The preceding verse showed that when a messenger’s message did not accord with the self’s desires, arrogance could lead to declaring him a liar and even to killing. Now the same resistance is expressed differently in their own words: “Our hearts are covered.” Instead of asking themselves why they do not accept truth, they describe the condition of their hearts as though the entrance for the message were closed from the outset.

The word for heart (qalb) comes from the root Q L B, associated with turning, changing, and passing from one state to another. The name itself has been associated in Arabic with this turning and overturning. The Qur’an likewise does not portray the heart as inert and fixed: it can find peace, deviate, harden, soften, understand, or fail to understand.

Against this dynamic picture, they say: “Our hearts are covered.” Being covered (ghulf) evokes enclosure in a covering, as though a barrier lay between the message and their inner selves. The same expression recurs in An-Nisa 4:155, and in Fussilat 41:5 a group speaks in similar terms: “Our hearts are within coverings against what you call us to.”

But the Qur’an does not accept this covering as an excuse of innocence. With a single “Rather,” it turns the statement around: “Rather, The God has excluded them from His mercy because of their rejection of truth.” The decisive point is “because of their rejection.” The condition they now find in their hearts is not separate from the path they themselves have taken.

Exclusion from mercy (laʿn) here does not mean a spoken curse or wishing someone ill. The root L ʿ N is associated with driving away and distancing, and divine exclusion means being cast out and distanced from mercy and guidance. The Qur’an attributes this consequence to The God while, in the same sentence, identifying its cause as their own rejection of truth. Human beings choose, but their choices do not occur in a lawless world separate from The God: the divine ways of guidance and misguidance are also part of the order that the one true God created and governs.

This subject extends beyond the present verse, and there is no need to reopen all of it here. The relationship between human conduct, guidance and misguidance, the hardening of the heart, the possibility of repentance, and the precise meaning of exclusion from mercy is examined in detail in Laʿn in the Qur’an: What Exclusion from Divine Mercy Means.

What matters for this verse is a person’s responsibility for the condition of their own heart. Someone who repeatedly covers truth, responds to it with arrogance, and pushes away every message contrary to their desires cannot ultimately make the outcome of that same path an excuse for continuing along it. A heart that now finds receiving truth difficult was not necessarily created that way from the beginning.

This meaning is also clear in Al-Ma’idah 5:13: “So because they broke their covenant, We excluded them from Our mercy and made their hearts hard.” First the covenant is broken, and then exclusion from mercy and hardness of heart are mentioned. A person’s outward conduct can gradually become an inward condition that makes seeing and accepting truth more difficult.

This also connects the recent sequence of verses. They knew the covenant; they accepted part of the Book and set another part aside; when a messenger brought something contrary to their desires, they responded arrogantly; and now they say that their hearts are covered. The Qur’an does not separate the problem from the human being’s own responsibility.

The verse ends: “So how little they believe.” The construction should not be confined without reason to a single possibility. It can emphasize the smallness and weakness of their faith; in some readings, it can also encompass the small number of those who truly believe. The rendering “how little they believe” leaves this range open.

Here, “little” is not merely a population statistic. The preceding verses showed that they accepted part of the Book and set another part aside. A person may therefore retain something of faith within themselves, yet because their acceptance extends only as far as truth does not confront their desires and assumptions, their faith does not reach full submission to truth.

Nevertheless, the theme of the smallness of faith and genuine acceptance extends beyond this verse in the Qur’an. Of Noah it says: “Only a few believed with him” (Hud 11:40). Of gratitude it says: “Few of My servants are deeply grateful” (Saba 34:13). Elsewhere, it repeatedly says that most people do not believe, do not know, do not reason, or do not give thanks.

This repetition carries an important warning: numbers are not the measure of truth. Truth does not become right by a majority vote, nor does it become false because its followers are few. Al-An‘am 6:116 even warns that following most people on earth can lead a person away from the path of The God.

But the converse also holds: being a minority is not itself evidence of guidance. No small group can claim, simply because it is small, to be the guided “few” of the Qur’an. The standard remains truth, evidence, mindful guarding (taqwa), and sincerity in action, rather than the number of followers.

The ending of the verse is therefore deeply connected with its beginning. A person may reject truth so often that they finally say, “My heart no longer accepts it.” The Qur’an answers: look at how you arrived here. A covering over the heart is not always a person’s excuse; sometimes it is the result of a path they have repeatedly chosen.

The heart can change: toward hardness and distance, or toward return and guidance. The danger is that a person may treat the outcome of their choices as an unchangeable destiny and flee the responsibility to return.

• Al-Baqarah 2:87— Arrogance toward messengers whose message did not accord with the self’s desires; the immediate context of the claim “our hearts are covered.”
• An-Nisa 4:155— Repeats “our hearts are covered” in the context of breaking the covenant, rejecting truth, and killing prophets.
• Fussilat 41:5— “Our hearts are within coverings”: a similar image of the claim that hearts are covered against the messenger’s call.
• Al-Ma’idah 5:13— Breaking the covenant, exclusion from mercy, and hardness of heart; the connection between conduct and a person’s inward condition.
• As-Saff 61:5— “When they deviated, The God caused their hearts to deviate”: the connection between an initial human deviation and the heart’s subsequent deviation.
• Muhammad 47:22–24— Corruption, exclusion from mercy, and then deafness, blindness, and locks upon hearts.
• Al-Baqarah 2:159–160— Exclusion from mercy for those who conceal guidance, and the open path of repentance, reform, and making truth clear.
• Hud 11:40, Saba 34:13, and Sad 38:24— Examples of the fewness of faith, gratitude, and genuine commitment.
• Yusuf 12:103 and Al-An‘am 6:116— A numerical majority is not presented as the standard of truth.
• Laʿn in the Qur’an: What Exclusion from Divine Mercy Means— A detailed study of the root L ʿ N, the divine ways of guidance and misguidance, the relationship between conduct and exclusion from mercy, and the possibility of return through repentance and reform.