Muhammad · Madani · ayah 2 of 38

Muhammad 47:2

وَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّـٰلِحَـٰتِ وَءَامَنُوا۟ بِمَا نُزِّلَ عَلَىٰ مُحَمَّدٍ وَهُوَ ٱلْحَقُّ مِن رَّبِّهِمْ ۙ كَفَّرَ عَنْهُمْ سَيِّـَٔاتِهِمْ وَأَصْلَحَ بَالَهُمْ

“And those who believe and do righteous deeds and believe in what has been sent down upon Muḥammad - and it is the truth from their Lord - He will remove from them their misdeeds and amend their condition.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Those who covered the truth lost their deeds; those who believed find their own wrongs covered, and the restless place inside them set right.

A reflection

The same word, turned to face the other way

The first ayah of this surah describes people who kafarū, who disbelieved. This second ayah says that for the believers, Allah kaffara their misdeeds. It is the same root, and the closeness is not an accident of translation.

The lexicons give the root one core meaning: to cover and conceal. The Arabs called a farmer kāfir because he hides seed under earth. Night is kāfir because its darkness covers everything. Disbelief is named from this, because it pulls a cover over the truth.

So the two ayat mirror each other. Some people put a cover over the truth. Allah answers others by putting a cover over their wrongs. What a person does with the light, He does with their faults.

One classical commentator presses the image further. Covering, he says, implies something placed on top. Nobody covers a worn and stained garment with another worn rag. You cover it with something fine and clean. A generous king, covering a servant's old cloth, sends for cloth of the highest quality. He links this to the promise that Allah "replaces their evil deeds with good" (25:70).

Picture a young man in a hotel lobby, minutes before a job interview. He knocks a coffee down his only white shirt. The concierge sees, takes him into a back room and hands him a pressed shirt from the hotel's own stock. He walks into the interview better dressed than he arrived.

That is the shape of forgiveness here. It is not only erasing. It is covering with something better than what was there.

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.