Surah 2, known as Al-Baqarah (“The Cow”), is the longest surah of the Qur’an.
It constitutes a foundational text for the religious, legal, and communal organization of believers.
Revealed predominantly in Medina, it develops major themes such as faith, Law, covenant, prayer, fasting, and the relationship with Jewish and Christian traditions.
After the portrait of the believers (vv. 2–5), the surah now presents the opposite image: the kāfirūn, those who refuse. The warning of the prophet of Islam — the indhār, the admonition — passes over them without effect. The text does not suggest that the word is too weak: rather, it affirms that refusal is already in place. The verb is in the accomplished past — they have disbelieved; they do not believe. The warning encounters only the silence of a door closed from within.
The Arabic construction reinforces this meaning. The phrase sawāʾun ʿalayhim — “it is all the same to them” — does not merely describe a failure: it expresses total indifference to what is being attempted. The warning itself no longer changes anything in their situation. It is not that they are still resisting; it is that they have become impermeable.
Verse 7 gives the explanation: it is Allah himself who has sealed the hearts and the hearing of these men, and placed a veil over their sight. The verb khatama means “to seal,” as when one places a seal on a letter in order to close it. The image suggests an act already carried out, whose effects remain. Three doors are thus shut: the heart, the seat of intelligence and inward decision; hearing, the faculty by which the word is received; sight, the perception of signs. The order is not incidental — the closure begins at the center of man, then reaches his faculties of perception: the heart refuses, the ear no longer hears, and the eyes no longer see. The final phrase falls like a sentence: “for them is a tremendous punishment.”
These two verses therefore affirm three things at once: human refusal, divine sealing, and punishment. It is their coexistence that gives rise to the question — if Allah has sealed their heart, how could they still believe? And if they cannot believe, for what reason are they punished?
The word kāfir comes from a root meaning “to cover” or “to bury.” In the Qur’an itself, it can refer to a farmer who covers a seed with earth. Applied to faith, the word then designates the one who covers over a truth he has perceived. It is not the ignorant man: it is the one who has seen, then chosen to cover what he had seen.
The verb khatama also creates an echo within the Qur’an itself: Muḥammad is called the “seal of the prophets” — khātam al-nabiyyīn (Q. 33:40). The same word that describes the end of the prophets is also used here to describe hearts that are closed. The history of revelation and the history of refusal thus share the same logic of closure.
The theme of the sealed heart belongs to a broader Qur’anic motif: that of being led astray. The text states several times that some men are left in error by Allah himself: “Allah leads astray whom He wills and guides whom He wills” (Q. 2:272; 14:4; 16:93). The sealing of the heart is one of the images that expresses this condition: when the heart is sealed, man becomes incapable of receiving the warning.
The Qur’an uses several related images for this. In Surah Yā-Sīn, the unbelievers are described as shut in between barriers, with a veil before their eyes, so that they can no longer see (Q. 36:8–9). In other passages, their hearts are “sealed” (Q. 6:46), “hardened” (Q. 39:22), or “veiled” (Q. 17:46). These images all describe the same condition: some men become incapable of receiving the word.
Verse 7 mentions three sealed faculties: hearts, hearing, and sight. But hearing is in the singular, which is striking — the other two are in the plural. The exegetes did not overlook this. Al-Ṭabarī explains that samʿ — hearing — functions in Arabic as a collective noun designating the faculty of hearing in general. Others see an intention in it: Qurʾān — Qur’an — means recitation; Qur’anic revelation is received first as a word heard. By placing hearing in the singular and at the center, the verse seems to underline that this door is decisive. Hearts may be many, sights may be many; the word of Allah is one — and it is this single word that these men can no longer hear.
The grammatical structure of the verse carries another surprise. The verb khatama — to seal — explicitly governs two objects — their hearts, their hearing. But when the text reaches the third element, the construction changes: wa-ʿalā abṣārihim ghishāwatun — “over their sight is a veil.” The sentence becomes nominal, without a verb. The text no longer says explicitly that Allah placed the veil: it says that the veil is there. Several exegetes noted this rupture. It suggests that divine sealing directly affects the heart and the hearing, while the blindness would describe the resulting state. Inward closure produces spiritual blindness.
The deepest tension remains this one. These two verses affirm at the same time human refusal, divine sealing, and punishment. How can these three affirmations be held together? The question was widely discussed in the Muslim tradition. Some commentators explained that the sealing merely confirms a refusal already in place: man first closes himself, and Allah then confirms that closure. Others maintained the letter of the text: it is Allah himself who seals hearts. The discussion has never really been settled.
The portrait of the prophet whose word slips over closed hearts is one of the oldest motifs in the Bible. This situation is already described in the prophet Isaiah, when God sends him to speak to a people who will not listen: “Go, and say to this people: Hear indeed, but do not understand; see indeed, but do not perceive”1. This passage will be taken up again in the New Testament to account for the rejection of Jesus2.
