Why Tawbah?

I choose Surah Tawbah to write about because it is, in a sense, the Qur’an’s “outward looking” chapter, dictating the foreign relations policy of the Islamic state. There is reason to believe that it is the last ever “revealed” chapter of the Qur’an. This would mean it arrived at a time when the Muslims are feeling confident enough to pose a military threat, at least locally.

The chapter sets out in incredible fashion, with a series of rather disjointed calls to aggression that give the impression of being reactionary, intended to serve immediate challenges. There is no let-down in the rest of the chapter either, with the issues still related to religious conflict in one way or another, as we shall see. There is little of religious import in Tawbah, which thus stands as a sort of mini-foreign policy nested within the Qur’an.

Whether all the belligerence is softened by certain other verses also in the Qur’an is going to be up to the individual Muslim to decide, but there are also plenty of other verses in the rest of the Qur’an which corroborate it, which we do not address in this article.

Mushrikeen, Kafirun

We note that in these passages the Qur’an is addressing the “mushrikeen“, and especially so in the first 8 tone-setting verses where the word appears 6 times, doing so only 5 more times in the rest of the entire chapter (total 167 occ.). This word is best translated as “associators”, which for practical purposes becomes “polytheists”, which is apparrently a word which the Qur’anic author settles upon for this purpose, those that “associate” others with God.

It is far from clear from the Qur’an as to whether Christians and Jews are included among these, however modern Muslims will ofter contend that this is the case for Christians, since the Qur’an does reject their trinitarian teaching and the Qur’an is only condoning a minority of non-trinitarian “Christians” of the type of “Jehovah’s Witnesses” and other fringe groups we still have today, descendents of the Arian-type Christian herersies. This is not an issue that will easily ever be clarified, leave alone in this article, so I’m not going to attempt to.

But in any case, “mushrikeen” does become an umbrella term for the large part of the world’s non-Muslim population, and is more or less a constant pejorative in the Qur’an. You cannot possibly do any worse than be a “mushrik”, an honor possibly shared with the kufars, the two groups bearing the brunt of all the Qur’an’s condemnations, with no indication of the exact meaning or even the diffferences between the two if any were intended. That second word, “kufar” (plu.kafireen) literally simply means to “cover-up”, presumably the truth. This is a strange term to use for non-Muslims, with no equivalent term in the Bible. It is only seen in v.2, and the next time we see it is much later in v.26, and 5 other times in the entire chapter (though total~ 480 occ.).

In addition there is a third group that incurs the Qur’anic author’s ire the “munafiqun”, usually translated as hypocrites, which is presumably those who only follow Muhammad rather begrudgingly (eg,9:101, ~35occ.)

The teachings of Tawbah, Summarized

It’s possible to summarize the teachings of Tawbah into just three main points of thrust, which is quite incredible in itself. The rest of the article is the detailed discussion of these points:

1. Laid out in the very first 14 verses is the call to violence effectively against all non-Muslims. There are some specifications regarding the location and timing of violence with respect to the Muslim religious sites are sacred periods.
2. Additionally, coersive religious conversion is implied in verses 5,6,11, 29.
3. The rest of the chapter, which deals with issues that arise from having an agressive intent, like inciting the masses to violence by attaching spiritual reward/punishment, raising war-budget, caricaturing the opposition to aid motivation, diatribe against those displaying aversion toward violence, even something like PTSD support for them, and so on.

Verses 1-14: Eventually, all non-Muslims are under threat

First, we note that two types of non-Muslims are differentiated in these passages- the “nice” ones that remain peaceable and refrain from conniving, and the “naughty” ones that do not. These are the main teaching points in the first 14 verses of the chapter:

1. Treaties can be broken in the case of “naughty” mushriks (v.1,12). The ambiguity is the question of just what costitutes “naughty”. Were it open aggresion by the mushriks, the treaty would have been broken anyway by definition. Rather these are more likely accusations of subtle subversion as in “they have not been deficient toward you in anything or supported anyone against you” (v.4). All this leaves open the possibility of ambiguous pretexts for war, but of course, this is going to be the case in any war, one’s information is only ever going to be as good as the source.
2. The “nice” unbelievers will be attacked when the term of the treaty runs out as well as long as the sacred months (months 7,10,11,12) have also passed (v.4,5,7).

We can analyse the passage verse by verse to see how we arrived at these conclusions so that we have a proper grasp of the material:

V.1 begins with an exhortation to break a particular treaty at the end of Ramadan (the end of the 9th month): “dissociation …to those with whom you had made a treaty”(v.1); “disassociation…from the mushriks” (v.3); “a declaraton on the day of the greater pilgrimage (v.3). There is the strange interjection about waiting for the sacred months to pass (v.2), which doesn’t make sense if there really is a clear and present threat, and is just a mark of the contradictory nature of the text. There is no obvious way to resolve this.

V. 4 has the exception: “EXCEPT” those that have been “nice” (v.4). The “nice” mushriks have not provoked the Muslims “with whom you made a treaty…and they have not been deficient toward you in anything, or supported anyone against you” (v.4). In their case, Muslims must wait for the end of the treaty’s term AND the for four ‘sacred months to pass (traditionally 7,10 [?1- Mohsin Khan v.5], 11 &12): “…till the treaty completes its term (v.4), THEN when the sacred months have passed” (v.5, also v.2) at which time, they face attack too.

This is reiterated in v.7 where the Muslims are told to be true as long as the mushriks are also true, meaning in relation to a treaty. By implication in corroboration with 5, there is no call to be peaceful after that.

We can presume V.6 refers to a surrender situation for mushriks that are not inclined to fight back and who surrender to Muslim aggression instead. “Those who seek your protection”, are to be granted it “until they hear the words of Allah” and they are to be “delivered to a place of safety”, presumably within the new Islamic rule. Some translate hitta as “so that” (check commentary). But overall the point is seemingly to Islamicize those that surrender which goes with vv.5,11,29 which we cover later. Freedom of religion is never mentioned, and it is obvious that this “seeking of protection” is from Muslim aggression, coming as it does right after the “slay them wherever you find them” verse. The commentaries corroborate this, both al-Jalalayn and Ibn Kathir writing that this is only for those who approach the Muslims with the express request to hear about Islam or more generally for emissaries. The “safe” place is simply returning them back to their people where they can “reflect on” what they have heard.

Prohibiting Treaties

Next, vv. 7, 8 place a moratorium on treaty-making, apart from at the Ka’aba. This seems terribly aggressive as policy, and again, quite unique. What nation prohihibits treaties?

Concern about the Ka’ba rather than about peace?

The caveat of the Ka’aba is interesting, giving an insight into the mind of an author seemingly more concerned about the Ka’ba itself rather than with peace per se (similarly we find Q 2:217 prohibits fighting in the Ka’aba itself, but not fighting per se– “fighting in it is a heinous thing“).

“How can there be for the polytheists a treaty in the sight of Allah and with His Messenger, except for those with whom you made a treaty at al-Masjid al-haram? So as long as they are upright/true toward you (respect the pact- Muhammed Sarwar), be upright/true toward them. Indeed, Allah loves the righteous. How, if they were to gain the upper hand over you, they would not respect any tie with you, of kinship or treaty. They please you with their tongues, but their hearts are against you and most of them are lawbreakers…”

Commentaries, esp. 9:5

The first few verses have nonetheless given rise to a multitude of interpretations from the classical commentators. Hossein’s Study Qur’an records so many that it would be futile to even attempt to make sense of the disparate views. Hossein notes that of the commentators, only one associates this with the treaty of Hudaubiyah, while the majority relate it to the conquest of Mecca in 8/630. He notes there is considerable disagreement as to the legal implications of both the “repudiation” (v.1) and the “announcement” (v.3). In essence, there are several opinions about the several elements of the passage. Perhaps Hossein is including later and modern commentaries and scholars. But he does note that Al-Tabari attempts to tone it down: “Al-Ṭabarī makes it clear that this passage could not possibly mean that after the lapse of the sacred months the believers were free to kill any idolater…”. Clearly al-Tabari reaches the same conclusion as we have from the surface reading of the text or he would not feel the need to make this comment in the first place.

Robert Spencer notes that Surah Tawbah, “is the only one of the Qur’an’s 114 suras that does not begin with Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim—“IN THE NAME OF ALLAH, THE COMPASSIONATE, THE MERCIFUL” and then notes the explanations for this from classical Muslim commentators: “Tafsir al-Jalalayn says (the basmalah) is not recited because Muhammad did not command that it should be. It explains that while this sura is commonly called “Repentance,” it is “in fact, the Sura of Punishment,” it quotes a statement attributed to Ali ibn Abi Talib, saying that the Bismillah “is security, and this sura was revealed to remove security by the sword.” Spencer states that this chapter “…contains many of the Qur’an’s most strident declarations regarding warfare. A hadith recorded by Bukhari asserts that this was “the last Sura which was revealed in full…”

He summarises the classical commetaries on verse 9:5:

“The fourteenth-century Islamic scholar Ibn Juzayy declares that this verse (9:5) abrogates “every peace treaty in the Qur’an” and specifically abrogates the Qur’an’s directive to “set free or ransom” captive unbelievers (47:4). According to as-Suyuti, “This is an Ayat of the Sword which abrogates pardon, truce and overlooking,” that is, the overlooking of the pagans’ offenses. The Tafsir al-Jalalayn says that the Muslims must “kill the idolaters wherever you find them” and “seize them by capture and besiege them in citadels and fortresses until they either fight or become Muslim.” (…) none of the mainstream Islamic commentators on the Qur’an attach any conditions to this verse; unlike 2:191 and 4:89, one is not to “kill them wherever you find them” only when the unbelievers have committed some offense, but at any time, simply by virtue of their being unbelievers…”

Let’s quote Ibn Kathir on 9:5 in full:

“This is the verse of the sword…Allah’s statement next, then fight the Mushrikin wherever you find them), means, on the earth in general, except for the sacred area…This way, they will have no choice, but to die or embrace Islam,…These Ayat allowed fighting people unless, and until, they embrace Islam and implement its rulings and obligations. Allah mentioned the most important aspects of Islam here, including what is less important…In the Two Sahihs, it is recorded that Ibn `Umar said that the Messenger of Allah said I have been commanded to fight the people until they testify that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, establish the prayer and pay the Zakah.) This honorable Ayah (9:5) was called the Ayah of the Sword, about which Ad-Dahhak bin Muzahim said, “It abrogated every agreement of peace between the Prophet and any idolator, every treaty, and every term.” Al-`Awfi said that Ibn `Abbas commented: “No idolator had any more treaty or promise of safety ever since Surah Bara’ah was revealed. The four months, in addition to, all peace treaties conducted before Bara’ah was revealed and announced had ended by the tenth of the month of Rabi` Al-Akhir.’”

Coersive Religious Conversion- V. 5,6, 11, 29

“slay the idolaters (…) But if they repent, and perform the prayer, and pay the alms, then let them go their way” (v.5)

“But if they repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, then they are your brothers in religion; and We detail the verses for a people who know.” (v.11- SI)

“Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled (sāghirūna 13 occ.: “small, humiliated, disgraced and abased)” (SI. Pickthall: being brought low. Yusuf Ali: and feel themselves subdued.

This is seemingly an unqualified order to fight. The verse does not seem addressed to any particular situational context. There should be no question therefore as to it’s universal applicability. Non-Muslims should be ‘utterly subdued”. The very next verse states who these people are that are to be fought, which is Jews and trinitarian Christians (Q 9:30).

Commentraries on 9:29

Robert Spencer notes regarding the the Muslim commentaries:

“The Tafsir al-Jalalayn says that this verse specifies that Muslims must fight against those who do not follow Islam, “which confirms and abrogates” other religions (…)

Ibn Kathir explains the need for this fighting in the context of the contention that the people of the book were in bad faith when they rejected Muhammad: “Therefore, when People of the Scriptures disbelieved in Muhammad, they had no beneficial faith in any Messenger or what the Messengers brought.…Therefore, they do not follow the religion of earlier Prophets because these religions came from Allah, but because these suit their desires and lusts. Therefore, their claimed faith in an earlier Prophet will not benefit them because they disbelieved in the master, the mightiest, the last and most perfect of all Prophets.”

We quote Ibn Kathir in full:

“…Therefore, when People of the Scriptures disbelieved in Muhammad , they had no beneficial faith in any Messenger or what the Messengers brought. Rather, they followed their religions because this conformed with their ideas, lusts and the ways of their forefathers, not because they are Allah’s Law and religion. Had they been true believers in their religions, that faith would have directed them to believe in Muhammad , because all Prophets gave the good news of Muhammad’s advent and commanded them to obey and follow him. Yet when he was sent, they disbelieved in him, even though he is the mightiest of all Messengers. Therefore, they do not follow the religion of earlier Prophets because these religions came from Allah, but because these suit their desires and lusts.

