Al-Baqarah · Madani · ayah 100 of 286

Al-Baqarah 2:100

أَوَكُلَّمَا عَـٰهَدُوا۟ عَهْدًا نَّبَذَهُۥ فَرِيقٌ مِّنْهُم ۚ بَلْ أَكْثَرُهُمْ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ

“Is it not [true] that every time they took a covenant a party of them threw it away? But, [in fact], most of them do not believe.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Every time they made a pledge, some of them threw it away, and in truth most of them do not believe.

A reflection

Every September, the same enrolment

A man has enrolled in the same evening Arabic class four Septembers running. Each year he drops out by November. At the fifth enrolment he jokes about it with the teacher.

The ayah opens with a question of disbelief: is it that every time they made a pledge, a party of them threw it away? The word kullamā, 'every time', carries the weight. A classical theologian says it shows pledge after pledge broken. More than that, it shows a habit, until breaking became their character.

He draws a gentle lesson for the Prophet ﷺ. This rejection was nothing new; it was an old pattern. When someone habitually breaks his word, his opposition need not weigh so heavily on you.

The root of ʿahd, a pledge, carries a lovely picture. It is rain that comes back after the first rains to tend the land again. It is a camp a tribe keeps returning to. A pledge is something you come back to.

The verb for what they did, nabadha, is its opposite. It means throwing away something you do not count as worth keeping.

That gives us a careful mirror. Many of us have broken promises to Allah many times: in Ramadan, after a funeral, on a hard night. Does this ayah describe us? The difference lies in that verb. They threw the pledge away as worthless. A believer who drops a promise, regrets it and comes back to it is doing the opposite. He is returning to the camp.

The Prophet ﷺ described a servant who sins, asks forgiveness, sins again, and asks again. Allah says: 'My servant knew he has a Lord who forgives sins and holds to account for them. I have forgiven My servant' (Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim). He also said the deeds most beloved to Allah are the most constant, even if small (Sahih al-Bukhari).

So make the next promise smaller, and keep coming back to it.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.