Tafsir of Al-Baqarah 2:88

This is a conjunction connected to "Did you become arrogant?" or to "Did you deny?", thus serving as an interpretation of the arrogance. Under both interpretations, there is a shift from direct address (khitab) to the third person (ghaybah), signifying an aversion to addressing them and a distancing of them from the honor of being in the presence [of the Prophet]. Those who said this were the ones present during the era of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.

"Wrapped" (ghulf) is the plural of "wrapped" (aghlaf), like "red" (ahmar) and "reds" (humr), meaning one who does not understand. It is said its origin is "the one endowed with a foreskin" (dhu al-'ulfah), who has not been circumcised. It is also a plural of "covering" (ghilaf), and it can be pluralized as ghuluf (with two dammahs), a reading reported by Ibn Abbas and others.

In the first sense, they meant: "Our hearts are covered with natural veils that prevent what you have brought from penetrating them." This is similar to their saying: "Our hearts are within coverings from that to which you invite us." They intended by this to make the Prophet despair of their response and to cut off his hope in them entirely. It is said: "covered with branches of knowledge from the Torah that we preserve, so that what you bring cannot reach them," or "with a soundness of innate nature (fitrah) similar to that."

In the second sense, they meant: "They are vessels of knowledge; if what you said were true and righteous, they would have comprehended it." This was said by Ibn Abbas, Qatadah, and Al-Suddi. Or, "they are already filled with knowledge, so they cannot contain anything else; we are self-sufficient with what we have, needing nothing from others." This is also narrated from Ibn Abbas. It is also said: "They meant they are vessels of knowledge, so how can it be permissible for us to follow an unlettered person?" Its remoteness is not hidden.

"Nay, Allah has cursed them for their disbelief." This is a rebuttal to what they said and a denial of their claims. The meaning is: They were created with the innate nature (fitrah) capable of sound reflection that leads to the Truth, but Allah, the Exalted, distanced them and invalidated their innate preparation for sound reflection due to their corrupt beliefs and their false ignorance firmly rooted in their hearts. Or, that the hearts did not refuse to accept what you say because it is not true or righteous, but because He—glory be to Him—expelled them and abandoned them for their disbelief; so He made them deaf and blinded their sight. Or, that Allah, the Exalted, removed them from His mercy, so how could they claim knowledge, which is the loftiest of its traces? From these viewpoints, one learns how to rebut the previous interpretations.

"Little is that which they believe." The "fa" (so) denotes the causality of the curse due to the lack of faith. "Little" (qalilan) is in the accusative as an attribute of an omitted verbal noun (masdar), meaning: "a little belief"—namely, their belief in parts of the Book. The word "ma" is an augmentative particle added to emphasize the meaning of scarcity, not a negative particle. This is because the "ma" within its scope cannot precede it, and because even though it may carry the meaning of "they do not believe little, let alone much," there is a potential misinterpretation—especially given the word order—that they do not believe "a little," but rather "a lot." Nor is it a nominalizing (masdariyah) particle, as that would require "little" to be in the nominative as a predicate, while the verbal noun modified by the annexation would be the subject; the estimation would be "their faith is little."

Some permitted it to be negative based on the school of the Kufans, who allow the precedence of the "ma" within its scope over the particle itself, disregarding the potential for misinterpretation. Others held it to be nominalizing, with the verbal noun acting as the agent for "little," and the word "were" (kanu) implied in the structure of the speech, making it similar to "they were little of the night that they would sleep." The artificiality of this is evident.

It is also permissible for "little" to be an accusative state (hal), either from the pronoun of faith or from the agent of "they believe," meaning: "they believe it in a state of its scarcity"—which is reported from Sibawayh. Or, it acts as an accusative for the state of the people being a "small group," meaning: "the believer among them is few"—this is reported from Ibn Abbas, Talhah, and Qatadah. For this reason, it is permissible to consider it an attribute of time, meaning "a short time"—the time of opening [of judgment] or the soul reaching the throat, or what they said: "Believe in that which was revealed to those who believe at the beginning of the day and disbelieve at the end of it."

The most appropriate of these views is the first. It is apparent that "belief" refers to the linguistic meaning, and "little" is the opposite of "much." Al-Zamakhshari said: "It is possible it means 'non-existence'," as if he took this from the words of Al-Waqidi: "neither little nor much." He was countered in Al-Bahr by the argument that although "scarcity" can imply negation, it does not do so in this construction; "little" is in the accusative by a positive verb, making it analogous to "I stood for a little," meaning "a little standing." No one would think that if you use a positive verb and make "little" an adjective for its verbal noun, the meaning would be the total negation and complete non-occurrence of that act. What the grammarians have transmitted is that "scarcity" sometimes implies pure negation in expressions like "the fewest man who would say that" or "rarely does Zayd stand." Thus, applying that here is incorrect. I wish I knew: what sense would there be in saying "they believe" a "non-existent belief"? As for what Al-Kisa'i transmitted from the Arabs—that they say "We passed by a land that rarely grows anything," meaning it grows nothing—that is because "little" is a state of the land (even if indefinite) and "ma" is nominalizing; the estimation is "its growth is little." There is no hindrance there to interpreting scarcity as non-existence. But where is our case in relation to that? Unless it is through some weak interpretation—yet Al-Zamakhshari does not subscribe to it. It is possible to say this is by way of metonymy, as the scarcity of a thing implies its non-existence in most cases, not that the word "scarcity" is used to mean "non-existence," for that is a very cold statement here, even if Al-Waqidi were to kindle a fire under it for a thousand years.