73 Preface فَقُلنَا اضرِبوهُ بِبَعضِها ۚ كَذٰلِكَ يُحيِي اللَّهُ المَوتىٰ وَيُريكُم آياتِهِ لَعَلَّكُم تَعقِلونَAhmed AliWe had pronounced already: “Slay (the murderer) for (taking a life).”1 Thus God preserves life from death and shows you His signs that you may understand. The use of adribu bi-ba’diha in the original text could literally mean “strike him with some of her,” on the basis of which it has been taken to mean “strike it (the corpse) with some (pieces) of her (the cow).” On the very face this seems not only far-fetched but no sanction exists for such a meaning in the Qur’an. It also does not conform to the Qur’an wider view of life. The word daraba means more than one hundred things, ‘to strike’ being only one of them; and when it is combined with other words its meaning changes altogether, as in darab al-ma, to swim, or darb al-mathal, to give an example, etc. The meaning given here is in conformity with its use in a similar sense elsewhere in the Qur’an, e.g. 8:12 and 47:4. As for bi-ba‘dhia, its use, and meaning, are similar to an-mafsa bin-nafs in 5:45, and the sanction for the meaning given here is contained in 2:178-179 and 5:32-33 which contain commands of an imperative nature applicable in such cases as this.