Tafseer of The Cow · Al-Baqara · 2:72
And [recall] when you slew a man and disputed over it, but Allah was to bring out that which you were concealing.
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: وَإِذْ قَتَلْتُمْ نَفْسًا فَادَّارَأْتُمْ فِيهَا
(And when you killed a soul and disputed with one another about it)
Abū Jaʿfar said: By His word, exalted is His praise: (and when you killed a soul), He means: and remember, O children of Israel, when you killed a soul. And "the soul" (al-nafs) which they killed is the person whose story we have already mentioned in the explanation of His word: وَإِذْ قَالَ مُوسَى لِقَوْمِهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَأْمُرُكُمْ أَنْ تَذْبَحُوا بَقَرَةً (And when Mūsā said to his people: Verily, Allah commands you to slaughter a cow).
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And His word: (fa-ddāraʾtum fīhā), means: you differed and disputed with one another. In origin it is "fa-tadāraʾtum fīhā" according to the pattern of "tafāʿaltum", derived from al-darʾ. And "al-darʾ" means: crookedness (al-ʿiwaj). From this comes the verse of Abū al-Najm al-ʿIjlī:
"Out of fear of a rending lion when he springs, who devours the crooked one and drives off the lowly."
He means: the one who is crooked and stubborn. And from this comes the verse of Ruʾba ibn al-ʿAjjāj:
"I encountered her before every eloquent defender, by warding off from myself the resistance of every arrogant one."
And from this also comes the report which:
1291 - Abū Kurayb related to us, he said: Muṣʿab ibn al-Miqdām related to us, on the authority of Isrāʾīl, on the authority of Ibrāhīm ibn al-Muhājir, on the authority of Mujāhid, on the authority of al-Sāʾib, who said: ʿUthmān and Zuhayr, the two sons of Umayya, came to me and sought permission for me from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Then the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: "I know him better than you two do. Were you not my business partner in the time of ignorance (jāhiliyya)?" I said: "Yes, may my father and my mother be sacrificed for you; you were an excellent partner: you did not contend and you did not dispute."
By his word "you did not dispute" (lā tudārī) he means: you did not go against your companion and business partner, and you did not contend with him and you did not quarrel with him.
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The original form of (fa-ddāraʾtum) is fa-tadāraʾtum, but the tāʾ is close to the place of articulation of the dāl — that is because the place of articulation of the tāʾ is at the tip of the tongue and the roots of the lips, and the place of articulation of the dāl is at the tip of the tongue and the edges of the incisors — so the tāʾ was assimilated into the dāl and made into a doubled dāl, as the poet said:
"She offers her bedfellow, when he smells her, a slender flank, sweet of taste, when the kisses follow one upon another."
He means: when the kisses follow one another (tatābaʿa), and he assimilated the one tāʾ into the other. When the tāʾ was assimilated into the dāl and made into a like dāl, it received a sukūn, and therefore they added an alif so as to be able to connect speech with it, and that occurs when something precedes it, for assimilation (idghām) only occurs when something precedes it. From this comes the word of Allah, exalted is His praise: حَتَّى إِذَا ادَّارَكُوا فِيهَا جَمِيعًا [al-Aʿrāf: 38] (Until, when they have all come together in it) — in origin it is "tadārakū", but the tāʾ of it was assimilated into the dāl and became a doubled dāl, and an alif was placed in it — when it was connected with preceding speech — so that the assimilation would be preserved. And when nothing precedes it to connect it with, and one begins with it, one says: tadārakū and tathāqalū, and then they make the assimilation apparent. And it has also been said that one says: "iddārakū and iddāraʾū".
And it has been said that the meaning of His word (fa-ddāraʾtum fīhā) is: you repelled one another about it (fa-tadāfaʿtum fīhā), from the saying of the one who says: "I warded off (daraʾtu) this matter from myself", and from the word of Allah: وَيَدْرَأُ عَنْهَا الْعَذَابَ [al-Nūr: 8] (And it wards off the punishment from her), in the meaning: it wards off the punishment (al-ʿadhāb) from her. And this explanation is in meaning close to the first explanation, for the people repelled one another precisely about the killing of a slain man, and each group among them denied that it was his killer, as we have set forth earlier in what has already passed in this book of ours. And in agreement with what we have said about the meaning of His word (fa-ddāraʾtum fīhā) the exegetes have spoken.