The motif of the heart hardened by God himself is just as ancient and just as difficult. In Exodus, God announces to Moses that he will harden Pharaoh’s heart3. Jewish commentators long sought to reconcile this word with the justice of God. Many understood it this way: God removes the possibility of repentance only from the one who has already refused several times to change. Divine hardening would then confirm a closure that man himself has built. Paul takes up this theme in the Epistle to the Romans, but places it within a broader horizon: the hardening is not definitive, and the call to conversion always remains open4.
The seal upon hearts also existed in the biblical world as in the ancient Near East, where it functioned in both directions: to close what must remain shut, but also to protect what belongs to God. In the book of Daniel, the seal closes what must not yet be opened5. In Revelation, it marks and protects the servants of God6. In Acts of the Apostles, by contrast, “the Lord opened Lydia’s heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul”7: closure is never the final word. It is precisely this point that verse 7 makes especially sharp: the closure of the heart seems to come from Allah himself.
These verses belong to the Medinan period. In Medina, Muḥammad is in direct contact with important Jewish communities, and the Qur’an multiplies its addresses to them. The portrait of the kāfirūn inaccessible to warning fits within this context of growing tensions: the Jewish tribes of Medina do not join the new community, and it is gradually that the Qur’an will construct a theology of refusal to account for this fact.
The formula of verse 6 is not new: it already appears in Surah Yā-Sīn (36:10), a much earlier Meccan surah. Transported to Medina, it changes register. It no longer describes only the hostility of the Meccan polytheists, but the broader deadlock of refusal in the face of revelation, now theologized through the divine sealing of verse 7.
These two verses hold together three affirmations: human refusal, divine sealing, and punishment. The text does not choose between them. It places them side by side. It is precisely this juxtaposition that raises the question: what image of God emerges here?
In the Catholic tradition, this question has been reflected on at length. The Councils of Orange and Trent refused to attribute to God a positive will for human perdition8. God may permit a heart to harden — he may “give” man over to his own refusal (Rom 1:24) — but he is never its author. The Bible always keeps open the possibility of conversion. “Turn, and live”, says Ezekiel9. Even when man closes himself, God’s call remains.
The difference is profound: it touches the very image of God. In the Christian faith, God is never the one who definitively closes the heart of man. He is the one who stands at the door of man’s heart and knocks: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (Rev 3:20), even when that door already seems shut.
After the portrait of the believers (vv. 2–5), the surah now presents the opposite image: the kāfirūn, those who refuse. The warning of the prophet of Islam — the indhār, the admonition — passes over them without effect. The text does not suggest that the word is too weak: rather, it affirms that refusal is already in place. The verb is in the accomplished past — they have disbelieved; they do not believe. The warning encounters only the silence of a door closed from within.
The Arabic construction reinforces this meaning. The phrase sawāʾun ʿalayhim — “it is all the same to them” — does not merely describe a failure: it expresses total indifference to what is being attempted. The warning itself no longer changes anything in their situation. It is not that they are still resisting; it is that they have become impermeable.
Verse 7 gives the explanation: it is Allah himself who has sealed the hearts and the hearing of these men, and placed a veil over their sight. The verb khatama means “to seal,” as when one places a seal on a letter in order to close it. The image suggests an act already carried out, whose effects remain. Three doors are thus shut: the heart, the seat of intelligence and inward decision; hearing, the faculty by which the word is received; sight, the perception of signs. The order is not incidental — the closure begins at the center of man, then reaches his faculties of perception: the heart refuses, the ear no longer hears, and the eyes no longer see. The final phrase falls like a sentence: “for them is a tremendous punishment.”
These two verses therefore affirm three things at once: human refusal, divine sealing, and punishment. It is their coexistence that gives rise to the question — if Allah has sealed their heart, how could they still believe? And if they cannot believe, for what reason are they punished?
The word kāfir comes from a root meaning “to cover” or “to bury.” In the Qur’an itself, it can refer to a farmer who covers a seed with earth. Applied to faith, the word then designates the one who covers over a truth he has perceived. It is not the ignorant man: it is the one who has seen, then chosen to cover what he had seen.
The verb khatama also creates an echo within the Qur’an itself: Muḥammad is called the “seal of the prophets” — khātam al-nabiyyīn (Q. 33:40). The same word that describes the end of the prophets is also used here to describe hearts that are closed. The history of revelation and the history of refusal thus share the same logic of closure.
The theme of the sealed heart belongs to a broader Qur’anic motif: that of being led astray. The text states several times that some men are left in error by Allah himself: “Allah leads astray whom He wills and guides whom He wills” (Q. 2:272; 14:4; 16:93). The sealing of the heart is one of the images that expresses this condition: when the heart is sealed, man becomes incapable of receiving the warning.
The Qur’an uses several related images for this. In Surah Yā-Sīn, the unbelievers are described as shut in between barriers, with a veil before their eyes, so that they can no longer see (Q. 36:8–9). In other passages, their hearts are “sealed” (Q. 6:46), “hardened” (Q. 39:22), or “veiled” (Q. 17:46). These images all describe the same condition: some men become incapable of receiving the word.
