The Glorified Allah commands: ________ “And when We made a covenant with you and raised the mountain over you: Take hold of what We have given you with firmness and be obedient. You had said: We hear and disobey. And they were made to imbibe (the love of) the calf into their hearts on account of their unbelief Say: Evil is that which your belief bids you if you are believers.[1]” (Al-Baqara/The Cow 2/93)
We clarified the meaning of the sentence________= ‘semi’na ve aseyna’ is “We heard and hold it tight” or “we heard and obeyed”, while all the commentary, explanation and translations of the Qur’an have given its other meaning, which is “We heard and rebelled”.
Let’s think the event; Allah has moved the enormous mountain of Tur and wants their absolute oath from the children of Israel: “Hold on tightly to what We gave you!”. Who in such a moment could have said: “We heard and rebelled.”?
The next verse shows the situation of the mountain better: “] And when We shook the mountain over them as if it were a covering overhead, and they thought that it was going to fall down upon them: Take hold of what We have given you with firmness, and be mindful of what is in it, so that you may guard (against evil).” (Al-A’raf / Purgatory 7/171)
Let’s think for a moment that they really said: “We heard and rebelled.” Is this an oath to Allah? While Allah says: “Once you made an absolute promise.”
While the last part of the verse is: “”. Such an expression cannot be used for somebody that said: “We heard and rebelled.”
According to this while giving the meaning of the sentence the word _____= aseyna should be studied accurately. ‘el-Asa’=___ is a cane. ____=asa means to hold tight as you hold a cane or to beat somebody as hard as to make people think a stick was used. Esmai reiterates these words of some Basranians; the supporting stick is called cane because on its top the hand and its fingers are gathered. According to Ebu Abid the meaning of the root of ‘asa’ is gathering and agreeing. ___=asa as mentioned before stands for rebelling and breaking the order[2]. Both meanings are hidden inside the cane. You can use it for a task so you have to hold it tight, or you can hit someone on his head with it, what is related with its ‘rebellious’ meaning.
According to this explanation it is true that the sentence_____ might encounter both meanings: “We heard and hold it tight” and “we heard and rebelled”. Those who have an ill intention choose this kind of expressions to give them the desired meanings. This type of usage is called ‘cinas’. “”The 46th verse of An-Nisa has been used this way as well. This is why in that verse it has been specified that it would have been better for the Jews to have said:_______=semi’na ve ata’na, which means: “We heard and obeyed” instead of ___=semi’na ve aseyna. Naturally ‘better’ is a stage superior that ‘good’, what means that the expression of the Jews was quite good, but as the danger of giving it the other meaning, that of: “we heard and rebelled” is present, Allah advised them to use the second expression. The explanation of this verse has passed in the chapter titled “Kitabi Tahrif”
That part of Tara which relates this topic is thus: “Moses came and told the people all the Lord’s words and all the decisions. All the people answered together, “We are willing to do all the words that the Lord has said,”
And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. Early in the morning he built an altar at the foot of the mountain and arranged twelve standing stones- according to the twelve tribes of Israel.
He sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls for peace offerings to the Lord.
Moses took half of blood and put it in bowls and half of the blood he splashed on the altar.
He took the book of the Covenant and read it aloud to the people and they said, “We are willing to do and obey all that the Lord has spoken.” (Torah, Exodus 24/3-7)
It can be seen that the information of the Qur’an and Tara complete each other. This shows that the previous divine books can be used to explain the Qur’an.
[1] Here the art of complimenting has been used so ‘said’ should have been enough. But for the absence of this structure in English (just like in Turkish) we used another tense to be as close as possible to the Arabic structure.
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