Al-Baqarah Verses 72 - 82

The quarrels among the children of Isra’il, Their hard - heartedness, Their perverting the revealed Word of God, Concealing the truth - and the prophecies, The ignorance of the masses, The punishment to the wicked and the reward to the virtuous.

وَإِذْ قَتَلْتُمْ نَفْسًا فَادَّارَأْتُمْ فِيهَا وَاللَّهُ مُخْرِجٌ مَا كُنْتُمْ تَكْتُمُونَ

“And remember when ye slew a man and yourselves disputed about it; God was to bring forth (to light) what ye did hide” (2:72).

فَقُلْنَا اضْرِبُوهُ بِبَعْضِهَا كَذَٰلِكَ يُحْيِي اللَّهُ الْمَوْتَىٰ وَيُرِيكُمْ آيَاتِهِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ

“(Wherefore) We said, “ye strike him with a part of it; (of the cow); “Thus, God bringeth the dead to life and showeth to you His signs, so that ye may understand” (2:73).

ثُمَّ قَسَتْ قُلُوبُكُمْ مِنْ بَعْدِ ذَٰلِكَ فَهِيَ كَالْحِجَارَةِ أَوْ أَشَدُّ قَسْوَةً وَإِنَّ مِنَ الْحِجَارَةِ لَمَا يَتَفَجَّرُ مِنْهُ الْأَنْهَارُ وَإِنَّ مِنْهَا لَمَا يَشَّقَّقُ فَيَخْرُجُ مِنْهُ الْمَاءُ وَإِنَّ مِنْهَا لَمَا يَهْبِطُ مِنْ خَشْيَةِ اللَّهِ وَمَا اللَّهُ بِغَافِلٍ عَمَّا تَعْمَلُونَ

“(Yet) Thenceforth were your hearts hardened as stones or harder still; for verily of stones are some from which gush forth streams; others there are which split asunder and from them cometh out water; and of them there are some that fall down for fear of God; And God is not heedless of what ye do” (2:74).

أَفَتَطْمَعُونَ أَنْ يُؤْمِنُوا لَكُمْ وَقَدْ كَانَ فَرِيقٌ مِنْهُمْ يَسْمَعُونَ كَلَامَ اللَّهِ ثُمَّ يُحَرِّفُونَهُ مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا عَقَلُوهُ وَهُمْ يَعْلَمُونَ

“Do ye (O’ believers in God) then hope, that they will believe in you? While a party of them used to hear the word of God and then (knowingly) altered it after they had understood it and they know (This)” (2:75).

وَإِذَا لَقُوا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا قَالُوا آمَنَّا وَإِذَا خَلَا بَعْضُهُمْ إِلَىٰ بَعْضٍ قَالُوا أَتُحَدِّثُونَهُمْ بِمَا فَتَحَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْكُمْ لِيُحَاجُّوكُمْ بِهِ عِنْدَ رَبِّكُمْ أَفَلَا تَعْقِلُونَ

“And when they meet those who believe they say, “We believe” and when they are alone one with another they say, “Do ye talk to them what God hath revealed against you (in Torah) that they may argue with you about it before your Lord;” Do ye not then understand?” (2:76).

أَوَلَا يَعْلَمُونَ أَنَّ اللَّهَ يَعْلَمُ مَا يُسِرُّونَ وَمَا يُعْلِنُونَ

“What! know they not that God knoweth what they conceal and what they proclaim?” (2:77).

وَمِنْهُمْ أُمِّيُّونَ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ الْكِتَابَ إِلَّا أَمَانِيَّ وَإِنْ هُمْ إِلَّا يَظُنُّونَ

“Among them are the unlettered folk who know not from the scripture except from hearsay; and they do nothing but conjecture” (2:78).