Therefore, their claimed faith in an earlier Prophet will not benefit them because they disbelieved in the master, the mightiest, the last and most perfect of all Prophets . Hence Allah’s statement, (Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth among the People of the Scripture,)

This honorable Ayah was revealed with the order to fight the People of the Book, after the pagans were defeated, the people entered Allah’s religion in large numbers, and the Arabian Peninsula was secured under the Muslims’ control. Allah commanded His Messenger to fight the People of the Scriptures, Jews and Christians, on the ninth year of Hijrah, and he prepared his army to fight the Romans and called the people to Jihad announcing his intent and destination.

The Messenger sent his intent to various Arab areas around Al-Madinah to gather forces, and he collected an army of thirty thousand. Some people from Al-Madinah and some hypocrites, in and around it, lagged behind, for that year was a year of drought and intense heat. The Messenger of Allah marched, heading towards Ash-Sham to fight the Romans until he reached Tabuk, where he set camp for about twenty days next to its water resources. He then prayed to Allah for a decision and went back to Al-Madinah because it was a hard year and the people were weak, as we will mention, Allah willing.

Paying Jizyah is a Sign of Kufr and Disgrace Allah said, (until they pay the Jizyah), if they do not choose to embrace Islam (with willing submission), in defeat and subservience (and feel themselves subdued.), disgraced, humiliated and belittled. Therefore, Muslims are not allowed to honor the people of Dhimmah or elevate them above Muslims, for they are miserable, disgraced and humiliated. Muslim recorded from Abu Hurayrah that the Prophet said, (Do not initiate the Salam to the Jews and Christians, and if you meet any of them in a road, force them to its narrowest alley.) This is why the Leader of the faithful `Umar bin Al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, demanded his well-known conditions be met by the Christians, these conditions that ensured their continued humiliation, degradation and disgrace.

The scholars of Hadith narrated from `Abdur-Rahman bin Ghanm Al-Ash`ari that he said, “I recorded for `Umar bin Al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, the terms of the treaty of peace he conducted with the Christians of Ash-Sham: `

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. This is a document to the servant of Allah `Umar, the Leader of the faithful, from the Christians of such and such city. When you (Muslims) came to us we requested safety for ourselves, children, property and followers of our religion. We made a condition on ourselves that we will neither erect in our areas a monastery, church, or a sanctuary for a monk, nor restore any place of worship that needs restoration nor use any of them for the purpose of enmity against Muslims. We will not prevent any Muslim from resting in our churches whether they come by day or night, and we will open the doors (of our houses of worship) for the wayfarer and passerby. Those Muslims who come as guests, will enjoy boarding and food for three days. We will not allow a spy against Muslims into our churches and homes or hide deceit (or betrayal) against Muslims. We will not teach our children the Qur’an, publicize practices of Shirk, invite anyone to Shirk or prevent any of our fellows from embracing Islam, if they choose to do so. We will respect Muslims, move from the places we sit in if they choose to sit in them. We will not imitate their clothing, caps, turbans, sandals, hairstyles, speech, nicknames and title names, or ride on saddles, hang swords on the shoulders, collect weapons of any kind or carry these weapons. We will not encrypt our stamps in Arabic, or sell liquor. We will have the front of our hair cut, wear our customary clothes wherever we are, wear belts around our waist, refrain from erecting crosses on the outside of our churches and demonstrating them and our books in public in Muslim fairways and markets. We will not sound the bells in our churches, except discretely, or raise our voices while reciting our holy books inside our churches in the presence of Muslims, nor raise our voices (with prayer) at our funerals, or light torches in funeral processions in the fairways of Muslims, or their markets. We will not bury our dead next to Muslim dead, or buy servants who were captured by Muslims. We will be guides for Muslims and refrain from breaching their privacy in their homes.’ When I gave this document to `Umar, he added to it, `We will not beat any Muslim. These are the conditions that we set against ourselves and followers of our religion in return for safety and protection. If we break any of these promises that we set for your benefit against ourselves, then our Dhimmah (promise of protection) is broken and you are allowed to do with us what you are allowed of people of defiance and rebellion.”’

“The command to fight the people until they say “La ilaha illallah Muhammad Rasul-Allah”, and establish Salat, and pay the Zakat, and believe in everything that the prophet (saws) brought. Whoever does that, his life and his wealth are protected except by its right, and his secrets are entrusted to Allah, the most high. Fighting those who withhold Zakat or other than that is one of the duties of Islam and the Imam should be concerned with the Laws of Islam”  Muslim 21b “the Book Faith”.

I have been commanded to fight against people, till they testify to the fact that there is no god but Allah, and believe in me (that) I am the messenger (from the Lord) and in all that I have brought. And when they do it, their blood and riches are guaranteed protection on my behalf except where it is justified by law, and their affairs rest with Allah (Muslim, 21a).

The remainder of the Surah

Next we see how going from the initial verses, the violent theme continues, with various other related issues also being addressed.

PTSD support for it’s own teaching?

The passage continues from verse 14 through to 24, finally culminating at v.29 which is going to compete with v.5 as the Qur’an’s clearest call to violence, but we’ll come to that later. We read the call “fight them…”, and the alleged promise of God of what sounds like PTSD support (v.14), an indication the author is aware of the deleterious effects of violent killing upon the perpetrators themselves. Hence Allah will “heal feelings…remove rage from hearts”, yet the Muslims are being called to it nevertheless.

Threatening Conscientious Objectors

That the above verses relates to healing of the Muslims’ PTSD from their own violence is corroborated with the next two verses attempting to combat the natural human reluctance for unnecessary violence- “do you think that you will be left untested without God identifying which of you would fight (jahadu) (…) God is fully aware of you actions”. Thus even when we read “(they) attacked you first” (v.13), it would certainly seem to apply only to the “naughty” non-Muslims, a differentiation which has already been clarified by the author in earlier verses:

“(14) Fight them (qatiluhum قَاتِلُوهُمْ)… (Allah) will heal the believers’ feelings and remove the rage from their hearts…(16) do you think that you will be left untested without God identifying which of you would fight (jahadu) for his cause and take no supporters apart from God, his Messenger and other believers? God is fully aware of you actions” (9:14,16).

Verses 38-63 mainly has Muhammed continuing a prolonged effort to motivate reluctant troops:

“O you who have believed, what is [the matter] with you that, when you are told to go forth in the cause of Allah , you adhere heavily to the earth?” (v.38)…if you do not go out and fight God will punish you severely (v.39),…” (they) ask you for exemption from struggle”…” (they ask for) permission to stay at home” (v.45)….”give me permission to stay at home, do not trouble me” (v.49)…”they are cowardly” (v.56), “they hated the thought of fighting in God’s way…they said to one another “do not go out in this heat…” (v.81) “…you chose to sit at home the first time, so remain with those who stay behind” (v.83); “And when a surah was revealed [enjoining them] to believe in Allah and to fight with His Messenger, those of wealth among them asked your permission [to stay back] and said, “Leave us to be with them who sit [at home].” (v.86 SI); “And those with excuses among the bedouins came to be permitted [to remain], and they who had lied to Allah and His Messenger sat [at home]. There will strike those who disbelieved among them a painful punishment.” (v.90); “The cause [for blame] is only upon those who ask permission of you while they are rich. They are satisfied to be with those who stay behind, and Allah has sealed over their hearts, so they do not know.” (v.93)

Apart from being rather disturbing to hear the desert Arabs being goaded and groomed to violence in this manner, its also incredibly whiny for it to just go on incessantly for 46 verses. The chapter only has a total of 129 verses.

Xenophobic denigration, even for family

We’ve already seen (v.8 “looking to please you with their tongues but their hearts are against you” ) non-Muslims generally caricatured as untrustworthy, on which pretext treaty making itself receives a blanket prohibition (v.7). The diatribe continues into vv.9 through 10. Caricaturing the opponent is a familiar technique for inciting masses to war through history and there are strong xenophobic overtones. How is it possible the author has nothing good to say about non-Muslims when many of these, even the majority eventually converted to Islam!It is not even obvious what the Muslims are supposed to do when they are faced with a treaty themselves as the losing side- are they meant to simply fight to the death each time? Once again this is contradictory writing.

Xenophobia works through painting an entire ethnic group with a negative character trait (s). even the non-Muslims in one’s own family “would not respect any tie of kinship”, while conversion to Islam is automatically a sign of instant trustworthiness “then they are your brothers”:

“if they were to gain the upper hand over you, they would not respect any tie of…kinship…they please you with their tongues but their hearts are against you…(11) if they repent, keep up the prayer, and pay the prescribed alms, then they are you brothers in the faith…(23) do not take your fathers or brothers as allies if they prefer disbelief to faith” (9:8,11,23)

Further, it is “not fitting “for a Muslim to ask forgiveness even for mushriks in their own families because they are destined for Hell. The exception provided only serves to prove the rule, that allegedly Abraham prayed for his father “only because he had made a promise to him”, and later he “washed his hands of him” too. Unbelievers are a lost cause, even the ones in one’s own family. This is a literary contradiction first of all, leave alone the morality of it. Islam is a new religion, so all Muslims are going to be new converts. Every Muslim’s family is going to have non-Muslims in it. If all disbelievers are bound to Hell, then how come some of the are converting to Islam. For the same reason it’s also a moral contradiction for a Muslim not to pray for disbelievers, given that their resistance to one’s faith is certainly not a given:

“It is not for the Prophet and those who have believed to ask forgiveness for the polytheists, even if they were relatives, after it has become clear to them that they are companions of Hellfire. And the request of forgiveness of Abraham for his father was only because of a promise he had made to him. But when it became apparent to Abraham that his father was an enemy to Allah , he disassociated himself from him. Indeed was Abraham compassionate and patient.” (Q 9:113, SI)

Dealing with Mockers, War Fund-Raising

Now between verses 61 and 70, Muhammed has a different challenge, people are cracking jokes about him. Unsurprisingly they are promised hellfire etc.The reader can examine those themselves, I won’t elaborate more here.

From v.73 onward, financial considerations come up. Not only are the followers constitutionally resistant, they’re also quibbling about the pay, it seems. We also see the strange phraseology of “God and his Messenger” being introduced, as though Muhammed and God are seen acting as a single unit:

“God and his messenger enriching them out of their bounty” (v.74)

and again here the author almost forgets that the people should be caring about God while fighting rather than Muhammed. Clearly the verse should have sounded less petty had it said “they should have cared more about God’s will than their own lives” however what we get is:

“they should (not) have cared about themselves more than they cared about (Muhammed)” (v.120).

Why is this happening? It seems that in the increasing desperation to raise the war-effort, no mean feat, the theology is crumbling unnoticed. The financial considerations continue, this is essentially war fund-raising. Verses 75-80 are a tirade against those that take money from Muhammad’s “bounty”, then rescind on going to battle. Further they criticise those who do give to the war effort (v.79). Oddly the verse ends up calling them disbelievers and ends up really levying severe condemnations, their sins are deemed unforgiveable. Whatever it was must have really angered the author. Further admonishments of reluctant givers appear: “some of the desert Arabs consider what they gave to be an imposition…” (v.98)

Those who give “freely” and “a little with great effort” are commended (v.79), akin to the Biblical tale of the woman who puts two copper coins into the Temple treasury. They are promised reward in the afterlife “those who believed strove hard with their possessions and their persons…God has prepared for them Gardens…” (v.88), “God has purchased the persons and the possessions” (v.111).

Other standout violent verses: 73, 111, 120

Verse 9:73

In 9:73, violence is seemingly commanded against the “infdels” for “becoming defiant after having submitted” and “trying to do something but they could not achieve it” (9:74), essentially an accusation of insurrection:

“Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously (wa-ugh’luẓ- 13 times, stern/harsh/severe) with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate...

