The Cow

Surah: 2

Ayat: 9

Verse:

They think to beguile Allah and those who believe, and they beguile none save themselves; but they perceive not.

Tafseer:

They would deceive God and the believers by manifesting the opposite of the unbelief they hide so that they can avoid His rulings in this world; and only themselves they deceive yukhādi‘ūn for the evil consequences of their deception will rebound upon them as they are disgraced in this world when God makes known to His Prophet what they are hiding and they will be punished in the Hereafter; and they are not aware and they do not know that they are actually deceiving themselves mukhāda‘a although a third verbal form from khāda‘a actually denotes a one-way action such as when one says ‘āqabtu al-lissa ‘I punished the thief’ using the third verbal form ‘āqaba; the mention of ‘God’ in this statement is for rhetorical effect; a variant reading for wa-mā yukhādi‘ūna has wa-mā yakhda‘ūna.