2. Al-Baqara

But those who disbelieve, and die disbelieving (wa-hum kuffār, ‘they being disbelievers’, is a circumstantial qualifier) — upon them shall be the curse of God and the angels, and of people altogether, that is, they deserve such [a curse] in this life and in the next; ‘people’ here is said to be either [people] in general, or believers.

Abiding therein, that is, [in] the curse and the Fire, [the latter] indicated by the following words: the chastisement shall not be lightened for them, [not even for] a blink of an eye, no respite shall be given them, in which to have time to repent or to excuse themselves.

When they asked him [Muhammad (s)] to describe his Lord, the following was revealed: Your God, the One deserving of your worship, is One God, without any equal in either essence or attribute; there is no god except Him, He is the Compassionate, the Merciful.

They then asked for a sign to prove this, and the following was revealed: Surely in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the marvels contained in them, and the alternation of the night and day, passing and returning, increasing and diminishing, and the ships that run in the sea, and do not become cracked and sink, with what profits men, of trade and merchandise, and the water, the rain, God sends down from the heaven with which He revives the earth, with vegetation, after it is dead, after it has dried out, and He scatters abroad in it all manner of crawling thing, by dividing them and spreading them throughout on account of the vegetation, for they thrive on the fertile pastures it produces; and the disposition of the winds, changing it from south to north, from cold to warm, and the clouds compelled, subjugated by God’s command, moving to wherever God wishes, between heaven and the earth, without being attached [to either of the two] — surely there are signs, indicating His Oneness, exalted be He, for a people who comprehend, [a people] who contemplate.

Yet there be people who take to themselves compeers, idols, besides God, that is, other than God, loving them, by magnifying them and being subservient to them, as God is loved, that is, as their love of Him; but those who believe love God more ardently, than those who love their compeers, because the former never reject God, whereas the latter when faced with hardship soon abandon those [compeers] for God; If he, [if you] O Muhammad (s), were to see those who did evil, by taking to themselves compeers, when (idh here denotes idhā) they see (read either as active [yarawna, ‘they see’] or passive [yurawna, ‘they are made to see’]) the chastisement, you would see a grave sight, that, this is because, the might, the power and the vanquishing, altogether (a circumstantial qualifier) belongs to God, and that God is terrible in chastisement (according to one reading, the person listening [to the verse] governs the verb yarā, ‘he sees’, and constitutes the subject [of the clause]; according to another [reading], it is the ‘evildoers’ [who constitute the subject of the clause and govern the verb yarā]; and so it [yarā] has the sense of ya‘lam, ‘he knows’; the particle an, ‘that’, and what comes after it have taken the place of the objects in both cases; the response to the [initial conditional] law, ‘if’, has been omitted). The general meaning [of the verse] then is: ‘If they were aware in this world of the severity of God’s chastisement and of the fact that power is God’s alone, the moment they come to see it with their own eyes, on the Day of Resurrection, they would not take to themselves compeers’.

When (idh here substitutes for the previous idh) those who were followed, that is, the leaders, disown their followers, that is to say, [when] they have denied misleading them [the latter], and they have seen the chastisement, and the cords, the bonds of affection and kinship that were between them on earth, are cut away before them, from them (taqatta‘at, ‘cut away’, is a supplement to tabarra’a, ‘disown’).

The following was revealed when some said that it was unlawful to take a camel that has been let loose (sawā’ib): O people, eat of what is in the earth, lawful (halālan is a circumstantial qualifier) and wholesome (tayyiban is an adjective for emphasis), that is to say, what is delicious; and follow not the steps, the ways, of Satan, meaning, what he embellishes [of temptations]; he is a manifest foe to you, whose enmity is clear;

he only commands you to evil, sin, and indecency, what is abhorred by the Law, and that you should speak against God what you do not know, such as forbidding what He has not forbidden and otherwise.

And when it is said to them, the disbelievers, ‘Follow what God has revealed’, pertaining to affirmation of God’s Oneness and the good things that He has made lawful, they say, ‘No; but we follow what we found our fathers doing’, in the way of idol-worship, deeming unlawful the camel let loose, and [practising] the slitting of the camel’s ear (sc. bahīra). God says: What? (the hamza [of a-wa-law] is for repudiation), do they follow them, Even if their fathers do not understand anything, concerning religion, and they were not guided?, to the truth.