Verse 7 mentions three sealed faculties: hearts, hearing, and sight. But hearing is in the singular, which is striking — the other two are in the plural. The exegetes did not overlook this. Al-Ṭabarī explains that samʿ — hearing — functions in Arabic as a collective noun designating the faculty of hearing in general. Others see an intention in it: Qurʾān — Qur’an — means recitation; Qur’anic revelation is received first as a word heard. By placing hearing in the singular and at the center, the verse seems to underline that this door is decisive. Hearts may be many, sights may be many; the word of Allah is one — and it is this single word that these men can no longer hear.
The grammatical structure of the verse carries another surprise. The verb khatama — to seal — explicitly governs two objects — their hearts, their hearing. But when the text reaches the third element, the construction changes: wa-ʿalā abṣārihim ghishāwatun — “over their sight is a veil.” The sentence becomes nominal, without a verb. The text no longer says explicitly that Allah placed the veil: it says that the veil is there. Several exegetes noted this rupture. It suggests that divine sealing directly affects the heart and the hearing, while the blindness would describe the resulting state. Inward closure produces spiritual blindness.
The deepest tension remains this one. These two verses affirm at the same time human refusal, divine sealing, and punishment. How can these three affirmations be held together? The question was widely discussed in the Muslim tradition. Some commentators explained that the sealing merely confirms a refusal already in place: man first closes himself, and Allah then confirms that closure. Others maintained the letter of the text: it is Allah himself who seals hearts. The discussion has never really been settled.
The portrait of the prophet whose word slips over closed hearts is one of the oldest motifs in the Bible. This situation is already described in the prophet Isaiah, when God sends him to speak to a people who will not listen: “Go, and say to this people: Hear indeed, but do not understand; see indeed, but do not perceive”1. This passage will be taken up again in the New Testament to account for the rejection of Jesus2.
The motif of the heart hardened by God himself is just as ancient and just as difficult. In Exodus, God announces to Moses that he will harden Pharaoh’s heart3. Jewish commentators long sought to reconcile this word with the justice of God. Many understood it this way: God removes the possibility of repentance only from the one who has already refused several times to change. Divine hardening would then confirm a closure that man himself has built. Paul takes up this theme in the Epistle to the Romans, but places it within a broader horizon: the hardening is not definitive, and the call to conversion always remains open4.
The seal upon hearts also existed in the biblical world as in the ancient Near East, where it functioned in both directions: to close what must remain shut, but also to protect what belongs to God. In the book of Daniel, the seal closes what must not yet be opened5. In Revelation, it marks and protects the servants of God6. In Acts of the Apostles, by contrast, “the Lord opened Lydia’s heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul”7: closure is never the final word. It is precisely this point that verse 7 makes especially sharp: the closure of the heart seems to come from Allah himself.
These verses belong to the Medinan period. In Medina, Muḥammad is in direct contact with important Jewish communities, and the Qur’an multiplies its addresses to them. The portrait of the kāfirūn inaccessible to warning fits within this context of growing tensions: the Jewish tribes of Medina do not join the new community, and it is gradually that the Qur’an will construct a theology of refusal to account for this fact.
The formula of verse 6 is not new: it already appears in Surah Yā-Sīn (36:10), a much earlier Meccan surah. Transported to Medina, it changes register. It no longer describes only the hostility of the Meccan polytheists, but the broader deadlock of refusal in the face of revelation, now theologized through the divine sealing of verse 7.
These two verses hold together three affirmations: human refusal, divine sealing, and punishment. The text does not choose between them. It places them side by side. It is precisely this juxtaposition that raises the question: what image of God emerges here?
In the Catholic tradition, this question has been reflected on at length. The Councils of Orange and Trent refused to attribute to God a positive will for human perdition8. God may permit a heart to harden — he may “give” man over to his own refusal (Rom 1:24) — but he is never its author. The Bible always keeps open the possibility of conversion. “Turn, and live”, says Ezekiel9. Even when man closes himself, God’s call remains.
The difference is profound: it touches the very image of God. In the Christian faith, God is never the one who definitively closes the heart of man. He is the one who stands at the door of man’s heart and knocks: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (Rev 3:20), even when that door already seems shut.
1 Isaiah 6:9–10: “Go, and say to this people: Hear indeed, but do not understand; see indeed, but do not perceive...” — The prophet is sent to a people whose heart is closed.
2 Matthew 13:14–15: “Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: ‘You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive...’” — Jesus applies Isaiah’s prophecy to the refusal of his message.
3 Exodus 4:21: “But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.” — The Exodus narrative already introduces the question of the hardening of the heart.
4 Romans 11:25: “A partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.” — Paul speaks of a provisional hardening within the plan of salvation.
5 Daniel 12:4: “Shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end.” — The seal marks the closure of a message reserved for a specific time.
6 Revelation 7:3: “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.” — The seal can also signify protection and belonging.
7 Acts 16:14: “The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.” — The Bible also affirms that God can open the human heart.
8 Catechism of the Catholic Church §1037: “God predestines no one to go to hell.” — Catholic tradition refuses to attribute to God the will for human perdition.
9 Ezekiel 18:32: “I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.” — God’s call to conversion always remains open.
