The Heifer (Al-Baqarah)

Commentary

(a) Literally ‘We favoured some above others’. (b) When God sends one of his messenger to bring the truth to mankind, his call is marked by signs so unmistakable that his congregation has no difficulty in recognizing his message to be from God. Yet, in spite of this, people give no credence to his words. The first to deny God’s messenger are those who are followers of past prophets. Each prophet received certain special favours from God in order to facilitate the communication of his message according to the varying exigencies of the different historical periods in which he lived. But the followers, attaching too much importance to the miracle bestowed by God on a particular prophet, came to believe that their particular prophet was superior to all others. They felt that none could surpass the prophet they believed in. They consequently saw no reason to listen to the contemporary prophet whose name had yet to be hallowed by tradition. For instance, believers in Moses rejected Jesus. Followers of the latter disbelieved in the Prophet Muhammad. In the case of Moses, his followers held him to be greater than all other prophets, because he had had the distinction of being addressed directly by God. Believers in Jesus considered him peerless, because he had been born to a virgin mother. that their contemporaries believed themselves to be successors of earlier saints and thus were in no need of further religious counselling, particularly by someone who appeared to be inferior to their own predecessors. When communities begin to go into a decline, they become preoccupied with wordly interests, yet they do not wish to forfeit their ‘right’ to salvation, and as a form of psychological defence, attach themselves mentally to hallowed religious personalities. They fondly imagine that the lofty status of their saintly patrons will ensure their redemption in the next world, no matter how unethical their conduct might have been in this world. It is this false sense of security which gives such people the audacity to oppose those who call them to God. It is imaginable that God might have arranged human destiny in such a way that man, having no freedom to demur, was obliged invariably to bow to His will. But this was not part of God’s scheme for mankind. God gave man freedom of action in order to put him to the divine test: He wished to see if man could find his way to his Maker, while He Himself remained invisible. For this reason, man is required to be able to recognize the word of God, albeit uttered by the human tongue, and to penetrate the veil of outward forms in order to reach the hidden, inner truth. Those who have come to reform and revitalize the Muslim community since the passing of the Final Prophet have fared no better. They have been treated with total irreverence, as creatures of no account whatsoever, for the simple reason