Tafseer of The Cow · Al-Baqara · 2:16
Those are the ones who have purchased error [in exchange] for guidance, so their transaction has brought no profit, nor were they guided.
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 statement concerning the explanation of His word, exalted is His praise: أُولَئِكَ الَّذِينَ اشْتَرَوُا الضَّلالَةَ بِالْهُدَى ("They are the ones who have purchased error in exchange for guidance") (2:16).
Abū Jaʿfar says: If someone were to say: How could these people purchase error in exchange for guidance, when they were merely hypocrites whose hypocrisy (nifāq) was not preceded by faith (īmān), such that it could be said of them: they sold the guidance upon which they stood in exchange for their error, until they exchanged the one for the other? For you know that the meaning understood by "purchasing" is: the acquisition of something by relinquishing something else in exchange for it as its countervalue. And the hypocrites whom Allah has described with this characteristic were never upon guidance, that they might abandon it and exchange it for unbelief (kufr) and hypocrisy?
The answer is: The scholars of interpretation (ahl al-taʾwīl) have differed concerning the meaning of this. We shall mention what they have said about it, and thereafter set forth the correct interpretation of it, if Allah wills:
380 – Muḥammad ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Salama ibn al-Faḍl related to us, on the authority of Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq, on the authority of Muḥammad ibn Abī Muḥammad, the freedman (mawlā) of Zayd ibn Thābit, on the authority of ʿIkrima, or on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: أُولَئِكَ الَّذِينَ اشْتَرَوُا الضَّلالَةَ بِالْهُدَى ("They are the ones who have purchased error in exchange for guidance"), that is to say: unbelief in exchange for faith.
381 – And Mūsā ibn Hārūn related to me, saying: ʿAmr related to us, saying: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī, in a report which he mentioned, on the authority of Abū Mālik, and on the authority of Abū Ṣāliḥ, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās – and on the authority of Murra, on the authority of Ibn Masʿūd, and on the authority of a number of people among the companions of the Prophet ﷺ: أُولَئِكَ الَّذِينَ اشْتَرَوُا الضَّلالَةَ بِالْهُدَى ("They are the ones who have purchased error in exchange for guidance"), he says: they took error and let guidance go.
382 – Bishr ibn Muʿādh related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, on the authority of Saʿīd, on the authority of Qatāda: أُولَئِكَ الَّذِينَ اشْتَرَوُا الضَّلالَةَ بِالْهُدَى ("They are the ones who have purchased error in exchange for guidance"), they preferred error over guidance.
383 – Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to me, saying: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, saying: ʿĪsā ibn Maymūn related to us, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid concerning His word: أُولَئِكَ الَّذِينَ اشْتَرَوُا الضَّلالَةَ بِالْهُدَى ("They are the ones who have purchased error in exchange for guidance"), they believed and thereafter became unbelievers.
384 – Al-Muthannā related to us, saying: Abū Ḥudhayfa related to us, saying: Shibl related to us, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid, something similar.
Abū Jaʿfar says: It is as though those who said concerning the interpretation of this: "they took error and let guidance go" – understood the meaning of "purchasing" as the taking of the thing purchased in place of the price by which it is purchased. They said, therefore: likewise the hypocrite and the unbeliever have taken unbelief in place of faith, and that was, on the part of both of them, a purchase of the unbelief and the error which both of them took by relinquishing the guidance which both of them relinquished. And the guidance which they relinquished was the price they set as the countervalue for the error which they took.
As for those who interpreted the meaning of His word "they purchased" as being equivalent to "they preferred": when they found that Allah, exalted is His praise, described the unbelievers in another place and ascribed to them that they preferred unbelief over guidance, where He said: وَأَمَّا ثَمُودُ فَهَدَيْنَاهُمْ فَاسْتَحَبُّوا الْعَمَى عَلَى الْهُدَى ("And as for Thamūd: We guided them, but they preferred blindness over guidance") [Surah Fuṣṣilat: 17], they turned His word اشْتَرَوُا الضَّلالَةَ بِالْهُدَى ("they purchased error in exchange for guidance") toward that meaning. And they said: the "bāʾ" can come in place of "ʿalā," and "ʿalā" in place of the "bāʾ," as one says: "I passed by so-and-so (bi-fulān)" and "I passed by so-and-so (ʿalā fulān)," with one and the same meaning; and as in the word of Allah, exalted is His praise: وَمِنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ مَنْ إِنْ تَأْمَنْهُ بِقِنْطَارٍ يُؤَدِّهِ إِلَيْكَ ("And among the People of the Book is one who, if you entrust him with a fortune (bi-qinṭār), will return it to you") [Surah Āl ʿImrān: 75], that is to say: "ʿalā qinṭār" (for a fortune). According to the meaning of these, then, the interpretation of the verse would be: they are the ones who preferred error over guidance. And it appears to me that they turned the meaning of the word of Allah, exalted is His praise, "they purchased," toward the meaning of "they chose," because the Arabs say: "ishtaraytu kadhā ʿalā kadhā" and "istaraytuhu" – by which they mean: "I chose it over that."
