Surah Al-Baqarah Ayat 23 and 24 : Beautiful Explanation Nouman Ali Khan

In this blog article, In sha Allah I will try to explain little tafseer and beautiful insights of ayat 23 and 24 of surah Al-Baqarah. This article is my understanding based on one of the lecture of brother Nouman Ali Khan. You can find explanation of previous verses of Surah Al-Baqarah at below link :

Beautiful Explanation of Ayat 21 of Surah Al-Baqarah

Also, Please like my Facebook page "Explain Me Quran" to get latest article on Quran explanation. You can find my Facebook page link at the end of this article. Now, lets start understanding these beautiful aayaat of Quran Paak.

Surah Al-Baqarah Ayah 23(verse23):

وَإِنْ كُنْتُمْ فِي رَيْبٍ مِمَّا نَزَّلْنَا عَلَىٰ عَبْدِنَا فَأْتُوا بِسُورَةٍ مِنْ مِثْلِهِ وَادْعُوا شُهَدَاءَكُمْ مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ صَادِقِينَ

("And if you (Arab pagans, Jews, and Christians) are in doubt concerning that which We have sent down (i.e. the Quran) to Our slave (Muhammad pbuh), then produce a Surah of the like thereof and call your witnesses besides Allah, if you are truthful.")

Muhammad pbuh did not begin with challenge to produce a surah. For 10 years he pbuh called people to justice, to tawheed, to be grateful, to not to kill their baby daughters, to not to cheat people in business, and told that you will be resurrected on day of judgment. This life is test and going to end. Hereafter is permanent i.e it will never end. righteous people will go to paradise and wrongdoers will go to hellfire etc. And after 10 years of not listening and they are still rejecting so as a final resort Allah says, if you really think this is a word of insane, magician etc then why don't you bring a surah like this ? Important point here is Da’wa does not begin with this , da’wa ends with it. But Nowadays for us da’wa does not ends with it but yes da’wa begins with it. That's not how da’wa works. This was said to people after they got best da’wa ever possible,  not for 1 day 2 day but for entire decade. And after that Allah challenged them to produce a surah like this. But they had no idea how to come up with surah.

Tufail was a leader of one tribe present outside Makkah. For Haj, when they planned to come to Makkah Quraish tried very hard to convince him to not to listen Muhammad SAW and Quran. They told him to put something in ear because we don't want you to get infected. Tufail said ok. So when he went to haram he saw Muhammad SAW reciting Quran, he hears little bit of quran and thought why should I run from this I m leader of my tribe and best poet of Arabia. So he unplugged his ear and he comes back to listen to Muhammad SAW and after listening he took shahada and accepted Islam. Later he narrates this story himself..

They all knew the power of Quran. Utba ibn Rabia one of the worst enemy of Islam when listened Quran started crying and started grabbing the mouth of Nabi SAW saying no more. He came back to quraish and said this is not magic this is gonna be huge thing and they said he did magic on you too. But magic is something you hear or you see ? Of Course it is what you see for e.g rope becoming snake but Nabi SAW was not producing any trickery, all he pbuh has is words. But these words has such an impact on one listening to it, so they say these words must have magic in them. In other word by saying it a magic they acknowledged the overwhelming power of Quran.

Also Read : Part 5 - Deep explanation of Ayat 6 of Surah Al Fatiha

Surah Baqarah Ayah 24(verse 24):

فَإِنْ لَمْ تَفْعَلُوا وَلَنْ تَفْعَلُوا فَاتَّقُوا النَّارَ الَّتِي وَقُودُهَا النَّاسُ وَالْحِجَارَةُ ۖ أُعِدَّتْ لِلْكَافِرِينَ

("But if you do it not, and you can never do it, then fear the Fire (Hell) whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the disbelievers.")

First Allah said if you could not do that and then Allah openly challenges them that you will not be able to do so. Then protect yourselves from fire. This surah began with taqwa of Allah. But these group of people have no fear of Allah. So no point of return and no invitation to fear of Allah so now they are invited to why don't you go and protect yourselves from fire? It is actually sarcasm. In other words how are you gonna protect yourselves? This surah has lots of sarcasm against kuffar. And fuel of fire is people and stone. People, those who deserved hellfire. And stone, some ulma commented they used to worship idol of stones so they will burn along with their Idol. Others commented there is no comparison of flame of stone with anything else as its intensity is very high. And it is prepared for 'Kaafireen'.

'Kaafir' in Arabic comes from 'kafara' which means to bury a seed inside ground. Kuffar in Arabic which we know as disbelievers actually in Quran in surah Al-fath is also used in meaning of farmers. Why ?? Because he plants the seed in the ground. Idea of calling disbeliever a kaafir is because he already had a truth inside him before he even came to this earth. That was a seed of truth already there. but he buried it inside. There is light inside you and there is light outside( from revelation ) ( 'noorun ala noor' ). So when Light of Allah came, light which was inside him( kaafir), because he buried that light inside him, it never able to meet light which was outside. So this is called 'Kaafir'. So literally explanation is, It is (hellfire) been prepared for those who bury the truth inside and kept it there.

In this blog article, I tried to explain very little about what I understand from ayah 23 and 24 of surah Al Baqarah. This was based on my notes taken from one of the lectures of brother Nouman Ali Khan.

Also Read : Part 6 - Deep explanation of Ayat 7 of Surah Al Fatiha