqaq] has been assimilated with the shīn), so that water issues from them; and others come down, from on high, in fear of God, while your hearts are unmoved, unstirred and not humbled; And God is not heedless of what you do, but instead, He gives you respite until your time comes (ta‘malūna, ‘you do’: a variant reading has ya‘malūna, ‘they do’, indicating a shift to the third person address).
[2:75]
Are you then so eager, O believers, that they, the Jews, should believe you, seeing there is a party of them, a group of their rabbis, that heard God’s word, in the Torah, and then tampered with it, changing it, and that, after they had comprehended it, [after] they had understood it, knowingly?, [knowing full well] that they were indulging in mendacity (the hamza [at the beginning of the verb a-fa-tatma‘ūn] is [an interrogative] for rejection, in other words, ‘Do not be so eager, for they have disbelieved before’).
[2:76]
And when they, the hypocrites from among the Jews, meet those who believe, they say, ‘We believe’, that Muhammad (s) is a prophet and that he is the one of whom we have been given good tidings in our Book; but when they go in private one to another, they, their leaders the ones not involved in the hypocrisy, say, to those hypocrites: ‘Do you speak to them, the believers, of what God has disclosed to you, that is, what He has made known to you of Muhammad’s (s) description in the Torah, so that they may thereby dispute (the lām of li-yuhājjūkum, ‘that they may dispute with you’, is the lām of ‘becoming’) with you before your Lord?, in the Hereafter and hold the proof against you for not following him [Muhammad (s)], despite your knowledge of his sincerity? Have you no understanding?’ of the fact that they will contend with you if you speak to them in this way? So beware.
[2:77]
God says: Know they not (the interrogative is affirmative, the inserted wāw [of a-wa-lā] is to indicate the supplement) that God knows what they keep secret and what they proclaim?, that is, what they hide and what they reveal in this matter and all other matters, so that they may desist from these things.
[2:78]
And there are some of them, the Jews, that are illiterate, unlettered, not knowing the Scripture, the Torah, but only desires, lies which were handed down to them by their leaders and which they relied upon; and, in their rejection of the prophethood of the Prophet and fabrications of other matters, they have, mere conjectures, and no firm knowledge.
[2:79]
So woe, a severe chastisement, to those who write the Scripture with their hands, that is, fabricating it themselves, then say, ‘This is from God’ that they may sell it for a small price, of this world: these are the Jews, the ones that altered the description of the Prophet in the Torah, as well as the ‘stoning’ verse, and other details, and rewrote them in a way different from that in which they were revealed. So woe to them for what their hands have written, of fabrications, and woe to them for their earnings, by way of bribery (rishan, plural of rishwa).
[2:80]
And they say, when the Prophet promised them the Fire, ‘the Fire shall not touch us, that is, afflict us, save a number of days’, only a short time of forty days: the same length of time their forefathers worshipped the calf, after which time it [the Fire] will cease. Say, to them Muhammad (s): ‘Have you taken with God a covenant?, a pledge from Him to this? God will not fail in His covenant, in this matter, or — nay — say you against God what you do not know? (a’ttakhadhtum: the conjunctive hamza has been omitted on account of the interrogative hamza sufficing). 14
[2:81]
Not so, it will touch you and you will abide therein; whoever earns evil, through associating another with God, and is encompassed by his transgression, in the singular and the plural, that is to say, it overcomes him and encircles him totally, for, he has died an idolater — those are the inhabitants of the Fire, therein abiding (khālidūn: this [plural noun] takes account of the [plural] import of man, ‘whoever’).
[2:82]
And those who believe and perform righteous deeds — those are the inhabitants of Paradise, therein abiding.
[2:83]
And, mention, when We made a covenant with the Children of Israel, in the Torah, where We said: ‘You shall not worship (a variant reading [for lā ta‘budūna] has [third person plural] lā ya‘budūn [‘they shall not worship’]) any other than God (lā ta‘budūna illā Llāha is a predicate denoting a prohibition; one may also read lā ta‘budū [Worship you not]); and to be good, and righteous, to parents, and the near of kin: here kinship is adjoined to parents; and to orphans, and to the needy; and speak well, [good] words, to men, commanding good and forbidding evil, being truthful with regard to the status of Muhammad (s), and being kind to them [sc. orphans and the needy] (a variant reading [for hasanan] has husnan, the verbal noun, used as a hyperbolic description); and observe prayer and pay the alms’, which you actually accepted, but, then you turned away, refusing to fulfil these [obligations] (here the second person address is used, but their forefathers are [still] meant); all but a few of you, rejecting it, like your forefathers.
[2:84]
And when We made a covenant with you, and We said: ‘You shall not shed your own blood, spilling it by slaying one another; neither expel your own from your habitations’: let no one of you expel the other from his house; then you confirmed it, that is, you accepted this covenant, and you bore witness, upon your own souls.
