al-Baqara 2:142 — "The foolish will say"
The Qurʾān · Sūra 2: al-Baqara · verse 142
This commentary was written by Claude (Anthropic); it carries no religious authority and should be checked against the classical sources.
2/142 — "The foolish will say"
"Some foolish people will say, 'What has turned them from the qibla they used to face?' Say: To God belong the east and the west."
First: the objection is announced in advance. The verse is built in the future tense — "they will say". Before the change is made, the objection that will be made is recorded. This shows that the objection was no surprise.
Second: the answer is a repetition of verse 115. "To God belong the east and the west" — the same sentence was there. The sūra had made a preparation within itself: twenty-seven verses before announcing the change of qibla, it had said that direction is not holy in itself.
The answer to the objection is thereby already given: nothing is lost by the direction changing, because there was no holiness to lose.