Tafseer of The Cow · Al-Baqara · 2:93
And [recall] when We took your covenant and raised over you the mount, [saying], "Take what We have given you with determination and listen." They said [instead], "We hear and disobey." And their hearts absorbed [the worship of] the calf because of their disbelief. Say, "How wretched is that which your faith enjoins upon you, if you should be believers."
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 discourse on the explanation of His — exalted is He — statement: وَإِذْ أَخَذْنَا مِيثَاقَكُمْ وَرَفَعْنَا فَوْقَكُمُ الطُّورَ خُذُوا مَا آتَيْنَاكُمْ بِقُوَّةٍ وَاسْمَعُوا قَالُوا سَمِعْنَا وَعَصَيْنَا (And when We took your covenant and raised the mountain above you: "Hold fast to what We have given you, with strength, and listen." They said: "We have heard and we have disobeyed.")
Abū Jaʿfar said: By His statement — exalted is His praise —: (And when We took your covenant) He means: remember when We took your pledges, that you would hold fast to what We had given you of the Torah — which I sent down to you, so that you would act according to what is in it of My command, and refrain from that which I have forbidden you therein — with exertion and diligence on your part in that. Thus you gave your covenant to act according to it, when We raised the mountain above you.
As for His statement: (and listen), the meaning of it is: and listen to what I have commanded you and accept it with obedience. It is like the statement of a man to a man when he commands him with something: "I have heard and I have obeyed," by which he means: I have heard your word and I have obeyed your command. As the poet of the rajaz said:
Hearing, obedience, and submission are better and more protective for the Banū Tamīm.
By his word "hearing" he means: accepting what one hears, and by "obedience": [obedience] to what is commanded. So too is the meaning of His statement: (and listen), namely: accept what you have heard and act according to it.
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Abū Jaʿfar said: The meaning of the verse is therefore: And when We took your covenant, that you would hold fast to what We have given you, with strength, and would act according to what you have heard, and would obey Allah; and We raised the mountain above you for the sake of that.
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As for His statement: (they said: "We have heard"), the statement has come in the form of a report about an absent third person, after the beginning was in the address form (second person). That is as we have described, namely that when the beginning of a statement is a quotation, the Arabs speak therein in the address form and then return to the report about the absent third person, and they make a report about the absent one and then again speak in the address form, as we have set forth earlier. So it is also in this verse, for His statement: (And when We took your covenant) has the meaning: We said to you, and you answered Us.
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As for His statement: (they said: "We have heard"), this is a report from Allah — about the Jews from whom He took the covenant that they would act according to what is in the Torah, and that they would obey Allah in that which they heard from it — that, when that was said to them, they said: we have heard your word, and we have disobeyed your command.
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The discourse on the explanation of His — exalted is He — statement: وَأُشْرِبُوا فِي قُلُوبِهِمُ الْعِجْلَ بِكُفْرِهِمْ (And in their hearts the calf was made to be absorbed because of their unbelief.)
Abū Jaʿfar said: The exegetes differed concerning the explanation of it. Some of them said: and in their hearts the love of the calf was made to be absorbed.
* Mention of who said that:
1561 — Al-Ḥasan ibn Yaḥyā related to us, saying: ʿAbd al-Razzāq informed us, saying: Maʿmar related to us, on the authority of Qatāda: (And in their hearts the calf was made to be absorbed), he said: they were made to be absorbed with the love of it, until that penetrated to their hearts.
1562 — Al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Ādam related to us, saying: Abū Jaʿfar related to us, on the authority of al-Rabīʿ, on the authority of Abū al-ʿĀliya: (And in their hearts the calf was made to be absorbed), he said: they were made to be absorbed with the love of the calf because of their unbelief.
1563 — Al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Isḥāq related to us, saying: Ibn Abī Jaʿfar related to us, on the authority of his father, on the authority of al-Rabīʿ: (And in their hearts the calf was made to be absorbed), he said: they were made to be absorbed in their hearts with the love of the calf.
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Others said: the meaning of it is that they were given to drink the water in which the filings of the calf had been scattered.