…They swear by God that they did not but they certainly did speak words of defiance and became defiant after having submitted; they tried to do something though they did not achieve it…” (Q 9:73,74)

Muslim commentaries:

Tanwîr al-Miqbâs min Tafsîr Ibn ‘Abbâs: “(O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers) with the sword (and the hypocrites) with words! (Be harsh) be tough (with them) with both parties with words and actions. (Their ultimate abode is hell) their destiny is hell, (a hapless journey’s end) they shall come to.“

Jalal – Al-Jalalayn: “O Prophet, struggle against the disbelievers, with the sword, and the hypocrites, with words and [definitive] arguments, and be harsh with them, through rebuke and aversion [towards them]; for their abode will be Hell, an evil journey’s end, [an evil] resort it is!“

Ibn Al Kathir: The Order for Jihad against the Disbelievers and Hypocrites: “Allah commanded His Messenger to strive hard against the disbelievers and the hypocrites and to be harsh against them. Allah also commanded him to be merciful with the believers who followed him, informing him that the destination of the disbelievers and hypocrites is the Fire in the Hereafter. Ibn Mas`ud commented on Allah’s statement,(Strive hard against the disbelievers and the hypocrites) “With the hand, or at least have a stern face with them.” Ibn `Abbas said, “Allah commanded the Prophet to fight the disbelievers with the sword, to strive against the hypocrites with the tongue and annulled lenient treatment of them.” Ad-Dahhak commented, “Perform Jihad against the disbelievers with the sword and be harsh with the hypocrites with words, and this is the Jihad performed against them.” Similar was said by Muqatil and Ar-Rabi`. Al-Hasan and Qatadah said, “Striving against them includes establishing the (Islamic Penal) Law of equality against them.” In combining these statements, we could say that Allah causes punishment of the disbelievers and hypocrites with all of these methods in various conditions and situations, and Allah knows best.Reason behind revealing Ayah 9:74Al-Amawi said in his Book on Battles, “Muhammad bin Ishaq narrated that Az-Zuhri said that `Abdur-Rahman bin `Abdullah bin Ka`b bin Malik narrated from his father, from his grandfather that he said, `Among the hypocrites who lagged behind from battle and concerning whom the Qur’an was revealed, was Al-Julas bin Suwayd bin As-Samit, who was married to the mother of `Umayr bin Sa`d. `Umayr was under the care of Al-Julas. When the Qur’an was revealed about the hypocrites, exposing their practices, Al-Julas said, `By Allah! If this man (Muhammad) is saying the truth, then we are worse than donkeys.’ `Umayr bin Sa`d heard him and said, `By Allah, O Julas! You are the dearest person to me, has the most favor on me and I would hate that harm should touch you, more than I do concerning anyone else! You have uttered a statement that if I exposed, will expose you, but if I hide, it will destroy me. One of them is a lesser evil than the other.’ So `Umayr went to the Messenger of Allah and told him what Al-Julas said. On realizing this, Al-Julas went to the Prophet and swore by Allah that he did not say what `Umayr bin Sa`d conveyed he said. `He lied on me,’ Al-Julas said. Allah sent in his case this verse,(They swear by Allah that they said nothing (bad), but really they said the word of disbelief, and they disbelieved after accepting Islam) until the end of Ayah. The Messenger of Allah conveyed this Ayah to Al-Julas, who, they claim, repented and his repentance was sincere, prompting him to refrain from hypocrisy.”’ Imam Abu Ja`far Ibn Jarir recorded that Ibn `Abbas said, “The Messenger of Allah was sitting under the shade of a tree when he said,(A man will now come and will look to you through the eyes of a devil. When he comes, do not talk to him.)’ A man who looked as if he was blue (so dark) came and the Messenger of Allah summoned him and said,(Why do you curse me, you and your companions) That man went and brought his friends and they swore by Allah that they did nothing of the sort, and the Prophet pardoned them. Allah, the Exalted and Most Honored revealed this verse, (They swear by Allah that they said nothing (bad)…)Hypocrites try to kill the ProphetAllah said next,(and they resolved that which they were unable to carry out) It was said that this Ayah was revealed about Al-Julas bin Suwayd, who tried to kill his wife’s son when he said he would inform the Messenger of Allah about Al-Julas’ statement we mentioned earlier. It was also said that it was revealed in the case of `Abdullah bin Ubayy who plotted to kill the Messenger of Allah. As-Suddi said, “This verse was revealed about some men who wanted to crown `Abdullah bin Ubayy even if the Messenger of Allah did not agree.,It was reported that some hypocrites plotted to kill the Prophet, while he was at the battle of Tabuk, riding one night. They were a group of more than ten men. Ad-Dahhak said, “This Ayah was revealed about them.” In his book, Dala’il An-Nubuwah, Al-Hafiz Abu Bakr Al-Bayhaqi recorded that Hudhayfah bin Al-Yaman said, “I was holding the bridle of the Messenger’s camel while `Ammar was leading it, or vise versa. When we reached Al-`Aqabah, twelve riders intercepted the Prophet. When I alerted the Messenger, he shouted at them and they all ran away. The Messenger of Allah asked us,(Did you know who they were) We said, `No, O Allah’s Messenger! They had masks However, we know their horses.’ He said,(They are the hypocrites until the Day of Resurrection. Do you know what they intended) We said, `No.’ He said, (They wanted to mingle with the Messenger of Allah and throw him from the `Aqabah (to the valley).) We said, `O Allah’s Messenger! Should you ask their tribes to send the head of each one of them to you’ He said, (No, for I hate that the Arabs should say that Muhammad used some people in fighting and when Allah gave him victory with their help, he commanded that they be killed.) He then said, (O Allah! Throw the Dubaylah at them.) We asked, `What is the Dubaylah, O Allah’s Messenger’ He said, (A missile of fire that falls on the heart of one of them and brings about his demise.)” Abu At-Tufayl said, “Once, there was a dispute between Hudhayfah and another man, who asked him, `I ask you by Allah, how many were the Companions of Al-`Aqabah’ The people said to Hudhayfah, `Tell him, for he asked you.’ Hudhayfah said, `We were told that they were fourteen men, unless you were one of them, then the number is fifteen! I testify by Allah that twelve of them are at war with Allah and His Messenger in this life and when the witness comes forth for witness. Three of them were pardoned, for they said, `We did not hear the person whom the Messenger sent to announce something, and we did not know what the people had plotted,’ for the Prophet had been walking when he said,(Water is scarce, so none among you should reach it before me.) When he found that some people had reached it before him, he cursed them.”’ `Ammar bin Yasir narrated in a Hadith collected by Muslim, that Hudhayfah said to him that the Prophet said,(Among my Companions are twelve hypocrites who will never enter Paradise or find its scent, until the camel enters the thread of the needle. Eight of them will be struck by the Dubaylah, which is a missile made of fire that appears between their shoulders and pierces their chest.) This is why Hudhayfah was called the holder of the secret, for he knew who these hypocrites were, since the Messenger of Allah gave their names to him and none else. Allah said next(and they could not find any cause to do so except that Allah and His Messenger had enriched them of His bounty.) This Ayah means, the Messenger did not commit an error against them, other than that Allah has enriched them on account of the Prophet’s blessed and honorable mission! And had Allah guided them to what the Prophet came with, they would have experienced its delight completely. The Prophet once said to the Ansar,(Have I not found you misguided and Allah guided you through me, divided and Allah united you through me, and poor and Allah enriched you through me) Whenever the Messenger asked them a question, they replied, “Allah and His Messenger have granted the favor.” This type of statement, (And they had no fault except that they believed in Allah…), is uttered when there is no wrong committed. Allah called the hypocrites to repent,(If then they repent, it will be better for them, but if they turn away; Allah will punish them with a painful torment in this worldly life and in the Hereafter.) The Ayah says, if they persist on their ways, Allah will inflict a painful torment on them in this life, by killing, sadness and depression, and in the Hereafter with torment, punishment, disgrace and humiliation, (And there is none for them on earth as a protector or a helper.) who will bring happiness to them, aid them, bring about benefit or fend off harm.

Verse 9:111

9:111 “Indeed Allah has bought from the faithful their souls and their possessions for paradise to be theirs: they fight in the way of Allah, kill, and are killed. A promise binding upon Him in the Torah and the Evangel and the Qurʾān. And who is truer to his promise than Allah? So rejoice in the bargain you have made with Him, and that is the great success.

Commentaries

Abbas – Tanwîr al-Miqbâs min Tafsîr Ibn ‘Abbâs(Lo! Allah hath bought from the believers) who are sincere (their lives and their wealth because the Garden will be theirs) in exchange for the Garden (they shall fight in the way of Allah) in obedience of Allah (and shall slay) the enemy (and be slain) by the enemy. (It is a promise) from Allah (which is binding on Him) that He must fulfil (in the Torah and the Gospel and the Qur’an. Who fulfilleth His covenant better than Allah? Rejoice then in your bargain that ye have made) with Allah, i.e. the Garden, (for that is the Supreme Triumph) the abounding safety.

Al-Jalalayn-Indeed God has purchased from the believers their lives and their possessions, that they expend it in obedience of Him — for example by striving in His way — so that theirs will be [the reward of] Paradise: they shall fight in the way of God and they shall kill and be killed (this sentence is independent and constitutes an explication of the [above-mentioned] ‘purchase’; a variant reading has the passive verb come first [sc. fa-yuqtalūna wa-yaqtulūn, ‘they shall be killed and shall kill’], meaning that some of them are killed while those who remain, fight on); that is a promise which is binding (both [wa‘dan, ‘promise’, and haqqan, ‘binding’] are verbal nouns, and are in the accusative on account of their omitted [implicit] verbs) upon Him in the Torah and the Gospel and the Qur’ān; and who fulfils his covenant better than God?, that is, no one is better in fulfilling it. Rejoice then (there is a shift from the third [to second] person here) in this bargain of yours which you have made, for that, bargain, is the supreme triumph, the one that secures the ultimate goal.

Ibn Al Kathir-Allah has purchased the Souls and Wealth of the Mujahidin in Return for Paradise:

“Allah states that He has compensated His believing servants for their lives and wealth — if they give them up in His cause — with Paradise. This demonstrates Allah’s favor, generosity and bounty, for He has accepted the good that He already owns and bestowed, as a price from His faithful servants. Al-Hasan Al-Basri and Qatadah commented, “By Allah! Allah has purchased them and raised their worth.” Shimr bin `Atiyyah said, “There is not a Muslim but has on his neck a sale that he must conduct with Allah; he either fulfills its terms or dies without doing that.” He then recited this Ayah. This is why those who fight in the cause of Allah are said to have conducted the sale with Allah, meaning, accepted and fulfilled his covenant. Allah’s statement, (They fight in Allah’s cause, so they kill and are killed.) indicates that whether they were killed or they kill the enemy, or both, then Paradise will be theirs. The Two Sahihs recorded the Hadith,(Allah has made a promise to the person who goes out (to fight) in His cause; `And nothing compels him to do so except Jihad = in My Cause and belief in My Messengers. ‘ He will either be admitted to Paradise if he dies, or compensated by Allah, either with a reward or booty if He returns him to the home which he departed from.) Allah’s statement,(It is a promise in truth which is binding on Him in the Tawrah and the Injil and the Qur’an.) affirms this promise and informs us that Allah has decreed this for His Most Honorable Self, and revealed it to His Messengers in His Glorious Books, the Tawrah that He sent down to Musa, the Injil that He sent down to `Isa, and the Qur’an that was sent down to Muhammad, may Allah’s peace and blessings be on them all. Allah said next, (And who is truer to his covenant than Allah) affirming that He never breaks a promise. Allah said in similar statements,(And who is truer in statement than Allah)4:87, and, (And whose words can be truer than those of Allah)4:122. Allah said next,(Then rejoice in the bargain which you have concluded. That is the supreme success.), meaning, let those who fulfill the terms of this contract and uphold this covenant receive the good news of great success and everlasting delight.

Verse 9:120

Here, 9:120 has a partial context for 9:123, where it says that the “people of Medina and the neighbouring desert Arabs should not have held back from following God’s Mesenger, nor should they have cared for themselves more than him…” (AH):

9:123 (Dawood)- “Believers, make war on the infidels who dwell around you. Deal firmly (ghil’ẓatan) with them. Know that God is with the righteous.“

The commentaries:

Tanwîr al-Miqbâs min Tafsîr Ibn ‘Abbâs “(O ye who believe!) in Muhammad (pbuh) and in the Qur’an (Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you) the Banu Qurayzah, Banu’l-Nadir, Fadak and Khaybar, (and let them find harshness in you) toughness from you, (and know) O believers (that Allah is with those who keep their duty (unto Him)) Allah helps the believers: Muhammad (pbuh) and his Companions, by making them victorious over their enemies.“

Al-Jalalayn “O you who believe, fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you, that is, the nearest, followed by the next nearest of them, and let them find harshness in you, that is, severity, in other words, be harsh with them, and know that God is with the pious, helping and granting [them] victory.

