Blogging the Quran -Surah 2 ( Al Baqara): 6-7

The first thoughts that may come to mind after reading these two verses, may be very negative. Why would God seal the hearts and the hearing of a group of people “unbelievers / allatheena kafaroo/الَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ” , place a veil over their eyes ; so it would not matter whether they are warned or not, and then prepare for them awesome suffering?
What happened to free will or freedom of choice? And isn’t this totally unfair and unjust?

There are several verses  (6:39), (14:4),(16:93), (35:8), (74:31) that declare : ” God misguides whom He wills/wants , and He guides whom He wills/wants – يُضِلُّ اللَّهُ مَن يَشَاءُ وَيَهْدِي مَن يَشَاءُ“
So if God wants to misguide me or you , then what?!

These doubts and negative thoughts will be cleared if we read the above verses in light of other verses, think about them, and come to an understanding of the Laws of Divine Guidance.
In fact, it is very interesting to find out that God has warned against this misunderstanding in the Quran and it is clearly stated that we cannot resort to the argument of “no freedom of choice”, “God wanted to misguide us” to escape from our responsibility for our faulty beliefs and actions. (6:148) : Those ascribing divinity to anyone beside God will say, “Had God so willed, we would not have ascribed divinity to anyone but Him, nor would our forefathers [have done so]; and neither would we have declared as forbidden anything [that He has allowed].” So did their ancestors argue falsely-until they came to taste Our punishment! Say: “Have you any certain knowledge [of what ye allege] which you can present to us? You follow but conjectures, and you do nothing but guess.”

سَيَقُولُ الَّذِينَ أَشْرَكُواْ لَوْ شَاءَ اللّهُ مَا أَشْرَكْنَا وَلاَ آبَاؤُنَا وَلاَ حَرَّمْنَا مِن شَيْءٍ كَذَلِكَ كَذَّبَ الَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِهِم حَتَّى ذَاقُواْ بَأْسَنَا قُلْ هَلْ عِندَكُم مِّنْ عِلْمٍ فَتُخْرِجُوهُ لَنَا إِن تَتَّبِعُونَ إِلاَّ الظَّنَّ وَإِنْ أَنتُمْ إِلاَ تَخْرُصُون

The Laws of Divine Guidance
76: 2-3 -Behold, it is We who have created the human being from drop of sperm intermingled. Then so that We might try him [in his later life], We made him a being endowed with hearing and sight. Surely, We have shown him the way: [and it rests with him to prove himself] either grateful or ungrateful.

إِنَّا خَلَقْنَا الْإِنسَانَ مِن نُّطْفَةٍ أَمْشَاجٍ نَّبْتَلِيهِ فَجَعَلْنَاهُ سَمِيعًا بَصِيرًا إِنَّا هَدَيْنَاهُ السَّبِيلَ إِمَّا شَاكِرًا وَإِمَّا كَفُورًا

90:8-10- Have We not given him two eyes, and a tongue, and a pair of lips, and shown him the two highways [of good and evil]?

أَلَمْ نَجْعَل لَّهُ عَيْنَيْنِ وَلِسَانًا وَشَفَتَيْنِ وَهَدَيْنَاهُ النَّجْدَيْنِ

91:7-11- Consider the human self, and how it is formed in accordance with what it is meant to be, and how it is imbued with moral failings as well as with consciousness of God! Happy is he who causes this [self] to grow in purity, and truly lost is he who buries it [in darkness].

وَنَفْسٍ وَمَا سَوَّاهَا فَأَلْهَمَهَا فُجُورَهَا وَتَقْوَاهَا قَدْ أَفْلَحَ مَن زَكَّاهَا وَقَدْ خَابَ مَن دَسَّاهَا

17:15 - Whoever chooses to follow the right path, follows it but for his own good; and whoever goes astray. goes but astray to his own hurt; No person bears the load of another. And We never punish any people until We have sent a Messenger.

مَّنِ اهْتَدَى فَإِنَّمَا يَهْتَدي لِنَفْسِهِ وَمَن ضَلَّ فَإِنَّمَا يَضِلُّ عَلَيْهَا وَلاَ تَزِرُ وَازِرَةٌ وِزْرَ أُخْرَى وَمَا كُنَّا مُعَذِّبِينَ حَتَّى نَبْعَثَ رَسُولا

18:29 - And say: “The truth [has now come] from your Lord: let, then, him who wills, believe in it, and let him who wills, reject it.”………

وَقُلِ الْحَقُّ مِن رَّبِّكُمْ فَمَن شَاءَ فَلْيُؤْمِن وَمَن شَاءَ فَلْيَكْفُرْ

These verses are crystal clear. God has created us and the world with certain physical and spiritual laws. He wanted it this way. If He had wanted for all to follow one path (and in this case we would have no freedom of choice) , then we would all follow it, but this is not how God devised the world. If a person works to develop his/herself so that he/she listens and thinks and strives to find the truth, and follow that best way that speaks to reason and goodness, then it is only natural (according to the Divine Laws of Guidance) that he/she is guided.

39:18 Those who listen [closely] to all that is said, and follow the best of it; it is they whom God has graced with His guidance, and it is they who are [truly] endowed with insight!

