Verses 72 – 73

وَإِذْ قَتَلْتُمْ نَفْسًا فَادَّارَأْتُمْ فِيهَا وَاللَّهُ مُخْرِجٌ مَا كُنْتُمْ تَكْتُمُونَ() فَقُلْنَا اضْرِبُوهُ بِبَعْضِهَا كَذَلِكَ يُحْيِي اللَّهُ الْمَوْتَى وَيُرِيكُمْ آيَاتِهِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ ()

And when you killed a man, and began to push and pull each other for it; while Allah was to bring forth what you were holding back. So, We said, "Strike him with a part of it." Similar to that, Allah revives the dead. And He shows you His signs, so that you may understand.

The murderer had his supporters who wanted to hide his crime, and hence began accusing different people. But Allah willed that the criminal should be brought to book, and appointed a miraculous way of identifying him - that is, the dead body of the murdered man should be touched with a part of the flesh of the sacrificial cow. When this was done, the dead man came back to life, announced the name of his murderer, and died again.

This miraculous event is a manifestation of the omnipotence of Allah, and Holy Qur'an presents it as an argument against those who deny the Resurrection of the dead for the Last Judgment. Verse 73 says that this precedent should induce people to make use of their reason, and see that what has happened in a past instance can as easily happen in a future instance.

With regard to this event one may ask as to why Allah made the resurrection of the dead man depend upon his being touched with a part of flesh when he had the power to bring the man back to life without the intervention of any such device; or, one may ask as to why the dead man should have been brought back to life when the name of the murderer could have been revealed even otherwise. In answer to this, we shall say that Allah is omnipotent, and does not act under any kind of compulsion, but that all His actions proceed from His all-embracing wisdom. Moreover, it is He alone who knows, and can know, the raison d'etre of what He does. The Shari'ah does not oblige us to discover the raison d'etre of each and every divine act, nor is it necessary or possible that we should be able to comprehend the raison d'etre in each case. The best way in such a case is to accept-what Allah or the Holy Prophet (S) has said, and to keep quiet.

Let us say a word about the arrangement and sequence of the events. Verse 72 relates how a man was murdered, and how people started accusing each other. This is the beginning of the story which has been related earlier in Verses 67-71. This chronological order has

not been preserved in the narration, but inverted, and this re-arrangement has a subtle significance. This long section of the Surah (Chapter) has been dealing with the transgressions of the Israelites, and this is just what the Holy Qur'an intends to bring out in narrating different stories, the narrating of stories not being an object in itself here. The present story is meant to show two misdeeds -firstly, committing a murder and then trying to hide it; secondly, raising uncalled-for objections to divine commandments. If the chronological order had been kept up, the readers would have supposed that it was only the first of these that was really intended, while the second was added only by way of completing the story. The present arrangement clearly shows that both the misdeeds have been equally emphasized.

Injunctions and related consideration

In this incident the statement of the murdered man was considered evidence for condemning the murderer, because Allah had informed Sayyidna Musa (AS) through revelation that the man would, on coming back to life, speak the truth. Otherwise, one cannot be declared as being guilty of murder without proper evidence, the rules of which have been laid down by the Shari'ah.

Verse 74

ثُمَّ قَسَتْ قُلُوبُكُمْ مِنْ بَعْدِ ذَلِكَ فَهِيَ كَالْحِجَارَةِ أَوْ أَشَدُّ قَسْوَةً وَإِنَّ مِنَ الْحِجَارَةِ لَمَا يَتَفَجَّرُ مِنْهُ الْأَنْهَارُ وَإِنَّ مِنْهَا لَمَا يَشَّقَّقُ فَيَخْرُجُ مِنْهُ الْمَاءُ وَإِنَّ مِنْهَا لَمَا يَهْبِطُ مِنْ خَشْيَةِ اللَّهِ وَمَا اللَّهُ بِغَافِلٍ عَمَّا تَعْمَلُونَ ()

When, even after that your hearts were hardened, as if they were like the rocks, or still worse in hardness. For surely among the rocks there are some from which rivers gush forth, and there are others which burst out and water flows from them, and there are still others which fall down in fear of Allah. And Allah is not unaware of what you do.

The Surah has been relating a number of incidents which show that the Israelites were always prone to disobedience and rebellion and had to undergo punishment again and again. Such an experience should have taught them humility and obedience. On the contrary, their hearts became all the more hardened against divine guidance. This insensibility led them into further misdeeds and transgressions. The present verse describes their degeneracy, and warns them that Allah knows everything they have been doing, and will punish them for their evil deeds.

