The Holy Quran 2:65 — Surah Al-Baqarah

Arabic text

وَلَقَدْ عَلِمْتُمُ ٱلَّذِينَ ٱعْتَدَوْا۟ مِنكُمْ فِى ٱلسَّبْتِ فَقُلْنَا لَهُمْ كُونُوا۟ قِرَدَةً خَـٰسِـِٔينَ

Translation

You (the people of the Bani Israa'eel) are certainly well aware of those from you who failed to honour the Sabbath (by fishing on Saturdays when they were prohibited from doing so). So We told them, "Become hated and cursed monkeys!" (They were turned into monkeys and died after three days; as mentioned in Surah 7, verses 163-166)

Tafsir (excerpt) — Tafsir Usmani

The punishment of the Children of Israel by transformation: in the Torah the Children of Israel had been commanded: “Saturday is a day set apart purely for worship; do not catch fish on that day.” Those people began to fish on Saturday by deceit and stratagem, so Allah transformed them and gave them the form of monkeys.

Preview. The full text opens with JavaScript enabled.