So We said: Strike him (idribuhu), with part of it (bi-ba'diha). Thus The God (Allah) gives life (yuhyi) to the dead (mawta) and shows you His signs (ayat), so that perhaps you may use reason (ta'qilun).
This verse is the direct continuation of the previous verse. In verse 72, it had said: “And when you killed a soul, then you fell into mutual blame-deflection about it; and The God is bringing out what you were concealing.” Now the Qur'an says: “So We said: Strike him, with part of it.”
In these two verses, several points are certain: a killing had occurred; blame-deflection and pushing away accusation had happened around that killing; a truth was being hidden; and The God was the One bringing out that same hidden truth. The main question in verse 73 is how exactly “strike him / confront him with part of it” (strike him idribuhu, with part of it bi-ba'diha) should be understood.
To understand this sentence, we must see its simple Arabic structure. “Strike him / confront him” (idribuhu) means “strike him” or “bring him face to face with something.” At the end of this word is the pronoun “hu.” In Arabic this pronoun is masculine singular: “him” or “it” in the masculine form. In the previous verse, the word “soul/self” (nafsan) had appeared. “Soul/self” (nafs), as a word, is grammatically feminine. If the pronoun returned exactly to the word “soul/self” (nafs), the natural expectation would be a feminine pronoun: strike her (idribuha). But the Qur'an says: strike him (idribuhu). So the pronoun “hu” does not return to the word-form “nafs”; rather, it points to a meaning understood from context: the slain person, the murdered one, or the victim.
In “with part of it” (bi-ba'diha), the pronoun “ha” also appears. This pronoun is feminine singular: “of it” in the feminine form. The nearest feminine reference in the previous verses is “cow” (baqarah), the cow discussed in verses 67 to 71. So from the perspective of Arabic grammar, the reading is possible that “with part of it” (bi-ba'diha) means: with part of that cow.
On this basis, the classical reading takes shape: the slain person was struck with part of the cow, and The God revived the dead person so the hidden truth would become manifest. This reading is possible from the perspective of the pronouns. The masculine pronoun in “strike him” (idribuhu) returns to the slain person, and the feminine pronoun in “with part of it” (bi-ba'diha) returns to the cow. The next sentence also strengthens this reading: “Thus The God gives life to the dead”.
From a theological perspective as well, such an understanding is not impossible. The Qur'an repeatedly speaks of the power of The God to give life to the dead. In this same surah, Ibrahim asks his Lord to show him how He gives life to the dead. In other verses as well, the reviving of the dead and life after death are among the signs of divine power. So if this verse is understood to mean that The God revived a murdered person in some way so that the truth would be disclosed, the core of that meaning is not incompatible with the power of The God or with the logic of the Qur'an.
This reading is also noteworthy in relation to previous scriptures. The Qur'an introduces itself as confirming what came before it of the Book. Therefore, the basic act of paying attention to previous scriptural memory, where the Qur'an leaves the path open for it, is not contrary to the Qur'an. In the Torah, there are two separate contexts that can be compared with these verses.
In Deuteronomy 21:1-9, there is a ruling about an unknown slain person. If a slain person is found in the land and the killer is not known, the elders and judges of the cities must determine the nearest city. The elders of that city bring a heifer that has not been worked and upon whose neck a yoke has not been placed. That heifer is killed in a particular valley. Then the elders of the city wash their hands over the heifer and declare that their hands did not shed this blood and their eyes did not see it. The aim of this rite is to cleanse the community from innocent blood and remove the hidden responsibility from among the people. In that text, the dead person is not revived, but the connection among an unknown killing, collective responsibility, an unused cow, and being cleansed from blood is visible.
In Numbers 19:1-10, there is also a rite involving a special cow for purification. That cow must be without defect, without blemish, and without a yoke. In that rite, the ashes of the cow are used for ritual purification, especially in relation to the impurity of death and contact with the dead. There too, there is no speech of the murdered person being revived, but features such as being without defect, unused for work, and connected with death and purification are visible.
So in the classical reading, one can say that the Qur'an, through its concision, recalls a memory known among the People of the Book, but it does not repeat it exactly. The Qur'an can raise what had appeared in previous scriptures as a legal ruling or purification rite to a higher level: from cleansing blood and removing responsibility to disclosing the truth and showing the power of The God to revive the dead.