فَوَيْلٌ لِلَّذِينَ يَكْتُبُونَ الْكِتَابَ بِأَيْدِيهِمْ ثُمَّ يَقُولُونَ هَٰذَا مِنْ عِنْدِ اللَّهِ لِيَشْتَرُوا بِهِ ثَمَنًا قَلِيلًا فَوَيْلٌ لَهُمْ مِمَّا كَتَبَتْ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَوَيْلٌ لَهُمْ مِمَّا يَكْسِبُونَ

“Then woe unto them who write the book with their own hands and then say, “This is from God” for they may sell it for a small price; thus, woe unto for what their hands have written (edited) and Unto them for what they earn thereby” (2:79).

وَقَالُوا لَنْ تَمَسَّنَا النَّارُ إِلَّا أَيَّامًا مَعْدُودَةً قُلْ أَتَّخَذْتُمْ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ عَهْدًا فَلَنْ يُخْلِفَ اللَّهُ عَهْدَهُ أَمْ تَقُولُونَ عَلَى اللَّهِ مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ

“And they say, “The (Hell) Fire shall never touch but for a numbered day”; Say (O’ Muhammad!), “Have ye taken a promise from God, for He never breaketh His Promise? Or speak ye of God what ye know not?” (2:80).

بَلَىٰ مَنْ كَسَبَ سَيِّئَةً وَأَحَاطَتْ بِهِ خَطِيئَتُهُ فَأُولَٰئِكَ أَصْحَابُ النَّارِ هُمْ فِيهَا خَالِدُونَ

“Yea! whosoever earneth evil and his sin encompasseth him; they are the fellows of the (Hell) Fire, therein shall they abide” (2:81).

وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ أُولَٰئِكَ أَصْحَابُ الْجَنَّةِ هُمْ فِيهَا خَالِدُونَ

“And (as for) those who believe (in God) and work righteousness, they are the inmates of the garden (and) therein shall they abide” (2:82).

Commentary

Verse 72 & 73

The incident referred to here relates to the revival of the man murdered by his nephew. The Jews believed that apostle Moses had no means of finding out the guilt to prove it to the satisfaction of one and all. The man was murdered, and his body was laid in a neighbouring village. There arose a dispute in the different sections of the people as to who murdered the man. That the dead man was raised by a miracle, is beyond all doubts.

The Ahmadi commentator has tried his best to twist the meaning of the word (Qatle) to interpret this verse in his own way to create accommodation for the belief that Jesus was saved from the cross before life was extinct1. He wants to interpret the word ‘Qatle’ or slew, into the meaning making one like almost killed i.e. to a partially dead man.

This verse clearly and definitely speaks about the incident relating to a nephew murdering his uncle and the people hiding the crime. It is clearly said in the verse that God will bring forth to light what they did hide. But the Ahmadi commentator in order to gather strength to his own argument about Jesus escaping from the cross alive interprets this verse as referring to Jesus and aligns this verse with his own meaning of Verses 4:153 -157. But the concluding clause of this verse 72, meaning ‘And verily God bringeth forth what ye do hide’ makes it doubtlessly clear that this verse refers to the incident of the uncle being murdered by his nephew and the crime being hidden by the people and their disputing among themselves and God getting it disclosed through a miraculous device. This verse does not refer to the crucifixion of Jesus about which the Jews did not doubt, neither they hid it nor did they dispute about the event.

This event of the dead man being brought to life clearly denotes the Almighty power of God that nothing is impossible for His Will to enact. (A.P.)

People who knew not the truth could be expected to be converted to the faith and not those who knew it and yet denied it.

