Al-Baqarah · Madani · ayah 79 of 286

Al-Baqarah 2:79

فَوَيْلٌ لِّلَّذِينَ يَكْتُبُونَ ٱلْكِتَـٰبَ بِأَيْدِيهِمْ ثُمَّ يَقُولُونَ هَـٰذَا مِنْ عِندِ ٱللَّهِ لِيَشْتَرُوا۟ بِهِۦ ثَمَنًا قَلِيلًا ۖ فَوَيْلٌ لَّهُم مِّمَّا كَتَبَتْ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَوَيْلٌ لَّهُم مِّمَّا يَكْسِبُونَ

“So woe[32] to those who write the "scripture" with their own hands, then say, "This is from Allāh," in order to exchange it for a small price. Woe to them for what their hands have written and woe to them for what they earn.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Ruin for those who write words themselves, label them 'from Allah' and sell them cheap: ruin for the writing, and for the earnings.

A reflection

The talk that brings in more

A popular speaker notices a pattern. Talks about Paradise bring in three times the donations of talks about justice or debt. Nobody tells him to change anything. Over five years, he simply stops giving the second kind.

This ayah is about something far worse than that. It describes people who wrote words themselves and announced: 'This is from Allah'. But the motive it names is the same one that pulls on every religious voice: 'to exchange it for a small price'.

The commentators are specific about what that price was. Several say the scholars of the time feared losing their income and their standing once the Prophet ﷺ came to Madinah. So they altered his description in their writings. A classical theologian concludes that they did not do it out of conviction. They did it for money and position.

Why call it small, when income and status are not small to the people who have them? One commentator gives two reasons. It does not last, and gain from falsehood carries no blessing. An early scholar of Basra was blunter: the small price is the whole world, all of it.

This is not a verse against being paid for religious work. A later commentator says plainly that he sees nothing in it against, for example, payment for copying the Quran. Its target is narrower and more dangerous: falsehood, sold as revelation.

But the road to that point is gradual, and it starts with small trims. A teacher softens a hard truth for a generous donor. An imam avoids a topic that empties the hall. A writer frames everything to sell. Each step looks harmless. Anyone who speaks for faith, at any level, needs a regular check. Am I saying what Allah said, or what pays? The two will sometimes differ, and that is exactly when it matters.

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.