البقرة
al-Baqara
Topic
Chapter 2, the longest, named for the story of the yellow cow (2:67–73).
What it means
Chapter 2 has 286 verses. It contains the Throne Verse (2:255), the verse of no compulsion (2:256), rules on fasting, pilgrimage and debts, and the story of the cow: Moses tells the Israelites to slaughter a cow, and after asking repeatedly about its colour and age they are told it is yellow (2:69). The meat is then used to reveal the identity of a murderer.
What the sources say
Commentators draw the lesson that the Israelites made a simple command hard by their questioning. The Prophet said that the Quran’s chapter al-Baqara is such that Satan flees from a house in which it is read (Sahih Muslim).