Ibn Al Kathir- The Order for Jihad against the Disbelievers, the Closest, then the Farthest Areas: Allah commands the believers to fight the disbelievers, the closest in area to the Islamic state, then the farthest. This is why the Messenger of Allah started fighting the idolators in the Arabian Peninsula. When he finished with them and Allah gave him control over Makkah, Al-Madinah, At-Ta’if, Yemen, Yamamah, Hajr, Khaybar, Hadramawt and other Arab provinces, and the various Arab tribes entered Islam in large crowds, he then started fighting the People of the Scriptures. He began preparations to fight the Romans who were the closest in area to the Arabian Peninsula, and as such, had the most right to be called to Islam, especially since they were from the People of the Scriptures. The Prophet marched until he reached Tabuk and went back because of the extreme hardship, little rain and little supplies. This battle occurred on the ninth year after his Hijrah. In the tenth year, the Messenger of Allah was busy with the Farewell Hajj. The Messenger died eighty-one days after he returned from that Hajj, Allah chose him for what He had prepared for him in Paradise. After his death, his executor, friend, and Khalifah, Abu Bakr As-Siddiq, may Allah be pleased with him, became the leader. At that time, the religion came under attack and would have been defeated, if it had not been for the fact that Allah gave the religion firmness through Abu Bakr, who established its basis and made its foundations firm. He brought those who strayed from the religion back to it, and made those who reverted from Islam return. He took the Zakah from the evil people who did not want to pay it, and explained the truth to those who were unaware of it. On behalf of the Prophet, Abu Bakr delivered what he was entrusted with. Then, he started preparing the Islamic armies to fight the Roman cross worshippers, and the Persian fire worshippers. By the blessing of his mission, Allah opened the lands for him and brought down Caesar and Kisra and those who obeyed them among the servants. Abu Bakr spent their treasures in the cause of Allah, just as the Messenger of Allah had foretold would happen. This mission continued after Abu Bakr at the hands of he whom Abu Bakr chose to be his successor, Al-Faruq, the Martyr of the Mihrab, Abu Hafs, `Umar bin Al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him. With `Umar, Allah humiliated the disbelievers, suppressed the tyrants and hypocrites, and opened the eastern and western parts of the world. The treasures of various countries were brought to `Umar from near and far provinces, and he divided them according to the legitimate and accepted method. `Umar then died as a martyr after he lived a praise worthy life. Then, the Companions among the Muhajirin and Ansar agreed to chose after `Umar, `Uthman bin `Affan, Leader of the faithful and Martyr of the House, may Allah be pleased with him. During `Uthman’s reign, Islam wore its widest garment and Allah’s unequivocal proof was established in various parts of the world over the necks of the servants. Islam appeared in the eastern and western parts of the world and Allah’s Word was elevated and His religion apparent. The pure religion reached its deepest aims against Allah’s enemies, and whenever Muslims overcame an Ummah, they moved to the next one, and then the next one, crushing the tyranical evil doers. They did this in reverence to Allah’s statement,(O you who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are close to you,) Allah said next,(and let them find harshness in you), meaning, let the disbelievers find harshness in you against them in battle. The complete believer is he who is kind to his believing brother, and harsh with his disbelieving enemy. Allah said in other Ayah,(Allah will bring a people whom He will love and they will love Him; humble towards the believers, stern towards the disbelievers…)5:54,(Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. And those who are with him are severe against the disbelievers, and merciful among themselves.)48:29, and,(O Prophet! Strive hard against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be harsh against them.)9:73 Allah said,(And know that Allah is with those who have Taqwa), meaning, fight the disbelievers and trust in Allah knowing that Allah is with you if you fear and obey Him. This was the case in the first three blessed generations of Islam, the best members of this Ummah. Since they were firm on the religion and reached an unsurpassed level of obedience to Allah, they consistently prevailed over their enemies. During that era, victories were abundant, and enemies were ever more in a state of utter loss and degradation. However, after the turmoil began, desires and divisions became prevalent between various Muslim kings, the enemies were eager to attack the outposts of Islam and marched into its territory without much opposition. Then, the Muslim kings were too busy with their enmity for each other. The disbelievers then marched to the capital cities of the Islamic states, after gaining control over many of its areas, in addition to entire Islamic lands. Verily, ownership of all affairs is with Allah in the beginning and in the end. Whenever a just Muslim king stood up and obeyed Allah’s orders, all the while trusting in Allah, Allah helped him regain control over some Muslim lands and took back from the enemy what was compatible to his obedience and support to Allah. We ask Allah to help the Muslims gain control over the forelocks of His disbeliever enemies and to raise high the word of Muslims over all lands. Verily, Allah is Most Generous, Most Giving.

Textual Contradictions

GOD waits for pagans’ “Sacred Months”?

The apparent precursor to the aggression is a revelation “coming down”. Obviously to anyone outside the box reading this, Muhammed is fed up of the peaceful treaty, and so not for the first time in his career, he conveniently “receives” a divine mandate. This is understandable, an army general wants to press home an advantage, not stagnate.

In addition to the end of the treaty, to add to the confusion, the aggression must also await the passing of the sacred “months”. Prior to that the idolators “may move freely about the land for four months”, however dark clouds are looming, for they: “should be aware that (they) will not escape God and that God will disgrace those who defy him” (v.2).

If God wanted to attack some pagans, why is he waiting for the treaty? Does he want to impress the UN? Why is he waiting for the “sacred months” to pass, is he trying to be pious? But for Muhammed, it makes more political sense to wait, he doesn’t want to be seen as a treaty-breaker, and he wants to be seen as God-fearing too. This way he get to be both. SO he “receives” this:

“…on the great day of the great pilgrimage a proclamation from God and his Messenger to all people: “God and his messenger and released from obligations to the idolators” (v.3)

The second contradiction is that Allah waits for the pagan sacred months to pass before he attacks. He’s comfortable breaking the treaty but not the sacred months? These are pagan sacred months and pilgrimages- they should mean nothing to God. To this day Muslims don’t know what they are supposed to signify in terms of their particular timing. Sunnis commemorate some Biblical events in the month of Muharram,  but there is not correlation of these dates with the Jewish religious calendar. The verses do not indicate that end of the months and the term of the treaty coincide- in v.4 these are mentioned. It’s also odd for God to wait for the end of a treaty in order to attack a group that he wanted to be attacked anyway. Both of these sound a lot more likely if they were political manoeuvring rather than divinely ordained.

We’ve seen two places in Surah Tawbah that speak of 4 sacred months, and at least two others in Bakarah that speak of “the sacred month”. Surah Tawbah goes into much more detail regarding this. It says :

“Allah decrees…four months of which are sacred: this is the correct calculation. Do not wrong yourselves in these months…(37) postponing the sacred months is a further act of disbelief…they permit what God has forbidden…”

Muslims have come to list the “four sacred months” as Dhu-al Qaddah, Dhu’l Hijjah, Muharram and Rajjab. These are numerically months 1, 7,11 and 12 of the Islamic calendar. Ramadan, the festival we’re all familiar with, is not even one of them.

Muharram is a festival, though celebrated by Sunnis and Shias for different reasons- Sunnis celebrate certain Biblical events on this day, and honestly this sounds like a retroactive tradition, it is likely set up as competitor to the Shi’a festival, in my view. These are vague events like the parting of the Red Sea, an event that is not even mentioned in the Qur’an and some others, we won’t even bother with them.

The Sunnis were at war with the Shi’i in this very month, and we find no mention of any regret or question regarding the appropriateness of the timing. What’s more they go even beyond that and massacre of the very grandson of Muhammed himself, along with most of his male relatives and his retinue in this very month.

The massacre was carried out for not pledging allegiance to caliph Yazid Ibn Mu’awiya, the 6th Islamic caliph (son of Mu’awiya the 5th) in the battle of Karbala.

My point is that it’s hard to see how this tradition of not fighting in Muharram could have been present at a time when a battle is proceeding in full swing that very month with full-on family massacres and everything. We never hear there was any reluctance to go out to battle or any special mercy, or any sense of “only self-defense”.

How many Sacred months- 1 or 4?

On top of all that we also have a stark textual contradiction: Two passages, both in chapter 9, indicate the existence of 4 sacred months, while two others, both in surah 2, indicate only a single month wherein fighting is disallowed. It’s like the author of surah 2 did not meet the author of surah 9.

If the response is that there’s ACTUALLY four months, but this verse mentions only one, how come both the question and the answer is only concerned with fighting in one month? How is it possible they are not asking the same question about the other months?

These two verses say there is a single holy month:

“They will question thee concerning the holy month, and fighting in it. Say: ‘Fighting in it is a heinous thing, but to bar from God’s way, and disbelief in Him, and the Holy Mosque, and to expel its people from it — that is more heinous in God’s sight; and persecution is more heinous than slaying.’…” (Q 2:217)

and again:

“The holy month for the holy month; holy things demand retaliation. Whoso commits aggression against you, do you commit aggression against him like as he has committed against you, and fear you God, and know that God is with the godfearing” (Q 2:194)

And here’s the “four months” verses:

“ ‘Journey freely in the land for four months; and know that you cannot frustrate the will of God, and that God degrades the unbelievers.’ (…)Then, when the sacred months are drawn away, slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent, and perform the prayer, and pay the alms, then let them go their way; God is All-forgiving, All-compassionate.” (Q 9:2,5)

“The number of the months, with God, is twelve in the Book of God, the day that He created the heavens and the earth; four of them are sacred. That is the right religion. So wrong not each other during them. And fight the unbelievers totally even as they fight you totally and know that God is with the godfearing.” (Q 9:36)

Do hadith explain the Islamic origin of the sacred months? – a weak attempt is made:

Contrary to traditional belief, hadith are a mess. Typically hadith and commentaries are summoned up as damage control for Qur’anic faux pas. New research on this issue is quite damning. But that’s a topic for a different day.

This is an example of a hadith that tells Muslims just what these “four months” refer to. As you will see, there is no particular explanation given, apart from some rambling narrative.:

“Abu Bakrah reported: The Prophet said, “Time has completed its cycle and has come to the state of the day when Allah created the heavens and the earth. The year consists of twelve months of which four are inviolable; three of them consecutive – Dhul-Qa’dah, Dhul-Hijjah and Muharram and Rajab, the month of Mudar (tribe), which comes between Jumada and Sha’ban. What month is this?” We said, “Allah and His Messenger know better”. The Prophet remained silent for some time until we thought that he would give it a name other than its real name. Then asked, “Is it not (the month of) Dhul-Hijjah?”. We replied in the affirmative. He asked, “Which city is this?”. We replied: “Allah and His Messenger know better”. He remained silent until we thought that he would give it another name. He asked, “Is it not Al-Baldah (Makkah)?” We said: “Yes”. He asked, “What day is this?”. We said: “Allah and His Messenger know better.” He remained silent until we thought that he would give it another name. He asked, “Is it not the day of An-Nahr (the sacrifice)?”. We replied in the affirmative. Thereupon he said, “Your blood, your property and your honour are inviolable to you all like the inviolablity of this day of yours, in this city of yours and in this month of yours (…)”.

(Riyad as-Salihin 213, excerpt)

My approach, and Muslim Responses

I base my arguments primarily on the Qur’anic text. I do include classical Muslim commentaries, and it doesn’t seem like their views are much different from my own reading. This article is primarily an analysis of the words of the Qur’an in and of themselves. If God wrote a book, then those actual words should add up to something meaningful, this is the basic premise of all my articles in fact, and it is a direct challenge to the basic premise of Muslims with respect to the Qur’an- that is is the direct words of God. If God is God, he is capable of expressing coherent meaning using huan words. I think that primary premise is unassailable.

I would advise the reader to bear in mind that Muslims will often accuse non-Muslims of not being able able to understand the Qur’an, and then deflecting the argument either to commentators of their choosing, or worse, completely stone walling the interpretation behind some claimed ineffability of the Arabic language itself.

In response I would say that first, religious commentators are hardly going to write anything critical of the faith in any religion. Rather, they are always knowingly or unknowingly going to include personal biases and political leanings. It’s not as though religious academics miraculously free themselves of confirmation bias. One would hardly expect a card-carrying mufassir to say “hmmm, I can’t explain this, maybe Muhammed did get that wrong…”. This is why we quote commentaries when they are genuine clarifications of the text or of the language, but no more than that.

If their is a God, then every human being bears the moral responsibility for examining his primary texts and making rational judgements about it themselves. Further, if the Qur’an is a meaningful work of a single author, then analysing it in of itself can provide the most pure and objective insight into that author’s mind. Muslims seemingly expend much energy researching scientific or numerological implications of various verses, so I will propose to them that this being all well and good, perhaps a study of the actual meaning of those words might be the most expedient, over and above any secondary implications. My main project is textual criticism of the Qur’an. If the Qur’an is miraculous, it should be OK check if the words add up or not, or in other words, God should be capable of writing a meaningful text.