And of "al-istirāʾ" (choosing) is the word of al-Aʿshā of Banū Thaʿlaba:
I bring forth the full-bosomed, chosen maiden (al-mustarāt) from her seclusion, and I have the game of chance drawn by lots.
By "al-mustarāt" he means: the chosen one.
And Dhū al-Rumma said, concerning "al-ishtirāʾ" in the meaning of "choosing":
He fends off the weak she-camels from the choice camels (sharāh), as though they were sand-hills beneath the dense, dripping rain-clouds.
By "al-sharāh" he means: the choice ones.
And another said in the same vein:
Verily, the choice ones (al-sharāh) are the fairest of possessions, the heart's most beloved property, the best of property.
Abū Jaʿfar says: Although this is a possible interpretation, I do not choose it. For Allah, exalted is His praise, said: فَمَا رَبِحَتْ تِجَارَتُهُمْ ("so their commerce brought no profit"), and thereby He indicated that the meaning of His word أُولَئِكَ الَّذِينَ اشْتَرَوُا الضَّلالَةَ بِالْهُدَى ("They are the ones who have purchased error in exchange for guidance") is the meaning of purchasing as people know it among themselves, namely the exchanging of one thing in place of another, and the taking of a countervalue against a countervalue.
As for those who said that these people were believers and thereafter became unbelievers: it poses no difficulty for them, if the matter were as they have described those people. For if the matter is so, then they abandoned faith and exchanged it for unbelief as the countervalue for guidance. And that is precisely the comprehensible meaning among the meanings of purchasing and selling. But the indications of the beginning of the verses in their description through to their end indicate that these people never illumined themselves by the light of faith, nor entered into the religious community (milla) of Islam. Do you not hear how Allah, exalted is His praise, from the moment He began their description until He completed their characterization, described them only with the displaying of falsehood with their tongues: through their claim to assenting to the truth of our Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ and of that with which he came – as a deception toward Allah, His Messenger, and the believers, as they supposed within themselves, and as mockery in their hearts toward the believers, while inwardly they harbored something other than what they displayed? Allah, exalted and mighty is He, says: وَمِنَ النَّاسِ مَنْ يَقُولُ آمَنَّا بِاللَّهِ وَبِالْيَوْمِ الآخِرِ وَمَا هُمْ بِمُؤْمِنِينَ ("And among the people are those who say: 'We believe in Allah and in the Last Day,' while they are not believers"), and thereafter He recounted their account up to His word: أُولَئِكَ الَّذِينَ اشْتَرَوُا الضَّلالَةَ بِالْهُدَى ("They are the ones who have purchased error in exchange for guidance"). Where, then, is the indication that they were believers and thereafter became unbelievers?
And if the one who utters this assertion supposed that His word "they are the ones who have purchased error in exchange for guidance" is the proof that those people were upon faith and passed from it to unbelief, and that for this reason it was said of them "they purchased" – then that interpretation is not permitted to him, since "purchasing," according to his opponents, may sometimes be the taking of something with the relinquishing of something else, and may sometimes have the meaning of "choosing," and yet other meanings besides. And when a word admits of various possibilities, then it is permitted to no one to turn its meaning toward one part of those possibilities to the exclusion of another part, except on the basis of a proof to which one must submit.
