The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page 198
CH. 2 R. 13. AL-BAQARAH PT. 1 'Rā'inā,' but say, ‘UnṬurnā' and يَايُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَقُوْلُوْا رَاعِنَا O ye who believe, say not. 105 وَقُولُوا انْظُرْنَا وَاسْمَعُوا وَلِلْكُفِرِينَ the عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ hearken. And for disbelievers is a punishment. 111 good deeds (Aqrab). Commentary: painful "4:47. If the Jews had possessed true faith in God and had acted in His fear, they would not have devoted all their energies to the acquisition of worldly gains but would have sought the good of the Hereafter. They have, however, been seeking the advantage of the present life only and have neglected the Hereafter altogether, which shows that they are utterly lacking in true faith and are not leading righteous lives. 111. Important Words: el (rā 'inā) is derived from & meaning, he watched or looked on. acy means, he looks towards him with goodly feeling or he had regard for him. means, he watched his affair. means, lend me your ear or listen to what I say. means, he watched the stars and waited for their setting (Aqrab). So would mean, look to us or have a regard for us. Or the word is derived from the root fi. e. he acted foolishly in which case of would mean, a fool; a conceited person; a proud man (Aqrab). (unzurnā) is derived from meaning, he looked, or he saw, or he had regard for. So would mean, look to us or have regard for us. Both 198 are used انظرنا and اعنا these words, ie by a listener when he cannot follow the speech of a speaker. They roughly give the sense of, "I request you to repeat what you have said" or, to give a commoner idiom, "I beg your pardon"; or they are used on similar other occasions when one desires to draw the attention of a towards oneself. Commentary: person After mentioning the intrigues which the Jews carried on with outsiders to ruin the mission of the Holy Prophet, the Quran proceeds to illustrate such of their machinations as they resorted to in order to belittle the Holy Prophet and sow dissension and discord among Muslims. An apparently minor illustration is selected to emphasize the fact that where the spirit of a people is concerned, sometimes very small things bring about dangerous results, inasmuch as they help to undermine the spirit of discipline and respect for authority. It is hinted that the Jews were in the habit of devising plans to detract from the due respect with which the minds of the Muslims were inspired towards the Holy Prophet. One of these mean attempts was to address such words to the Holy Prophet as were not quite in harmony