There is no doubt that the various passages of the Holy Qur’an and the recorded facts of the history say that the Jews and the Christians of the age of the Holy Prophet were expecting the advent of a new prophet in Arabia, particularly in Hedjaz and that their expectation was based on certain passages in the Old and the New Testament and their other scriptural documents and their commentaries. This expectation was prevailing almost in the Jews and the Christians of Arabia to such an extent and with such a strong conviction and faith in it that they used to threaten the aggressive heathens saying:

“Wait ye! The Promised One cometh and punisheth you all far your wickedness and evils”

Thus, the attitude of the Jews and the Christians towards Islam before the ‘Hijrat’ was not hostile, if not friendly. After the Migration, the Muslims coming to power stirred the envy of the Jews and the Christians making their attitude hostile. They stopped talking of the prophecies in their scriptures and some began to misinterpret the passages and also prevented the others, blaming them for talking about the prophecies to the Muslims. Though ‘Yuharrifoona’ here means misinterpretation and not any change in the wording, it is proved that the pre - Islamic scriptures had been subjected to both misinterpretation (‘Tahrif Ma’navi’) and the change in their wording by omissions, additions, subtraction and substitution of words and letters and even sentences i.e. ‘Tahrif Lafzi.’

In the case of, the Holy Qur’an itself being a miracle for all times and as the testimony to the bonafide of the previous apostles of God and the scriptures given to them God has undertaken to Himself to guard it from any kind of ‘Tahreef etc.’2.

Verse 74

Even such a wonderful event which was enacted before their very eyes had not any permanent effect upon the Jews. It brought the Jews to faith but only until they witnessed the event and when the event had passed, they again reverted to infidelity.

Students of research in geology will vouchsafe the fact that most of the stones contain in their veins or laminae small quantities of water are concealed in them. Water can be drawn out of hard rocks3 This verse can as well be taken as the Holy Qur’an foretelling this natural phenomenon which after centuries of research has been discovered out by the modern scientific research.

It is a well-known saying that Faith can move mountains. If man has only the required degree of faith in God and earns the strength of conviction about the divine endowments in him, he can make anything move at his command. The various objects in the world of the nature around man, by their native volition, are always in readiness to yield or surrender themselves to the will of God or His divinity enacted through His faithful servants.

There are innumerable such facts enacted even by the spiritualists whereas the holy men in all times and in the various parts of the world, particularly the apostles of God during their own respective times and places, have demonstrated such events called miracles to prove what godliness genuine or the divinity vested in the faith in God can do and undo. There is no room to doubt about the truth in the statement about stones falling down for fear of God, meaning even the objects of the mineral world which seem to be fixed to their respective places or stations and seem to be immovable to do of their own accord, volunteer and surrender to the divine will in faithfulness to their Creator Lord. But the Ahmadi commentator does not hesitate to speak against this truth and calls the statement as metaphorical, evidently, he is ignorant of the findings and the physical experiences of Dr. Stainten Moses, the performance of Home, Slade, Eusapia Pallidino etc. witnessed by the pranking scientists. The Holy Qur’an repeatedly declares that everything even those which seem to us dead or inanimate have a soul and there is none in the world which does not sing or celebrate the glory of the Lord4.

Metaphysicians and many eminent philosophers, Clifford and others, particularly Dr. J. C. Bose, believe that even metals too possess a kind of rudimentary sensibility which can be made to manifest itself in the form of response to a proper stimulus5. This phenomenon the world of nature is held to be the active factor in proving or explaining the law of gravitation that holds or maintains the whole universe in its form and movement. Yet the Ahmadi mind wants to call those undeniable facts of the known factors of science as metaphorical and not factual.

The nature of the miracles wrought by Moses for the Jews clearly indicates the harshness or the hardheartedness of the people who would not accept or believe in any phenomenon or in any prophet from God but under some threat or unless they were forced by some circumstance, and once they were out of the situation they would revert to their infidelity and revolt. In condemning their hardheartedness, the passages hint to the purpose of the divine mission. The purpose was to stimulate and produce an effect on the heart and the mind of man to move further. Stagnancy by adhering to the letter of the law of the scriptures or a blind following of the footsteps of the ancestors, is presented as against the divine plan. The hearts of the people are condemned as worse than even stones, as from some stones flows out the fresh life - giving water. (A.P.)

