Tazkirul Quran, Qur’an 2:67–73
The Heifer (Al-Baqarah)
By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
English text; the translator is not named in the archive’s data.
Translation
(67) When Moses said to his people, ‘God commands you to sacrifice a heifer,’ they said, ‘Are you making a mockery of us?’ He answered, ‘God forbid that I should be so ignorant!’ (68) They said, ‘Ask your Lord to make it clear to us what sort of heifer she should be.’ He answered, ‘God says she should be neither too old nor too young, but in between, so do as you are commanded.’ (69) They said, ‘Call on your Lord for us, to show us what colour she should be.’ He answered, ‘God says she should be a bright yellow heifer, pleasing to the eye.’ (70) They said, ‘Ask your Lord to make it clear to us the exact type of heifer she should be, for to us all heifers look alike. If God wills, we shall be rightly guided.’ (71) Moses answered, ‘Your Lord says, she should be a heifer which has not been yoked to plough the land or water the fields, a heifer free from any blemish.’ ‘Now you have told us the truth,’ they answered, and they sacrificed it, though they would rather not have done it. (72) Then, when you [Israelites] killed someone and started to blame one another—God brought to light what you concealed— (73) We said, ‘Strike [the corpse] with a part of it.’ Thus God restores the dead to life and shows you His signs, so that you may understand.
Commentary
(a) Another mistake that the Israelites had made was to destroy the simplicity of divine religion by involving themselves in complicated theological wrangling. They had to learn to interpret God’s will in a straightforward manner and obey it immediately. This was another lesson that was taught under the pretext of this murder case: hair-splitting to define the exact scope of divine edicts will only make things difficult for everyone; additional conditions will only complicate the carrying out of what had originally been a simple commandment.
(a) A murder was committed among the Israelites in Moses’ time. The method that God revealed to His prophet to identify the killer was that an animal should be sacrificed, and the dead man’s corpse be struck with a piece of it. The dead man would then name the murderer.
The third lesson in this instance was that life after death is no less a reality than life before death. Just as the dead corpse was revived, so every soul will be raised up in the Hereafter and given new life.