Al-Baqarah, “The Cow”, is the longest surah of the Qur’an. In the verse count followed by most printed copies it has 286 verses. Half of 286 is 143. And verse 143 begins: And thus We have made you a middle nation.
Halfway through the surah
Verse 143 of 286: where the first half ends.
- The passage on the new qiblah 142–152
It is worth being precise here. There are several early traditions for counting the verses of the Qur’an, and for Al-Baqarah they differ by a verse either way. The count used here, associated with Kufa, is the one almost all printed copies follow today. In it, verse 143 stands exactly where the first half of the surah ends.
But the count is not the main point. What makes this verse remarkable is what it says, and what surrounds it.
A middle nation
Not an extreme in either direction. Balance.
وَكَذَٰلِكَ جَعَلۡنَٰكُمۡ أُمَّةٗ وَسَطٗا لِّتَكُونُواْ شُهَدَآءَ عَلَى ٱلنَّاسِ وَيَكُونَ ٱلرَّسُولُ عَلَيۡكُمۡ شَهِيدٗاۗ وَمَا جَعَلۡنَا ٱلۡقِبۡلَةَ ٱلَّتِي كُنتَ عَلَيۡهَآ إِلَّا لِنَعۡلَمَ مَن يَتَّبِعُ ٱلرَّسُولَ مِمَّن يَنقَلِبُ عَلَىٰ عَقِبَيۡهِۚ وَإِن كَانَتۡ لَكَبِيرَةً إِلَّا عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ هَدَى ٱللَّهُۗ وَمَا كَانَ ٱللَّهُ لِيُضِيعَ إِيمَٰنَكُمۡۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ بِٱلنَّاسِ لَرَءُوفٞ رَّحِيمٞ
And thus we have made you a just community that you will be witnesses over the people and the Messenger will be a witness over you. And We did not make the qiblah which you used to face except that We might make evident who would follow the Messenger from who would turn back on his heels. And indeed, it is difficult except for those whom Allah has guided. And never would Allah have caused you to lose your faith. Indeed Allah is, to the people, Kind and Merciful
Saheeh International translates ummatan wasaṭan as “a just community”. The word wasaṭ means middle, but in Arabic it also carries the sense of the best and most just, what lies between the extremes. Scholars explained “a middle nation” as a community of justice and moderation.
And the verse itself places that community in the middle: people on one side, the Messenger on the other. That you will be witnesses over the people and the Messenger will be a witness over you.
The Prophet ﷺ said that on the Day of Resurrection Noah will be asked whether he conveyed the message. When his people deny it and Noah is asked who will bear witness for him, he will answer: Muhammad and his nation. And they will testify that he conveyed it. That, the Prophet ﷺ said, is the meaning of this verse.
The direction of prayer turns
At the middle of the surah, the community turns around.
Verse 143 stands in a passage about the direction of prayer, the qiblah. For their first sixteen or seventeen months in Medina, Muslims prayed towards Jerusalem. Then came the command to turn to the Kaʿbah in Makkah:
قَدۡ نَرَىٰ تَقَلُّبَ وَجۡهِكَ فِي ٱلسَّمَآءِۖ فَلَنُوَلِّيَنَّكَ قِبۡلَةٗ تَرۡضَىٰهَاۚ فَوَلِّ وَجۡهَكَ شَطۡرَ ٱلۡمَسۡجِدِ ٱلۡحَرَامِۚ وَحَيۡثُ مَا كُنتُمۡ فَوَلُّواْ وُجُوهَكُمۡ شَطۡرَهُۥۗ وَإِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ أُوتُواْ ٱلۡكِتَٰبَ لَيَعۡلَمُونَ أَنَّهُ ٱلۡحَقُّ مِن رَّبِّهِمۡۗ وَمَا ٱللَّهُ بِغَٰفِلٍ عَمَّا يَعۡمَلُونَ
We have certainly seen the turning of your face, [O Muhammad], toward the heaven, and We will surely turn you to a qiblah with which you will be pleased. So turn your face toward al-Masjid al-Haram. And wherever you [believers] are, turn your faces toward it [in prayer]. Indeed, those who have been given the Scripture well know that it is the truth from their Lord. And Allah is not unaware of what they do
Sahih al-Bukhari (40) tells of people who were in the middle of a prayer facing Jerusalem when a man came and said he had prayed with the Prophet ﷺ facing Makkah. They turned around where they stood, in the middle of the prayer. The same report says some asked about those who had died before the direction changed: had their prayers been in vain? The answer is at the end of verse 143: And never would Allah have caused you to lose your faith.
So the middle of the surah has two kinds of middle. The community that is “in the middle” is given a new centre to face. The Kaʿbah becomes the point that Muslims all over the world, in Iceland too, turn towards five times a day.
A ring around a centre
What comes before is mirrored in what comes after.
The scholar Raymond Farrin has argued that the whole of Al-Baqarah is built as a ring, like Ayat al-Kursi on a small scale: the sections before and after mirror one another, and at the centre stands precisely the passage on the new qiblah, verses 142–152. That is one scholar’s interpretation, not a self-evident fact. But it sheds light on what anyone can see for themselves: halfway through the longest surah of the Qur’an stands the verse about the middle nation, in the passage where it receives its centre.
And the words just before it, in verse 142, should sound familiar: He guides whom He wills to a straight path. The same request as in Al-Fatihah, ihdinā ṣ-ṣirāṭa l-mustaqīm, and here, in the middle of the second surah, the answer comes again.