1292 - Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to me, he said: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, he said: ʿĪsā related to me, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid, concerning the word of Allah: (fa-ddāraʾtum fīhā), he said: you differed about it.
1293 - Al-Muthannā related to us, 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, the like.
1294 - Al-Qāsim related to us, he said: al-Ḥusayn related to us, he said: Ḥajjāj related to me, on the authority of Ibn Jurayj: (and when you killed a soul and disputed with one another about it), some of them said: you killed him. And the others said: you killed him.
1295 - Yūnus related to me, he said: Ibn Wahb informed us, he said: Ibn Zayd said concerning His word: (fa-ddāraʾtum fīhā), he said: you differed, and that is mutual disputing (al-tanāzuʿ); they disputed about it. He said: These said: you killed him. And those said: no.
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And their mutual disputing about the soul they had killed was as follows:
1296 - Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to me, he said: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, on the authority of ʿĪsā, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid, he said: The owner of the cow was a man of the children of Israel; a man killed him and threw him down at the door of other people. Then the relatives of the slain man came and demanded his blood from them, but these denied — or warded off — that they had anything to do with it. Abū ʿĀṣim doubted [about the word].
1297 - 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, in exactly the same manner — except that he said: and they demanded his blood from them, and these denied — and he did not doubt — that they had anything to do with it.
1298 - Bishr related to us, he said: Yazīd related to us, he said: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, who said: There was a slain man among the children of Israel. Then every tribe among them accused [another tribe of it], until the evil among them became severe, until they brought that matter before the prophet of Allah ﷺ. Then Allah revealed to Mūsā: Slaughter a cow and strike him with a part of it. And it has been related to us that his relative, who was demanding his blood, was precisely the one who had killed him, for the sake of an inheritance (mīrāth) that existed between them.
1299 - Ibn Saʿd related to me, he said: My uncle related to me, he said: My father related to me, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning the affair of the cow. And it was thus, that an old man of the children of Israel in the time of Mūsā possessed much wealth, and the sons of his brother were poor and had no possessions, and the old man had no child, and the sons of his brother were his heirs. They said: Oh, if only our uncle had died, then we would inherit his wealth! And when it took too long for them that their uncle did not die, the devil came to them and said: Will you not kill your uncle, so that you may inherit his wealth and make the people of the city in which you are not pay his blood money (diya)? — And that was because they were two cities, in one of which they lived; when a slain man was killed and thrown down between the two cities, what lay between the slain man and the two cities was measured, and whichever of the two was closest to him, that one paid the blood money — and when the devil had whispered that to them and it took too long for them that their uncle did not die, they went to him and killed him, and then they took him and threw him down at the door of the city in which they were not. When the people of the city awoke, the sons of the old man's brother came and said: Our uncle has been killed at the door of your city, so by Allah, you shall pay us the blood money for our uncle. The people of the city said: We swear by Allah that we did not kill him, and we know no killer, and we have not opened the door of our city since it was shut until we awoke. And they went to Mūsā, and when they came to him, the sons of the old man's brother said: Our uncle we found killed at the door of their city. And the people of the city said: We swear by Allah that we did not kill him, and we did not open the door of the city from the moment we shut it until we awoke. And Jibrīl came with the command of our Lord, the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing, to Mūsā and said: Say to them: Verily, Allah commands you to slaughter a cow and strike him with a part of it.
