Tafseer of The Cow · Al-Baqara · 2:33
He said, "O Adam, inform them of their names." And when he had informed them of their names, He said, "Did I not tell you that I know the unseen [aspects] of the heavens and the earth? And I know what you reveal and what you have concealed."
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: قَالَ يَا آدَمُ أَنْبِئْهُمْ بِأَسْمَائِهِمْ فَلَمَّا أَنْبَأَهُمْ بِأَسْمَائِهِمْ قَالَ أَلَمْ أَقُلْ لَكُمْ إِنِّي أَعْلَمُ غَيْبَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأَرْضِ
(He said: "O Adam, inform them of their names." And when he had informed them of their names, He said: "Did I not tell you that I know the unseen of the heavens and the earth?")
Abū Jaʿfar says: Allah — exalted be His praise — caused His angels, who had asked Him to make them the vicegerents (khalīfas) upon the earth and who described themselves with obedience to Him and submission to His command, in contrast to others who would spread corruption upon the earth and shed blood, to recognize that they — before He informed them about it — were ignorant of the places upon which His decree descends and of the seat of His ordainment, in the manner of their ignorance of the names of those whom He set before them; for that belonged to that which He had not taught them, so that they were unable to know it. And He caused them to recognize that they and the rest of the servants know nothing of knowledge except what their Lord has taught them, and that He reserves particular knowledge according to His good pleasure for whomever He wills of the creatures, and withholds it from whomever He wills — just as He taught Adam the names of that which He set before the angels, while He withheld the knowledge of it from them until after the moment at which He taught it to them.
As for the explanation of His saying: "He said: O Adam, inform them" — that means: inform the angels. The "hum" (them) in His saying "anbiʾhum" (inform them) refers back to the angels. And His saying "bi-asmāʾihim" (of their names) means: the names of those whom He set before the angels. The "him" in "asmāʾihim" (their names) is a reference to the mention of "hāʾulāʾi" (these) in His saying: أَنْبِئُونِي بِأَسْمَاءِ هَؤُلاءِ (Inform Me of the names of these). فَلَمَّا أَنْبَأَهُمْ (And when he informed them) means: and when Adam informed the angels of the names of those whom He had set before them, while they did not know their names, they became convinced of the incorrectness of their saying: أَتَجْعَلُ فِيهَا مَنْ يُفْسِدُ فِيهَا وَيَسْفِكُ الدِّمَاءَ وَنَحْنُ نُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِكَ وَنُقَدِّسُ لَكَ (Will You place upon it one who spreads corruption upon it and sheds blood, while we proclaim Your praise and sanctify You?), and [they became convinced] that they had committed a misstep therein and had said something concerning which they did not know how their Lord's decree would turn out, were it to turn out in accordance with what they had uttered. Then their Lord said to them: "Did I not tell you that I know the unseen of the heavens and the earth?" The unseen (al-ghayb) is that which is hidden from their sight, so that they do not behold it with their own eyes. [This He said] as a reproof from Allah — exalted be His praise — to them, on account of what had preceded of their saying and on account of the misstep that had slipped from them in their wrongly-posed question. As:
676 — Muḥammad ibn al-ʿAlāʾ related it to us, he said: ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd related to us, he said: Bishr ibn ʿUmāra related to us, on the authority of Abū Rawq, on the authority of al-Ḍaḥḥāk, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: "He said: O Adam, inform them of their names" means: inform them concerning their names. "And when he had informed them of their names, He said: Did I not tell you" — O angels in particular — "that I know the unseen of the heavens and the earth", and none knows it besides Me.
677 — And Yūnus related to me, he said: Ibn Wahb informed us, he said: Ibn Zayd said in the account of the angels and Adam: Then Allah said to the angels: Just as you did not know these names, so you possess no knowledge; I willed only to place them so that they would spread corruption upon it — this I had known with Me — and thus I kept hidden from you that I would place upon it one who disobeys Me and one who obeys Me. He said: And it was already foreordained by Allah: لأَمْلأَنَّ جَهَنَّمَ مِنَ الْجِنَّةِ وَالنَّاسِ أَجْمَعِينَ (I shall surely fill Hell (jahannam) with jinn and people all together) [Surah Hūd: 119, and Surah al-Sajda: 13]. He said: And the angels did not know that and had no awareness of it. He said: So when they saw what knowledge Allah had bestowed upon Adam, they acknowledged Adam's excellence.
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The explanation of the saying of the Exalted: وَأَعْلَمُ مَا تُبْدُونَ وَمَا كُنْتُمْ تَكْتُمُونَ (33)
(And I know what you reveal openly and what you used to conceal)
Abū Jaʿfar says: The people of interpretation (ahl al-taʾwīl) have differed concerning the explanation of this. From Ibn ʿAbbās there is related concerning it what:
678 — Abū Kurayb related it to us, he said: ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd related to us, he said: Bishr ibn ʿUmāra related to us, on the authority of Abū Rawq, on the authority of al-Ḍaḥḥāk, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: "And I know what you reveal openly" means: what you make manifest; "and what you used to conceal" means: I know the secret just as I know the manifest. By that is meant: what Iblīs concealed within himself of pride and self-deception.
679 — And Mūsā ibn Hārūn related to me, he said: ʿAmr ibn Ḥammād related to us, he said: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī in an account that 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 companions of the Prophet ﷺ: "And I know what you reveal openly and what you used to conceal", he said: Their saying: أَتَجْعَلُ فِيهَا مَنْ يُفْسِدُ فِيهَا (Will You place upon it one who spreads corruption upon it) — this is what they revealed openly. "And what you used to conceal" means: what Iblīs concealed within himself of pride.
