2. Al-Baqara

Al-Baqara ('The Cow'), at 286 verses the longest surah, is the first major revelation of the Medinan period and reads as a foundational charter for the new community. Named for the episode of the Israelites and the sacrificial cow, it addresses the Children of Israel at length, sets out fasting, pilgrimage, marriage, divorce and the prohibition of usury, and defines the qualities of the God-fearing. It contains the Throne Verse (2:255) and 'there is no compulsion in religion' (2:256).

Al-Baqara opens the Quran's second surah with the mysterious detached letters Alif Lam Mim, one of twenty-nine surahs to begin this way, a feature classical exegetes from al-Tabari onward catalogued extensively without reaching a settled explanation of their meaning. Unlike the short, unified Meccan surahs, Al-Baqara was revealed piecemeal across nearly the whole of the Medinan decade, addressing specific occasions as they arose, which is why its 286 verses range so widely: the redirection of the prayer direction from Jerusalem to Mecca (2:142-150), the narrative of Abraham and Ishmael raising the foundations of the Kaaba (2:127), the account of Saul, David and Goliath (2:246-251), and legal material on fasting, divorce, bequests and commerce. Verse 2:282, on writing down debts and contracts, is the Quran's longest single verse and became a foundation for Islamic commercial and evidentiary law. Ibn Kathir's commentary treats the surah's opening address to 'those who believe' and its portrait of the hypocrites and disbelievers as establishing, in miniature, the three responses to revelation that recur through the rest of the Quran.

Al-Baqara carries some of the most recited verses in the tradition. The Throne Verse (2:255), affirming God's eternal, all-encompassing sovereignty, is recited for protection after prayers and before sleep; the final two verses (2:285-286), a prayer for forbearance, are said to have been given as a special gift. The surah's declaration 'there is no compulsion in religion' (2:256) is frequently cited in discussions of freedom of belief. The Prophet is reported to have said that a house in which it is recited is not entered by the devil.

The Throne Verse draws its name, ayat al-kursi, from its description of God's kursi extending over the heavens and the earth, and a hadith transmitted by Muslim has the Prophet call it the greatest verse in the Quran, which grounded its place in daily recitation after each of the five prayers as well as at night. The final two verses, 2:285-286, are reported in hadith to have been given to Muhammad directly on the night of the ascension (mi'raj) rather than through the angel Gabriel's usual mediation, a distinction classical commentators cite to explain their especially protective reputation. The surah's sustained treatment of usury (2:275-281), forbidding riba while permitting trade, became, together with 2:282 on contracts, a founding text for Islamic jurisprudence on commerce and finance, cited by jurists from the classical schools onward whenever questions of interest, debt and fair dealing arise.