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Suggested translation^1,2:

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¹This translation may have been updated from the original suggested translation as a result of the discussions that follow.
²Click on the {verse number} of a translation to see other good translations of the verse.

I'd translate it this way, in order to convey the subtle meaning of the بِ in بِمؤمنين:

"And of the people those who say, 'We believe in God and the Last Day,' but they are no believers."


I'd suggest:

"They [try to] deceive God and those who have believed. They do not deceive but themselves and they do not feel [it]."


I'd suggest:

"In their hearts is disease, so God added to their disease; and for them is a painful torment because they used to lie."

I like to reserve the word "punishment" for translating عقاب. Also, the ب in بما is causal.

I'll discuss one verse at a time to make the posts easier to read.


I agree with no believers. Good call.

I am not happy about "but" and I think it is worth discussing. The Arabic "w" (which is and) is a bit different from the English "and." I can see that sometimes it can be replaced by other conjunctions (or even just by starting a new sentence). However, when it can be translated into "and" without compromising the meaning, I think it should be simply translated into "and."

Agree with have believed, but I am not sure about feel. I don't think perceive departs much from the meaning, but if we go for another verb then sense is probably closer to the meaning than feel.

Totally agree with torment, but I think "because" is an overkill. The causal aspect of the ب in بما is well taken, but "for what ..." does have a causal aspect as well.

Normally, I'd agree about the use of "but" in this case. However, using "and" here would make the sentence sound a bit strange: "And of the people those who say, 'We believe in God and the Last Day,' and they are no believers." The meaning is not lost, but also not conveyed as well as "but" would convey it, IMHO.

2:8 This is interesting The baseline translation starts by rhyming say and day, and almost starts with a good rhythm, but breaks it unnecessarily. Let me give it a try, again sticking with faith for إيمان, but suggest that faith in Allah is different from إيمان باليوم الآخر, the latter is an expectation, for which يقين would be certain expectation. Here, for poetic reasons but also to translate Allah literally as معرفة = ال-له: the One God. Also, I believe that the و here is واو المعية, which I translate as "while".

2:9 يخادعون is actively striving to deceive or cheat. Deception in the sense of cheating seems more appropriate, because they are trying to get something out of this deception, but convincing the faithful that they belong to the same group. Back to نفس, which others have discussed, I think we can use either the convention of نفس (Hebrew: nefesh) as the lower "soul" and روح (Hebrew: ruach) as the divine "spirit", or use "self" for the first and "soul" for the second. I will stick with the latter for now, and see how it goes. It works better as "cheating themselves" being the same as "cheating their selves" or, here to emphasize و ما ... إلا, I'd say "their own selves". يشعر of course is "feel" not "perceive".

2:10 زادهم may apply to the people themselves or to their hearts, بما كانوا suggests the way that they have earned their punishment: عذاب is torment, أليم is painful; "painful torment" is redundant in English (is there any other form?), and repetition is for emphasis, meaning "great pain".

Again, follow the rhythm with segments "of the people, some may say" ... "actively striving to cheat" ...

{2:8} Of the people, some may say: "we have faith in the One God, and expect the Final Day," while they don't subscribe to faith.

{2:9} Actively striving to cheat God and all people with faith, they're just cheating their own selves, without feeling what they've done.

{2:10} In their hearts there is disease, and God made them more diseased; their lies earned them a great pain.

I thought it is proper to include what Abu-Muslim Al-Asfahaani said about this in his exegesis. He interpreted فزادهم الله مرضا as a curse, i.e., "May God add to their disease!"

I think that is cute but may not be right, because of the letter فـ which implies sequence. However, it also implies consequence, so that interpretation may be quite valid. Problem is: how do we translate so that both meanings can be conveyed?