Surah 1-2 - YasSarNal QuR'aN

Al-Baqarah (The Cow) | MAN IN CHARGE OF THE EARTHcow, without at first telling them, or the reader, of the purpose behind it. It wassimply a test of faith and obedience.We are only given the dialogue that takes place between Moses and his people. Atno time is the story interrupted to tell us what words were exchanged between Godand Moses. We only know that every time the Israelites asked Moses to refer to “hisLord”, he did so and came back to them with an answer. We are not told how thatcommunication was conducted or what was said by either God or Moses. Thisomission is most befitting of God’s greatness, who should be revered and notinsulted with pointless arguments such as those Jews were making.The story concludes with an event as astounding for us as it was for the Israelitesthemselves: a dead man brought back to life simply by striking his corpse with apiece of a dead cow. That is most amazing!The artistic method employed here combines with the purpose of the narration toa most significant and successful effect in one of the shortest and finest stories told inthe Qur’ān.The final scene in the story should have been awesome enough to inspire faith,submission and fear of God in the hearts of the Children of Israel. But despite all thelessons they might have learnt from earlier encounters related in the sūrah, there is agloomy, disappointing conclusion that comes as a complete surprise: “Yet after allthis, your hearts hardened until they were as hard as rocks or even harder; for there are rocksfrom which rivers gush forth; others split so that water flows through them, and some otherrocks fall down for fear of God. Indeed, God is not unaware of what you do.” (Verse 74)Their hearts are compared here to hard rocks, but even more difficult to subdue.The similes given were not altogether unfamiliar to the Israelites, for when theyneeded water they had seen it gush forth from one solid rock, in twelve springs.They had witnessed how a Mountain crashed down when God revealed His glorythere, as told in Sūrah 7, Verse 143. Their hearts, however, remained rigid andinflexible, totally devoid of faith and fear of God, harsh, barren and unbending. Butthey are warned that “God is not unaware of what you do.” (Verse 74)This concludes an episode of the Israelites’ rich and chequered history; a historyfraught with denials, deviousness, scheming, stubbornness, corruption and flagrantrebellion.84