Stones and Fear of God in the Context of 74th Verse of al-Baqarah

Abstract

While Allah Almighty declares various truths in his Qur'an, he considers his perceptions and ensures that the facts he mentions become a concrete scene in the minds of the servants. This style, which is called Metaphor in the science of rhetoric, is one of the most important narrative features of the Quran. The subjects, which would normally be very closed to understanding of human, can thus be understood more easily and clearly. One of the truths that the Qur'an expresses through metaphor is about the stiffness of the hearts of the infidels, which are mentioned in the 74th verse of the Surah al-Baqarah. In this verse, Allah explains how hard their hearts are with the stone analogy. He even declares that their hearts are harder than stones. Despite the solid structure of the stones, he indicates that there are some beautiful qualities such as the rivers boiling and the water gushing or falling from where they are due to the fear of Allah, but that there is no positive quality in the hearts of those hard-hearted unbelievers. Although they are an inanimate being, it is remarkable that the stones are mentioned in the verse for fear of Allah. In this regard, the essential focus of the study will be to try to reveal the nature of the situation in question, especially in the light of Sufi tafsir besides classical tafsirs.