* Mention of who said that:
1564 — Mūsā ibn Hārūn related to me, saying: ʿAmr related to us, saying: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī: When Mūsā returned to his people, he took the calf that he had found them worshipping, slaughtered it, then burned it with the file, and then scattered it into the sea. There remained no flowing sea that day but that something of [the calf] fell into it. Then Mūsā said to them: drink from it. So they drank from it, and with whoever loved it the gold came out upon his moustache. That is when Allah — Mighty and Exalted is He — says: (And in their hearts the calf was made to be absorbed because of their unbelief).
1565 — Al-Qāsim related to us, saying: Al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Ḥajjāj related to me, on the authority of Ibn Jurayj, he said: When the [calf] had been ground into filings and cast into the sea, they turned toward the stream of the water and drank until they had filled their bellies. That caused cowardice in whoever of them did so.
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Abū Jaʿfar said: The more correct of the two explanations that I have mentioned regarding the statement of Allah — exalted is His praise —: (And in their hearts the calf was made to be absorbed) is the explanation of the one who said: and in their hearts the love of the calf was made to be absorbed. For of water it is not said: such-and-such was made to be absorbed in his heart; that is said only of the love of something, so that one says of it: "the heart of such-and-such was made to be absorbed with the love of this-and-that," in the meaning: that was poured in until it overwhelmed him and mingled with his heart. As Zuhayr said:
I sobered from her after a love that had entered deep — and love, with which your heart is made to be absorbed, is a disease.
Abū Jaʿfar said: But He omitted the mention of "the love," because He was content with the listener's understanding of the meaning of the statement. For it was known that the calf does not make the heart absorbed, and that that which makes the heart absorbed of it is the love of it. As He — exalted is His praise — said: وَاسْأَلْهُمْ عَنِ الْقَرْيَةِ الَّتِي كَانَتْ حَاضِرَةَ الْبَحْرِ [Surah Al-Aʿrāf: 163] (And ask them about the town that was situated by the sea), and وَاسْأَلِ الْقَرْيَةَ الَّتِي كُنَّا فِيهَا وَالْعِيرَ الَّتِي أَقْبَلْنَا فِيهَا [Yūsuf: 82] (And ask the town in which we were and the caravan with which we came), and as the poet said:
Indeed, I was given a pitch-black one to drink — indeed, the drink is enough for me, indeed, enough!
By it he means a black poison, and he was content with the mention of "black" without the mention of "the poison," because of the listener's knowledge of the meaning of what he intended by his statement "I was given a black one to drink." And it is also transmitted as:
Indeed, I was given a skin-shedding black one to drink.
And the Arabs may also say: "If it pleases you to look at generosity, then look at Harim, or at Ḥātim," so that one is content with the mention of the name without the mention of his deed, when he is known for bravery or generosity or similar qualities. To that belongs the statement of the poet:
They say: wage struggle, O Jamīl, with a campaign — and indeed, the jihād is that of Ṭayyiʾ and their armed struggle.
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The discourse on the explanation of His — exalted is He — statement: قُلْ بِئْسَمَا يَأْمُرُكُمْ بِهِ إِيمَانُكُمْ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ مُؤْمِنِينَ (93) (Say: "Evil is that which your faith commands you, if you are believers.")
Abū Jaʿfar said: By it He means — exalted is His praise —: Say, O Muḥammad, to the Jews of the Children of Israel: evil is that which your faith commands you, if it commands you to kill the prophets of Allah and His messengers, and to deny His books, and to reject what has come from Him. The meaning of "their faith" is: their affirmation as true, by which they claimed that they affirmed the Book of Allah as true, when it was said to them: آمِنُوا بِمَا أَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ (Believe in what Allah has sent down), whereupon they said: نُؤْمِنُ بِمَا أُنْزِلَ عَلَيْنَا (We believe in what was sent down to us). And His statement: (if you are believers), that is to say: if you are [truly] affirmers — as you claimed — of what Allah has sent down to you. Allah has only declared them liars by it, because the Torah forbids all of that and commands its opposite. Thus He informed them that their affirmation of the Torah as true, if it were to command them that, would then be an evil command that it commands them. That is only a denial from Allah — exalted is His mention — concerning the Torah, that it would command anything of what Allah detests of their deeds, and that the affirmation of it as true would point to any contradiction with the command of Allah; and it is a report from Him — exalted is His praise — that that which commands them that is their desires, and that that which incites them to it is unlawful transgression and enmity.
