1 Alif, Lam, Mim.
2 This is the Book,2 there is no doubt in it, a guidance to the Godwary,3
3 who believe in the Unseen, and maintain the prayer, and spend4 out of what We have provided them with;
4 and who believe in what has been sent down to you5 and what was sent down before you, and are certain of the Hereafter.
5 Those follow their Lord’s guidance, and it is they who are the felicitous.
6 As for the faithless, it is the same to them whether you warn them or do not warn them,they will not have faith.
7 Allah has set a seal on their hearts and their hearing, and there is a blindfold on their sight,6 and there is a great punishment for them.
8 And among the people are those who say,‘We have faith in Allah and the Last Day,’ but they have no faith.
9 They seek to deceive Allah and those who have faith, yet they deceive no one but themselves, but they are not aware.
10 There is a sickness in their hearts; then Allah increased their sickness, and there is a painful punishment for them because of the lies they used to tell.
11 When they are told, ‘Do not cause corruption on the earth,’ they say, ‘We are only reformers!’
12 Look! They are themselves the agents of corruption, but they are not aware.
13 And when they are told, ‘Believe like the people who have believed,’ they say, ‘Shall we believe like the fools who have believed?’ Look! They are themselves the fools, but they do not know.
1 The surah takes its name from the story of the cow (baqarah) mentioned in verses
67-73.
2 The term ‘the Book’ in the Qur’an, in such contexts, means a Divine scripture.
3 Or ‘This Book, in which there is no doubt, is guidance to the Godwary.’ Or ‘This
Book is no doubt a guidance to the Godwary.’
4 The expression ‘to spend’ is used in the Qur’¡n elliptically to mean spending in
the way of Allah and for the sake of His pleasure. Cf. 2:195, 261-262, 272;
8:60; 9:33; 47:38; 57:16.
5 That is, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his Household. Throughout this
translation whenever the pronoun ‘you’ refers to the second person singular in
the Arabic and is meant as an address to the Prophet, it has been italicized (for
similar reasons, also the related verbs) in order to distinguish it from cases where
it stands for the second person plural. This is to avoid the use of ‘thee’ and
‘thou,’ which are, unfortunately, archaic in contemporary English.
6 The hearing and sight, often mentioned in the Qur’¡n, refer to the inner spiritual
hearing and vision by the means of which someone possessing faith apprehends
the reality lying beyond the physical realm. Cf. 2:17, 20; 3:13; 6:46, 50, 104,
110; 7:179, 197; 10:43; 11:20, 24; 13:16; 16:78, 108; 19:38; 22:46; 23:78;
24:44; 32:12; 35:19; 36:66; 40:58; 45:23; 46:26; 47:23; 50:22; 59:2; 67:23;
75:14; 76:2.
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