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O you who have believed, do not say, “Have regard for us” (rāʿinā), but say, “Give us your attention” (unẓurnā), and listen. And for those who reject truth there is a painful punishment.
With this verse, the surah shifts its address. After many verses placing before the reader the Children of Israel, their covenants, scripture, prophets, and historical deviations, the address “You who have believed” appears for the first time in Al-Baqarah.
What preceded it was therefore not merely the story of other people. Those who have believed are now addressed themselves. They must guard against the same failings recurring among them under different forms and names.
The first command replaces one expression with another:
“Do not say ‘Have regard for us’ (rāʿinā), but say ‘Give us your attention’ (unẓurnā).”
The Arabic expression “Have regard for us” (rāʿinā) comes from the root R ʿ Y, whose word family includes tending, care, and attentive regard. The Qur’an uses this root elsewhere for keeping and tending what has been entrusted to someone. Related words in the Semitic language family are also connected with shepherding, tending, and care. Its apparent meaning was therefore something like “Have regard for us; take our situation into account.” The root’s connection with shepherding does not, by itself, mean that the speakers regarded themselves as a passive flock.
In its place, the Qur’an says:
“Give us your attention” (unẓurnā).
This Arabic expression comes from N Ẓ R: attend to us, pause for us, and allow us time to grasp what is being said. The related expression in Al-Hadid 57:13, “Wait for us so that we may take some of your light” (unẓurūnā), also demonstrates the sense of waiting or pausing.
But why should an intelligible expression be set aside?
An-Nisa 4:46 clarifies the issue:
“We have heard and disobeyed”; “Hear—may you not be heard”; and “Have regard for us” (rāʿinā), twisting their tongues and attacking the religion.
In this use, “Have regard for us” no longer carried only its straightforward sense of consideration. Through the twisting of speech, it had become an instrument of mockery. The Qur’an then supplies the proper form of speech:
“Had they said, ‘We have heard and obeyed,’ and ‘Hear,’ and ‘Give us your attention,’ it would have been better for them and more upright.”
The lesson is therefore not confined to one historical expression. If a word is so twisted and corrupted that it no longer clearly conveys its intended truth, we should not cling to the wording itself. Meaning matters more than the name. Language must not become a veil over truth.
The same issue remains alive in our religious language today. Submission (islām) is the Arabic verbal noun of aslama, “to submit,” while muslim describes someone who submits. The Qur’an says of Abraham:
“When his Lord said to him, ‘Submit,’ he said, ‘I have submitted to the Lord of all worlds.’”
Over the course of history, however, “Muslim” changed from a description of someone who submits into the name of a religious identity, under which different denominations, religious legal systems, and historical inheritances have gathered. Someone may be born Muslim, be recorded as Muslim in official documents, and bear that name throughout life without the central question ever being raised: Have they submitted?
In the Qur’an, submission (islām) speaks of “submitting.” In this sense, it is an act: something a person must do and that must also be realized in collective life. But in the sectarian form it takes among us today, it has become a “name”: the name of a community whose membership is inherited, even when submission to truth is absent. The criticism is not merely that we have failed to live up to our name. Communities bearing this name have written religious laws for themselves and, in many instances, have distorted the meaning of the very text they claim to follow—by displacing the meanings of its verses, separating them from their context, or giving their own transmitted accounts and religious rulings authority over the Qur’an’s words. Instead of submitting their beliefs and rulings to the Qur’an, they have made the Qur’an subordinate to those beliefs and rulings. The name “Islam” remains, but the direction of submission has been reversed. The issue is not abandoning this Qur’anic name; it is returning the name to its reality: submitting, rather than merely belonging to a community that calls itself submitted.
In Al-Hujurat 49:14, the Qur’an itself also turns people from a verbal claim back to their actual condition:
“The nomadic Arabs said, ‘We have believed.’ Say: ‘You have not believed; rather, say, “We have submitted,” for faith has not yet entered your hearts.’”
Here, unlike An-Nisa 4:46, the issue is not twisting an expression to mock, but the distance between a claim and reality. These two verses do not describe the same situation, yet both hold speech accountable to the truth it should express.
If the Qur’an were being revealed today and addressing this condition of ours, it might say: Do not say, “We are Muslims”; rather, say, “We have submitted.” This wording is our reflection extending the verse’s lesson. The point is not to abandon the Qur’anic name for one who submits, muslim, but to expose the distance we have created between the name and its reality. In its use as an identity label, the first expression may say only which community we belong to; the second confronts us with the question of what we have actually submitted to—truth, or the inheritance and rulings we have constructed ourselves. Of course, if submission is absent from our conduct, the second expression, too, becomes a new claim.
In the first expression, “Muslim” can be merely the name of membership in a group; in the second, the act itself comes back into view. “We have submitted” is a claim about our condition and conduct, whose effects should be visible in life. A name intended to express a reality must not take that reality’s place.
The Qur’an then says:
“And listen.”
This short command returns responsibility to the listener. An-Nisa 4:46 sets “We have heard and disobeyed” against “We have heard and obeyed.” Hearing in the Qur’an is therefore not merely sound reaching the ear; hearing should lead to understanding, acceptance, and response. Do not simply say, “Give us your attention”; listen yourselves and be ready to act.
The end of the verse is connected with the same issue:
“And for those who reject truth there is a painful punishment.”
Rejection (kufr) is connected with covering truth. Twisting speech and turning a word into an instrument of mockery is one form of that covering. Sometimes the wording remains while its meaning is buried beneath it; sometimes a religious name remains while the reality it should express disappears from life. A believer must attend to both: what they say, and what they actually hear and act upon.