Surah Al-Baqarah 2:16
ﳃ ﳄ ﳅ ﳆ ﳇ ﳈ ﳉ ﳊ ﳋ ﳌ ﳍ
Those are the ones who have purchased error [in exchange] for guidance, so their transaction has brought no profit, nor were they guided.
Tafsir of Al-Baqarah 2:16
Tafsir
Mafatih al-Ghayb
Verse range: 2:16
Al-Baqarah: (16) Those who have purchased...
The term "purchased misguidance" means preferring it over guidance and substituting it with misguidance.
Objection: How could they have purchased misguidance with guidance when they were not upon guidance in the first place?
Answer: Their state of being upon guidance is treated as if it were physically present in their hands. When they abandoned it and inclined toward misguidance, it is as if they substituted one thing for another.
Misguidance (al-ḍalālah) means deviation, departing from the intended path, and the loss of being guided. It is metaphorically used for straying from the correct path in religion.
Regarding the phrase "so their transaction brought no profit" (famā ribiḥat tijāratuhum), it means their trade yielded no profit.
There are two questions concerning this:
- Question 1: How is the loss attributed to the trade itself when the loss truly belongs to its owners (the traders)? Answer: This is a form of metaphorical attribution (al-isnād al-majāzī), where an action is attributed to something that is associated with the actual subject, just as the trade is associated with the buyer.
- Question 2: Even if purchasing misguidance for guidance is a metaphor for substitution, what is the meaning of mentioning profit and trade when there was no actual transaction? Answer: This usage strengthens and beautifies the metaphor. It is similar to what the poet said:
When I saw the eagle's might, the son of Dāyah, > And nesting in its two eyries, my chest swelled with emotion.
Just as the poet likened grey hair to an eagle and jet-black hair to a crow, and then followed it by mentioning nesting and the eyrie, so too, when the Almighty mentioned the purchase, He followed it with what resembles and aligns with it, as a parable (tamthīl) illustrating their loss and depicting its reality.
Regarding the phrase "and they were not guided" (wamā kānū muhtadīn), it means that what traders seek in their dealings are two things: the safety of their capital and profit. These people lost both. Their capital is the intellect, free from impediments. When they adopted these corrupt beliefs, those corrupt, profit-seeking beliefs became barriers preventing them from seeking the true doctrines.
Qatādah said: They moved from guidance to misguidance, from obedience to disobedience, from unity to division, from security to fear, and from the Sunnah to innovation. And Allah knows best.