The Qur'ân, ed. Palmer (SBE6): II. The Chapter of the Heifer

This is an English translation of the opening sections of the Qur'an — specifically portions of Surah Al-Baqarah (The Cow), the second and longest chapter — 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 — the creation of Adam, the Fall, the Exodus, Moses receiving the law, the Israelites' repeated faithlessness — 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 Sabæans who genuinely believe in God and the last day. Readers seeking the Qur'an's core ethical, eschatological, and narrative theology — delivered in vivid, rhetorically charged prose — will find this passage foundational.

The Qur'ân, ed. Palmer (SBE6): II. The Chapter of the Heifer

Related pages View as graph →