Abū Jaʿfar says: That which, in my judgment, is most fitting for the interpretation of the verse is what we have transmitted from Ibn ʿAbbās and Ibn Masʿūd concerning their interpretation of His word: اشْتَرَوُا الضَّلالَةَ بِالْهُدَى ("they purchased error in exchange for guidance"): they took error and let guidance go. That is because every unbeliever in Allah exchanges faith for unbelief, in that he acquires the unbelief that proceeds from him, in place of the faith which he was commanded to hold. Do you not hear how Allah, exalted is His praise, says concerning whoever acquires unbelief in Him in place of faith in Him and in His Messenger: وَمَنْ يَتَبَدَّلِ الْكُفْرَ بِالإِيمَانِ فَقَدْ ضَلَّ سَوَاءَ السَّبِيلِ ("And whoever exchanges unbelief for faith has indeed strayed from the right path") [Surah al-Baqarah: 108]? And that is the meaning of purchasing, for everyone who purchases something takes, in place of that which is taken from him of the thing exchanged, another in place of it. Likewise the hypocrite and the unbeliever have exchanged guidance for error and hypocrisy, whereupon Allah caused both of them to stray and stripped from them the light of guidance, and left them all in darknesses wherein they do not see.
The statement concerning the explanation of His word: فَمَا رَبِحَتْ تِجَارَتُهُمْ ("so their commerce brought no profit").
Abū Jaʿfar says: The interpretation of it is that the hypocrites – through their purchasing of error in exchange for guidance – suffered loss and made no profit. For the profit-maker among merchants is he who exchanges his merchandise which he possesses for something more precious than the merchandise he possesses, or better than the price for which he purchases it. As for the one who exchanges his merchandise for something inferior to it and inferior to the price for which he purchased it, he is without doubt the loser in his commerce. Likewise is the case with the unbeliever and the hypocrite, for both of them preferred confusion and blindness over the right path and guidance, and dread and fear over protection and safety, and they exchanged, in this transient life, the right path for confusion, guidance for error, protection for dread, and safety for fear – besides what is prepared for both of them in the Hereafter of painful punishment and grievous chastisement. Thus they were disappointed and suffered loss; that is the manifest loss.
And in the manner of what we have said concerning this, Qatāda used to speak.
385 – Bishr ibn Muʿādh related to us, saying: Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ related to us, on the authority of Saʿīd, on the authority of Qatāda: فَمَا رَبِحَتْ تِجَارَتُهُمْ وَمَا كَانُوا مُهْتَدِينَ ("so their commerce brought no profit, and they were not rightly guided"): by Allah, you have indeed seen them abandon guidance for error, and the united community (jamāʿa) for division, and safety for fear, and the Sunna for reprehensible innovation (bidʿa).
Abū Jaʿfar says: If someone were to say: What is the import of His word فَمَا رَبِحَتْ تِجَارَتُهُمْ ("so their commerce brought no profit")? Does commerce belong to that which makes a profit or suffers a loss, such that it can be said: "it made a profit" or "it suffered a loss"?
The answer is: Its import is other than what you supposed. Its meaning is only: they made no profit in their commerce – neither in that which they purchased, nor in that which they sold. But Allah, exalted is His praise, addressed Arabs with His Book, and in His addressing of them and His exposition to them He followed the way in which they address one another and the exposition customary among them. Since it is eloquent among them that one should say to another: "your effort has failed," "your night has slept," "your sale has suffered loss," and similar expressions in which what the speaker intends is not hidden from the hearer – He addressed them with that which is customary in their speech, and said: فَمَا رَبِحَتْ تِجَارَتُهُمْ ("so their commerce brought no profit"), since it was comprehensible among them that profit lies only in commerce, as sleep lies in the night. He relied, then, upon the understanding of those addressed concerning the meaning of it, instead of saying: "they made no profit in their commerce," although that is its meaning. As the poet said:
And the worst of calamities is a dead man amid his family, like the death of the maiden, that handed over the present ones of the tribe [to grief].
By this he means: and the worst of calamities is the fate of a dead man amid his family; he relied, then, upon the hearer's understanding of his word concerning his intent in it, instead of making explicit what he left unspoken. And as Ruʾba ibn al-ʿAjjāj said:
O Ḥārith! You have removed my care from me, so that my night slept and my grief lifted.
He described the night, then, with sleep, while the meaning is that it is he himself who slept. And as Jarīr ibn al-Khaṭafā said:
And a one-eyed man of Nabhān: as for his day, it is blind, and as for his night, it is seeing.
He attributed, then, the blindness and the seeing to the night and the day, while his intent was to describe thereby the man of Nabhān.
The statement concerning the explanation of His word: وَمَا كَانُوا مُهْتَدِينَ ("and they were not rightly guided") (2:16).
He means by His word, exalted is His praise, وَمَا كَانُوا مُهْتَدِينَ ("and they were not rightly guided"): they were not rightly guided in their preferring of error over guidance, and their exchanging of faith for unbelief, and their purchasing of hypocrisy in exchange for assent and acknowledgment.
