2:67 edip note

Through ordering the Children of Israel to sacrifice a cow, God wanted to remove the influence of the upper-class culture on the Jews who were once the slaves of cow-worshipping Egyptians. Another lesson taught by God through this instruction was to teach them not to complicate God's simple commandments through trivial theological speculations and questions. The resurrection of the cow was to pull their attention to the fact that resurrection is easy for God, just as easy as creation in the first place. The Quran does not repeat the Biblical assertion that the sacrifice was for removing the guilt of murdering an innocent person.

By reminding us of this event, which is narrated in the Old Testament, Numbers 19, we are expected not to repeat the errors committed by the Jews. Ironically, Muslims repeated them to the letter. Muslims, soon after the prophet's death, started doubting the sufficiency and completeness of the Quran and asked many irrelevant and ridiculous questions. To answer those trivial questions, many people fabricated stories and instructions and attributed them to Muhammed and his companions. Two centuries after Muhammed's departure, some ignorant zealots such as Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmizi, Abu Dawud, Nasai, and Ibn Hanbal started collecting and classifying the stories in numerous hadith books. These volumes of contradictory "holy fabrications" created a new occupation termed emamet, ijtihad or fiqh. Therefore, many emams, mujtahids, or fuqaha created numerous sects and orders by interpreting, reconciling, refuting and codifying these volumes of contradictory sources. These books fabricated numerous rules that included answers to frivolous questions such as: 1) in what order must one cut his fingernails, 2) with which feet must one enter the bathroom, or 3) with which hand must one eat? The blind followers of hadith and sunna are hypnotized into believing that they would not even be able to properly clean themselves in the bathroom unless they followed those teachings. Sectarian books contain chapters of extensive, yet primitive and occasionally unhealthy religious instructions on personal hygiene. Thus, God's system was transformed into the religion or sect of this or that scholar, and the medieval Arab culture and borrowings from Christians and Jews were sanctified. Through this story, God pulls our attention to the chronic cause of distortion and corruption in religion. Unfortunately, Muslims repeated the same blunder. See 5:6; 23:52; 42:21.