The Jews and the Christians accusing each other, Vanishing of those who obstruct prayers in mosques and ruin them, Assigning a son to God is the denial of His perfection - Demand for direct revelation and miracles, The Apostle of God not responsible for the disbelief of the people Islam alone guarantees salvation.

Al-Baqarah Verses 113 - 121

وَقَالَتِ الْيَهُودُ لَيْسَتِ النَّصَارَىٰ عَلَىٰ شَيْءٍ وَقَالَتِ النَّصَارَىٰ لَيْسَتِ الْيَهُودُ عَلَىٰ شَيْءٍ وَهُمْ يَتْلُونَ الْكِتَابَ كَذَٰلِكَ قَالَ الَّذِينَ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ مِثْلَ قَوْلِهِمْ فَاللَّهُ يَحْكُمُ بَيْنَهُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ فِيمَا كَانُوا فِيهِ يَخْتَلِفُونَ

“The Jews say the Christians rest on naught; the Christians say the Jews rest on naught; yet they (both) read the (same) Book; Even so like their sayings speak those who know not. God will judge between them on the Day of Judgment in what they differ” (2:113).

وَمَنْ أَظْلَمُ مِمَّنْ مَنَعَ مَسَاجِدَ اللَّهِ أَنْ يُذْكَرَ فِيهَا اسْمُهُ وَسَعَىٰ فِي خَرَابِهَا أُولَٰئِكَ مَا كَانَ لَهُمْ أَنْ يَدْخُلُوهَا إِلَّا خَائِفِينَ لَهُمْ فِي الدُّنْيَا خِزْيٌ وَلَهُمْ فِي الْآخِرَةِ عَذَابٌ عَظِيمٌ

“And who is more unjust than he who preventeth the Mosques of God of His name being remembered therein and striveth to ruin them? It is not (fit) for such (men) to enter them but in fear; for them is disgrace in this world and a great punishment in the hereafter” (2:114).

وَلِلَّهِ الْمَشْرِقُ وَالْمَغْرِبُ فَأَيْنَمَا تُوَلُّوا فَثَمَّ وَجْهُ اللَّهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ وَاسِعٌ عَلِيمٌ

“And God’s is the East and the West, Therefore, whithersoever ye turn ye find the face of God; Verily God is All-Pervading, and All-Knowing” (2:115).

وَقَالُوا اتَّخَذَ اللَّهُ وَلَدًا سُبْحَانَهُ بَلْ لَهُ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ كُلٌّ لَهُ قَانِتُونَ

“And they say God hath taken unto Him a son, glory be to Him, Nay! His is all that is in the heavens and the earth; Him (alone) everything Obeyeth (Supplicantly)” (2:116).

بَدِيعُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَإِذَا قَضَىٰ أَمْرًا فَإِنَّمَا يَقُولُ لَهُ كُنْ فَيَكُونُ

“The (Wonderful’) Originator of the heavens and the earth (from nought) (is He) and when He decreeth an affair He only sayeth to it “BE” and it “IS”“ (2:117).

وَقَالَ الَّذِينَ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ لَوْلَا يُكَلِّمُنَا اللَّهُ أَوْ تَأْتِينَا آيَةٌ كَذَٰلِكَ قَالَ الَّذِينَ مِنْ قَبْلِهِمْ مِثْلَ قَوْلِهِمْ ۘ تَشَابَهَتْ قُلُوبُهُمْ قَدْ بَيَّنَّا الْآيَاتِ لِقَوْمٍ يُوقِنُونَ

“And say those (pagans) who know not: “Why speaketh not God unto us or why cometh not unto us a sign;” Even so spake those before them; Their hearts are alike; We have indeed made clear the signs to people who are certainly sure” (2:118).

إِنَّا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ بِالْحَقِّ بَشِيرًا وَنَذِيرًا وَلَا تُسْأَلُ عَنْ أَصْحَابِ الْجَحِيمِ

“Verily We have sent thee with the Truth, a Bearer of glad tidings and a Warner and thou shalt not be questioned as to the companions of the blazing Hell (Fire)” (2:119).

وَلَنْ تَرْضَىٰ عَنْكَ الْيَهُودُ وَلَا النَّصَارَىٰ حَتَّىٰ تَتَّبِعَ مِلَّتَهُمْ قُلْ إِنَّ هُدَى اللَّهِ هُوَ الْهُدَىٰ وَلَئِنِ اتَّبَعْتَ أَهْوَاءَهُمْ بَعْدَ الَّذِي جَاءَكَ مِنَ الْعِلْمِ ۙ مَا لَكَ مِنَ اللَّهِ مِنْ وَلِيٍّ وَلَا نَصِيرٍ

“And never will the Jews be pleased with thee nor the Christians until thou followeth their creed; Say (O’ Our Apostle Muhammad), “verily the guidance from God is the (true) guidance”; And verily if thou followeth their whims after the knowledge which hath come unto thee, then wouldst thou have from God neither a protector nor a helper” (2:120).

