Tafseer of The Cow · Al-Baqara · 2:100
Is it not [true] that every time they took a covenant a party of them threw it away? But, [in fact], most of them do not believe.
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
The discourse on the explanation of the saying of the Exalted: أَوَكُلَّمَا عَاهَدُوا عَهْدًا نَبَذَهُ فَرِيقٌ مِنْهُمْ بَلْ أَكْثَرُهُمْ لا يُؤْمِنُونَ (100)
(And every time they made a covenant, did a party of them cast it aside? Nay, most of them do not believe.) (2:100)
Abū Jaʿfar said: The scholars of the Arabic language differ regarding the status of the "wāw" in His saying: (a-wa-kullamā ʿāhadū ʿahdan — "and every time they made a covenant"). Some grammarians of Basra said: it is a "wāw" placed together with the interrogative particles, and it is equivalent to the "fāʾ" in His saying: أَفَكُلَّمَا جَاءَكُمْ رَسُولٌ بِمَا لا تَهْوَى أَنْفُسُكُمُ اسْتَكْبَرْتُمْ [al-Baqarah: 87] (Every time a messenger came to you with something your souls did not desire, did you behave arrogantly?). He said: and both of them are, in this respect, redundant (zāʾidatān), and it is equivalent to the "fāʾ" that occurs in his saying: "fa-llāhi la-taṣnaʿanna kadhā wa-kadhā" (by Allah, you shall surely do such-and-such), (77) and like your saying to a man: "a-fa-lā taqūm?" ("will you not then stand up?"). And if you wish, you may here regard the "fāʾ" and the "wāw" as a conjunctive particle (ḥarf ʿaṭf).
And some grammarians of Kufa said: it is a conjunctive particle prefixed with the interrogative particle.
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And what is correct in this matter, in my view, of the two sayings, is that it is a conjunctive "wāw" prefixed with the "alif" of interrogation, as though He — exalted be His praise — said: وَإِذْ أَخَذْنَا مِيثَاقَكُمْ وَرَفَعْنَا فَوْقَكُمُ الطُّورَ خُذُوا مَا آتَيْنَاكُمْ بِقُوَّةٍ وَاسْمَعُوا قَالُوا سَمِعْنَا وَعَصَيْنَا (And when We took your covenant and raised the mountain above you: "Hold firmly to what We have given you and listen" — they said: "We hear and we disobey"), (a-wa-kullamā ʿāhadū ʿahdan nabadhahu farīqun minhum — "and every time they made a covenant, a party of them cast it aside"). Then He prefixed the "alif" of interrogation to "wa-kullamā", and said: (qālū samiʿnā wa-ʿaṣaynā — "they said: we hear and we disobey") (a-wa-kullamā ʿāhadū ʿahdan nabadhahu farīqun minhum).
And we have already explained earlier that it is not permissible that there should occur in the Book of Allah a particle that has no meaning, (78) and that renders it unnecessary to repeat the exposition concerning the untenability of the saying of the one who claims that the "wāw" and the "fāʾ" in His saying (a-wa-kullamā) and (a-fa-kullamā) are redundant and have no meaning.
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As for "the covenant" (al-ʿahd): that is the solemn pledge (mīthāq) which the Children of Israel gave to their Lord, that they would time after time act according to what is in the Torah, after which some of them broke it time after time. Thereupon He — exalted be His mention — reproached them for what arose from them in that, and He rebuked their sons for treading their path in a portion of that which He — exalted be His mention — had obliged them to believe concerning the affair of Muḥammad ﷺ, namely the covenant and the solemn pledge. Thus they disbelieved (kafarū) and denied what is in the Torah concerning his description and characteristics. Therefore He — exalted be His mention — said: And every time the Jews of the Children of Israel made a covenant with their Lord and confirmed it with a solemn pledge, did a party of them cast it aside, abandon it, and break it? As in:
1639 — Abū Kurayb related to us, saying: Yūnus ibn Bukayr related to us, saying: Ibn Isḥāq related to us, saying: Muḥammad ibn Abī Muḥammad, the freedman (mawlā) of Zayd ibn Thābit, related to me, saying: Saʿīd ibn Jubayr — or ʿIkrima — related to me, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: Mālik ibn al-Ṣayf said — when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was sent, and he mentioned the solemn pledge that had been taken from them, and what Allah had bound them to therein —: "By Allah, He charged us with nothing concerning Muḥammad ﷺ, and He took from us no solemn pledge for him!" Thereupon Allah — exalted be His praise — revealed: (a-wa-kullamā ʿāhadū ʿahdan nabadhahu farīqun minhum bal aktharuhum lā yuʾminūn — "And every time they made a covenant, did a party of them cast it aside? Nay, most of them do not believe"). (79)
1640 — Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Salama related to us, saying: Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq related to us, saying: Muḥammad ibn Abī Muḥammad, the freedman of the family of Zayd ibn Thābit, related to me, on the authority of ʿIkrima, the freedman of Ibn ʿAbbās, or on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, the like of it.