Part of the problem with joining up Qur’anic studies with classical commentaries and hadith on it. We can’t know that any “context” being offered is indeed a genuine context, or one that is manufactured due to the lack of one that is evident. Islamic hadith and tafsir is messy, biased, politicised, mutually contradictory, historically problematic, and significantly detatched in time from the Qur’anic events. Apart from the obvious face-saving motives, hadith were also habricated for gaining political leverage among Muslim factions.

There’s a lot to be said of the problems of modern hadith and a lot of recent research about it.here’s a lot of new western scholarship that is slowly bringing a lot of this to light. It’s been slow because the Western world has largely lacked a real interest in studying the dizzying amount of proliferated Islamic material involved, a study of which tends to be a lifetime occupation, especially when the substance is less than interesting to the Western mind. However in recent times, with increased globalisation, there has been a natural increase in interest.

But let me put it like this: if you’re satisfied that the Qur’an requires supplementary commentaries and hadiths to rescue it, then that’s your choice. I think the minimum standard a Muslim should require is that the “direct word of God” is something semantically coherent. It’s not a very high bar, especially for a religion which has only one “miracle”, being that book itself.

The ploy of whataboutism with the Bible

A different onbjection is one that has become a staple in polemical discussions, which is to attempt a whataboutism by bringing up “the Amalekites”, an arguent imported from atheist rhetoric against religion. As far as this applies to a Muslim reader, I would just just ask- when the Qur’an is speaking favourably of the destruction of previous nations, what destruction is it speaking of, if not the Amalekites and others? Does it say you need to pick the ones that you like better?

If it is going to be argued that the verses are only applicable to a specific context “well that was for THOSE polytheists at THAT time”, then one must counter that unlike the Bible which is historical narrative, there are no time-stamps in the Qur’an, rather contexts if any, specified by external writings. However if that is the case then those external writings require independent vaidation and we’ve already noted the problems with this. Further, even if there were a contemporaneous narrative, unlike the Bible, there is no direction for a behavioural change from the past. Rather, a sort of “many prophets, one message” spanning all times is quite a prevalent Islamic trope. But if that’s the case then there’s hardly any room for a contextual argument. Further, if these verses were indeed time-specific, then why are they written in a manner that is not time-specific?

FINALLY, if you’re a Muslim who’s like “yeah we’re violent, so what?”, then just look at the contradiction in months bit for now, the rest of this is not for you. For you there’s a different article.

Appendix

Is the word “jihad” controversial?

There shouldn’t be any doubt that in these verses jihad is being used for fighting (Muslim polemicists might argue that its referring to some spiritual struggles), that’s what the whole theme of the surah is about. Further, where are they being asked to go, if not to fight? What does “you chose to sit at home the first time” (v.83) refer to, is it “the first time we went out for a spiritual struggle”?

We can trace the usage of “jihad” from v.16 where the context is very obviously physical. A word does not change its meaning in the same passage, because contexts do not change in a single narrative unless specified. Thus we see it used again in v.20, another exhortation to violence, promising higher status in this case, once again a recurring theme that we’ve discussed in the article, therefore fighting needs to be preferred to family ties (this means that one could be called to familial violence if required, cf.v.11):

“…those who beleived, who migrated and fought in God’s way with their possessions and their persons are in God’s eyes much higher in rank…(24) if your fathers etc….are dearer to you than…fighting (wajihadun) in his cause…”

Book References

The Critical Qur’an- Explained from Key Islamic Commentaries and Contemporary Historical Research, Robert Spencer, Bombadier Books, Post Hill Press, New/Nashville 2021

The Study Qur’an, a new translation and commentary, ed, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, HarperOne.

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Hadith play a central role in Sunni Islam, and if we were to ask the obvious next question “how important?”: The simplest answer is “50/50”. The way that Sunni Islam is set up today, the Qur’an cannot make do withouth the hadith nor vice versa, they are the two stilts/crutches/legs on which Islam stands or falls (I don’t mean it pejoratively). We also require to make the important observation that “hadith” should not be taken to merely mean that which is found in designated hadith colections. They also include the sirah-maghazi lilterature, the biographical literature of Muhammed, and other genres ilke legal writings. Muslims could say very little about Muhammed’s life without the Hadith. They could also say very little about how they were to lead their own religious lives without them. That’s quire broad brush, but its only meant in the way of introduction.

How hadith were verified and the obvious problems

Hadith came to be associated with their own chain of transmission. The criteria used for verifying hadith were related to the reliability of the transmitter (s), and the orthodox-ness of the text itself.

At the very onset we are going to point out the obvious problems with this model of verification, even though the religious reasons for employing it are understandable. Even if it is true that the hadith had been put to writing at an early stage (and we know that there was severe opposition to this), the exercise of verification is being done only in the third Islamic century, so the verification itself is retroactive.

Personal reliability is established from criteria piety. Dr. Little notes that pious persons are not above lying for reasons of misplaced piety, we know that all sorts of things have been done in the name of piety. Who is to judge as to whether personal piety is superficial or not, and who is to ascertain to what extent a particular religious piety translates into standard norms of morality that look down upon lying, for instance. Neither can be taken a priori. Further if only the orthodox hadith are accepted then one os presuming both the orthodoxy of the Qur’an as well as a certain interpretation of it as orthodox, a priori. What if a reliable person transmitted an unorthodox passage- there’s no answer to this sort of question in such a model.

This means that the following is required in order to fabricate a hadith. Working forward, I think its not hard for a political-military machine to prevail upon its intelligentsiae to propose certain advantageous viewpoints, thereby also prevailing upon and winning over the populace in their regard. This is taught in schools, taken down in lecture notes and so on, much in the same way that left wing agendas like gender ideology and atheism might be propagated as gospel in many American centres of learning. There comes a point when the actual beginnings become clouded, like the involvement of so called “eugenists” like Margaret Sanger, such that they become lionized. This happens all the time, we have people idoising monsters like Lenin and Stalin and persons in countries as far away as India naming their children after them. Obviously if Lenin had transmitted a hadith, these persons would consider him “reliable”, even excessively so.

Working backwards, the same principle could come into effect, but in this case, a historical person needed to have done enough, or to have have had little enough, or the right enough parts of their life preserved so as to give the impression of reliability or piety.

As Motzki therefore states, this “leads inevitably to the question of the origin of isnads, that is, of when it became a custom for transmitters to name their source or informant” (xxiv), and he notes “the division of the Muslim community after the murder of Uthman…”

Issues with Isnads

An isnad, which is a chain of transmission is required when a document is transmitted orally, whether through time or space. This is similar to evidence collected at a crime scene- it is necessary to have documentation of the transferrence from the site to the forensic lab. This means that narrations with longer chains in time circulated orally for longer than those with shorter chains of perhaps on one or two transmitters. If the same tradition then, is received with both the types of isnads, then we can infer that any additional material in the one with the longer isnad is likely to have been added later, because we would know that the shorter version was circulating earlier.

At the point at which the material is written down, there is no longer any need for extending the chain, just like once the sample reaches the lab.

Why is there branching in the chains?

Now these chains, as it turns out, tend to branch out in time. This is again a sign of oral transmission, usually when one person x is reciting to several listeners u/v/w, all of whom are going to say to their own listeners: “I heard from x, that the Prophet said…”, but their students a/b/c, if they are merely lay persons, will merely say “u/v/w heard from x, that the Prophet said…”, without necessarily adding their own names a/b/c to the chain. Anyway, that was to demonstrate how branching takes place in the chains, its not just a case of multiple lay listeners involved in an oral transmission, rather it occurs, or should occur when some among the listeners become independent religious authority figures.

Western scholars have in recent times been employing a rather revolutionary method of analysing hadith which is the “isnad cum matin” (ICM) analysis, pioneered by Harald Motski among others, perhaps Juynboll and Schacht. In short, hadith, in the extant form we have today appear in several versions, all with their own isnad. The analysis involves analysing the complex inter-relation between the isnads, textual and form criticism of the variations in the text and the inter-relation between the two.

What happens with the Gospels?

The Gospels don’t have “isnads” because they are not orally transmitted. hadith only isnads upto the point that they get written down. Ideally an event is recorded by the person that sees that event and that’s it, that’s the book. I think the reason that the hadith do not find their way into a book at the outset is because Muhammed never asks his followers to do anything of the sort. In fact the Qur’an has a verse which explicity advises against the collection of any hadith: Surah 45:6 reads “These are the verses of Allah which We recite to you in truth. Then in what statement after Allah and His verses will they believe?”. Arabic readers will read statement of English as “hadithun” and memorise it as such too. Other verses emphasize the self-sufficiency of the Qur’an like 6:114, 29:51, 39:27 and 25:30. On top of that there is a hadith in which Muhammed advises the Muslims not to collect hadith!:

“Abu Sa’id Khudri reported that Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) said: Do not take down anything from me, and he who took down anything from me except the Qur’an, he should efface that and narrate from me, for there is no harm in it and he who attributed any falsehood to me-and Hammam said: I think he also said:” deliberately” -he should in fact find his abode in the Hell-Fire.” (Muslim 3004, Bk.55h.92, Eng.bk.42,h.7147)

If you compare this to the Gospels, the reliability is based perhaps mainly upon the fact that the reading of the letters and Gospels was public, as well as the rituals and liturgical practices associated with them. Christians had a much smaller corpus of material to deal with, because the Old Testament was already standardised in the Jewish community and more or less invariate and inviolate at this point, and further, individual Churches might not have been using all of the Gospels, and certainly not all of the epistles in the earlier centuries. The addressees were simply reading the Letters of Paul that had been addressed to them, for example, and presumably circulating them among some of the other churches regionally to begin with. The Gospels and especially the Epistles perhaps, are really not amenable to memorization, being quite complex and not in verse, so they were always circulated written, and this is perhaps what protexted the the most. SO although we cannot perhaps prove who the author of Mark was by pointing to a passage in Mark that said “Mark wrote this”, the whole of Mark which we have today, would have to be circulating in toto from the early church in order for it to gain acceptance.

You could say that Luke gives a pretty good “isnad”: “many have undertaken to compile a narrative about the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, ³ I, too, decided, as one having a grasp of everything from the start, to write a well-ordered account”. He’s citing eye-witneses and obviously he would not have believed someone he knew to be unreliable. He’s only writing a few decades after Jesus so this is only been handed down once at the most if that.

Perhaps the question is how many handles does a particular mode os transmission offer for manipulation. With the Gospels, since there is pretty good evidence that from the earliest times Jesus was being worshipped even in the pre-Pauline churches like Rome, Corinth and Phillipi, material pertaining to Jesus’ divinity would have to have been accepted quite early anyway. But what of the apparent distinction of John from the others? So there is a Church worshipping Christ, and a Gospel is written, in which there is material that has not been heard yet, but only enhances the divine claims of Jesus. This would seem acceptable to the community given that John died late and perhaps a student wrote for him, if not John himself. In a sense there are two Gospels: the Synoptic and the Johanine, one early, one late, nothing affecting doctrine.

The hadith have a different type of problem. The Gospels and Acts (as do most of the books of the OT as a very rough average) have around a thousand verses each, that number halving in the largest two epistles. Each is transmitted in toto, akin to a hadith collection from as early as we know. They were arguably never intended to be otherwise, since they are in narrative style. The hadith are 100s of 1000s of verses transmitted not just individually, but each with several versions, each with varying numbers of elements. So the handles are different.

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We’re used to hearing Muslims ask why when a Muslim gets killed then Christianity is not criticised, or in this case, I’m being asked why I’m not raising my voice against the Israeli action in Gaza.

I explain in the post that Gaza is not as simple as Muslims would like it to be. But they expect everyone to have the same opinion as them, else there is something wrong with that person.

I hate political discussion, it always make people heated up and run around in circles. That’s why I avoid it and stick to theology. When we have a Muslim extremist attack, it’s an opportunity to examine Islamic theology, that’s why I raise it up.

Well let me lay out some reasons mainly for my personal silence over the Gaza issue. First of all my heart goes out to all the innocents that suffer, caught up in mindless conflict.

But the bottom line of what I will try to say here is that we are not going to get everyone to agree with everyone else on the issue, because it is far too complicated both from a religious and political point of view.

It’s not fair to expect others to automatically see things from our perspective and then get frustrated when they do not. Humans can barely do this at the best of times anyway.