الَّذِينَ آتَيْنَاهُمُ الْكِتَابَ يَتْلُونَهُ حَقَّ تِلَاوَتِهِ أُولَٰئِكَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِهِ وَمَنْ يَكْفُرْ بِهِ فَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْخَاسِرُونَ

“Those unto whom We have given the Book, who read it as it should be read; it is they who believe therein; and those who disbelieve in it, those are they who are the losers” (2:121).

Commentary

Verse 113

‘Ala Shaiyin’ means confirming anything worth being considered. By the definition those who know not are meant the heathens whose religious beliefs are based upon their own personal conjectures and not upon any authority of any scripture revealed to any apostle of God.

Both the Jews and the Christians follow the Old Testament yet each one of them denies all goodness in the creed of the other. The Qur’an emphatically declares the ignorance of both religionists. In view of the fact that the Holy Prophet had not read the scriptures of the other religions, it is a matter of wonder that he declares the truth that what the one group of the religionists claim against the other having any good in them is wrong, which means that there is partial truth in all religions professed in the names of the true apostles of God and it is only the lies and the prejudices that have so completely encrusted themselves on each other that they cannot even recognise the original identity of the basic belief and faith.

On the Day of Judgment, they will know of the bias, pride and prejudice which held the complete sway upon their minds to prevent them and to keep them away from the truth.

Verse 114

The Meccans had shut out the Muslims from visiting the Holy Ka’ba in Mecca. The Quraishites did not allow the Holy Prophet to visit Mecca in 7 A.H. on pilgrimage to the Holy Ka’ba. The verse is more a prophecy than a mere statement. The Quraishites were very shortly completely conquered, subjugated, and made to bow to the Holy Prophet along with the very people (the Muslims) whom they persecuted and prevented from repairing to the Holy Mosque, the Ka’ba.

It is a prophecy of the ultimate triumph of Islam and the downfall of its antagonists. The wording of the verse gives a general prophecy applicable not only to the particular case which it immediately refers but to every similar event and offender. The reference to striving to destroy the mosques has no evidence of the Quraishites at any time even thinking of destroying the Ka’ba. Evidently the verse is also a prophecy about the conduct of the Munafiqs at the hypocrites at Madina who contemplated and conspired to kill the Holy Prophet while returning from Tabuk and then to level to the ground all the mosques at Madina and elsewhere.

A Muslim Mosque means a place where the One True God is remembered and adored. Thus, in a wider and a higher sense of the meaning of the word ‘Mosque,’ all the sacred shrines of the Holy Ahl Al-Bayt, can be nothing but mosques for in them nothing else is done, accepting offering sincerest prayers, adoration, and supplication to God and to none else. Hence whoever stops people from approaching these shrines or endeavours to act or actually destroys these holy shrines undoubtedly comes under this ordinance of God.

Verse 115

Once the Holy Prophet had sent out an army. The men camped outside Madina for a night. The skies were fully clouded, and the night was very dark. The people could not fix up the correct direction of the Qiblah for the night prayer. They used their own discretion and turned towards an approximate direction and offered their night prayers. At the break of the dawn they found out the directions they had fixed for their prayers the night before were all wrong. On their return to Madina they informed the Holy Prophet, and repeated the prayers and got mindful of the mistake they had committed the night before. Then to console those sincere devotees of God, this verse was revealed. (Tafsir Kabir).

The word ‘Tawalla’ meaning ‘turn’ means here to say that whichever direction the Muslims would turn they will have victory. If the address in the verse be taken for the infidels, the meaning will be that whichever way they may flee towards, they will meet the Might of God.

The contents refer to the omnipresence of God as the Absolute Reality, the hold of which penetrates the universe in its every part and particle as well as its whole, meaning both the rise of the light in the East and its setting in the West are the various aspects of the manifestation of God’s Might and Glory i.e., whichever direction the mind turns there is this aspect of His. To interpret ‘Wajh’, as the purpose as the Ahmadi Commentator has chosen to do, will be a linguistic misappropriation to effect a motivated confusion. ‘Wajh’ actually means face which stands for the manifesting side of a thing which sense is true in the case of every part and particle of the universe or the creation as a whole. And in this sense God has been presented here as the All-Pervading Omniscient One (He being in everything and everything being in Him).