[2:85]
Then there you are killing one another, and expelling a party of you from their habitations, conspiring (tazzāharūna: the original ta’ has been assimilated with the zā’; a variant reading has it without [the assimilation, that is, tazāharūna]), assisting one another, against them in sin, in disobedience, and enmity, injustice, and if they come to you as captives (a variant reading [for usārā] has asrā), you ransom them (a variant reading [for tafdūhum] has tufādūhum), that is to say, you deliver them from captivity with money etc., and this [ransoming] was one of the things to which they were pledged; yet their expulsion was forbidden you (muharramun ‘alaykum ikhrājuhum is semantically connected to wa-tukhrijūna, ‘and expelling’, and the statement that comes in between is parenthetical, that is, [expulsion was forbidden you] in the same way that non-ransoming was forbidden you). Qurayza had allied themselves with the Aws, and the Nadīr with the Khazraj, but every member of an alliance would fight against a fellow ally, thus destroying each other’s homes and expelling one another, taking prisoners and then ransoming them. When they were asked: ‘Why do you fight them and then pay their ransom?’, they would reply, ‘Because we have been commanded to ransom’; and they would be asked, ‘So, why do you fight them then?’, to which they would say, ‘For fear that our allies be humiliated’; God, exalted, says: What, do you believe in part of the Book, that is, the part about ransom, and disbelieve in part?, namely, the part about renouncing fighting, expulsion and assistance [against one another]; What shall be the requital of those of you who do that, but degradation, disgrace and ignominy, in the life of this world: they were disgraced when Qurayza were slewn and the Nadīr were expelled to Syria, and ordered to pay the jizya; and on the Day of Resurrection to be returned to the most terrible of chastisement? And God is not heedless of what you do (ta‘malūna, or read ya‘malūna, ‘they do’). 15
[2:86]
Those are the ones who have purchased the life of this world at the price of the Hereafter, by preferring the former to the latter — for them the punishment shall not be lightened, neither shall they be helped, [neither shall they be] protected against it.
[2:87]
And We gave Moses the Scripture, the Torah, and after him We sent successive messengers, that is, We sent them one after another, and We gave Jesus son of Mary the clear proofs, that is, the miracles of bringing the dead back to life and healing the blind and the leper, and We confirmed him, We strengthened him, with the Holy Spirit (the expression rūh al-qudus is an example of annexing [in a genitive construction] the noun described to the adjective [qualifying it], in other words, al-rūh al-muqaddasa), that is, Gabriel, [so described] on account of his [Jesus’s] sanctity; he would accompany him [Jesus] wherever he went; still you refuse to be upright, and whenever there came to you a messenger, with what your souls did not desire, [did not] like, in the way of truth, you became arrogant, you disdained to follow him (istakbartum, ‘you became arrogant’, is the response to the particle kullamā, ‘whenever’, and constitutes the interrogative, and is meant as a rebuke); and some, of them, you called liars, such as Jesus, and some you slay?, such as Zachariah and John (the present tenses [of these verbs] are used to narrate the past events [as though they were events in the present], in other words, ‘[and some] you slew’).
[2:88]
And they say, to the Prophet mockingly: ‘Our hearts are encased’ (ghulf is the plural of aghlaf), that is to say, wrapped up in covers and cannot comprehend what you say; God, exalted be He, says: Nay (bal introduces the rebuttal), but God has cursed them, removed them far from His mercy and degraded them when they rejected [the messengers], for their unbelief, which is not the result of anything defective in their hearts; and little will they believe (fa-qalīlan mā yu’minūn: the mā here is extra, emphasising the ‘littleness’ involved): that is, their belief is minimal.
[2:89]
When there came to them a Book from God, confirming what was with them, in the Torah, that is the Qur’ān — and they formerly, before it came, prayed for victory, for assistance, over the disbelievers, saying: ‘God, give us assistance against them through the Prophet that shall be sent at the end of time’; but when there came to them what they recognised, as the truth, that is, the mission of the Prophet, they disbelieved in it, out of envy and for fear of losing leadership (the response to the first lammā particle is indicated by the response to the second one); and the curse of God is on the disbelievers.
[2:90]
Evil is that for which they sell their souls, that is, their share of the reward [in the Hereafter] (bi’samā, ‘evil is that [for] which’: mā here is an indefinite particle, representing ‘a thing’, and constitutes a specification qualifying the subject of [the verb] bi’s, ‘evil is’, the very thing being singled out for criticism); that they disbelieve in that, Qur’ān, which God has revealed, grudging (baghyan here is an object denoting reason for
yakfurū, ‘they disbelieve’), that is, out of envy, that God should reveal (read either yunzil or yunazzil) of His bounty, the Inspiration, to whomever He will of His servants, to deliver the Message; and they were laden, they returned, with anger, from God for their disbelief in what He has revealed (the indefinite form, bighadabin, ‘with anger’, is used to emphasise the awesomeness [of the ‘anger’]), upon anger, which they deserved formerly, when they neglected the Torah and disbelieved in Jesus; and for the disbelievers there shall be a humiliating chastisement.
