Sentence Five
[Five]
(يَعْلَمُ مَا بَيْنَ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَمَا خَلْفَهُمْ)(البقرة: من الآية255)
And Allah Knows what happens to them ( His creatures) in this world, and what will happen to them in the Hereafter.
Knowledge, according to scholars of usool (the fundamental principals of deen), is the definitive comprehension of a thing in conformity with its true nature. Thus, the lack of comprehension is ignorance, the indecisive comprehension is doubt and the assertive comprehension which does not concur with reality is compound ignorance.
For example, if you were asked, ‘When did the expedition of Badr1 take place?” And you say, “I do not know,” then this is ignorance. If you were asked the same question and you said, “It happened in the second or the third year of hijarah,” then the doubt.2 And if your answer to the same question was, “The fifth year,” then this is compounded ignorance.3 Allah, the Most Mighty and Most Majestic, knows the things comprehensively and with perfection, on the whole and in detail. His knowledge is unlike the knowledge of ‘ibaad. That is why He said:
يَعْلَمُ مَا بَيْنَ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَمَا خَلْفَهُمْ)(البقرة: من الآية255)
ـ And Allah knows what happens to them [the creatures] in the future and what happened to them in the past4
The conjunctive noun (ما) is a form of generalization (which comprises everything actions of Allah or for the creatures’ deeds. Knowing what happens to them in the future, implies that Allah ( عز وجل ) is not unaware of the future and that His knowledge of the past necessitates that He does not forget the past. That is why when Fir’awn said Musa
(قَالَ فَمَا بَالُ الْقُرُونِ الْأُولَى) (طـه:51)
“What about the generations of the old?” Musa, ( عليه السلام ) replied: قَالَ عِلْمُهَا عِنْدَ رَبِّي
فِي كِتَابٍ لا يَضِلُّ رَبِّي وَلا يَنْسَى) (طـه:52)
The knowledge thereof is with my Rabb, in a Record . My Rab is neither unaware nor He forgets. [ Qur’aan Soorat Taha (20;52)].
This means that Allah سبحانه وتعالى is nether unaware of the future nor does He forger the past.
References:
1. The battle of Badr occurred between the army of the believers lead by Prophet Muhammad (صلي الله عليه وسلم) and the polytheists of Quaryash and it took place on the 17th of Ramadan of the second year of Hijrah.
2. Because you give another answer which you think has the same possibility of being truth.
3. This is known as al-jihlul-murakkah, which is to comprehend something in a way contrary to its true reality. [See Shayakh ibn ‘Uthayeen’s Sharah Thalaathat Al-Usool (Burmingham, UK: Al-Hadaayah Publication, 1st .ed 1418/1997), p. 37 .
4. This is one of the meanings of this great aayah . It is signifies that Allah’s knowledge encompasses everything in the past, present, and future implies that Allah ‘s knowledge.
Note: One the Names of Allah عز وجل is العليم al-Aleem:
The one who knows what has been and what will be; Who ever has known, and ever will know , what has been and what will be ; His knowledge comprehends all things, the covert and the overt, the small there of and the great the possible and the impossible, the lofty and low spheres, etc. in the most complete manner. Nothing is concealed form Him in the earth of in the heavens . [ See Shaykh as Sa’dee’s Tayseer Al-Kareem Ar-Rahman fi Tafseeri Kalaamil –Mannan [‘Unayzah , Saudi Arabia: Saalih bin Center Publish. 1412/1992], vol.5, p.299