The manifestation of the ‘Wajh’ i.e. the face, serves the purpose of man i.e. his directing his turn to God, and not the purpose of God.

The point noteworthy here is that the East and the West mentioned here should not be taken as confined to the directions where the Sun rises or sets, they are only relative expressions. Otherwise, the Sun neither rises nor sets1.

The various usages of this term in the singular, dual and plural forms in the Holy Qur’an along with the statements of Hazrat Ali ‘Fauqa hazihil Qamar Aqmarun wa fauqa hazihish Shams Shumoosun’ i.e., beyond this Moon are many Moons and beyond this Sun are many Suns (Bihar al-Anwar) support the relative value of the expression. It may refer to the rising and setting of our Moon and Sun or that of the Moons and the Suns in the different other horizons. Sometimes it is used to indicate the opposite directions of the earth viz., ‘Mashriq al-Ardh’ i.e., the eastern directions of the earth or ‘Maghrib al-Ardh’ i.e., the western directions of the earth. In any case the verb is derived from ‘Sharaqa’ i.e., Beaming or Radiating with light. It may be physical or spiritual2.

Hence the place or the direction from which the light beams is termed as ‘Mashriq’ i.e., the east, and the place or the direction in which the light sets is the ‘Maghrib’ i.e., the west. Hence the terms ‘Mashriq’ or ‘Maghrib’ should be taken in their wider i.e., in a more comprehensive sense to include all the kinds of lights, physical and spiritual, proceeding from the Absolute to enlighten the various spheres of existence in the universe. This sense tallies appropriately with the divine attribute ‘Waasiyun Aleem’ with which this verse concludes. Being revealed in connection with the issue relating to the ‘Qiblah’ it does not restrict the significance to the physical east and the west only of this earth. As a matter of fact, any peculiarity of any circumstance in the varying passage of the Holy Qur’an does not affect the universality which the passage signifies.

Another example of the term ‘Mashriq’ and ‘Maghrib’ in a comprehensive sense is ‘Mashriqe - Wojood’ i.e., the first creation in which the unity of the Absolute is totally manifested and ‘Maghribe - Wojood’ i.e., the matter in which the unity disappears and gives its place to multiplicity. The matter can be taken as the ‘Mashriq’ of the multiplicity and the Absolute as its ‘Maghrib’ wherein all the multiplicity disappears. (A.P.)

Verse 116

The doctrine of God having son or sons, particularly the Christian belief about Jesus as the son of God is refuted here. The pagans believed and held the idea that the angels were the daughters of God. Ezra was revered by some Jewish sect as the son of God. The Arabic phrase ‘Subhanahu’ means freedom from all kinds of impurities and imperfections found in the creatures. To believe God having any issues is to attribute to Him the imperfection of having equals in homogeneity with his issues which miserably mars the quality of perfect unity of the Divine Being. The Jews and the Christians metaphorically called men of supreme virtues like the apostles of God, from Adam to Jesus as the sons of God3.

But the masses can never be expected to always hold or maintain metaphors as mere metaphors. The natural and the irresistible consequence of the use of the metaphorical term for the apostles of God, particularly in the case of Christendom, was the horrible corruption of the sublime Christian faith. Hence the use of the term son or daughter of God for anyone or anything, as a doctrine or as in the sense of a metaphor is the most horrible, intolerable, and unpardonable sin and a crime4.

When everything in the heavens and the earth and in between them is nothing but the creation of the One, Single and the Only Almighty God, believing in anything which means or sounds any kind of or in any sense equality with Him in authority becomes meaningless. The main, the sole, or the whole of the basic doctrine upon which the edifice as a whole of the religion Islam, is the perfect Unity of the All-Divine One.

Verse 117

‘Badi’ means Beginner, Maker, Designer, without any similitude whatsoever in the pre - existence bringing into existence, things for the first time. The first of the Holy Imams Ali Ibn Ali Talib, The first divinely commissioned Guide immediately succeeding Muhammad the Last Apostle of God, in his addresses lays stress again and again upon this attribute of God:

“He (God) created the creation in the perfect sense of creating and began it in the perfect sense of beginning, without a thought rolled into His mind and without an experience to avail of and without any motion excited or any attention devoted to it”5.

‘Be and it is’ - This term is only to bring home to the human mind the Omnipotent will which, properly speaking, can never be translated into any verbal expression. Ali Ibn Ali Talib whom the Holy Prophet had declared ‘I, (i.e. the Holy Prophet himself) am the City of Knowledge and Ali is its Gate,’ says about the divine Omnipotence that His will is executed:

‘Not by Sound uttered, nor by Voice heard, His Word, blessed be He, is Action proceeding from Him’.

