{"collection":"Texts of Islam","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_sbe06_002_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_sbe06_002_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_isl_sbe06_002_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/sbe06/002.htm","summary":"This is an English translation of the opening sections of the Qur'an \u2014 specifically portions of Surah Al-Baqarah (The Cow), the second and longest chapter \u2014 presented in E.H. Palmer's 1880 scholarly edition for the Sacred Books of the East series. The text establishes the Qur'an's foundational theological framework: God's absolute sovereignty and omniscience, the sharp division of humanity into believers, hypocrites, and misbelievers, and the consequences awaiting each category in this life and the hereafter. A substantial portion retells narratives shared with the Hebrew Bible \u2014 the creation of Adam, the Fall, the Exodus, Moses receiving the law, the Israelites' repeated faithlessness \u2014 but frames them as evidence of God's patience with human disobedience and as a direct address to the \"children of Israel,\" calling them to recognize Muhammad's revelation as continuous with their own scriptures. The text is distinctively polemical: it condemns those who \"barter\" God's signs for worldly gain and reserves particular censure for hypocrites who perform belief publicly while privately rejecting it. Notable theological claims include the assertion that the Qur'an is inimitable (challengers are dared to produce a comparable chapter), that God purposefully leads evildoers astray while guiding the righteous, and that salvation is open to Jews, Christians, and Sab\u00e6ans who genuinely believe in God and the last day. Readers seeking the Qur'an's core ethical, eschatological, and narrative theology \u2014 delivered in vivid, rhetorically charged prose \u2014 will find this passage foundational.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"The Qur'\u00e2n, ed. Palmer (SBE6): II. The Chapter of the Heifer","tradition":"Texts of Islam","translated_text":null,"word_count":13536}