Home > Surah 62 - The Congregation
Revealed in Medina, this verse is a sharp rhetorical attack on the Jewish community that rejected Muhammad’s claims.
It uses a vivid, somewhat insulting metaphor to describe a people who possess a divine revelation but, in the Quran's view, fail to recognize its "obvious" fulfillment.
Surah 62:5:
The likeness of those who are entrusted with the Law of Moses, yet apply it not, is as the likeness of the ass carrying books. Evil is the likeness of folk who deny the revelations of Allah. And Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk.
The Quran mocks the Jews by comparing them to a donkey carrying books (asfār).
A donkey carrying a load of "fake" books or "corrupted" scripts is not a tragic figure of wasted potential; it is just a donkey carrying trash. The metaphor only works if the books on the donkey's back are valuable, authentic, and heavy with truth.
By using this metaphor, the Quran admits that the Torah the Jews were "carrying" in the 7th century was the actual, heavy, authoritative Word of God.
If the "load" (the 7th-century Torah) was authentic enough to make the Jews "donkeys" for not following it, then that same Torah is the standard today. Since that Torah points to a sacrificial system and a Messianic line that excludes Muhammad, the "donkey" is actually carrying the very evidence that refutes the Quran.
The verse says the Jews were "entrusted" (ḥummilū) with the Law.
To be "entrusted" by God implies that God judged them capable of guarding the deposit.
If the Jews "corrupted" the text, then God’s choice of "entrusting" them was a failure of divine foresight.
The verse frames the failure not as textual alteration, but as intellectual/spiritual blindness. They have the words (the books on the back), but they don't have the understanding. This preserves the text as an objective witness against the people—and, by extension, as a witness that can be used to test the Quran.
The Quran claims the Jews are like donkeys because they don't "apply" or "carry" the message (by not accepting Muhammad).
This assumes that if they did read and understand the Torah, they would see Muhammad in it.
When we read the Torah (the "load"), we find specific requirements for prophets that Muhammad does not meet (lineage, miracles, doctrinal consistency with the Mosaic Covenant).
The Quran is essentially saying, "Look at the Books on the donkey's back!" When the Christian polemicist looks at those books, he finds the Gospel. The Quran’s own metaphor directs us to the authority of the previous text to settle the dispute.
Surah 62:5 compares the Jews to 'donkeys carrying books' because they have the Torah but don't follow it.
This metaphor only makes sense if the 'books' on the donkey's back are the true, authentic Word of God. You don't mock a donkey for carrying forged documents; you mock it for carrying a treasure it doesn't recognize.
By God's own comparison, the Torah held by the Jews in the 7th century was a 'heavy' and 'valuable' revelation.
I am opening those 'books' right now. They tell me that the 'Prophethood' belongs to the seed of Isaac (29:27) and that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Either the 'books' on the donkey's back were the True Word of God (which makes the Bible the standard that refutes Islam), or the books were already corrupted (which makes the Quran's metaphor of the 'donkey' meaningless). Why does your Book point to the 'books' of the Jews as a standard of truth if you want to tell me those books are corrupted?"
By highlighting the word Asfār (Tomes/Books), you anchor the debate in the physical reality of the manuscripts. The "load" was real, and according to the Quran, it was God's own Word.
How can Islam explain why God would describe the Torah as a "burden of knowledge" if that knowledge had supposedly been wiped out or changed by the time this verse was revealed?