By now Ayāt 1–10 should be memorised, so this session began with a full revision of everything so far. The Female Cow, 286 ayāt, a Madanī surah, divided into nine parts, the first of which is the three types of people: the muttaqīn (Ayāt 2–5), the kāfir (Ayāt 6–7), and the munāfiq (from Ayah 8). Most of this has been covered in earlier notes, so only what was added this week is set down here. Then we went back to the end of Ayah 10, and took our first step into Ayah 11.
1. One More Virtue: A House Shayṭān Will Not Enter
We already know that al-Baqarah comes like clouds to shade its companions on Yawm al-Qiyāmah, and that it holds around 70–80% of Qur’anic vocabulary. To these, add one more. Rasūlullāh ﷺ taught that Shayṭān will not come to a house in which Surah al-Baqarah is recited.
So if something strange is going on in the house, who do you call? Not al-Baqarah. You read al-Baqarah. You don’t need Ghostbusters.
2. Mufliḥūn: Working Before the Sweetness
The people of taqwā are those guided by the Qur’an. Their signs are īmān in the unseen, establishing prayer, giving in charity, believing in what was sent down to the Prophet ﷺ and what was sent before him (the Tawrāh to Mūsā, the Zabūr to Dāwūd, the Injīl to ʿĪsā), and certainty of the Ākhirah. Ayah 5 closes the passage by calling them al-mufliḥūn, the successful ones. Falāḥ is success, a mufliḥ is a successful person, and mufliḥūn is the plural.
Recall the link between falāḥ and the fallāḥ, the farmer: delayed gratification. We pray, we pay zakat, we are kind and charitable, and we don’t see the reward straight away. We see it in the Ākhirah. But that training for the Ākhirah also prepares us for success in this world. Anything worth having takes time and effort. Someone who has trained in karate for seven years will be far ahead of someone who starts today. Whether a skill is actually usefulis a different question. But no skill comes without the investment.
Let’s be real: how many of us enjoy praying all the time? Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t. We do it anyway, because we know the reward is with Allah. And in the process, we learn to love it.
Many good things in life follow this pattern. As small children we run everywhere, and adults have to tell us to slow down and walk. Then we reach an age where we’re “too cool to run”. Running becomes tiring, and the calves are sore the next day. But if you persevere, you get stronger, run faster and run further, and the enjoyment returns. Martial arts are the same. It’s exciting at first because it’s new. Around yellow and green belt it becomes “do I really have to go?” Close to black belt the interest comes back, because now you’re good. Then come competing and coaching, and you love it.
Prayer follows the same arc. As a child you love praying because it makes you feel grown up. Then you realise you have to do it every single day. You push through, because you know it’s good for you. You learn more, go deeper and understand more, and eventually you fall in love with it again. This is why the word is mufliḥūn. You put in the work before you taste the sweetness of your ʿibādah.
3. The Kāfir and the Munāfiq, Briefly
The kāfir knows the truth and rejects it. Like the farmer burying a seed, he buries something good that could grow, and then refuses to tend to it. The ayāt of eternal punishment do not apply to every non-Muslim. In the Qur’anic sense, a person becomes a kāfir only after five steps: they received the daʿwah, it was given in a reasonable manner, their doubts were answered, they had time to think, and they still rejected it. In fiqh, by contrast, a non-Muslim is simply termed a kāfir.
The munāfiq takes his name from the two-exit tunnel of the dabb. He is neither here nor there: he disbelieves inside and pretends to believe outside. He thinks he is deceiving Allah and the believers, but he deceives no one but himself, and he doesn’t even notice. His passage is the longest of the three because he is the hardest to identify, and Allah lays out his signs so that we do not fall into nifāq ourselves.
4. Ayah 10 — Intention and the Disease of the Heart
Fī qulūbihim maraḍun fa-zādahumu Allāhu maraḍā: in their hearts is a disease, and Allah increased them in disease. This is where intention becomes really important. What is in your heart? If there is a disease there, if you are insincere and intend evil, Allah increases it. But if you want to do good, Allah will help you do good. The direction you choose, Allah strengthens.
And for them is ʿadhābun alīm, a painful punishment, for the lies they used to tell.