These are the bare points that must be taken into consideration, in my view:

1. The issue of Palestinians having lived there and having been displaced after the Balfour declaration.

2. The issue of Israelites’ ancestral homeland

3. The issue of Israelites not having a different home and their historical persecution globally, as they have never been a military power since the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome.

4. The issue of the Jewish religious mandate in Jerusalem. A religious person would take this into account. Arguably you can find that mandate even in the Quran in chapter 5.

5. The issue of the poor humanitarian conditions in Gaza and the West Bank.

6. The issue of indoctrinated hatred and religious extremism from childhood in these territories.

7. The issue of the impracticability of an Israeli pull out or of a two-state solution. If Israel pull out we’ll have a military Hamas state which then becomes an existential threat to Israel.

How exactly do we find a straight line through all of these? The worst anyone can do is to villify someone who doesn’t agree with a simplistic view of “Israel must leave” a though its like dealing with a noisy customer at the restaurant.

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Why does the Muslim faith in its present form, with the focus on Mecca, the rituals involved with the Meccan pilgrimage, and the imitation of the life of Mohammed not arise until the late date of the 6^th century AD?

“Our knowledge of pre-Islamic Arabian paganism, like our knowledge of the life of Muhammad, is largely mediated by literature that postdates the Qur’an by at least a century. The best-known source on pre-Islamic Arabian religion is a work called the Book of Idols (Kitāb al-as.nām), which purports to describe the deities that were venerated by pagan Arabs and the cults and sanctuaries devoted to them. Many of the reports contained in the work are traced back to the early scholar Hishām al-Kalbī (or ibn al-Kalbī, d. 821–2 CE or slightly earlier), although the present form of the text would appear to have been compiled, and supplemented by additional material, at a later time. Although it is tempting to treat the resulting work as a repository of reliable facts, the Book of Idols is in fact recognisably shaped by later Islamic concerns and furthermore draws on established motifs of Jewish and Christian anti-pagan polemics. Even the most basic information about where and by whom a certain deity was allegedly venerated has been found to display considerable proliferation, lack of consistency and variant detail’.” Nicolai Sinai p.65,66 Introduction to the Qur’an

The Relationship of Abraham and Ishmael to Mecca and the Ka’ba

(separate article)

It is important to establish the connection (or lack of one, as we assert) between Abraham and Mecca, because without that, the alternative is that Mecca was historically nothing more than a site of pagan worship, contrary to the Muslim claim.

The Circumambulation of the Kaaba

Once a year, tribes from all around the Arabian peninsula would converge on Mecca to perform the Hajj. Guillaume in his translation of Ibn Ishaq, an early biographer of Muhammad, says the Kaaba itself was addressed using a feminine grammatical form. Circumambulation was often performed naked by men and almost naked by women. It is thought this is linked to ancient fertility rites. (Rice, Edward (May 1978). Eastern Definitions: A Short Encyclopedia of Religions of the Orient. New York: Doubleday. p. 433.)

Ibn Ishaq states: “Outsiders used to circumambulate the temple naked, both men and women. The B. Amir b. Sa’sa’a an d’Akk among those who did thus. When a woman went round naked she would put one hand behind and one hand in the front. (Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah – The Life of Muhammad Translated by A. Guillaume. Oxford University Press.1955  pp. 88–9)

These are clearly the supposed instructions given to Mohammed by God himself in the Qur’an:

“And [mention, O Muhammad], when We showed Abraham the site of the House (i.e., the Ka’bah), [saying], “Do not associate anything with Me and purify My House for those who circumambulate it, and those who stand [in prayer], and those who bow and prostrate.” [Q al-Hajj 22:26]

“And [mention] when We made the House a place of return for the people and [a place of] security. And take, [O believers], from the standing place of Abraham a place of prayer. And We charged Abraham and Ishmael, [saying], ‘Purify My House for those who circumambulate it, and those who are staying [there] for worship, and those who bow and prostrate [in prayer].’” [Q Al-Baqarah 2:125]

The Black Stone and Meteorite worship

Meteorite worship in the ancient world

It is clear that there were many stone-cults, or cults of meteor worship in the ancient world. Most of the Arab arguments are that the Kaaba was initially a temple for Allah which had been replaced with other Gods including Hubal, either that, or that other Gods been added on to a pre-existent Allah in the Kaaba and worshipped alongside him there. Many of these arguments are hard to disprove or to prove, but points to consider include:

The ancient civilizations of the occident are no exception, and there are several examples of the worship of meteorites in Greco-Roman tradition.

Mircea Eliade, an expert in religious history, claims that the Palladion of Troy, the Artemis of Ephesos, as well as the Cone of Elagabalus in Emesa, were actually meteorites – stones that had fallen from the sky, objects from heaven, believed to contain supernatural powers.

Richard Norton mentions the sacred stone in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, a rock that was said to have been thrown to Earth by the Supreme Being, Kronos, marking the “omphalos”, the navel of the world.

The Roman historian, Titus Livius, tells the story of the meteorite of Pessinunt, Phrygia, a conical object known as the Needle of Cybele, the goddess of fertility. After the Romans had conquered Phrygia, the meteorite was conveyed in a gigantic procession to Rome, where it was worshiped for another 500 years.

Even in the monotheistic religions of Judaeo-Christian tradition we find traces of an ancient meteorite cult. In the Hebrew language, meteorites were called “betyls”, an equivalent to the Greek “baitylia”, meaning “the residence of God”. In the Bible, we find a story where Jacob, the ancestor of the Israelites, beds his head on such a betyl-stone in the desert. In his sleep, he has an impressive vision of a stairway to heaven leading directly to the throne of God. 

The Hadschar might be a true betyl, a real meteorite, since it is said to have a black crust and a light-gray interior. It’s a pity that scientists haven’t solved the mystery surrounding this sacred stone, but for normal religious reasons it has not been allowed. Wouldn’t it be great to know that there is at least one ancient betyl left, and that it is still venerated after more than perhaps 2,000 years?

This is what the Hadith state

“Ibn ‘Abbaas said: The Messenger of Allah said concerning the Black Stone: “By Allah, Allah will raise it on the Day of Resurrection with two eyes with which to see and a tongue with which to speak, and it will testify for those who touched it with due respect.” (Classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh at-Tirmidhi (961) The commentators on al-Musnad said: Its isnaad is qawiy (strong) (2796))

“Ibn ‘Umar used to push his way through the crowd to reach the two corners [of the Ka‘bah, the Yemeni Corner and the Black Stone Corner], in a manner that I never saw from any of the other Companions of the Prophet. I said: O Abu ‘Abd ar-Rahman, why do you push your way through the crowd to reach the two corners in a manner that I never saw from any of the other Companions of the Prophet? He said: The reason I do that is that I heard the Messenger of Allah say: “Touching them is an expiation for sins.” (Classed as Saheeh by al-Albani in Saheeh at-Tirmidhi 959)

It was narrated that Ibn ‘Umar said: I heard the Messenger of Allah say: “Touching them both [the Black Stone and al-Rukn al-Yamani] is an expiation for sins.” (classed as hasan by al-Tirmidhi (959) and as saheeh by al-Haakim (1/664). Al-Dhahabi agreed with him).

It was narrated that Ibn ‘Abbaas said: The Messenger of Allaah said concerning the Stone: “By Allah, Allah will bring it forth on the Day of Resurrection, and it will have two eyes with which it will see and a tongue with which it will speak, and it will testify in favour of those who touched it in sincerity.”  (hasan by al-Tirmidhi (961), and as qawiy (strong) by al-Haafiz ibn Hajar in Fath al-Baari, 3/462, Ibn Maajah, 2944)  

Mohammad’s Black Stone-related habits (repeat):

It was narrated from Jaabir ibn ‘Abd-Allah that when the Messenger of Allah came to Makkah, he came to the Black Stone and touched it, then he walked to the right of it and ran three times and walked four times [around the Ka’bah]. (Muslim, 1218).

 It was narrated that Ibn ‘Abbaas said: The Messenger of Allah said: “The Black Stone came down from Paradise.” (classed as sahih by al-Tirmidhi, 877; al-Nasaa’i, 2935).

It was narrated that Ibn ‘Abbaas said: The Messenger of Allah said: “When the Black Stone came down from Paradise, it was whiter than milk, but the sins of the sons of Adam made it black.” (Narrated by al-Tirmidhi, 877; Ahmad, 2792. Classed as saheeh by Ibn Khuzaymah, 4/219. Al-Haafiz ibn Hajar classed it as qawiy (strong) in Fath al-Baari, 3/462).

“it was narrated from Jaabir ibn ‘Abd-Allaah that when the Messenger of Allaah came to Makkaah, he came to the Black Stone and touched it, then he walked to the right of it and ran three times and walked four times [around the Ka’bah].  (narrated by Muslim, 1218).

 It was narrated that ‘Umar came to the Black Stone and kissed it, then he said: “I know that you are only a stone which can neither bring benefit nor cause harm. Were it not that I had seen the Prophet kiss you, I would not have kissed you.”  (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 1520; Muslim, 1720)

“It was narrated that Naafi’ said: I saw Ibn ‘Umar touch the Stone with his hand then he kissed his hand. I said, I have never ceased to do this since I saw the Messenger of Allaah do it.” (Narrated by Muslim, 1268)

“It was narrated that Abu Tufayl  said: I saw the Messenger of Allaah performing Tawaaf around the House, touching the corner [where the Stone is] with a crooked staff which he had with him, then kissing the staff.” (Narrated by Muslim, 1275).

 “It was narrated that Ibn ‘Abbaas said: The Messenger of Allaah performed Tawaaf on his camel, and every time he came to the corner [where the Stone is] he would point to it and say “Allaahu akbar.””(Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 4987).

Muhammad thought that the Black Stone spoke to him?

“Jabir b. Samura reported Allah’s Messenger as saying: I recognise the stone in Mecca which used to pay me salutations before my advent as a Prophet and I recognise that even now”

Sahih Muslim 2277 (Book 43, Hadith 2)

The Black Stone issue is really one of those deciding factors when it comes to the issue of the authenticity of Islam. There are many other hadith related to it which are just as problematic, but this is the only one I know of where Muhammed speaks of it pre-Islam.

To state the problem in short:

It is vastly more likely that the Black Stone is related to meteorite worship, which is a well documented phenomenon in pagan cultures (just Google it), rather than anything to do with monotheism.

Some Muslims really believe that this particular meteorite (if that’s what it is) actually is a specimen from Janna that travelled to Earth. Is it possible that materials in Janna are also composed of the same atoms and molecules as here on Earth and there is a route to travel between the two? Is Janna a rocky planet that surrounds the Earth?

Safa and Marwah– running between the hills

The Tafsir-i-Raufi and Tafsir Fatah al-Aziz relate that in former times two pillars were erected on these two hills to commemorate the judgment of God upon two notable sinners, Asaf, a man, and Naila, a woman, who had committed adultery in the holy Kasbah. When the people fell into idolatry they worshipped these as images of God. (Wherry, A Comprehensive Commentary on the Qur’an, Vol. 1, p.347)

“Narrated ‘Asim: I asked Anas bin Malik: “Did you use to dislike to perform Tawaf between Safa and Marwa?” He said, “Yes, as it was of the ceremonies of the days of the Pre-lslamic period of ignorance, till Allah revealed: ‘Verily! (The two mountains) As-Safa and Al-Marwa are among the symbols of Allah. It is therefore no sin for him who performs the pilgrimage to the Ka’ba, or performs ‘Umra, to perform Tawaf between them.’ ” (2.158)” – Sahih Bukhari 2:26:710

It seems that Muhammed is having to reassure his followers that it is not a sin to run between the hills, and the obvious conclusion seems to be that this is because it was a practise of the previous religion:

“Safa and Marwa are among the waymarks of God; so whosoever makes the Pilgrimage to the House, or the Visitation, it is no fault in him to circumambulate them; and whoso volunteers good, God is All-grateful, All-knowing” (Q 2:158)

The Original Deities and the Crescent Moon

There seems to be little doubt about the existence of the cult of Hubal in pre-Islamic Kaaba. The attestation for this is from early Islamic historians:

Al-Azraqi was a 9th-century Islamic commentator and historian, and author of the Kitab Akhbar Makka (Book of reports about Makka). He is from a family who lived in Makka for hundreds of years. He gave information on the design and layout of the pre-Islamic Ka’aba at Makka after its rebuilding following a fire in 603 AD until its possession by Mohammed in 630 AD. The contents included a statue of Hubal, the principal male deity of Makka, and a number of other pagan items, which were destroyed in 630 as idolatrous.

