“They said, ‘Call upon your Lord for us to make clear to us what she is. Indeed, all cows look alike to us; and, if Allah wills, we shall surely be guided.’ (70) He said, ‘He says: It is a cow neither trained to till the land nor to water the crops, sound and without any marking.’ They said, ‘Now you have brought the truth.’ So they slaughtered her, though they were scarcely willing to do so. (71) And when you killed a man and disputed among yourselves concerning it, Allah was to bring out what you had been concealing. (72) So We said, ‘Strike him with part of her.’ Thus Allah brings the dead to life and shows you His signs, so that you may understand. (73)”

“They said, ‘Call upon your Lord for us to make clear to us what she is’”—whether she was one that grazed freely or one used for work. “Indeed, all cows look alike to us.” He used masculine grammatical agreement because of the grammatical form of the word for cattle, just as in His saying, “like trunks of uprooted palm trees” (al-Qamar 54:20). Al-Zajjaj said: That is, the species of cattle has become indistinguishable to us; its matter has become unclear and confused to us, so we cannot identify it. “And, if Allah wills, we shall surely be guided”—to its description. The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “By Allah, (1) had they not made an exception, it would not have been made clear to them for all eternity.” (2)

“He said, ‘He says: It is a cow neither trained’”—that is, broken in for work. One says, “a man who is tractable,” with manifest tractability, and “a tractable riding beast,” with manifest tractability. “To till the land”—that is, to turn it over for cultivation. “Nor to water the crops”—meaning, she is not used for watering. “Sound”—free of defects. “Without any marking”—there is no color upon her other than the color of her entire hide. Ataʾ said: There is no defect in her. Mujahid said: There is neither whiteness nor blackness in her. “They said, ‘Now you have brought the truth’”—that is, a complete and satisfying clarification in which there was no ambiguity. They sought her but, with all the stipulated qualities, found her only with a young man; so they bought her for a skinful of gold. “So they slaughtered her, though they were scarcely willing to do so”—because of her high price. Muhammad ibn Kaʿb said: They could scarcely find her because all of her qualities had to be present. It was also said that they were scarcely willing to do so because of their great agitation and disagreement over her.

His saying, exalted is He, “And when you killed a man”: This is the beginning of the account, even though it comes later in the recited order. The slain man’s name was ʿAmil. (3) “And you disputed among yourselves concerning it”: Its original form was tadāraʾtum; the letter t was assimilated into the d, and an alif was inserted, as in the form iththāqaltum. Ibn Abbas and Mujahid said: It means that you differed. Al-Rabiʿ ibn Anas said: You shifted blame from one to another; that is, each of you attributed it to another, from darʾ, meaning repelling, and so each person sought to exonerate himself. “And Allah was to bring out”—that is, reveal—“what you had been concealing,” for the killer had been concealing the murder.

“So We said, ‘Strike him,’” meaning the slain man, “with part of her,” that is, with part of the cow,