[2:91]
And when it was said to them, ‘Believe in what God has revealed, that is, the Qur’ān and other [Books], they said, ‘We believe in what was revealed to us’, that is, the Torah; and (wā, here indicates a circumstantial 16 qualifier) they disbelieve in what is beyond that, what is other than that or what came afterwards, such as the Qur’ān; yet it is the truth (wa-huwa’l-haqqu is a circumstantial qualifier) confirming (musaddiqan, a second circumstantial qualifier for emphasis) what is with them. Say, to them: ‘Why then were you slaying the prophets of God formerly, if you were believers?’ in the Torah and in it you were forbidden to kill them: this address, concerning what their forefathers did, is directed towards those present at the time of our Prophet, on account of their approval of it [that is, of what the forefathers had done].
[2:92]
And Moses came to you with clear proofs, miracles, such as the staff, his hand, and the parting of the sea; then you took to yourselves the calf, as a god, after him, after he had gone to the appointment, and you were evildoers, for taking it [in worship].
[2:93]
And when We made a covenant with you, to act according to what is in the Torah, and raised over you the Mount, to drop it on you, when you had refused to accept it; We said, ‘Take forcefully, seriously and with effort, what We have given you, and listen’, to what you have been commanded, and be prepared to accept it, They said, ‘We hear, your words, and disobey’, your command; and they were made to drink the calf in their hearts, that is to say, the love of it [the golden calf] intoxicated their hearts in the way that wine does, on account of their unbelief. Say, to them: ‘Evil is that, thing, which your belief, in the Torah, enjoins on you, [in the way of] the worship of the [golden] calf, if you are believers’, in it, as you claim; meaning, you are not believers, for faith does not command that you worship the calf — their forefathers are meant here. Likewise, you do not believe in the Torah, because you have denied [the prophethood of] Muhammad (s), whereas faith in it does not command you to reject him.
[2:94]
Say, to them: ‘If the Abode of the Hereafter, that is, Paradise, with God is purely yours, that is, exclusively, and not for other people, as you allege, then long for death — if you speak truly’ (here both conditionals are connected to the verb tamannū, ‘long for’, so that the first is dependent upon the second, in other words, ‘If you speak truly when you claim that it is yours, then you will naturally incline to what is yours, and since the path to it is death, long for it [death]’).
[2:95]
But they will never long for it, because of that which their own hands have sent before them, as a result of their rejection of the Prophet (s), the consequence of their mendacity. God knows the evildoers, the disbelievers and He will requite them.
[2:96]
And you shall find them (the lām of la-tajidannahum is for oaths) the people most covetous of life, and, more covetous of it than, the idolaters, who reject the [idea of the] Resurrection, for the former know that their journey’s end will be the Fire, while the idolaters do not believe even in this; any one of them would love, wishes, that he might be given life for a thousand years (law yu‘ammar, ‘[if only] he might be given life’: the particle law, ‘if only’, relates to the verbal noun and functions with the sense of an, ‘that’, and together with its relative clause explains the [implicit] verbal noun in the object of the verb yawaddu, ‘he would love’); yet, any one of them, his being given life (an yu‘ammara, ‘that he should be given life’, constitutes the subject of the verb muzahzihihi, ‘that it should budge him’ [this verb comes later], as though it were ta‘mīruhu, ‘the giving of life to him’) shall not budge, remove, him from the chastisement, of the Fire. God sees what they do (ya‘malūna may be alternatively read ta‘malūna, ‘you do’), and will requite them. [‘Abd Allāh] Ibn Sūryā asked the Prophet (s), or ‘Umar [b. al-Khattāb], about which angel brings down the revelation, and he replied that it was Gabriel; he [Ibn Sūryā] then said, ‘He is our enemy, because he brings chastisement with him; had it been Michael, we would have believed in him, because he brings fertility and security.’ Then, the following was revealed: 17
[2:97]
Say, to them: ‘Whoever is an enemy to Gabriel, let him die in exasperation — he it was that brought it, the Qur’ān, down upon your heart by the leave, by the command, of God, confirming what was before it, of scriptures, a guidance, from error, and good tidings, of Paradise, for the believers.
[2:98]
Whoever is an enemy to God and His angels and His messengers, and Gabriel (read Jibrīl or Jabrīl, Jibra’il or Jabra’il, Jibra’īl or Jabra’īl), and Michael (Mīkāl, also read Mīkā’īl, or Mīkā’il; a supplement to malā’ikatihi, ‘His angels’, an example of the specific being supplemented to the collective) — then surely God is an enemy to the disbelievers’ (He says ‘to the disbelievers’ instead of ‘to them’ in order to point out their status).
[2:99]
And We have revealed to you, O Muhammad (s), clear proofs, lucid [ones] (bayyinātin, ‘clear proofs’, is a circumstantial qualifier; this was in response to Ibn Sūryā saying to the Prophet (s), ‘You have not brought us anything’); and none disbelieves in them except the wicked, these have disbelieved in them.
[2:100]
Why, whenever they make a covenant, with God that they will believe in the Prophet (s) when he appears, or that they will not give assistance to the idolaters against the Prophet (s), does a party of them reject it?, cast it away repudiating it (this is the response to the clause beginning with kullamā, the interrogative of rebuke). Nay (bal indicates a transition), but most of them are disbelievers.