Tafseer of The Cow · Al-Baqara · 2:6
Indeed, those who disbelieve - it is all the same for them whether you warn them or do not warn them - they will 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 explanation of His word: إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا سَوَاءٌ عَلَيْهِمْ أَأَنْذَرْتَهُمْ أَمْ لَمْ تُنْذِرْهُمْ لا يُؤْمِنُونَ (6)
(Indeed, those who disbelieve — it is the same for them whether you warn them or do not warn them: they will not believe. (6))
The scholars of interpretation (ahl al-taʾwīl) differed concerning who is intended by this verse and concerning whom it was revealed. Ibn ʿAbbās said the following, as in:
295 — Muḥammad ibn Ḥumayd related it 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: "Indeed, those who disbelieve" — that is to say: disbelieving in what has been sent down to you from your Lord, even though they say: "We truly believe in what came to us before you."
And Ibn ʿAbbās held the opinion that this verse was revealed concerning the Jews who were in the vicinity of Medina at the time of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, as a rebuke to them for their denial of the prophethood of Muḥammad ﷺ and their rejection of him as a liar, despite their knowledge of him and their awareness that he was the Messenger of Allah to them and to mankind as a whole.
296 — Ibn Ḥumayd related it to us, saying: Salama related to us, on the authority of Ibn Isḥāq, on the authority of Muḥammad ibn Abī Muḥammad, the freedman of Zayd ibn Thābit, on the authority of ʿIkrima or on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: that the beginning of Sūrah Al-Baqarah, up to its hundredth verse, was revealed concerning men whom he designated by name and lineage, belonging to the rabbis (aḥbār) of the Jews, and belonging to the hypocrites (munāfiqīn) of the Aws and the Khazraj. We have deemed it disagreeable to lengthen the book with the mention of their names.
And there is reported from Ibn ʿAbbās concerning the interpretation of it yet another statement, and that is:
297 — Al-Muthannā ibn Ibrāhīm related it to us, saying: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṣāliḥ related to us, on the authority of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭalḥa, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning His word: إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا سَوَاءٌ عَلَيْهِمْ أَأَنْذَرْتَهُمْ أَمْ لَمْ تُنْذِرْهُمْ لا يُؤْمِنُونَ (Indeed, those who disbelieve — it is the same for them whether you warn them or do not warn them: they will not believe) — he said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ was eager that all people should believe and follow him upon the guidance. Then Allah, exalted is His praise, made known to him that only he believes for whom Allah has foreordained felicity in the first Remembrance (al-dhikr al-awwal), and only he goes astray for whom Allah has foreordained wretchedness in the first Remembrance.
And others said the following:
298 — It was related to me on the authority of ʿAmmār ibn al-Ḥasan, he said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Jaʿfar related to us, on the authority of his father, on the authority of al-Rabīʿ ibn Anas, he said: Two verses concern the leaders of the confederates (qādat al-aḥzāb): إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا سَوَاءٌ عَلَيْهِمْ أَأَنْذَرْتَهُمْ أَمْ لَمْ تُنْذِرْهُمْ لا يُؤْمِنُونَ خَتَمَ اللَّهُ عَلَى قُلُوبِهِمْ وَعَلَى سَمْعِهِمْ وَعَلَى أَبْصَارِهِمْ غِشَاوَةٌ وَلَهُمْ عَذَابٌ عَظِيمٌ (Indeed, those who disbelieve — it is the same for them whether you warn them or do not warn them: they will not believe. Allah has set a seal upon their hearts and upon their hearing, and over their eyes is a veil, and for them is a tremendous punishment). He said: And they are those whom Allah has mentioned in this verse: أَلَمْ تَرَ إِلَى الَّذِينَ بَدَّلُوا نِعْمَةَ اللَّهِ كُفْرًا وَأَحَلُّوا قَوْمَهُمْ دَارَ الْبَوَارِ * جَهَنَّمَ يَصْلَوْنَهَا وَبِئْسَ الْقَرَارُ [Sūrah Ibrāhīm: 28, 29] (Have you not seen those who exchanged the favour of Allah for disbelief and led their people down into the abode of ruin? — Hell (jahannam), in which they burn, and a wretched dwelling place is that). He said: And they are those who were killed on the day of Badr.
And the most fitting of these interpretations for the verse is the interpretation of Ibn ʿAbbās which Muḥammad ibn Abī Muḥammad transmitted, on the authority of ʿIkrima or on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr from him — even though every statement of those whose statements we have mentioned here has its own perspective (madhhab).
As for the perspective of the one who interpreted it as al-Rabīʿ ibn Anas said: it entails that when Allah, exalted is His mention, gave the report concerning a group belonging to the people of disbelief that they will not believe and that the warning will not avail them — while there were nevertheless among the disbelievers those whom Allah did benefit through the warning of the Prophet ﷺ to them, on account of their belief in Allah and in the Prophet ﷺ and in what he brought from Allah, after the sending down of this Sūrah — it cannot be other than that the verse was revealed only concerning a specific group of the disbelievers. And since that is so — and since the leaders of the confederates were without doubt among those whom Allah, mighty and exalted is He, did not benefit through the warning of the Prophet ﷺ to them, until Allah, blessed and exalted is He, killed them on the day of Badr by the hands of the believers — from this it is known that they are among those whom Allah, exalted is His praise, intended by this verse.