Verse 75

This verse speaks about the corruption or the alterations in the holy scriptures by the Jews. The criticisms by the independent Christian scholars prove this fact beyond any doubt6. What has been today discovered after laborious efforts of dispassionate research by independent scholars about the scriptures, has already been disclosed by the Holy Qur’an, a thousand and more than three hundred years ago that the scriptures have been corrupted to meet the selfish ends of the people.

Verse 76

It is clear from this verse that there were some converts to Islam from Judaism who, when meeting the Muslims frankly admitted Islam to be the True religion which fulfilled the prophecies about the advent of the Holy Prophet Muhammad but they in fact could not actually forsake their old and time - honoured creed. Such half converts would even give information about the prophecies and traditions in the unwritten lore of the rabbis which particulars were favourable to the claims of Islam.

Such men were reproached by the leaders or the cautious men in Judaism that they were supplying arms to the enemy for taking away the very ground under their own feet for they feared that the Muslims would successfully contend against them through those disclosures by those from the very Jewish camp.

Verse 77

This verse gives a reply to the false notion of the Jews that if none from their camp gives the information about the prophecies about the advent of Muhammad the Last Apostle of God, none would know them and their infidelity would be kept concealed with them “What know they not that God knoweth what they hide as well as what they declare?”

Verse 78

The word Amaniya denotes that, what is read out to the Jews are lies, vain desires, wishful thinking and mere conjectures of their priests and their savants. It is in a way a warning to the common man against his blindly following anyone and everyone who poses himself as a religious leader, without knowing his title to his claim.

The word Ummi generally means one who can neither write nor read any writing. The Arabs, who, a people as a whole, were illiterate and thus, knew neither to write nor to read anything, are generally addressed in the Qur’an as the Ummi people but the term can be used similarly to other people also. Here are meant those of the Jews who were such. To some commentators the Holy Prophet Muhammad is called Ummi because he was from Umm al-Qura, i.e. Mecca which was the Metropolis of Arabia. Thus, to the common commentators, the word Ummi used in addressing the Holy Prophet Muhammad means any one of the following interpretations:

1. One who can neither write nor read.

2. One from the general Arabic people.

3. An inhabitant of the city Mecca called the Umm al-Qura

But Ummi can be derived from the word ‘Umm’ meaning mother. The derivation Ummi used in the case of the Holy Prophet only means to say the one whose personal qualities manifesting from him during his lifetime being owned by him as divinely endowed in his nature from the time of his very birth and not acquired from any mortal during his life on earth. This interpretation suits the most, in the case of the Holy Prophet Muhammad. (A.P.)

‘Ummi’ means the person who remains the same in his native endowments as he was born from his mother without any external education or training from any one whomsoever, which is ordinarily known as illiteracy. But in the case of the Holy Prophet it does not mean that he was illiterate but that he did not acquire any knowledge or receive any education but by God Himself7 ‘

وَعَلَّمَكَ مَا لَمْ تَكُنْ تَعْلَمُ

‘Allamaka ma lam ta’lam’ (4:113).

Otherwise, it will be absurd on the part of any one to believe that God had sent an illiterate to educate the illiterates, to teach mankind the Book and Wisdom8. Here the Holy Qur’an condemns both the illiterates who knew nothing of the scriptures but held false hopes and followed mere recitations and their knowledge being nothing but conjectures. Similarly, it condemns the priestcraft who used to present their own views as the word of God for some worldly gain.

Once when the sixth Holy Imam Ja’far Ibn Muhammad ‘As-Sadiq’ was asked that it was right to condemn the priests for misleading the common man and why should the poor ignorant one be blamed for having been misled when he did not know the truth. In reply the Holy Imam said ‘No.’ The conscience in the heart of the heart of every man knows that for the divine guidance one should not blindly follow anyone and everyone without any regard to the merit or the demerit pertaining to the conduct and the character of the individual as one poses oneself as the guide, as it is explained in the subsequent pages. The same is applicable to the common man today particularly to those in the Muslim folds. (A.P.)