الَّذِينَ يَسْتَمِعُونَ الْقَوْلَ فَيَتَّبِعُونَ أَحْسَنَهُ أُوْلَئِكَ الَّذِينَ هَدَاهُمُ اللَّهُ وَأُوْلَئِكَ هُمْ أُوْلُوا الْأَلْبَابِ

29:69 As for those who sincerely strive for Us, We surely guide them onto paths that lead to Us. for, behold, God is indeed with the doers of good.

وَالَّذِينَ جَاهَدُوا فِينَا لَنَهْدِيَنَّهُمْ سُبُلَنَا وَإِنَّ اللَّهَ لَمَعَ الْمُحْسِنِينَ

On the other hand, if someone choses not to open their hearts and minds to the words of God , are filled with denial and doubts , then again it is only natural that they go astray.

39:3 ……..Surely, God does not grace with His guidance anyone who is bent on lying [to himself] and is] stubbornly ungrateful!

إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَهْدِي مَنْ هُوَ كَاذِبٌ كَفَّارٌ

But can people change? Of course they can. It happens all the time. And if people work and change their inner selves, God will change their condition. This is another Divine Law.

13: 11 ….God does not change men’s condition unless they change their inner selves….

إِنَّ اللّهَ لاَ يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوْمٍ حَتَّى يُغَيِّرُواْ مَا بِأَنْفُسِهِمْ

With the Laws of Divine Guidance in mind, let us read 2:6-7 again. These two verses describe the spiritual and mental condition of a certain kind of people ” allatheena kafaroo/الَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ/those intent on denying the truth” and (quoting from Asad) the natural law instituted by God, whereby a person who persistently adheres to false beliefs and refuses to listen to the voice of truth gradually loses the ability to perceive the truth, “so that finally, as it were, a seal is set upon his heart”. Since it is God who has instituted all laws of nature -which, in their aggregate, are called Sunnnat Allah (“the way of God”) -this “sealing” is attributed to Him: but it is obviously a consequence of man’s free choice and not an act of “predestination”.

In most English translations these people are referred to as infidels or disbelievers, and since the word “infidels” is often thrown without any sense these days, I think it’s important at this stage to understand what is meant by the Quranic expressions “Kafir” , “alkafiroon” and “allatheena kafaro”. Muhammad Asad, in his book Message of the Quran, has done a very good job explaining the words, and I will directly quote from him:

This is Asad’s comment on the expression “Kafir” in 74:10 “Since this is the earliest Qur’anic occurrence of the expression kafir , its use here – and, by implication, in the whole of the Qur’an – is obviously determined by the meaning which it had in the speech of the Arabs before the advent of the Prophet Muhammad: in other words, the term kafir cannot be simply equated, as many Muslim theologians of post-classical times and practically all Western translators of the Qur’an have done, with “unbeliever” or “infidel” in the specific, restricted sense of one who rejects the system of doctrine and law promulgated in the Qur’an and amplified by the teachings of the Prophet – but must have a wider, more general meaning. This meaning is easily grasped when we bear in mind that the root verb of the participial noun kafir (and of the infinitive noun kufr) is kafara, “he covered [a thing]“: thus, in 57:20 the tiller of the soil is called (without any pejorative implication) kafir, “one who covers”, i.e., the sown seed with earth, just as the night is spoken of as having “covered” (kafara) the earth with darkness. In their abstract sense, both the verb and the nouns derived from it have a connotation of “concealing” something that exists or “denying” something that is true. Hence, in the usage of the Qur’an – with the exception of the one instance (in 57:20) where this participial noun signifies a “tiller of the soil” – a kafir is “one who denies [or "refuses to acknowledge"] the truth” in the widest, spiritual sense of this latter term: that is, irrespective of whether it relates to a cognition of the supreme truth – namely, the existence of God – or to a doctrine or ordinance enunciated in the divine writ, or to a self-evident moral proposition, or to an acknowledgment of, and therefore gratitude for, favors received.”

This is Asad’s comment on the expression ‘allatheena kafaroo/الَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ’ in 2:6 ” In contrast with the frequently occurring term al-kafiroon (“those who deny the truth”), the use of the past tense in allatheena kafarooo indicates conscious intent, and is, therefore, appropriately rendered as “those who are bent on denying the truth”. This interpretation is supported by many commentators, especially Zamakhshari (who, in his commentary on this verse, uses the expression, “those who have deliberately resolved upon their kufr”). Elsewhere in the Qur’an such people are spoken of as having “hearts with which they fail to grasp the truth, and eyes with which they fail to see, and ears with which they fail to hear” (7 : 179). “

Finally this is how Asad renders verse 14:4, which should beautifully (in my opinion) sum up this discussion

وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَا مِن رَّسُولٍ إِلاَّ بِلِسَانِ قَوْمِهِ لِيُبَيِّنَ لَهُمْ فَيُضِلُّ اللّهُ مَن يَشَاءُ وَيَهْدِي مَن يَشَاءُ وَهُوَ الْعَزِيزُ الْحَكِيمُ

And never have We sent forth any apostle otherwise than [with a message] in his own people’s tongue, so that he might make [the truth] clear to them; but God lets go astray him that wills [to go astray], and guides him that wills [to be guided] -for He alone is almighty, truly wise.