Tafseer of The Cow · Al-Baqara · 2:121
Those to whom We have given the Book recite it with its true recital. They [are the ones who] believe in it. And whoever disbelieves in it - it is they who are the losers.
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 explanation of the saying of the Exalted: الَّذِينَ آتَيْنَاهُمُ الْكِتَابَ (Those to whom We have given the Book)
Abū Jaʿfar said: The exegetes (ahl al-taʾwīl) differ over whom Allah — exalted be His praise — meant by His saying: "Those to whom We have given the Book." Some of them said: these are the believers who believed in the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and in what he brought, namely his companions.
*Mention of who said this:
1878 — Bishr ibn Muʿādh related to us, he said: Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ related to us, on the authority of Saʿīd, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning His saying: "Those to whom We have given the Book" — these are the companions of the Prophet of Allah ﷺ; they believed in the Book of Allah and held it to be true.
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Others said: No, by it Allah meant the scholars of the Banū Isrāʾīl who believed in Allah and held His messengers to be true, and thus acknowledged the ruling of the Torah. They acted upon what Allah commanded therein: the following of Muḥammad ﷺ, belief in him, and holding to be true what he brought from Allah.
*Mention of who said this:
1879 — Yūnus related to me, he said: Ibn Wahb informed us, he said: Ibn Zayd said concerning His saying: الَّذِينَ آتَيْنَاهُمُ الْكِتَابَ يَتْلُونَهُ حَقَّ تِلاوَتِهِ أُولَئِكَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِهِ وَمَنْ يَكْفُرْ بِهِ فَأُولَئِكَ هُمُ الْخَاسِرُونَ (Those to whom We have given the Book and who recite it as it ought to be recited — they are the ones who believe in it; and whoever disbelieves in it — they are the losers) — he said: Whoever of the Jews disbelieves in the Prophet ﷺ, those are the losers.
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This saying is closer to the truth than the saying which Qatāda made. For the verses which precede it dealt with the reports concerning the People of the two Books, and with the falsification by those among them who altered the Book of Allah, and with their interpretation of it in a manner that was not the correct interpretation, and with their false claims which they ascribed to Allah. In the verse before it, no mention is made of the companions of Muḥammad ﷺ, such that His saying "Those to whom We have given the Book" could be directed at a report about them; nor, after this verse, is there mention of them in the verse that follows it, such that it could be directed at a newly begun report about the histories of the companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, after the completion of the histories of others. Nor has any tradition (athar) been transmitted, to which one must submit, stating that this is a report about them.
Since that is so, what is most in accordance with the meaning of the verse is that it is directed at a report about those whose histories Allah — exalted be His praise — related in the verse before it and the verse after it, and they are the People of the two Books: the Torah and the Gospel. Since that is so, the interpretation of the verse is: Those to whom We have given the Book that you know, O Muḥammad — and that is the Torah — and who thus read it and followed what is in it, and therefore held you to be true and believed in you and in what you brought to them from Me — they are the ones who recite it as it ought to be recited.
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The definite-article letters alif and lām are placed in "al-kitāb" (the Book) because it is definite (maʿrifa); for the Prophet ﷺ and his companions knew which Book was meant by it.
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The explanation of the saying of the Exalted: يَتْلُونَهُ حَقَّ تِلاوَتِهِ (they recite it as it ought to be recited)
Abū Jaʿfar said: The exegetes differ over the interpretation of the saying of the Almighty: "they recite it as it ought to be recited." Some of them said: its meaning is: they follow it as it ought to be followed.
*Mention of who said this:
1880 — Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā related to me, he said: Ibn Abī ʿAdī and ʿAbd al-Aʿlā related to me; and ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī related to us, he said: Ibn Abī ʿAdī related to us — all together — on the authority of Dāwūd, on the authority of ʿIkrima, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — they follow it as it ought to be followed.
1881 — Al-Muthannā related to me, he said: ʿAbd al-Wahhāb related to us, he said: Dāwūd related to us, on the authority of ʿIkrima, with the same import.
1882 — And ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī related to us, he said: Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ related to us, he said: Dāwūd ibn Abī Hind related to us, on the authority of ʿIkrima, with the same import.
1883 — Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAmr al-ʿAnqazī related to me, he said: my father related to me, on the authority of Asbāṭ, on the authority of al-Suddī, on the authority of Abū Mālik, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās concerning the saying of Allah the Almighty: يَتْلُونَهُ حَقَّ تِلاوَتِهِ (they recite it as it ought to be recited) — he said: they declare permitted what it permits and forbidden what it forbids, and they do not distort it.