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Abū Jaʿfar said: As for "the casting aside" (al-nabdh): its original meaning — in the language of the Arabs — is throwing away, and for this reason a foundling is called "al-manbūdh" (the cast-aside one), (80) because he has been thrown away and discarded. And from this, raisin-drink is called "nabīdh", because it is raisins or dates that are thrown into a vessel and then prepared with water. Its original form is "mafʿūl", transformed into "faʿīl" — I mean that "al-nabīdh" is originally "manbūdh" and was then transformed into "faʿīl", so that one says: "nabīdh", just as one says: "kaffun khaḍīb" (a dyed palm) and "liḥyatun dahīn" (an oiled beard) — that is to say: dyed and oiled. (81) From this one says: "nabadhtuhu, anbidhuhu, nabdhan" (I cast it aside, I cast it aside, a casting), as Abū al-Aswad al-Duʾalī said:
I looked at its inscription and then cast it aside, just as you cast aside a sandal worn out from your sandals. (82)
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The meaning of His saying — exalted be His mention: (nabadhahu farīqun minhum — "a party of them cast it aside") is: a party of them threw it away, abandoned it, discarded it, and broke it. As in:
1641 — Bishr ibn Muʿādh related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda: (nabadhahu farīqun minhum — "a party of them cast it aside"), he says: a party of them broke it.
1642 — Al-Qāsim related to us, saying: Al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Ḥajjāj related to me, on the authority of Ibn Jurayj, concerning His saying: (nabadhahu farīqun minhum — "a party of them cast it aside"), he said: there was on earth no covenant over which they made an agreement but they broke it; and they would make a covenant today and break it tomorrow. He said: and in the reading (qirāʾa) of ʿAbdallāh it is: (naqaḍahu farīqun minhum — "a party of them broke it").
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And the "hāʾ" in His saying: (nabadhahu — "cast it aside") refers to the covenant. Its meaning is therefore: and every time they made a covenant, a party of them cast that covenant aside.
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And "al-farīq" (the party) is a collective; it has no singular of the same root, in the same way as "al-jaysh" (the army) and "al-rahṭ" (the band), which have no singular of the same root. (83)
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And the "hāʾ" and the "mīm" in His saying: (farīqun minhum — "a party of them") refer to the Jews of the Children of Israel.
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As for His saying: (bal aktharuhum lā yuʾminūn — "nay, most of them do not believe"), by it He — exalted be His praise — means: nay, most of these — those of whom, every time they made a covenant with Allah and confirmed it with a solemn pledge, a party broke it — do not believe.
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There are two modes of interpretation (taʾwīl) for this: One is that the saying is an indication of the increase and multiplication in the number of the deniers who break the covenant of Allah, relative to the number of the party. Then the meaning of the saying at that point is: and every time the Jews of the Children of Israel made a covenant with their Lord, did a party of them break that covenant? Nay — it is not that only a party of them break it, but those who break it and become disbelievers in Allah are the most of them, not the small portion of them. This, then, is one of the two modes.
And the other mode is that its meaning is: and every time the Jews made a covenant with their Lord, did a party of them cast that covenant aside? Nay — it is not that only a party of them cast that covenant aside and break it — while believing that this is not permissible for them — but most of them do not believe in Allah and His messengers, nor in His promise and His threat. And we have already shown earlier in this book of ours what the meaning of "belief" (al-īmān) is, namely that it is holding-to-be-true (al-taṣdīq). (84)
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Footnotes:
(77) I do not know what Ṭabarī meant by this.
(78) See what preceded, 1: 439–441.
(79) The report 1639 — is found in the Sīra of Ibn Hishām 2: 196, with a slight variation in wording. Ibn Hishām mentioned in 2: 161 "Mālik ibn al-Ṣayf" and said: "it is also said: ibn Ḍayf".
(80) In the tafsīr of Ibn Kathīr 1: 247 it reads: "and the foundling (al-laqīṭ) is called…" and "al-laqīṭ" is better than "al-malqūṭ".
(81) See what preceded, 1: 112.
(82) His dīwān: 21 (in Nafāʾis al-makhṭūṭāt: 2), and it also occurs in 20: 49–50 (Būlāq edition), and in Majāz al-Qurʾān: 48, belonging to the verses he wrote to his friend al-Ḥuṣayn ibn al-Ḥurr, who was governor over Maysān, and who had written to him about a matter that concerned him, but he was held back from it; and before the verse stands:
And the one I had sent informed me that you took my letter heedlessly with your left hand.
(83) See what preceded in this part, 2: 244, 245.
(84) See what preceded, 1: 234–235, 271, 560, and this part, 2: 143, 348.