In contrasting the hearts of the Israelites with stones, the verse refers to three states of the latter: (1) Some stones give forth a great amount of water. (2) Others give forth only a small quantity. (3) Still others do not give forth water, but fall down from their place for fear of Allah.

The first two of these states are a matter of everyday observation, but the third may be subject to doubt, for the ability to feel fear requires reason and sensibility, and the stones, as one supposes, do not possess these faculties. But reason is not always a necessary requisite for the ability to feel fear - after all, animals do feel fear, even though they do not possess reason. Sensibility is, of course, necessary. But there is no rational argument which should deny sensibility to minerals. For sensibility depends on life, and the minerals may possibly possess a kind of subtle life which man may not be aware of. In fact, scientists have recently discovered the signs of life and sensibility in minerals too. Anyhow, an explicit statement in the Holy Qur'an carries a validity and an authority which no physical science or rational argument can dispute.

Then, we do not claim that fear of Allah is always the only cause which makes a stone fall down. For, the Holy Qur'an itself says that this cause operates only in the case of some stones. So, there may be different causes which make stones fall down; some of these causes may be purely physical, while one of them may be the fear of Allah.

The order in which the three kinds of stones have been mentioned is very subtle, and, in view of the meaning and purpose intended, extremely expressive and significant. The verse places in the highest degree those stones whose affectivity is so strong that rivers gush forth from them, and provide sustenance to beasts and men. In contrast to them, it has been suggested, the hearts of the Jews are so hard that they are incapable of feeling any sympathy for their fellow-men even in suffering and pain, and hence incapable of wishing to do them good. In the second degree come the stones which do serve the creatures of Allah, but to a lesser extent. But the hearts of Jews are harder than even these. To the lowest degree of affectivity belong those stones which do not benefit anyone, but can at least 'feel' the fear of Allah. But the Jews are devoid of even this minimum degree of sensitivity.

Verse 75

أَفَتَطْمَعُونَ أَنْ يُؤْمِنُوا لَكُمْ وَقَدْ كَانَ فَرِيقٌ مِنْهُمْ يَسْمَعُونَ كَلَامَ اللَّهِ ثُمَّ يُحَرِّفُونَهُ مِنْ بَعْدِ مَا عَقَلُوهُ وَهُمْ يَعْلَمُونَ ()

Do you still fancy that they will believe you, although a group of them used to hear the word of Allah, and then, after having understood it, used to distort it knowingly?

The Muslims used to take great pains in trying to make the Jews accept Islam. Having recounted so many stories of the perversity of the Jews, the Holy Qur'an points out to the Muslims that they cannot expect such a people to be sensible, and asks them not to worry much about them. For, some of the Jews have been committing an even more heinous sin - they used to change and distort the Word of Allah in spite of knowing the ignominy of such a deed. So, the Holy Qur'an wants the Muslims to realize that men who are so enslaved to their desires and so shameless in their pursuit of evil, cannot be expected to listen to anyone.

The "Word of Allah" mentioned in the verse refers to the Torah which the Jews had "heard" from the prophets, and the distortion pertains to the changes made in the words themselves or in the sense or in both; or it refers to the words of Allah which the seventy men had heard directly on the Mount Tur (Sinai) where they had gone to seek divine confirmation of what Sayyidna Musa (AS) (Moses) had been telling and the distortion pertains to their declaration before their people that Allah had promised to forgive them if they could not act upon certain commandments.

The Jews who were the contemporaries of the Holy Prophet (S) may not have themselves been involved in some of these transgressions, but since they did not abhor the misdeeds of their forefathers, they are to be considered as their counterparts.

Verse 76

وَإِذَا لَقُوا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا قَالُوا آمَنَّا وَإِذَا خَلَا بَعْضُهُمْ إِلَى بَعْضٍ قَالُوا أَتُحَدِّثُونَهُمْ بِمَا فَتَحَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْكُمْ لِيُحَاجُّوكُمْ بِهِ عِنْدَ رَبِّكُمْ أَفَلَا تَعْقِلُونَ ()

And when they meet those who believe, they say, "We believe." But when some of them meet others in private, they say, "Do you tell them what Allah has disclosed to you so that they may thereby argue against you before your Lord? Have you, then, no sense?"