As for our ground for the choice we have made in the interpretation of it: it is that the word of Allah, exalted is His praise, إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا سَوَاءٌ عَلَيْهِمْ أَأَنْذَرْتَهُمْ أَمْ لَمْ تُنْذِرْهُمْ لا يُؤْمِنُونَ (Indeed, those who disbelieve — it is the same for them whether you warn them or do not warn them: they will not believe) follows immediately upon Allah's report, exalted is His praise, concerning the believers among the People of the Book (ahl al-kitāb), and immediately upon their characterization and description and upon His praise of them on account of their belief in Him, in His books and in His messengers. The most consonant with the wisdom of Allah, then, is that He should cause that report to be followed by the report concerning their disbelievers and their characteristics, and the censure of their motives (asbāb) and their states, and the open reproach of them and the disavowal of them. For their believers and their polytheists — even though their states differ through the difference of their religions — all of them are united by the lineage, namely that they are the Children of Israel.
And Allah, exalted is His praise, at the beginning of this Sūrah only adduced for His Prophet ﷺ a proof against the polytheists among the Jews, belonging to the rabbis of the Children of Israel — who, despite their knowledge of his prophethood, denied his prophethood — by informing His Prophet ﷺ about that which the rabbis among them kept secret and concealed, so that the great mass of the Jews did not know it while their rabbis did know it — in order that they might know that the One who instructed him in the knowledge of it is the same One who sent down the Book to Mūsā. For that belonged to the matters which neither Muḥammad ﷺ nor his people nor his tribe knew or were acquainted with before the sending down of the Furqān upon Muḥammad ﷺ — so that it would be impossible for them to claim that there was any obscurity (labs) concerning his affair, peace be upon him, that he is a prophet and that what he brought is from Allah. And how could it be possible to claim obscurity concerning the truthfulness of an unlettered man (ummī) who grew up among unlettered people, who does not write and does not read and does not reckon — so that one might say: he read the books and thereby knew it, or he reckoned and thence derived predictions from the stars? While he stood up against rabbis who read and wrote — who had studied the books and led the nations — and informed them about the hidden of their faults, the guarded of their knowledge, the concealed of their traditions, and the recondite matters which those lower than they among their own rabbis did not know. Indeed, the affair of one who is thus is in no way problematic, and indeed, his truthfulness is manifest.
And among that which announces the correctness of what we have said — namely that those whom Allah, exalted is His mention, intended by His word إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا سَوَاءٌ عَلَيْهِمْ أَأَنْذَرْتَهُمْ أَمْ لَمْ تُنْذِرْهُمْ لا يُؤْمِنُونَ are the rabbis of the Jews who were killed in disbelief and died therein — is: Allah's narrative mention, exalted is His mention, of their report, and His reminding of them of the covenants and solemn compacts which He had taken from them concerning the affair of Muḥammad, peace be upon him — after His narrative mention, exalted is He, of what He related concerning the affair of the hypocrites, and His insertion in between of what He inserted of the report about Iblīs and Ādam — in His word: يَا بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ اذْكُرُوا نِعْمَتِيَ الَّتِي أَنْعَمْتُ عَلَيْكُمْ [Sūrah Al-Baqarah: 40 and what follows it] (O Children of Israel, remember My favour which I bestowed upon you), and His adducing of proof for His Prophet against them, with that by which He argued therein against them after their denial of his prophethood. For since the report at the beginning concerns the believers among the People of the Book, and at the end concerns their polytheists, it is most fitting that in the middle it should concern them too — since one part of the discourse follows upon another part, unless there comes a clear indication pointing to them that a part of it deviates from the meanings with which it began, so that it would then be generally known that it turns away from that.
As for the meaning of disbelief (kufr) in His word "Indeed, those who disbelieve": it is denial (juḥūd). For the rabbis among the Jews of Medina denied the prophethood of Muḥammad ﷺ and concealed him from the people and kept his affair secret, while they knew him as they know their own sons.
The origin of the word "kufr" among the Arabs is: the covering of something. For this reason they called the night "kāfir," because of the covering by its darkness of what it enshrouds, as the poet said:
Then the two of them recalled a heaped-up, ordered treasure, after Dhukāʾ (the sun) had cast her right hand into a covering [darkness] (kāfir).
