al-Baqara 2:152 — "Remember Me and I shall remember you"

"So remember Me and I shall remember you. Give thanks to Me and do not cover over what I have given."

A short verse setting up two reciprocities.

فَٱذْكُرُونِىٓ أَذْكُرْكُمْ — "remember Me and I shall remember you". This is the same as the structure of the covenant at verse 40 of the sūra: "fulfil My covenant and I shall fulfil yours." A two-sided bond, again set up in the servant's favour — because the servant's remembering is limited and its return is not.

وَٱشْكُرُوا۟ لِى وَلَا تَكْفُرُونِ — and here the contrast we set up at the sixth verse passes openly into the text: thanks and unbelief are set opposite one another.

There I said that the root sense of unbelief is "to cover", and that its opposite is most often not faith but thanks. This verse confirms that finding: there is no word for faith in the sentence; unbelief is set directly opposite thanks.

The definition that follows is this: unbelief is not to see what has been given; thanks is to see it and acknowledge it. The difference between the two is not an article of belief but a direction of looking.