680 — And Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq al-Ahwāzī related to us, he said: Abū Aḥmad al-Zubayrī related to us, he said: ʿAmr ibn Thābit related to us, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, [concerning] his saying: "And I know what you reveal openly and what you used to conceal", he said: What Iblīs concealed within himself.
681 — And Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq related to us, he said: Abū Aḥmad related to us, he said: Sufyān related to us concerning his saying: "And I know what you reveal openly and what you used to conceal", he said: What Iblīs concealed within himself of pride, namely that he would not prostrate himself before Adam.
682 — And al-Muthannā ibn Ibrāhīm related to me, he said: al-Ḥajjāj al-Anmāṭī informed us, he said: Mahdī ibn Maymūn related to us, he said: I heard al-Ḥasan ibn Dīnār — while we were seated with him in his house — say to al-Ḥasan: O Abū Saʿīd, what do you think of the saying of Allah to the angels: "And I know what you reveal openly and what you used to conceal" — what is it that the angels were concealing? Then al-Ḥasan said: When Allah created Adam, the angels beheld a wondrous creation, and it was as though something stirred within them on account of it; they turned to one another and concealed that among themselves, and said: What is this creation to you! Allah will never create a creature but that we shall be more honored with Him than it.
683 — And al-Ḥasan ibn Yaḥyā related to us, he said: ʿAbd al-Razzāq informed us, he said: Maʿmar informed us, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning his saying: "And I know what you reveal openly and what you used to conceal", he said: They concealed among themselves and said: Allah creates what He wills to create, yet He will never create a creature but that we shall be more honored with Him than it.
684 — And al-Muthannā related to me, he said: Isḥāq related to us, he said: ʿAbdallāh ibn Abī Jaʿfar related to us, on the authority of his father, on the authority of al-Rabīʿ ibn Anas: "And I know what you reveal openly and what you used to conceal" — what they revealed openly was when they said: أَتَجْعَلُ فِيهَا مَنْ يُفْسِدُ فِيهَا (Will You place upon it one who spreads corruption upon it), and what they concealed among themselves was their saying: Our Lord will never create a creature but that we shall be more knowledgeable and more honored than it. Thereupon they realized that Allah had favored Adam above them in knowledge and honor.
Abū Jaʿfar says: The most fitting of these sayings for the explanation of the verse is what Ibn ʿAbbās said, namely that the meaning of His saying "And I know what you reveal openly" is: And I know — alongside My knowledge of the unseen of the heavens and the earth — what you make manifest with your tongues; "and what you used to conceal" means: and what you concealed within your innermost selves, so that nothing is hidden from Me: equal before Me are your secrets and your open declarations.
And what they made manifest with their tongues is that concerning which Allah — exalted be His praise — has reported about them that they said it, namely their saying: أَتَجْعَلُ فِيهَا مَنْ يُفْسِدُ فِيهَا وَيَسْفِكُ الدِّمَاءَ وَنَحْنُ نُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِكَ وَنُقَدِّسُ لَكَ (Will You place upon it one who spreads corruption upon it and sheds blood, while we proclaim Your praise and sanctify You?). And that which they concealed is what Iblīs carried within him of contradiction against Allah regarding His command, and pride against the obedience to Him. For there is no disagreement among all the interpreters that the explanation of this does not fall outside one of the two ways that I have described: on the one hand what we have said, and on the other hand what we have mentioned of the saying of al-Ḥasan and Qatāda and of those who say that the meaning of it is that the angels concealed among themselves: Allah will never create a creature but that we shall be more honored with Him than it. And since concerning the explanation of this there exists no saying other than one of the two sayings that I have described, and since, furthermore, the proof from the one of the two that compels acceptance by way of that to which one must submit is not at hand — thus the other way is the correct one.
For that which is related from al-Ḥasan and Qatāda and from those who follow their saying in the explanation of this, there is no proof of its correctness at hand, neither from the Book, nor from a tradition from which a binding proof must be derived. And that which Ibn ʿAbbās said, the report of Allah — exalted be His praise — about Iblīs and his disobedience toward Him points to its correctness, when He called upon him to prostrate himself before Adam and he refused and showed pride, and [when] he made manifest before the rest of the angels of disobedience and pride what he had before kept concealed.
And if someone should suppose that the report concerning the angels' concealing of that which they were concealing — since it is formulated in the manner of a report about all of them together — does not permit that what is related in the explanation of this from Ibn ʿAbbās — and from those who follow his saying, namely that it is a report about Iblīs's concealing of his pride and disobedience — would be correct, then he has supposed something that is not correct. That is because it is the custom of the Arabs, when they give a report about a part of a group without naming a particular person by name, to formulate the report about him in the manner of a report about all of them. That is like their saying: "The army was killed and defeated", while only one or a part of them was killed and only one or a part defeated. Thus they formulate the report about the defeated one and the killed one in the manner of a report about all of them, as He — exalted be His praise — said: إِنَّ الَّذِينَ يُنَادُونَكَ مِنْ وَرَاءِ الْحُجُرَاتِ أَكْثَرُهُمْ لا يَعْقِلُونَ (Indeed, those who call you from behind the chambers, most of them do not understand) [Surah al-Ḥujurāt: 4]. It has been mentioned that the one who called the Messenger of Allah ﷺ — and concerning whom this verse was revealed — was a man from the group of the Banū Tamīm, who had come to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Yet the report about him was formulated in the manner of a report about the group. Likewise His saying: "And I know what you reveal openly and what you used to conceal" — He formulated the report in the manner of a report about all of them together, while by it one of them was meant.