And Labīd ibn Rabīʿa said:
On a night whose clouds covered (kafara) the stars
— that is to say: they covered them. So too the rabbis among the Jews covered the affair of Muḥammad ﷺ and kept it concealed from the people — despite their knowledge of his prophethood and the fact that they found his description in their books. Therefore Allah, exalted is His praise, said concerning them: إِنَّ الَّذِينَ يَكْتُمُونَ مَا أَنْـزَلْنَا مِنَ الْبَيِّنَاتِ وَالْهُدَى مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا بَيَّنَّاهُ لِلنَّاسِ فِي الْكِتَابِ أُولَئِكَ يَلْعَنُهُمُ اللَّهُ وَيَلْعَنُهُمُ اللاعِنُونَ [Sūrah Al-Baqarah: 159] (Indeed, those who conceal what We have sent down of clear proofs and guidance, after We have made it clear for the people in the Book — those, Allah curses them and the cursers curse them). And they are those concerning whom Allah, mighty and exalted is He, revealed: إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا سَوَاءٌ عَلَيْهِمْ أَأَنْذَرْتَهُمْ أَمْ لَمْ تُنْذِرْهُمْ لا يُؤْمِنُونَ (Indeed, those who disbelieve — it is the same for them whether you warn them or do not warn them: they will not believe).
The explanation of His word, exalted is His praise: سَوَاءٌ عَلَيْهِمْ أَأَنْذَرْتَهُمْ أَمْ لَمْ تُنْذِرْهُمْ لا يُؤْمِنُونَ (6)
(It is the same for them whether you warn them or do not warn them: they will not believe. (6))
The explanation of "sawāʾ" (the same) is: in equilibrium. It is derived from al-tasāwī (equality), like your saying: "These two matters are equal (mutasāwin) to me," and "they are the same (sawāʾ) to me," that is to say: they are in equilibrium for me. To this belongs the word of Allah, exalted is His praise: فَانْبِذْ إِلَيْهِمْ عَلَى سَوَاءٍ [Sūrah Al-Anfāl: 58] (Then cast it back to them upon equal terms), that is to say: let them know and declare war upon them, until your knowledge and their knowledge stand equal regarding what each party of them has against the other party. So too His word "sawāʾun ʿalayhim" (it is the same for them): with them it is in equilibrium whichever of the two matters proceeds from you to them — the warning or the omission of the warning — because they do not believe, and I [Allah] have already set a seal upon their hearts and their hearing. To this belongs the word of ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Qays al-Ruqayyāt:
The grey-white [mare] (al-shahbāʾ) carries me in swift pace to Ibn Jaʿfar; to her, her night and her day are the same.
— by which he means: to her the night and the day are in equilibrium in running, because there is no slackening in her. And to this belongs the word of another:
And many a night about which a man, because of its darknesses, says: equal are the sound eyes and the one-eyed.
— because the sound-eyed one therein sees only with weak eyesight, on account of its darkness.
As for His word: أَأَنْذَرْتَهُمْ أَمْ لَمْ تُنْذِرْهُمْ لا يُؤْمِنُونَ (whether you warn them or do not warn them: they will not believe) — therein the discourse appeared in the form of a question, while it is [in fact] a statement. For it takes the place of "ayy" (which of the two), as you say: "It does not matter to us whether you stand or sit," while you are making a statement and not asking a question, on account of the fact that this takes the place of "ayy." For the meaning of it, when you say that, is: it does not matter to us which of these two proceeds from you. So too is that the case in His word: "it is the same for them whether you warn them or do not warn them"; since the meaning of the discourse was: it is the same for them which of these two proceeds from you to them — there fitted well in its place, together with "sawāʾ": "whether you do it or do not do it."
And some of the grammarians of Basra claimed that the interrogative particle is merely added with "sawāʾ" without it being a question, because the questioner, when he asks another about something and says: "Is Zayd with you or ʿAmr?", seeks from his interlocutor certainty about which of the two is with him. And neither of the two has more right to the question than the other. Since, then, His word "it is the same for them whether you warn them or do not warn them" has the meaning of equation (taswiya), it resembled the question, because it resembled it in the equation. And we have already set forth what is correct concerning that.
The explanation of the discourse, then, is: it is in equilibrium, O Muḥammad — regarding these who denied your prophethood, belonging to the rabbis of the Jews of Medina, after their knowledge of it, and who kept concealed the clarification of your affair to the people — namely that you are My messenger to My creatures, while I had taken from them the covenant and the solemn compact that they would not conceal that and that they would clarify it to the people and inform them that they find your description in their books — whether you warn them or do not warn them, indeed, they will not believe and will not return to the truth and will not place their trust in you and in what you have brought them. As in:
299 — 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 of Zayd ibn Thābit, on the authority of ʿIkrima or on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās: سَوَاءٌ عَلَيْهِمْ أَأَنْذَرْتَهُمْ أَمْ لَمْ تُنْذِرْهُمْ لا يُؤْمِنُونَ (it is the same for them whether you warn them or do not warn them: they will not believe) — that is to say: they have become disbelievers in the knowledge they possessed in the form of the Remembrance (dhikr), and they have denied the solemn compact that had been taken from them concerning you. Thus they have become disbelievers in what came to you and in what they possessed of what someone other than you brought them. How, then, would they listen to a warning and an admonition from you, while they have become disbelievers in the knowledge about you which they possessed?
