Al-Baqarah · Madani · ayah 146 of 286

Al-Baqarah 2:146

ٱلَّذِينَ ءَاتَيْنَـٰهُمُ ٱلْكِتَـٰبَ يَعْرِفُونَهُۥ كَمَا يَعْرِفُونَ أَبْنَآءَهُمْ ۖ وَإِنَّ فَرِيقًا مِّنْهُمْ لَيَكْتُمُونَ ٱلْحَقَّ وَهُمْ يَعْلَمُونَ

“Those to whom We gave the Scripture know him [i.e., Prophet Muḥammad (ﷺ)] as they know their own sons. But indeed, a party of them conceal the truth while they know [it].”

Saheeh International

Essence

Those given the Scripture knew the Prophet as surely as they knew their own sons, yet a party of them hid the truth they knew.

A reflection

Picked out across a crowded playground

At home time a hundred children pour out of a school gate in identical grey jumpers. A father standing fifty metres away picks out his daughter at once. Not by her face: he cannot see it yet. By her walk, the tilt of her head, a hundred small things he could not list.

'They know him as they know their own sons.' A narration-based commentary says the Arabs used exactly this as a proverb for certainty. It adds a further sense. A man would never mistake his own son among all the children of the people. He would not hesitate, and he would not argue about it.

A major theologian explains the comparison carefully. It is not about knowing the fact of fatherhood. It is about recognising the person, so surely that no one else could be confused with him. Knowledge that comes from reading and reflection is being compared to knowledge that comes through the senses. The effect is to say: it was as obvious to them as that.

A later commentary asks why sons, and not themselves. A person may not know himself in some stretches of life, as in infancy. But a father has watched his son from the first day.

The verb is ʿarafa. Its root has a lovely picture. The ʿurf of a horse is its mane, hair lying neatly after hair. And ʿarf is a fragrance the soul settles into. To know in this way is to know something so well you are at home with it.

That is how some of them knew. Which makes what follows in the ayah all the more striking.

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.