In refuting the Christian theory of the sonship of Jesus, here and in many other passages of the Holy Qur’an, has been used ‘Badi’ meaning creation. To understand the exact meaning of ‘Badi’ i.e., creation, as meant in the Holy Qur’an, it needs a brief definition of the four principles of the causative factors responsible for the existence of the finite being:

1. Material cause.

2. Formal cause.

3. Initial Cause.

4. Final Cause.

For example, a building owes its existence to the following factors:

1. The material out of which it is made.

2. The particular shape or form in which the material has been arranged.

These two causes are called the structural causes of which the building exists.

1. The person who brought the material into the shape is called the agential cause.

2. And the motive or the purpose which moved the agent as the final cause.

And these two are called the agential causes i.e., the agency through which the building is made;

Taking the universe or any part or parts of it as the effect, the term creation will be true according to the view which holds the matter as well as its form to owe their existence to the agential cause. Creation means bringing a thing into being out of nothing through the agency of the will of the agential cause without even the slightest change or attitude in the essence or the attributes of the agent. The Holy Qur’an insists on the point that the relation of the Absolute to all finite beings is the relation of the creator and the creatures and therefore, none other than the creator can be eternal, or co - existing with the Creator or as a part of His. (A.P.)

Verse 118

The people used to refuse to believe in the apostleship of the apostles of God and in the truthfulness of the faith they preached as a divinely revealed religion unless either God spoke to them or there be a proof through some heavenly sign that God reveals His will through His own selected men.

Similar question had been raised against the ministries of the previous Prophets viz., Abraham, Moses, and even after his working of his own accord numerous miracles Jesus was not spared from such preposterous demands from the Jews and the others to which once, he has been reported to have said:

‘No sign shall be given to this people except the sign of Jonah the Prophet.’

‘But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the Prophet Jonah.’ St. Mathew 12/39.

Some of the readers of the Holy Qur’an have been beguiled by wrong interpretation of this verse and the alike verse to say that the Holy Prophet disclaimed for himself the power of working any miracle at all. It is nothing short of blasphemy. The Holy Qur’an itself bears evidence to the Holy Prophet working the several miracles of highest gravity in the realm of the nature enveloping this universe of ours viz., the splitting of the Moon (Verse 1,2) which was attributed to magic.

What the people demanded of the Holy Prophet Muhammad has been given in the following verses:

وَقَالُوا لَنْ نُؤْمِنَ لَكَ حَتَّىٰ تَفْجُرَ لَنَا مِنَ الْأَرْضِ يَنْبُوعًا

“And they say. ‘We will never believe in thee till thou, bring out springs for us from the earth’” (17:90).

أَوْ تَكُونَ لَكَ جَنَّةٌ مِنْ نَخِيلٍ وَعِنَبٍ فَتُفَجِّرَ الْأَنْهَارَ خِلَالَهَا تَفْجِيرًا

“Or that there be a garden for thee of dates and pomegranates, and springs run in it plentifully” (17:91).

أَوْ تُسْقِطَ السَّمَاءَ كَمَا زَعَمْتَ عَلَيْنَا كِسَفًا أَوْ تَأْتِيَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْمَلَائِكَةِ قَبِيلًا

“Or that the heavens might fall [as thou thinkest] over us, or thou bring God and His angels in a tribe” (17:92)

A disbelief in the ability of the Holy Prophet Muhammad will render the great number of his miracles recorded in History and given out by authentic and the unbreakable evidence of the traditions and over and above all these, those recorded in the Holy Qur’an can be nothing but the wishful thinking or the fairy tales or the mythological legends fabricated by the Muslims. It is to establish this strongly motivated move on the part of the enemies of the Holy Prophet and his Holy Ahl Al-Bayt that it is said that the Holy Prophet had no power of working miracles.

The fact is that not only the Holy Prophet but also the divinely chosen ones of his holy family called the Holy Imams have worked miracles whenever they deemed it necessary and serviceable to any useful purpose and never to merely answer any challenge from any antagonistic individual or group, who even after witnessing a miracle will evade surrendering their mind to Truth calling the miracles a sorcery or jugglery.

Besides a belief generated by the show’ of any wonderful event, deprives the individual of the real value of his faith through his personal reasoning and the resultant conviction.