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Footnotes:
(54) The explanation of the wordings of this verse — "mīthāq" (covenant), "al-ṭūr" (the mountain), "al-ītāʾ" (the giving), "quwwa" (strength) — has already been given earlier; look it up in the following places 2: 156, 157, 160 and the references.
(55) The one who said it is a man of Ḍabba, of the Banū Ḍirār, named Jubayr ibn al-Ḍaḥḥāk. The story about it is that ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ibn Ghaylān al-Thaqafī, governor of Basra in the year 55, was delivering a sermon on her pulpit, whereupon this Jubayr pelted him with stones. Thereupon ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr commanded that his hand be cut off. Then he said the rajaz. They brought the matter before Muʿāwiya, who deposed him (Taʾrīkh al-Ṭabarī 6: 167).
(56) In the printed edition it reads "mimmā waṣafnā," which means nothing.
(57) See what has preceded 1: 153–154, and this volume 2: 293, 294.
(58) Al-suḥāla: that which falls off of gold, silver, and the like when they are filed, that is, worked with the file.
(59) Ḥarraqahu: he filed it with the file; see what has preceded of this volume 2: 74.
(60) The narration 1564 — has already been given earlier under number 937.
(61) His dīwān: 339. It is there as "tushrabuhu" with ḍamma on the tāʾ, sukūn on the shīn and kasra on the rāʾ, and with "fuʾādaka" in the accusative. The commentary on it points to that, for he said: "tadkhuluhu" and he said: "tushrabuhu," [in the meaning that the love] clings to him. But the argumentation of Ṭabarī, as you see, points to the fact that he vocalized it in the passive form, with "fuʾāduka" in the nominative. An entered-deep love and an entered-deep disease: those that have mingled with the innermost being and brought corruption upon the mind and the body.
(62) This is Ṭarafa ibn al-ʿAbd.
(63) His dīwān: 343 (Ashʿār al-sitta al-jāhiliyyīn), and Nawādir Abī Zayd: 83, and al-Lisān (sword). People differ concerning what he intended by his word "aswad" (black). Some say: the water; others say: death and dying. Abū Zayd said in his Nawādir: "One says: such-and-such did not give me a drop of suwayd to drink (suwayd, in the diminutive form), that is the water, which is called 'the black one.'" And he adduced the verse as proof. The correct thing in this is to say as Ṭabarī said, and he means by it: the evil of the worry and the bitter, pitch-black fate that he experienced in the love for his beloved, al-Ḥanẓaliyya, whom he mentioned in this poem of his before the verse:
Then say to the phantom of al-Ḥanẓaliyya that it should return to her, for I hold fast to the rope of whoever is [with me] connected.
Indeed, I weep only over a day that I lived through at Jurthum al-Qāsī — all that comes after it is slight.
When that which is inevitable comes, then: welcome to it when it comes — no lie and no excuse.
Indeed, I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It is also transmitted as: "indeed, I have had enough of life," and that is better. The reading of the dīwān and of al-Lisān is: (Indeed, I drank), and the one here is better. And his word "bajal" means: enough for me is what I have been given to drink of you and of life.
(64) Al-sālikh among the snakes: the black one, the intensely black, and it is the most deadly when it casts off its skin at its time, every year.
(65) Harim ibn Sinān, the patron of Zuhayr ibn Abī Sulmā, and Ḥātim: that is al-Ṭāʾī, whose fame escapes no one. Most of this is in Maʿānī al-Qurʾān of al-Farrāʾ 1: 61–62.
(66) Maʿānī al-Qurʾān of al-Farrāʾ 1: 62, and Majālis Thaʿlab: 76, and al-Lisān (ghazā), and he attributes it to Jamīl, but I think that he has erred, because of the mention of Jamīl in the verse, and because of the resemblance to the statement of Jamīl:
They say: wage struggle, O Jamīl, with a campaign! And what jihād do I desire other than them [the beloved ones]?
But the verse belongs to the poem of another, which after investigation I have not yet found. The first means: and indeed, the jihād is the jihād of Ṭayyiʾ and their armed struggle; thus he has omitted [a word] and made do with that.
(67) See what has preceded concerning the meaning of "faith" (al-īmān) 1: 235, 2: 143 and elsewhere.