5. ʿAẓīm, Alīm, and Why Jannah Never Grows Stale
We have now met two descriptions of punishment. Ayah 7 closes with ʿadhābun ʿaẓīm, and Ayah 10 with ʿadhābun alīm. ʿAdhāb is punishment, torture or torment. ʿAẓīm is great, and al-ʿAẓīm, the Most Great, is one of Allah’s names. Alīm is painful, from alam, pain.
Be careful with the first letter. Alīm with a hamzah is painful. ʿAlīm with an ʿayn is all-knowing, as in wallāhu samīʿun ʿalīm, “Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing.” Don’t interchange them. They mean very different things.
The long ī at the end carries the sense of something eternal and ever-increasing. We met it at the very start, in Bismillāhir-Raḥmānir-Raḥīm: Allah’s mercy is everlasting and keeps increasing.
In this world, too much of anything is never a good thing, no matter how much you like it. Sleep too little and you’re tired. Sleep fourteen hours and you wake up groggy, can’t sleep that night, and your whole schedule falls apart. Eat too much and your stomach hurts; eat nothing and your stomach hurts. So in this life we look for the sweet spot. Take your favourite ice cream. If vanilla were all you could eat for a whole week, the first serving would be awesome and the second still awesome. By the third you’d be saying, “alright.”
Jannah, under Allah’s Raḥīm mercy, is the opposite. Even if it’s the same strawberry, the first bite is awesome. The second is more awesome than the first, the third more awesome than the second, and it keeps getting better and better forever. You never grow tired of it.
Alīm works the same way in reverse. It is pain that lasts forever, that you never get used to, and that only increases. So between ʿadhābun ʿaẓīm and ʿadhābun alīm, alīm is generally the worse.
6. Ayah 11 — Wa Idhā Qīla
وَإِذَا قِيلَ لَهُمْ لَا تُفْسِدُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ قَالُوٓا۟ إِنَّمَا نَحْنُ مُصْلِحُونَ
Wa idhā qīla lahum lā tufsidū fil-arḍi qālū innamā naḥnu muṣliḥūn.
“And when it is said to them, ‘Do not cause corruption on the earth,’ they say, ‘We are only reformers.’”
For now, we stop at the opening words: wa idhā qīla. Wa we already know: and. Idhā is a new word: when. But not “when” as a question, like “when did you last sleep?” or “when did you last eat?” It is “when” as in bringing you back to a particular moment. “Remember when we all had pizza?” That isn’t really a question. It’s jogging your memory. (Except it wasn’t pizza, it was satay. Very good satay.) Lahum is “to them”.
7. Qāla and Qīla: The Known and the Unknown Speaker
Qīla comes from qāla, “he said”. With qāla, the speaker is known. “Qāla: we ate satay.” He said it, and you must know who he is. Qīla also means “said”, but the speaker is unknown: “it was said”.
Allah does not say wa idhā qāla lahum lā tufsidū fil-arḍ. He says wa idhā qīla lahum: when it is said to them. In many ayāt of the Qur’an where advice is given, the speaker is left unknown. Why?
8. Judge What Is Said, Not Who Said It
Because we are taught to evaluate what is being said, not who said it. A truth is a truth no matter who said it, and a falsehood is a falsehood no matter who said it. As Sayyidunā ʿAlī said:
Unẓur ilā mā qāla wa lā tanẓur ilā man qāla.
“Look at what is said, and do not look at who is saying it.”
Even if the truth comes from a young child, we accept it. If the teacher makes a mistake in class and a student corrects him, what should he do? Should he say, “How dare you correct me? You’ve only eaten twenty ice creams in your life, and I’ve eaten forty-six. I am the Ustaz and you are the student”? Or should he weigh the correction as it is and, if it’s right, correct himself?
Good advice is good advice even if it comes from an evil person. If a thief tells you that stealing is ḥarām, he is right. We accept the truth as it is, and we don’t fight the truth, whoever brings it. This is why wa idhā qīla matters, as opposed to wa idhā qāla. When it comes to advice, we don’t care who said it. If it is the truth, it is the truth, and we accept it.