1884 — Mūsā related to me, he said: ʿAmr related to us, he said: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī, he said: Abū Mālik said: Ibn ʿAbbās said concerning "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — and he mentioned the same, except that he said: and they do not shift it from its places.
1885 — ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī related to us, he said: al-Muʾammal related to us, he said: Sufyān related to us, he said: Yazīd related to us, on the authority of Murra, on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh [ibn Masʿūd] concerning the saying of Allah the Almighty: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — he said: they follow it as it ought to be followed.
1886 — It was related to me on the authority of ʿAmmār, he said: Ibn Abī Jaʿfar related to us, on the authority of his father, on the authority of al-Rabīʿ, on the authority of Abū al-ʿĀliya, he said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd said: By Him in whose hand my soul lies, reciting it as it ought to be is: that one declares permitted what it permits and forbidden what it forbids, and that one recites it as Allah sent it down, and does not shift the words from their places, and does not interpret anything of it in a manner that is not the correct interpretation.
1887 — Al-Ḥasan ibn Yaḥyā related to us, he said: ʿAbd al-Razzāq informed us, he said: Maʿmar informed us, on the authority of Qatāda and Manṣūr ibn al-Muʿtamir, on the authority of Ibn Masʿūd concerning His saying: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — that one declares permitted what it permits and forbidden what it forbids, and does not shift it from its places.
1888 — Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq related to us, he said: [Abū Aḥmad] al-Zubayrī related to us, he said: ʿAbbād ibn al-ʿAwwām related to us, on the authority of someone he named, on the authority of ʿIkrima, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — they follow it as it ought to be followed.
1889 — Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq related to us, he said: Abū Aḥmad related to us, he said: ʿAbbād ibn al-ʿAwwām related to us, on the authority of al-Ḥajjāj, on the authority of ʿAṭāʾ, with the same import.
1890 — Muḥammad ibn Bashshār related to us, he said: Abū Aḥmad related to us, he said: Sufyān related to us, on the authority of Manṣūr, on the authority of Abū Razīn concerning His saying: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — he said: they follow it as it ought to be followed.
1891 — ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī related to us, he said: Muʾammal related to us, he said: Sufyān related to us — and al-Muthannā related to me, he said: Abū Nuʿaym related to me, he said: Sufyān related to us — and Naṣr ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Azdī related to me, he said: Yaḥyā ibn Ibrāhīm related to us, on the authority of Sufyān — they all said together: on the authority of Manṣūr, on the authority of Abū Razīn, with the same import.
1892 — Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, he said: Jarīr related to us, on the authority of Mughīra, on the authority of Mujāhid: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — he said: by acting upon it.
1893 — Yaʿqūb related to me, he said: Hushaym related to us, he said: ʿAbd al-Malik informed us, on the authority of Qays ibn Saʿd: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — he said: they follow it as it ought to be followed. Do you not see His saying: وَالْقَمَرِ إِذَا تَلاهَا [Surah al-Shams: 2] (And by the moon when it follows it) — by it the sun is meant, when the moon follows it.
1894 — Al-Muthannā related to me, he said: Suwayd ibn Naṣr related to us, he said: Ibn al-Mubārak informed us, on the authority of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Abī Sulaymān, on the authority of ʿAṭāʾ and Qays ibn Saʿd, on the authority of Mujāhid concerning His saying: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — he said: they act upon it as it ought to be acted upon.
1895 — Al-Muthannā related to me, he said: ʿAmr ibn ʿAwn related to us, he said: Hushaym informed us, on the authority of ʿAbd al-Malik, on the authority of Qays ibn Saʿd, on the authority of Mujāhid, he said: they follow it as it ought to be followed.
1896 — Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to me, he said: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, he said: ʿĪsā related to us, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid, with the same import.
1897 — Al-Muthannā related to me, he said: Abū Ḥudhayfa related to us, he said: Shibl related to us, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — they act upon it as it ought to be acted upon.
1898 — ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī related to us, he said: Muʾammal ibn Ismāʿīl related to us, he said: Ḥammād ibn Zayd related to us, on the authority of Ayyūb, on the authority of Mujāhid concerning His saying: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — he said: they follow it as it ought to be followed.
1899 — ʿAmr related to me, he said: Abū Qutayba related to us, he said: al-Ḥasan ibn Abī Jaʿfar related to us, on the authority of Abū Ayyūb, on the authority of Abū al-Khalīl, on the authority of Mujāhid: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — he said: they follow it as it ought to be followed.