But precisely here, the boundary must be kept. The Qur'an does not say what that part of the cow was: skin, flesh, bone, tail, tongue, or anything else. The Qur'an does not say how long the murdered person was revived, what he said, how he identified the killer, or how the legal details of the matter ended. These details are not in the Qur'anic text. Therefore the bodily reading is possible, but outside details should not be imposed on the text as Qur'anic certainty.
Alongside this, a second reading is also possible: a reading that begins from the Qur'an itself and does not rely on outside sources to understand the main message of the verse. This reading begins from verse 72: a killing occurred, the society practiced blame-deflection around it, a truth was hidden, and The God was bringing out what they were concealing. Then verse 73 says: “Strike him with part of it” (strike him idribuhu, with part of it bi-ba'diha).
The linguistic basis of this reading is in the word “strike / set forth” (daraba). In Arabic, and in the Qur'an itself, “strike / set forth” (daraba) does not always mean bodily striking only. The Qur'an repeatedly speaks of “setting forth a parable” (daraba mathal): The God places an example before human understanding. This root can carry the meaning of striking, placing, showing, confronting, setting forth an example, or connecting one matter with another. So although the bodily meaning is possible in this verse, the semantic field of “strike / set forth” (daraba) also allows a deeper meaning to be seen.
In this reading, “strike him / confront him with part of it” (idribuhu bi-ba'diha) means: confront the matter of the killing with part of the same truth that was disclosed in the cow story. In the cow story, the people received a simple command, but made it difficult through repeated questions. They postponed responsibility. They said “your Lord and Nurturing Master” (rabbaka). They narrowed an open path upon themselves. Instead of action, they took refuge in details. And in the end, “they were hardly going to do it”. Now verse 72 shows that the same society is also facing killing, concealment, and blame-deflection.
So in the Qur'an-centered reading, the verse can say: do not see this killing only in the hand of the killer; strike it against, or connect it with, part of the same disease. See the root of death in the same society that hides truth, pushes responsibility away from itself, makes the command hard, and flees from facing truth until the last moment. At this level, The God does not only disclose a legal secret; He also brings out the hidden illness of the society.
This reading also fits the end of the verse. The verse does not say that only an astonishing event occurred so people could marvel. It says: “and He shows you His signs so that perhaps you may use reason”. The destination of the verse is reason. That means moral and faithful reason must awaken through this event: reason before killing, reason before concealment, reason before blame-deflection, reason before making religion hard, and reason before the power of The God to give life to what the human being imagines dead.
This reading is also compatible with a Qur'an-by-Qur'an method. The Qur'an asks the reader to reflect within the Qur'an and see its inner coherence and connections. The Qur'an repeatedly connects its verses to one another, shows signs within the text and in the world, and calls the human being to use reason. But no verse forces us, in order to complete the details of this story, to go outside the Qur'an and extract details from previous books or later reports. So the Qur'an-centered reading is not against the classical reading; it only emphasizes the sufficiency of the Qur'anic text for receiving the message of guidance.
At the end of the verse, three movements come one after another: “He gives life” (yuhyi), “He shows you” (yurikum), and “you may use reason” (ta'qilun). First is the act of The God: He gives life. Then there is the showing of the signs: He shows you His signs. Then there is the human response: perhaps you may use reason. Life begins from The God, the sign is placed before the human being, and reason must awaken.
Therefore, in this verse two possible readings stand before us. The bodily reading says: part of the cow was applied to the murdered person and The God revived the dead person; this reading is possible from the pronouns, from the context of the cow, from theological possibility, and from the relation of the Qur'an to previous scriptures. The Qur'an-centered reading says: the Qur'an, with its compressed language, connects the hidden killing to part of the truth of the cow and shows that The God, by disclosing truth, gives life to the dead; this reading also draws strength from verse 72, from the semantic field of “strike / set forth” (daraba), from “The God is bringing out what you were concealing,” from “so that perhaps you may use reason,” and from the inner method of the Qur'an.
At this stage we cannot impose one of these with certainty over the other. Both possibilities remain open in the text. What should not be done is to make outside details certain in the name of the Qur'an, or to declare the bodily reading impossible only because its details are not given in the Qur'an. Complete truth is with The One God. If, in other verses, The God makes the path clearer, we must return to that clarity and correct our understanding, God willing.
What is certain is this: The God brings out what they were concealing, gives life to the dead, shows His signs, and calls the human being to use reason. Buried truth is not dead. Wherever truth is drawn out from beneath the soil of concealment, a sign of giving life to the dead can be seen.