Tafsir of Al-Baqarah 2:16

This is a reference to the hypocrites mentioned previously, who combine blameworthy characteristics: they claim righteousness while being the corruptors, they attribute foolishness to the believers while they themselves are the fools, and they mock while they are the ones who are mocked. Due to their extreme distance in evil and their wretched state, they are referred to by a pronoun indicating remoteness.

The speech here can be situated in the place of: {Those are upon guidance from their Lord}. For the listener, after hearing their mention and having those descriptions applied to them, asks: "From where did these states enter into these people?" It is answered that those distant ones dared to fall into such states because they {purchased error with guidance}, until their transaction resulted in loss, they lost the guidance to the straight path, and they fell into the wilderness of confusion and straying.

It has also been said: it is a summary and generalization of everything that preceded regarding the reality of their condition, or a justification for their deserving of the most extreme mockery and being allowed to prolong in their transgression, or a confirmation of the words of the Exalted: {And He prolongs them in their transgression, wandering blindly}.

In this, there is a restriction of the predicate to the subject, because defining the relative pronoun (the one who) for the genus is equivalent to defining it with the generic alif-lam. This is by claim, considering their perfection in that act of purchasing, even if other disbelievers are partners with them in that, for they gathered those heinous evils and atrocious qualities; and by that consideration, the specificity to them is valid.

Al-Dalalah (error) is swerving from the intended goal, and Al-Huda (guidance) is directing oneself toward it. Both are used for deviating from what is correct in religion or standing firmly upon it. Al-Ishtira' (purchasing), like al-shira' (buying), is the exchange of a commodity for a price—that is, taking it in exchange for it. Some make it one of the addad (words with opposite meanings), because two transacting parties trade the price and the priced item; thus, each of the two exchanges is "purchased" from one side and "sold" from the other. It is used metaphorically for taking something by giving what is in one’s hand, whether both are concrete or abstract.

This, on the surface, requires that what serves as the price—namely, guidance—was held by these people beforehand. There is no doubt they are far removed from it. Therefore, it is either said that "purchasing" is a metaphor for "choosing," because one who buys a thing chooses it; it is as if He, the Exalted, said: "They chose error over guidance." Because the act of exchange is implied, the preposition ba (in bi-al-huda) is used. It is said that tawafuq (compatibility) is a meaning that does not require the mutaa’alliq (the verb it connects to) to be compatible.

Or, it is said that the intention of what is in the position of the price is not the guidance itself, but rather the complete capability of it through the reinforcement of causes and by taking the preliminaries that lead to it, using metaphor as if it were the guidance itself, due to the shared quality of leading to benefit. There is no doubt that this was present for those hypocrites through what they witnessed of the dazzling signs, the overwhelming miracles, the great guidance, advice, and instruction. Yet, they cast that aside and fell into the depths of destruction.

Alternatively, it is said that "guidance" means the innate guidance (al-huda al-jibilli). This was truly theirs, for every newborn is born upon the natural disposition (fitrah).

Or it is said that this is a translation of another of their crimes, and by "guidance" is meant what they were upon regarding the belief in the mission of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, and the truthfulness of his religion, based on what they found in the Torah. For this reason, they used to seek victory through it, invoke by his sanctity, and threaten the disbelievers with his arrival: {But when there came to them that which they recognized, they disbelieved in it; so the curse of God is upon the disbelievers}.

As for taking "guidance" to mean what was apparent from them—uttering the testimony of faith, performing prayer, giving charity, fasting, and military expeditions—this is not accepted by anyone guided to the middle path. What we have mentioned, that "Those" is a reference to the hypocrites, is what most exegetes have followed, what is narrated from Mujahid, and what the noble structure of the verse requires; and it is what I uphold.

This is a conjunction to the relative clause (al-silah). The fa (so) is used to indicate that the negation of profit followed the purchase, and that by the very occurrence of the purchase, the absence of profit was realized.

Tijarah (transaction/trade) is the management of capital seeking profit. Al-Ribh (profit) is the acquisition of an increase over the capital, and it became common in meaning "favor over it." Al-Muhtadi (one who is guided) is the active participle from ihtada, the reflexive of hada.

In the verse, there is a tarshih (reinforcement) for the metaphor heard previously regarding the purchase. The primary purpose is to depict their loss by the missing of the benefits resulting from guidance—which are like profit—and the wasting of guidance—which is like the capital—in the image of a merchant missing profit and wasting capital, as if he were the capital himself, by way of representational metaphor, to exaggerate their loss and their falling into the most heinous loss from which the people of vision recoil.

Attributing profit to the "transaction," while it belongs to the merchants, is a metaphor of association. In a context of blame, it is a metonymy to negate profit from loss, because the loss of profit necessitates it, to some extent. The benefit of this metonymy is to explicitly negate the purpose of the transaction while its opposite is obtained, unlike if it were said "their transaction lost," for then one would not imagine that the negation of one of two opposites necessitates the confirmation of the other if there is an intermediary between them; but here, the intermediary exists, for a merchant might neither profit nor lose. It is said that this only occurs when the place is receptive to all, as in real trade; whereas if it only accepts two of them, negating one is the confirmation of the other. Profit and loss in religion have no intermediary. Moreover, the evidence for loss has been established here by His saying: {nor were they guided}. Many have made this a metonymy for the wasting of capital, for if one is not guided by the paths of trade, calamities multiply upon his wealth. The way of metonymy was chosen to insult them by ascribing ignorance and foolishness to them.