1900 — ʿAmr related to us, he said: Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān related to us, on the authority of ʿAbd al-Malik, on the authority of ʿAṭāʾ concerning His saying: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — he said: they follow it as it ought to be followed; they act upon it as it ought to be acted upon.
1901 — Sufyān ibn Wakīʿ related to us, he said: my father related to me, on the authority of al-Mubārak, on the authority of al-Ḥasan: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — he said: they act upon its unambiguous part (muḥkam) and believe in its ambiguous part (mutashābih), and what is unclear to them, they entrust to Him who knows it.
1902 — Bishr ibn Muʿādh related to us, he said: Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ related to us, he said: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — he said: they declared permitted what it permits and forbidden what it forbids, and they acted upon what is in it. It has been transmitted to us that Ibn Masʿūd used to say: reciting it as it ought to be is: that one declares permitted what it permits and forbidden what it forbids, and that one recites it as Allah the Almighty sent it down, and does not shift it from its places.
1903 — ʿAmr related to us, he said: Abū Dāwūd related to us, he said: al-Ḥakam ibn ʿAṭiyya related to us: I heard Qatāda say: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — he said: they follow it as it ought to be followed. He said: the following of it is: that they declare permitted what it permits and forbidden what it forbids, and that they recite it as it was sent down.
1904 — Al-Muthannā related to us, he said: ʿAmr ibn ʿAwn related to us, he said: Hushaym informed us, on the authority of Dāwūd, on the authority of ʿIkrima concerning His saying: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — he said: they follow it as it ought to be followed. Have you not heard the saying of Allah the Almighty: وَالْقَمَرِ إِذَا تَلاهَا [Surah al-Shams: 2] (And by the moon when it follows it) — he said: when it follows it.
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Others said: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — they read it as it ought to be read.
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Abū Jaʿfar said: The correct view regarding its interpretation is that it has the meaning: they follow it as it ought to be followed, derived from the saying of him who says: "I kept following his trace (atlū atharahu)" when one follows his trace — this on the basis of the consensus (ijmāʿ) of the authoritative exegetes that that is its interpretation.
Since that is its interpretation, the meaning of the words is: Those to whom We have given the Book, O Muḥammad, namely the People of the Torah who believed in you and in what you brought them of truth from Me — they follow My Book which I sent down to My messenger Mūsā, Allah's blessings be upon him, and they believe in it and acknowledge what is in it concerning your characteristic and description, and that you are My messenger; that obedience to Me is obligatory upon them through belief in you and holding to be true what you brought them from Me; and they act upon what I have permitted them, and they avoid what I have forbidden them therein, and they do not shift it from its places, and they do not replace it nor alter it — as I sent it down to them — neither through interpretation nor otherwise.
* * *
As for His saying: "as it ought to be recited (ḥaqqa tilāwatihi)" — that is a form of emphasis in the description of their following of the Book and their adherence to acting upon it, as one says: "Verily, so-and-so is a scholar, a true scholar," and as one says: "Verily, so-and-so is excellent, the most excellent of all."
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The grammarians differ over the annexation (iḍāfa) of "ḥaqq" to a definite word (maʿrifa). Some grammarians of Kūfa said: it is not permissible to annex it to a definite word, because it has the meaning of "ayy" (which), and the meaning of your saying: "the most excellent man is so-and-so"; and "afʿal" (the comparative/superlative form) is not annexed to a single definite word, because it singles out something from a whole, and the singled-out singular cannot be definite. Therefore they deemed it impossible that one would say: "I passed by the man, the true man (ḥaqqa al-rajul)," and "I passed by the man, the real man (jidda al-rajul)," just as they deemed it impossible to say: "I passed by the man, which man (ayya al-rajul)"; but they permitted that with "the whole man (kulla al-rajul)" and "the man himself (ʿayna al-rajul)" and "the man in person (nafsa al-rajul)." And they said: we permitted that only because these words were originally words of emphasis (tawkīd), and when they became words of praise, they retained as words of praise their original property with respect to the definite word.
They claimed that His saying: "they recite it as it ought to be recited" — its annexation to "al-tilāwa" (the recitation) is only permissible, although that is annexed to a definite word, because the Arabs reckon the hāʾ (the suffixed pronoun) — when it refers back to an indefinite word (nakira) — as indefinite. Thus they say: "I passed by a man unique of his kind (wāḥidu ummihi), without equal (nasīju waḥdihi), the lord of his people (sayyidu qawmihi)." They said: so it is also with His saying: "as it ought to be recited (ḥaqqa tilāwatihi)" — the annexation of "ḥaqq" to "al-tilāwa" is only permissible, although that is annexed to the hāʾ, because the Arabs reckon the hāʾ in such cases among the indefinite words. They said: had it been "ḥaqqa al-tilāwa," then it would necessarily follow that "I passed by the man, the true man (ḥaqqa al-rajul)" was also permitted.