The spirit in which the demand for miracles was made, was to satisfy the individual’s lust for wonders. It was not the business of any apostle of God, particularly the Holy Prophet the Last one of them, to satisfy the lust of the people for merely witnessing wonders. The reply given by Jesus, to his people has already been given above that: “Verily I say unto you, no Sign shall be given to this people”

The fact is that those who do not trust their reasoning and always haunted by thoughts and imagination of unknown possibilities make preposterous demands in their arguments and are never convinced by any amount of evidence or proof for they ever doubt and continue to merely argue out their objections. Such persistent perverts with strongly motivated prejudice have always to be wisely answered by silence. When Jesus was brought before Herod and asked to work a miracle, the Holy Apostle of God, Jesus, who has already worked a great number of miracles and whose very birth has been the greatest miracle that humanity bad ever witnessed, could never be deemed to be void of the power to work a miracle.

Verse 119

It goes without saying that an apostle of God, can only do his best in preaching the truth and the code of self-discipline and setting his own examples of his practical life and can never reasonably be responsible for the people refusing to believe in him and rejecting what he preached. But the Holy Prophet Muhammad was extraordinarily concerned with the people being guided to the right path and was always mindful of their being rescued from the degradation and the curse of God falling upon the disbelievers. Hence it was repeatedly revealed to allay the fears for the transgressors that he will not be questioned about the fellows of the hellfire i.e., the disbelievers, for God knows those who avail of the guidance and those who reject it6.

Verse 120

By the threat addressed to the Holy Prophet, is meant the people who go astray. The point in addressing the threat to the Holy Prophet himself is quite apparent that the object was to make the people seriously concerned with the matter. Otherwise, it can never mean that the Holy Prophet himself was one like the people liable to err. If it is believed to be so, it very badly reflects upon the judgment of the All wise Lord in selecting him above all other men for the highest office of the Prince of the Prophets to be the Last Law - Giver and the Final-Warner to humanity as a whole for all times until the Day of Judgment, for none could reasonably be positively sure that any fallible being, would not at some time or other, fall into error, and it would necessitate the people to be always cautious in receiving his teachings against getting astray, whereas God addressing mankind commands to receive whatever the Holy Prophet gives and to abstain from whatever he commands against7

In view of the Verse 33:33 which clearly declares the Holy Prophet and those of his Holy House to have been cleansed by God, how can the one who has been made free of every defect, external and internal ever be fallible? The fallibility of the Holy Prophet and those of his Holy Family, chosen by God who are meant in Verse 33:33 is not a difficulty but an impossibility.

Verse 121

Here are meant the Muslims and the Book means the Holy Quran.

This verse if read intelligently leads to the meaning that the Book the Holy Qur’an was originally revealed i.e. given to the Holy Prophet and it is given to those also who are one with the Holy Prophet both in flesh, blood, spirit and the Divine Light viz. the Holy Imams the first of whom is Ali son of Abu Talib, the cousin, the vicegerent, the immediate successor to the Holy Prophet as the first Imam after the conclusion of the Final apostleship about whom the Holy Prophet had declared: “Thy flesh is my flesh, thy blood is my blood”.

And on the Day of Mubahila with the Christians of Najran the Holy Prophet proved to the world at large that Ali was his ‘Nafs’ i.e. soul8 The Holy Prophet has also declared the identity of the personality of Ali with his saying “I and Ali are of one and the same Light” Hence those meant in this verse as the ones given the Book (i.e. the Holy Qur’an) are no other than the Holy Imams. This meaning is quite consistent with the quality of the recipients mentioned in the verse as those who read or follow the book as it ought to be followed.

Those who follow the Holy Qur’an as it ought to be done, can never desert the Holy Prophet at any time particularly when it is the question of life and death, not only for the apostle of God but also for Islam, the divinely chosen religion for mankind as a whole. This was proved beyond all doubts on the day of the battle of Uhud. When history declares aloud that everyone ran away from the field deserting the Holy Prophet excepting Ali which is nothing but a positive proof that besides the Holy Prophet Muhammad, Ali and Ali alone had studied and followed the Holy Qur’an as it ought to have been done. Needless to stress or explain any further for it is quite obvious from the events of history that the Holy Prophet Muhammad and only Ali and the eleven Imams in the seed of Muhammad and Ali, followed the Holy Qur’an as they ought to, and it is they that are meant in this verse.

• 1. The use of the expression in the different senses and meanings in the following verses: 43:38, 55:17, 7:137, 37:5, 26:28, 19:16, 24:35, 28:44, 61:8, 9:32, 5:15.
• 2. Vide: 33:43; 10:5; 42:52; 14:1; 57:19, 57:20.
• 3. Vide: the Old and the New Testament. Luke 3/38.
• 4. Vide: 31:13.
• 5. Nahj al-Balaghah, Sermon 1.
• 6. See Verse 118.
• 7. Vide: 59:7.
• 8. Vide: 3:54.