Hugo Winckler in the early twentieth century speculated that Hubal was a lunar deity, a view that was repeated by other scholars. This was derived from Ditlef Nielsen’s theory that South Arabian mythology was based on a trinity of Moon-father, Sun-mother and the evening star (the planet Venus) envisaged as their son. More recent scholars have rejected this view, partly because it is speculation but also because they believe a Nabataean origin would have made the context of South Arabian beliefs irrelevant.

Hugo Winckler, Arabisch, Semitisch, Orientalisch: Kulturgeschichtlich-Mythologische Untersuchung, 1901, W. Peiser: Berlin, p. 83.

T. Fahd, Le Panthéon De L’Arabie Centrale A La Veille De L’Hégire, 1968, op. cit., pp. 102-103; T. Fahd, “Une Pratique Cléromantique A La Kaʿba Preislamique”, Semitica, 1958, op. cit., pp. 75-76.

Origins of Hubal

There may be some foundation of truth in the story that Amr travelled in Syria and had brought back from there the cults of the goddesses Al-ʻUzzāʼ and Manāt, and had combined it with that of Hubal, the idol of the Khuza’a. According to Al-Azraqi, the image was brought to Mecca “from the land of Hit in Mesopotamia” (Hīt in modern Iraq). Philip K. Hitti, who relates the name Hubal to an Aramaic word for spirit, suggests that the worship of Hubal was imported to Mecca from the north of Arabia, possibly from Moab or Mesopotamia. Hubal may have been the combination of Hu, meaning “spirit” or “god”, and the Moab god Baal meaning “master” or “lord”. Outside South Arabia, Hubal’s name appears just once, in a Nabataean inscription; there Hubal is mentioned along with the gods Dushara (ذو الشراة) and Manawatu — the latter, as Manat, was also popular in Mecca. On the basis of such slender evidence, it has been suggested that Hubal “may actually have been a Nabataean”. There are also inscriptions in which the word Hubal appears to be part of personal names, translatable as “Son of Hubal” or “made by Hubal”.Al-lat stood in al-Ta’if, and was more recent than Manah. She was a cubic rock beside which a certain Jew used to prepare his barley porridge (sawiq). Her custody was in the hands of the banu-‘Attab ibn-Malik of the Thayif, who had built an edifice over her. […]She is the idol which God mentioned when He said, “Have you seen Al-lat and al-‘Uzza (Surah 53:19)?

1. Isaac Rabinowitz, Aramaic Inscriptions of the Fifth Century, JNES, XV, 1956, pp.1-9;

• Another Aramaic Record of the North Arabian goddess Han’Llat, JNES, XVIII, 1959, pp.154-55;

• Edward Linski, The Goddess Atirat in Ancient Arabia, in Babylon and in Ugarit: Her Relation to the Moon-god and the Sun-goddess, Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica, 3:101-9;

• H.J.Drivers, Iconography and Character of the Arab Goddess Allat, found in Études Preliminaries Aux Religions Orientales Dans L’Empire Roman, ed. Maarten J. Verseren, Leiden, Brill, 1978, pp.331-51).

• G. Caton Thompson The Tombs and Moon Temple of Hureidha

http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-moon-god-hubal.htm is an informative website on the subject, and also an interest article in the Encyclopedia Britannica:

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/31651/Arabian-religion

Miscellaneous Superstitions

Narrated Abu Talha: I heard Allah’s Messenger saying; “Angels (of Mercy) do not enter a house wherein there is a dog or a picture of a living creature (a human being or an animal). (Bukhari 3225)

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Muslims, at least in the modern era, hold to the belief in the perfection of the prophets, and the usual reason that is given is that if they are not perfect, then how can we trust their revelations. This gives them the mandate for what Christians would see as the near- idolization of Muhammad. Christians however do not hold dogmatically to any such criterion with regards to their prophets, since they would believe that the prophets are on a path to holiness just like any other huan being. The guarantor of the authenticity revelation is God, not the instrument and he is sufficient guarantor. God guarantees the perfection of the revelation, not of the prophet. There is at least one Biblical prophet who seemingly falls outside of grace.

However Christians could not accept that a prophet could be susceptible to the demonic in the matter of revelation. This is once again due to what we have just said: When it comes to the revelation itself, God is the guarantor of its authenticity. This means that either the prophet cannot give false Scripture, or his saying are not recorded at all. The People of God are not deluded as to what is and what is not from God in the matter of their Scriptures, at any time, for the purpose of faith and morals.

This brings us to the problem, which we can now enumerate:

1. If we have a prophet who cannot tell true Scripture from false, at least partly due to the fact that he is susceptible to delusions, then what is the premise for the authenticy of the Scripture? The reason that saying “God guarantees it” does not work, because the “satanic verses” incident privides an example where this “guarantee” did not work, or in other words, there was not guarantee. Muhammad stated the words of the angel as Scripture, and here lies the problem. The entire incident is then airbrushed from the Qur’an, but we will show how it can be reconstructed from the Qur’an itself, using the external sources. This is because remnants of the incident remain, which aids our critical examination.
2. The other examples of Muhammed being bewitched serve only to further strenghten the positive case we are making, that it is entirely likely that this is not an isolated incident and we cannot affirm with any confidence that there are not several other verses that are not from a source of darkness rather than one of light, in the Quran itself, if not all of it, since Muhammed himself believed that the primary source too was demonic until someone not present told him that it was probably an angel.
3. Muhammed also believed that he had a demon which had converted to Islam which advised him. Again, the concern here is that in the belief that the demon is “converted”, Muhammad is completely open to channeling instruction from the dark side. Muhammad seemingly makes the naive assumption that religious “conversion” of the manner that we undergo in the physical world is a phenomenon in the spiritual realm too, in other words, he treats both realms as epistemically equivalent.
4. Finally, when Muhammad did receive his “revelations”, rather than showing signs of spiritual ecstacy which one would expect in the presence of the Holy as we see in the Bible, we see signs of extreme bodily disturbance and possible epileptic activity instead.

The “Satanic Verses” Incident

A look at the only known accepted occurence of a Satanic sequence in a religion

The phrase “satanic verses” in relation to the Qur’an has come to relate to a couple of verses that are thought (or alleged) to relate to an incident in the life of Mohammed. The full description of that event is found in other writings, as is the case for most aspects of his life. There are essentially two Qur’anic verses in view. The first:

“…God abrogates (fayansakhu -root: ن س خ; one other occ. as abrogating in 2:106) the interjections of Satan and confirms his own revelations” (Q 22:52)

This seems to imply that Satan is able to trick Muhammed into accepting some of his own sayings as divine, and at some later point these interjection which are accepted as “Qur’an” and then “abrogated” by Allah. The reason we would read the verse in this manner is that “abrogation” is classically used in the Qur’an to denote actual scripture that has been changed.

The second verse is thought to be a remnant of the actual verse that was originally a Satanic interjection, later edited or redacted:

“Have ye thought upon Al-Lat and Al-‘Uzza And another, the third (Yusuf Ali adds “(goddess)”), Manat (Muhammad Sarwar adds “(whom you considered as God’s daughters)”, Mohsin Khan adds “(another idol of the pagan Arabs)”)?” (Q 53:19,20 AH writes “the names of Arabian goddeses)

In it’s current form, the Qur’an seemingly criticizes the pagans for assigning daughters to Allah instead of sons, and asserts that they are made-up false beliefs, in line with Islamic thought:

“What, have you males, and He females? That were indeed an unjust division. They are naught but names yourselves have named, and your fathers; God has sent down no authority touching them. They follow only surmise, and what the souls desire; and yet guidance has come to them from their Lord.” (Q 19:21-23)

However as we shall see the traditions hold that the original text did not read in this manner, rather it read:

“and he (the Prophet) said [ fa-qāla]: “Indeed, they are from among the high gharānīq! And, indeed, their intercession is to be hoped for! [inna-hunna la-min al-gharānīq al-‘ulā wa-inna shafā‘atahum (sic) la-turtajā]””

This has therefore come to be called the “Gharaniq” verse, now absent from the Qur’an and present only in these writings. Indeed this sequence is unique in being the only passage in any religious tradition to have been accepted by it, for a time, to have been ascribed to an authentic verbatim Satanic corruption. There is nothing like it in the whole world, this combination of surah 53;19,20 and the alleged second half of the quote, now allegedly separated from the original.

How Strong is the Evidence for it?

We begin by looking at the evidence for the incident in question. In short, there are no less than 50 “traditions” that relate the inident, and they are all from early Islamic sources, as we read in the section by Shahab Ahmad, who presents his analysis of the fifty riwayahs of this incident, which is parallel records by different narrators of it. In his detailed and scholarly analysis, Dr. Ahmad could not emphasize more strongly just how widespread the acceptance of the verity of this incident was among the early Muslim community, All the early biographies and commentaries form the first two Islamic centuries included it:

“The foregoing analysis of the fifty riwāyahs that narrate the Satanic verses incident was carried out (…) It has emerged in the most emphatic terms that the Satanic verses incident constituted an absolutely standard element in the memory of the early Muslim community on the life of its founder.

We have repeatedly dated reports of the Satanic verses incident as being in circulation among individuals involved in the historical memory projects of sīrah-maghāzī (early biographical accounts of Mohammed) and tafsīr (commentaries) in the late first and early second centuries of Islam. Simply, the Satanic verses incident was ubiquitous in the earliest period of systematic collection and organization of historical memory materials on the life of Muḥammad in the genres of sīrah-maghāzī and tafsīr, where it was transmitted, like all other narratives, bi-al-ma‘nā and by incomplete isnāds.

Reports of the Satanic verses incident were recorded by virtually every compiler of a major biography of Muḥammad in the first two centuries of Islam: ‘Urwah b. al-Zubayr (23–94), Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī (51–124), Mūsā b. ‘Uqbah (85–141), Ibn Isḥāq (85–151), Abū Ma‘shar (d. 170), Yūnus b. Bukayr (d. 199), and al-Wāqidī (130–207)…”

Dr. Ahmad then goes on to detail the names of the books of those biographers in which the incident is found:

“Each of the foregoing scholars incorporated the incident into the framework of a larger narrative of the life of the Prophet—that is, into a Kitāb al-maghāzī or a Kitāb al-sīrah. Riwāyah 1 was recorded in Salamah b. al-Faḍl’s Rayy recension of the Sīrah of Ibn Isḥāq; Riwāyah 2 in the Kitāb al-maghāzī of Abū Ma‘shar; Riwāyah 3 in the Kitāb al-mubtada’ of al-Wāqidī (from whom it was taken by Muḥammad Ibn Sa‘d, 168–230, into his biography of the Prophet); Riwāyah 7 in the Kitāb al-maghāzī of Yūnus b. Bukayr; Riwāyah 8 in Abū al-Aswad’s Egyptian recension of the Kitāb al-maghāzī of ‘Urwah; Riwāyah 9 in the Kitāb al-maghāzī of Mūsā b. ‘Uqbah; and Riwāyah 15, most probably, in the Kitāb al-maghāzī of al-Zuhrī, from whom it was cited by al-Wāqidī in his Kitāb al-mubtada’. Within this narrative, the incident is consistently related to the return of some of the refugees of Abyssinia.”

He then lists the commentators as well:

“Similarly, the first- and second-century authors of tafsīr works whom we know to have recorded the incident include almost every prominent early mufassir: Abū al-‘Āliyah (d. 93), Sa‘īd b. Jubayr (23–95), Mujāhid b. Jabr (d. 102), al-Ḍaḥḥāk (d. 105), ‘Ikrimah (d. 107), Muḥammad b. Ka‘b al-Quraẓī (40–108), al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (21–110), Qatādah (60–117), Abū Ṣāliḥ (d. 110/120), ‘Aṭiyyah al-‘Awfī (d. 111/127), al-Suddī (d. 128), al-Kalbī (d. 146), Muqātil b. Sulaymān (80–150), Ibn Jurayj (d. 150), Ma‘mar b. Rāshid (d. 154), and Yaḥyā b. Sallām al-Baṣrī (124–200). Six of these—‘Ikrimah, Sa‘īd b. Jubayr, Abū Ṣālih, ‘Aṭiyyah al-‘Awfī, al-Kalbī, and Ibn Jurayj—transmitted the incident on the authority of ‘Abd Allāh Ibn ‘Abbās (d. 68), with remarkably consistent hermeneutical content.”