According to this view, the interpretation of the words is: Those to whom We have given the Book recite it with a true recitation (ḥaqqa tilāwa).
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Some grammarians of Baṣra said: the annexation of "ḥaqq" to indefinite words together with indefinite words is permissible, and to definite words together with definite words; and that is only comparable to the saying of him who says: "I passed by the man, the servant of the man (ghulāma al-rajul)," and "by a man, the servant of a man (ghulāma rajul)."
The interpretation of the verse according to the view of these is: Those to whom We have given the Book recite it as it ought to be recited (ḥaqqa tilāwatihi).
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The most in accordance with the truth, according to us, is the first view, because the meaning of His saying "as it ought to be recited (ḥaqqa tilāwatihi)" is: which recitation, in the sense of praise of the recitation which they performed and the exaltation of it. And "ayy" may not, according to them all, be annexed to a single definite word. Likewise, "ḥaqq" may not be annexed to a single definite word.
In "ḥaqqa tilāwatihi" it is only annexed to something in which the hāʾ is present, for the reason which I have described and the elucidation of which has already preceded.
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The explanation of the saying of the Exalted: أُولَئِكَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِهِ (they are the ones who believe in it)
Abū Jaʿfar said: By His saying "they" He — exalted be His praise — means these of whom He reported that they recite the Book which He gave them as it ought to be recited. As for His saying "believe": by it He means: they hold it to be true. And the hāʾ in His saying "in it (bihi)" refers back to the hāʾ in "tilāwatihi (its recitation)"; both refer to the Book that Allah mentioned: "Those to whom We have given the Book."
Allah — exalted be His praise — thus reported that the believer in the Torah is the one who follows what is in it of permitted and forbidden matters, and who acts upon the obligations of Allah that He imposed therein upon its people; and that the people of it who are truly its people are those whose characteristic that is, and not those who falsified it, who altered its interpretation, who changed its precepts and who neglected what Allah imposed upon them therein.
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Allah — exalted be His praise — described whom He described with the description of the followers of the Torah, and praised them with the praise with which He praised them, only because in the following of it is included the following of Muḥammad, the Prophet of Allah ﷺ, and holding him to be true; for the Torah commands its people that, and reports to them from Allah — exalted be His mention — about his prophethood and about the obligation to obey him upon all the creatures of Allah among the children of Adam, and that in the denial of Muḥammad is included the denial of it. Allah — exalted be His praise — thus reported that the followers of the Torah are those who believe in Muḥammad ﷺ, and they are the ones who act upon what is in it, as:
1905 — Yūnus related to me, he said: Ibn Wahb informed us, he said: Ibn Zayd said concerning His saying: "they are the ones who believe in it" — he said: the one of the Banū Isrāʾīl who believed in the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and in the Torah; and verily, the disbeliever in Muḥammad ﷺ is the disbeliever in it, the loser, as He — exalted be His praise — said: وَمَنْ يَكْفُرْ بِهِ فَأُولَئِكَ هُمُ الْخَاسِرُونَ (and whoever disbelieves in it — they are the losers).
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The explanation of the saying of the Exalted: وَمَنْ يَكْفُرْ بِهِ فَأُولَئِكَ هُمُ الْخَاسِرُونَ (121) (and whoever disbelieves in it — they are the losers)
Abū Jaʿfar said: By His saying "and whoever disbelieves in it" He — exalted be His praise — means: and whoever disbelieves in the Book of which He reported that those to whom He gave it — namely the believers — recite it as it ought to be recited. And by His saying — exalted be His praise — "disbelieves (yakfur)" He means: he denies what is in it of the obligations of Allah and of the prophethood of Muḥammad ﷺ and holding him to be true, and he falsifies it and thus distorts its interpretation — they are the ones who have lost their knowledge and their deeds; they have thus denied themselves their share in the mercy of Allah, and received in its place the aversion of Allah and His wrath. And Ibn Zayd said concerning His saying, with what:
1906 — Yūnus related to me, he said: Ibn Wahb informed us, he said: Ibn Zayd said: "and whoever disbelieves in it — they are the losers" — he said: whoever of the Jews disbelieves in the Prophet ﷺ, "they are the losers."