Some of the Jews, seeing the growing power of the Muslims in Madinah and around it, pretended to have accepted Islam. In order to assure the Muslims of their sincerity and to win their favour, these hypocrites would now and then disclose to them that the Torah itself had given out the good tidings of the coming of the Holy Prophet (S) and mentioned the Holy Qur'an. But when they met other Jews who openly declared their adherence to Judaism, they would admit that they were only trying to deceive the Muslims, and were otherwise quite loyal to their own faith. On such occasions, those of the other group used to reprimand them for revealing to the Muslims what they themselves were trying to keep concealed, for a knowledge of the relevant verses of the Torah could be very useful for the Muslims in order to defeat the Jews in their argument.

Verses 77-79

أَوَلَا يَعْلَمُونَ أَنَّ اللَّهَ يَعْلَمُ مَا يُسِرُّونَ وَمَا يُعْلِنُونَ () وَمِنْهُمْ أُمِّيُّونَ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ الْكِتَابَ إِلَّا أَمَانِيَّ وَإِنْ هُمْ إِلَّا يَظُنُّونَ () فَوَيْلٌ لِلَّذِينَ يَكْتُبُونَ الْكِتَابَ بِأَيْدِيهِمْ ثُمَّ يَقُولُونَ هَذَا مِنْ عِنْدِ اللَّهِ لِيَشْتَرُوا بِهِ ثَمَنًا قَلِيلًا فَوَيْلٌ لَهُمْ مِمَّا كَتَبَتْ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَوَيْلٌ لَهُمْ مِمَّا يَكْسِبُونَ ()

Are they not aware that Allah knows what they conceal and what they manifest? And some among them are illiterate who have no knowledge of the Book, but have some fancies, and they do nothing but make conjectures. So, woe to those who write the Book with their hands and then say, "This is from Allah", so that they may gain a small price out of it. Then, woe to them for what their hands have written, and woe to them for what they earn.

Allah reminds the Jews that He is omniscient, and knows what they try to keep concealed as well as what they say or do openly. So, it would make no difference at all, if the hypocrites tried to conceal their infidelity from the Muslims, or the other group, not to disclose the verses of the Torah which speak of the Holy Prophet (S). For, Allah Himself has, on different occasions, informed the Muslims in the Holy Qur'an as to the hypocrisy of certain Jews and as to the testimony of the Torah also.

Verse 77 deals with the educated ones among the Jews, while Verse 78 speaks of those who were unlettered. These men had no knowledge of the Torah, and were even deficient in their understanding. Then, the Jewish scholars did not give them correct or proper information about their religion. No wonder, their minds were stuffed only with baseless superstitions which they found very pleasant and flattering.

Since the dishonesty of their scholars was the real cause of their superstitiousness, the crime of the former was greater than that of the latter. So, Verse 79 turns to the Jewish scholars. They were greedy and self-seeking, and in order to please the people for receiving money and respect from them, they used to misrepresent divine injunctions, going so far as to change the words of the Torah or distort the sense, pretending all the while that this was just what Allah had said or meant. The Verse 79 announces a grievous punishment for these two sins - distorting the Word of Allah and earning money by doing so.

A doctrinal point

Verse 78 says that the illiterate Jews follow their ظن Zann, that is to say, their fancies or conjectures. Some people do not pay any attention to the context in which the word has been used here, and come to the erroneous conclusion that it is not legitimate to accept or follow any view or injunction based on Zann, which they always translate as "a fanciful supposition." This, no doubt, is one of the lexical meanings of the word, but only one. Let us explain that the Holy Qur'an uses the word Zann in three ways:-

(1) To signify perfect certitude -"Those who are certain that they are going to meet their Lord" (2:46). (2) To signify the greatest likelihood - "And he said to him whom he thought was the more likely of the two to be released from the prison" (12:42). (3) To signify a mere fanciful supposition - as in the present verse. The Zann which the Holy Qur'an prohibits us to follow is that of the third kind. This verse condemns the Jews for having followed this kind of Zann which consists in a fanciful opinion that is not supported by a respectable argument or goes against a valid one. On the contrary, it is necessary to follow the Zann of the first two kinds. When certain ahadith or certain arguments and conclusions in the Shari'ah are described as resting on Zann, it is done according to the second signification of the word. One cannot avoid this kind of Zann in any sphere of life, and the Shari'ah requires us to accept and follow it. Certain verses of the Holy Qur'an, of course, condemn those who follow their Zann, but to apply this condemnation to all the possible cases, and to use such verses for rejecting all the legitimate arguments and injunctions of the Shari'ah based on Zann is to betray one's ignorance of the Holy Qur'an.