Verse 79

This verse refers to what the priests of the Jews used to do. In order to obstruct their people finding in the Holy Prophet Muhammad the qualities of the Last Apostle of God mentioned in their holy scriptures, they had corrupted and made unwarranted additions and alterations in the text of their Holy Book, concerning the prophecies about the advent of the Last Apostle of God, The Holy Prophet Muhammad. They effected false and misleading interpretations of the text and presented the works of their own vicious minds and wicked hands i.e. their own writings as the word of God.

Verse 80

George Sale writes ‘it is the received opinion among the Jews at present, that no person, be he ever so wicked, or of whatever sect, shall remain in hell above eleven months or at the most a year except Dathan or Aburam, the atheists who will be tormented there to all eternity’.

Verse 81

‘Man Kasaba Sayyi’atan’ whoever earneth evil. Earning is affected in return for something to profit one’s self. This is quite different from merely falling into evil. It is to seek one’s own gain is an evil. One sin leads to another sin and thus, the conscience of the individual gets gradually deadened till the individual gets naturalized in sinning and is totally abandoned to evils and acquires justification for eternal punishment. The law of cause and effect works in its natural order in the case of evil as in the case of virtue. Those who devote themselves wholly to evil, must naturally find themselves beset on every side by the consequent evil effects of the causative evil factors wrought by the individuals. But those who struggle against evil, however long it may take for them to overcome, the inclination towards the evil, cannot be those who are out to earn evil whereas those who struggle to overcome evil hate and detest it and the effort to overcome evil with the earnestness and the sincerity of the individual, naturally ends in the triumph of the good in the human nature and the endeavour of good against evil as a natural consequence of the struggle strengthens the nobility in the individual’s personality.

In the case of purposefully yielding to evil with a selfish motive of any selfish gain gradually erects a fortress of evil for the individual so that the access of good becomes more and more difficult and ultimately renders the individual’s approach to any goodness as impossible. As the individual is totally lost for all times, to evil, and he convicts himself to perpetual consequences of the evil all around him for all times. (A.P.)

As already pointed out the means of the salvation for man is his firm adherence to the divine covenant and his faithful and loyal attachment to the divinely commissioned guides9 and it is obvious that misdeeds or sins weaken the faith and adherence and the attachment to goodness, and the excess of it may result in the total severance of the connection, and in the individual getting totally lost in the darkness of infidelity hence the eternal punishment and no salvation for such a man. But if even the slightest connection remains intact at the close of this life i.e. at the time of his departure from this world, the hope for the ultimate salvation after the long suffering will be justified. But as the Holy Imam says that man should never depend on such hopes and venture to commit any sins for two reasons:

1. Man does not know the length of the term of the suffering attached to each of the sins he commits. It may be even thousands of years to complete each such term.

2. One sin leads to the other and it may ultimately result in the individual getting himself encompassed by his sins and thus, getting totally disconnected with the divine Guides and the covenant. (A.P.)

Verse 82

It is noteworthy here that Islam does not mention of an)’ value or worth of mere faith without its being translated into action. Wherever Iman i.e. Faith is demanded, it is for ‘Amale Saleh’ i.e. Virtue in action.

• 1. Vide: 4:157.
• 2. Vide: Inna Nahnu nazzalnaz Zikr. (15:9).
• 3. Vide: Books on Geological researches. (B.H.).
• 4. Vide: 17:44.
• 5. Vide: Dr. Bose’s famous work ‘Response in the Living and the Non-Living’.
• 6. Vide: Encyclopedia Brittanica - the various criticisms against the Bible by the Watch Tower Society.
• 7. Vide: 55:1 – 2; 53:5; 96:4 -5.
• 8. Vide: 62:2.
• 9. Vide: 2:38.