al-Baqara 2:121-123 — Reciting it as it should be recited, and the closing of the circle

"Those to whom We have given the Book recite it as it should be recited; those are the ones who believe in it. And whoever rejects it — those are the losers. Children of Israel! Remember My favour that I bestowed on you, and that I preferred you above all beings. And guard yourselves against a day when no soul can pay anything for another; when no ransom is accepted from it, no intercession profits it, and they are not helped."

The root ت-ل-و was treated in the discussions of al-Bayyina (98/2) and al-Jumuʿa (62/2); I do not repeat it. The summary of the finding there: the primary sense of the root is not to read but to come after, to follow, to go along behind. Arabic also has qirāʾa for reading (root ق-ر-أ: to gather); the difference is this — qirāʾa emphasises the gathering of letters, tilāwa the following of the text. The one who recites is not the one in front but the one who comes behind.

Now put this into the verse. حَقَّ تِلَاوَتِهِ — "giving its tilāwa its due."

The sentence does not say "the due of reading", it says "the due of following". To give the following of a thing its due is really to follow it — to walk behind it where the road is easy and part from it where the road is hard is not to give following its due.

I record this in this commentary as my own reading, because it follows from the sense of the word itself: the verse's measure lies not in pronunciation or in memorisation but in going where the text goes.

And this measure stands as the exact opposite of the attitudes the section criticises. Up to this point the sūra had listed four broken relations with the book:

The fifth is the answer to all the rest. And note: the verse does not reserve this to a group — it says "those to whom We have given the Book" and separates out those among them who recite it as it should be recited. The same scrupulousness of distinction was seen at verses 99-100 and 105.

أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِهِۦ — "those are the ones who believe in it." The order of the sentence is worth recording: reading first, faith after. Faith, that is, is set down not as the condition of the reading but as its result.

These two verses are the exact repetition of verses 47-48 of the sūra.

This is an arrangement that cannot be explained as coincidence. The section on the Children of Israel had opened at verse 47 with these two verses, had run for seventy-five verses, and now closes with the same two verses at 122-123. In Arabic, and in literature generally, this is called ring structure: a section is ended with the sentence it began with.

If one looks at what has been placed inside the ring, the function of the repetition becomes clear:

• At the opening (47-48): "I preferred you" — and immediately after it, in four items, that this is no guarantee.
• Inside (49-121): the record of the community to whom the preferment was given — the calf, the sabbath, the cow, distortion, concealment, the throwing away of the covenant.
• At the closing (122-123): the same two sentences.

A sentence that on first reading was a reminder comes back, after the seventy-five verses in between, with a different weight. The words are the same; the reader is not.

I record this as an observation about the structure. The sūra uses this technique once more: at verses 134 and 141 the sentence "that was a community that has passed away" is likewise repeated word for word twice, and in both cases it comes after a list of ancestors.

And immediately after the ring closes, the sūra changes its subject: with verse 124 the section on Abraham begins.

This transition is meaningful. The section on the Children of Israel had shown, through the record of one lineage, that belonging is no guarantee. Immediately afterwards it goes back to the name on which that lineage itself rests — and what will be said there is the most concentrated expression of the same thing: "My covenant does not reach the wrongdoers" (2/124).

At 47-48 a community's chosenness was not counted a guarantee; at 124 a prophet's lineage will not be counted a guarantee. The closing of the ring and the opening of the new section say the same measure at two levels.

There is also a small difference of word order between verses 48 and 123, and it must be recorded: the order at 48, "no intercession is accepted… no ransom is taken", is exchanged at 123 into "no ransom is accepted… no intercession profits". In the classical commentaries such exchanges are explained as a feature of style that keeps repetition from going dull. I load no meaning on it beyond that.

Here the sūra moves onto new ground. Up to this point Moses and the Children of Israel had been recounted; now it turns further back, to the forefather common to everyone.

Its function within the dispute is plain: both sides counted their own tradition the condition of salvation (2/111). But Abraham comes before both — and is therefore in the monopoly of neither. The Qurʾān will say this plainly a few sūras later: "Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian; he was a ḥanīf, one submitted" (Āl ʿImrān 3/67).