1300 - Al-Qāsim related to us, he said: Ḥusayn related to us, he said: Ḥajjāj related to me, on the authority of Ibn Jurayj, on the authority of Mujāhid — and Ḥajjāj on the authority of Abū Maʿshar, on the authority of Muḥammad ibn Kaʿb al-Quraẓī and Muḥammad ibn Qays — where the report of the one mingled with the report of the other; they said: A tribe of the children of Israel, when they saw the abundance of the evil of the people, built a city and secluded themselves from the evil of the people. When evening fell, they left none of them outside without bringing him in, and when they awoke, their leader stood up and looked out and reconnoitered; and when he saw nothing, he opened the city, and then they were among the people until evening fell. And there was a man of the children of Israel who had much wealth, and he had no heir except the son of his brother; and his life lasted too long for him [the nephew], so he killed him in order to inherit from him, and then he carried him and laid him down at the door of the city, and after that he hid himself in a place, he and his companions. He [the narrator] said: Then the leader of the city reconnoitered from the door of the city and looked, and he saw nothing. So he opened the door, and when he saw the slain man, he shut the door again. Then the son of the brother of the slain man called out to him and his companions: It is too late! You killed him and then shut the door? And Mūsā, when he saw killing become frequent among his companions, the children of Israel, was such that when he found the slain man in the midst of a people, he seized them [as liable]. It was almost the case that there was fighting between the brother of the slain man and the people of the city, until the two groups took up arms, and after that they held back from one another. Then they went to Mūsā and told him their affair and said: O Messenger of Allah, these killed a slain man and then shut the door. And the people of the city said: O Messenger of Allah, you know our seclusion from the evil, and we built a city — as you have seen — to seclude ourselves from the evil of the people; we did not kill him and we know no killer. Then Allah, exalted is His remembrance, revealed to him that they should slaughter a cow, and Mūsā said to them: Verily, Allah commands you to slaughter a cow.
1301 - Al-Muthannā related to me, he said: Ādam related to us, he said: Abū Jaʿfar related to us, on the authority of Hishām ibn Ḥassān, on the authority of Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn, on the authority of ʿAbīda, who said: Among the children of Israel was a barren man who had much wealth, and the son of his brother killed him, dragged him and threw him down at the door of other people. Then they awoke, and he accused them of it, until these and those armed themselves and they wanted to fight one another. Then the sensible ones among them said: Will you fight one another while the prophet of Allah is among you? So they restrained themselves until they came to Mūsā and told him the story, and he commanded them to slaughter a cow and strike him with a part of it. Then they said: أَتَتَّخِذُنَا هُزُوًا (Do you take us in mockery?) He said: I seek refuge with Allah from being among the ignorant.
1302 - Yūnus related to me, he said: Ibn Wahb informed us, he said: Ibn Zayd said: A slain man of the children of Israel was thrown down by one of the tribes. Then the people of that [slain man's] tribe came to that tribe and said: You, by Allah, have killed our man. They said: No, by Allah. Then they went to Mūsā and said: This is our slain man, in the midst of them, and they, by Allah, have killed him. They [the others] said: No, by Allah, O prophet of Allah, he was thrown down among us. Then Mūsā ﷺ said to them: إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَأْمُرُكُمْ أَنْ تَذْبَحُوا بَقَرَةً (Verily, Allah commands you to slaughter a cow).
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Abū Jaʿfar said: Their mutual difference, dispute and quarrel — about the affair of the slain man whose matter we have mentioned, according to what we have related from our scholars among the exegetes — that is the "al-darʾ" which Allah, exalted is His praise, said to their progeny and the survivors of their children: (fa-ddāraʾtum fīhā wa-llāhu mukhrijun mā kuntum taktumūn) (and disputed with one another about it, and Allah is the one who brings out what you were concealing).
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# The explanation of the saying of the Exalted: وَاللَّهُ مُخْرِجٌ مَا كُنْتُمْ تَكْتُمُونَ (72)
(And Allah is the one who brings out what you were concealing)
Abū Jaʿfar said: By His word (and Allah is the one who brings out what you were concealing) He means: and Allah is the one who makes manifest what you held in secret of the killing of the slain man whom you killed and about which you then disputed with one another.
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And the meaning of "the bringing out" (al-ikhrāj) — in this place — is the making visible and manifest to the one from whom that remained hidden, and informing them of it, as Allah, exalted is His remembrance, said: أَلَّا يَسْجُدُوا لِلَّهِ الَّذِي يُخْرِجُ الْخَبْءَ فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأَرْضِ [al-Naml: 25] (That they prostrate to Allah, who brings out the hidden in the heavens and the earth). By that He means: He makes it visible and brings it forth out of its hiddenness after its being hidden.
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And that which they concealed and which He brought out is the killing of the killer of the slain man. For that killer concealed it, as did those who knew it and supported him therein, until Allah made it visible and brought it out, and thus made the matter manifest to whoever did not know the matter.
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And by His word (taktumūn) He meant, exalted is His remembrance: you keep secret and conceal, as:
1303 - Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to us, 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, concerning the word of Allah: (and Allah is the one who brings out what you were concealing), he said: you conceal.
1304 - 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: (what you were concealing), [means] what you concealed.