He lists the verses from the Qur’an that this incident is linked to and then goes on to also point out that every major Islamic intellectual centre by the second Islamic century, and lists them too:

“In other words, the Satanic verses incident constituted a standard element in first- and second-century Qur’ānic exegesis, in which discourse it was invariably associated with the Revelation of Qur’ān 53:19 al-Najm and 22:52 al-Ḥajj and, sometimes, with the exegesis of Qur’ān 17:73 al-Isrā’, Qur’ān 39:45 al-Zumar, and Qur’ān 109 al-Kāfirūn. Not only did the incident form a standard element in the discourses of late first- / early second-century sīrah-maghāzī and tafsīr, but also the isnāds show that, by the end of the second century, accounts of the Satanic verses were being transmitted in almost every important intellectual center in the second-century Islamic world from the Hijaz to Syria to Iraq to Transoxania to North Africa: Madīna, Mecca, Baṣrah, Kūfah, Baghdād, Miṣṣīṣah, Rayy, Balkh, amarqand, Marw, Ṣan‘ā, Fustāt, and Qayrawān.”

Finally he describes how the incident does not find it’s way into the later canonical hadith literature:

“Despite this universal transmission of the narratives of the Satanic verses incident in the genres of sīrah-maghāzī and tafsīr, it is striking that the incident did not constitute a standard element in the third major historical memory discourse on the life of Muḥammad—that of Ḥadīṭh. As we have seen, the incident is not included in any of the Ḥadīth collections that came to be invested with canonical authority. The only Ḥadīth collections in which the incident is recorded are noncanonical: the Musnad of al-Bazzār, the Mu‘jam alkabīr of al-Ṭabarānī, and the Mukhtārah of al-Ḍiyā’ al-Maqdisī…”

Content of the verses

He then specifies the exactly language of the text, which specifies in the vast majority that these Satanic verses were actually enunciated from Muhammad’s own mouth:

“All the first- and early second-century reports are agreed that the Prophet uttered the Satanic verses (even the maverick Riwāyāhs 49 and 50 from al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī agree that the Prophet uttered the gharānīq phrase). The two riwāyahs that are ambiguous as to the question are clearly later adjustments of early reports made so as to deflect what became the doctrinally problematic content of the narrative (Riwāyahs 9 and 10 in relation to Riwāyah 8, and Riwāyah 26 in relation to Riwāyah 25). The majority of reports explicitly mention that the Prophet uttered the verses. This is done either by straightforward use of the verbs takallama or qāla; or through the unambiguous  phrases alqā al-shayṭān ‘alā lisāni-hi (“Satan cast upon his tongue”), alqā al-shayṭān ‘alay-hi (“Satan cast upon him”), ajrā alshayṭān ‘alā lisāni-hi (“Satan caused to run upon his tongue”), ujriya ‘alā lisāni-hi (“it was caused to run upon his tongue”), alqā al-shayṭān fī fī-hi (“Satan cast into his mouth”); or through a correction scene in which Jibrīl points out the Prophet’s error, sometimes after the Prophet recites the verses back to Jibrīl. In three reports, Riwāyahs 12, 21, and 25,617 the fact of the Prophet uttering the verses is not stated explicitly, but is clearly implied by the context. On the question of why the Prophet uttered the verses, the accounts differ.”

The Motive for the “Concession” to the Meccan Pagans

All of the reports contained in sīrah-maghāzī works, either explicitly or by contextualization (i.e., mention of the refugees in Abyssinia), present the incident as taking place in a climate of persecution by Quraysh (Riwāyahs 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15). In three of these reports—Riwāyahs 1, 2, and 3 (all from Muḥammad b. Ka‘bal-Quraẓī)—the Prophet is portrayed as desiring a reconciliation with Quraysh; and in two reports—Riwāyah 1 (from al-Quraẓī) and Riwāyah 12 (al-Suyūṭī’s citation of Mūsā b. ‘Uqbah ← al-Zuhrī)— the Prophet is presented as desiring a respite from, or an end to, the persecution. In Riwāyah 1, the Prophet desires that Divine Revelation be the instrument by which this be effected. In Riwāyahs 2 and 3, the Prophet desires that God not send down a Revelation that will further estrange Quraysh.

In these riwāyahs, the fact of the Prophet’s taking words suggested to him by Satan as being Divine Revelation is presented as arising directly from the Prophet’s misplaced desire, which, in turn, is clearly influenced by the harsh circumstances. In this interpretation, the verb tamannā in Qur’ān 22:52 is glossed by the narrative as “desire,” and the verse reads: “We have not sent, before you, a Messenger or a Prophet but that when he desired, Satan cast something into his desire.” Another background motif to the incident is the one given in Riwāyahs 8 (from ‘Urwah . al-Zubayr); 12 and 13 (from Mūsā b. ‘Uqbah);618 16, 17, 18, and 19 (Abū al-‘Āliyah); and 21 (al-Suddī)—namely, Quraysh’s offer of a rec-onciliation with, or even active support for, the Prophet on the condition that he speak well of their gods. In all of these reports except Riwāyah 21, this offer takes place in a stated context of persecution; in other words, if the Prophet agrees to praise the deities of Quraysh, the persecution will stop. In all these riwāyahs, the Prophet’s uttering the verses is presented as a response to the offer from Quraysh. Whereas Riwāyahs 12 and 13 gloss tamannā as “desire,” Riwāyahs 16 to 19 and 21 do not provide any gloss for the verb.

Muhammad Caught Unawares

In none of the above reports is Muḥammad presented as deliberately doing something that he knows to be against the terms of his Prophetic mission; rather, Muḥammad is portrayed as being under pressure, confused, and unaware of the import of his act. This point is driven home by the correction process. In those reports where Jibrīl corrects the Prophet (Riwāyahs 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 22, 23, 35, 36, 38, 40, 42, and 47), it is evident that the Prophet is not aware of having done anything wrong until he is corrected. In Riwāyahs 7 and 8, however, the Prophet is presented as already being distressed before the correction takes place. This motif conveys the idea that the Prophet has sensed that something has gone wrong, although he is still not sure what exactly it is. When he is corrected, he acknowledges his error and laments it in touchingly self-critical terms, most strikingly in Riwāyah 8: “I have obeyed Satan, and spoken his words, and he has become a partner in God’s matter with me [wa-sharika-nīfī amr Allāh].” In the shorter Riwāyahs 16 to 20 from Abū al-‘Āliyah there is no correction scene, and the impression is that the Prophet  realizes on his own that he has erred. This suggests a lesser degree of confusion on the part of the Prophet about the nature of his  Prophetic  mission than is indicated in those reports where the Prophet is corrected by Jibrīl. (…)

These riwāyahs, and the fact that the incident itself did not find its way into the canonical Ḥadīth collections, provide a telling illustration of the discomfort of Ḥadīth scholars in the period circa 150 onwards with the memory of the Satanic verses incident as contained in the sīrah-maghāzī and tafsīr discourses of the late first and early second centuries.

(entire foregoing passage is a direct excerpt from Al Shabab Shahab Ahmed (2018), Before Orthodoxy: The Satanic Verses in early Islam, Harvard University Press, 158-165)

Al- Shabab goes on to relate how in a more advanced Islamic society form the third Islamic century onward when the Hadith did begin to be compiled, the priority shifted to portraying the prophet in a light that would be amenable as a basis for Islamic law modelled upon him:

“The Ḥadīth scholars were concerned with prescribing the specific content of Islam and, as such, the project of Ḥadīth fused with the authoritative and prescriptive project of the elaboration of Islamic law. To both these ultimately integrated fields, Ḥadīth and law, the memory of the life and personality of the Prophet existed primarily to provide Prophetic statements and acts on the basis of which to lay down in detail the specific legal, praxial, and creedal rules by which the members of the community should live. These normative Prophetic statements and acts covered almost every sector of quotidian life, from prayer ritual to personal sanitation, to social comportment, to dietary law, to commercial practices. However—and this is the crucial point—this project did not merely require a particular method suited to its authoritative-prescriptive purpose; it also required a particular type of Prophet suited to its authoritative and prescriptive purpose. Given the centrality of the authoritative persona of the Prophet to the logic of the Ḥadīth movement, it is obvious that the idea of an infallible or impeccable Prophet whose words and deeds might reliably be taken to establish a model for detailed pious mimesis must have possessed a particular appeal for the ahl al-ḥadīth. As Annemarie Schimmel has noted, “The absolute obedience owed to the Prophet is meaningful only if Muhammad was free from any faults and could thus constitute an immaculate model even for the most insignificant details of life.”5 Consequently, the image of Muḥammad contained in the Satanic verses incident, that of a Prophet who fell victim to Satan and erred in the transmission of Divine Revelation, was entirely dissonant with and, indeed, constituted a normative challenge to the Ḥadīth movement.” (267-268)

The pagans are not happy with a certain surah that mocks them

Then those who had gone (to Abyssinia) the first time returned before (the departure of) Ja‘far b. Abī Ṭālib and his companions. This was when God sent down the sūrah in which He states, “By the star when it sets.” The Mushrikūn had said: “If only this man would speak favourably of our gods [yadhkuru ālihata-nā bi-khayr], we would secure him [aqrarnā-hu] and his companions. He does not speak of any of the Jews and Christians who oppose his religion with the abuse and invective [al-shatm wa-al-sharr] with which he speaks of our gods.”

Satan makes changes– The Satanic Verses

When God sent down the sūrah in which He mentions, “By the star,”he (the Prophet) recited [qara’a], “Have you seen al-Lāt, al-‘Uzzā and Manāt, the third, the other?” At this point, Satan cast into it (Sūrat al- Najm) [alqā al-shayṭānu fī-hā ‘inda dhālika] a mention of the evil ones [dhikr al-ṭawāghīt], and he (the Prophet) said [ fa-qāla]: “Indeed, they are from among the high gharānīq! And, indeed, their intercession is to be hoped for! [inna-hunna la-min al-gharānīq al-‘ulā wa-inna shafā‘atahum (sic) la-turtajā]”; that was the rhyming phrases [saj‘] of Satan and was an instance of his sedition [min fitnati-hi].

The Meccan pagans Rejoice and Join Muslims in Prostration

Those two phrases [hātāni al-kalimatāni] became lodged in the heart of every Mushrik; their tongues were debased by them, they rejoiced at them [dhallat bi-hā alsinatu-hum wa-istabsharū bi-hā] and said:“Muḥammad has returned to his original religion and the religion of his tribe [qad raja‘a Muḥammad ilā dīni-hi al-awwal wa-dīn qawmi-hi].” And when the Messenger of God reached the end of the sūrah in which there is mention of “the Star” he made the sajdah and all the Muslims and Mushrikūn present made the sajdah along with him, except for al-Walīd b. al-Mughīrah who was an old man and who raised some dirt on his palm and made the sajdah on it. Both the parties were astonished at their joint sajdah [ fa-‘aja ba alfarīqān kilā-humā min jamā‘ati-him fī al-sujūd] following the sajdah of the Messenger of God.

The Muslims were astonished at the Mushrikūn having made the sajdah when they were in a state of Unbelief [‘alā ghayr īmān wa-lā yaqīn], the Muslims not having heard that which Satan cast onto the tongues (or into the ears ‘alā ādhān ) of the Mushrikūn [lam yakun al-muslimūn sami‘ū alladhī alqā al-shayṭān ‘alā alsinat al-mushrikīn]. As for the Mushrikūn, their minds were set at ease in regard to the Prophet and his Companions when they heard what Satan cast into the umniyyah of the Prophet [lammā sami‘ū alladhī alqā al-shayṭān fī umniyyat al-nabī]. Satan told them that the Messenger of God had recited  them (the Satanic verses) when in sajdah, so they made the sajdah in veneration of their gods. That phrase circulated among the people, and Satan spread it until it reached Abyssinia.

Muhammad and Jibril finally realize there’s a problem

When ‘Uthmān b. Maẓ‘ūn and ‘Abd Allāh b. Mas‘ūd and those Meccans who were with them heard that the people had accepted Islam and prayed alongside the Messenger of God, and when news reached them of the sajdah of al-Walīd b. al-Mughīrah on the dirt on his palm, they came quickly. The Messenger of God was greatly distressed by this [wa-kabura dhālika ‘alā rasūl Allāh]. In the evening, Jibrīl came to him. He (the Prophet) complained to him [ fa-shakā ilay-hi], so he (Jibrīl) ordered him (to recite the sūrah) and he (the Prophet) recited to him [ fa-qara’a ‘alay-hi]. When he (the Prophet) reached them (the Satanic verses) [ falammā balagha-hā], OR: when he (Jibrīl) heard [sami‘a] (the Satanic verses), Jibrī l absolved himself of responsibility for them [tabarra’a min-hā] and said: “God protect me from these! My Lord did not send them down, nor your Lord command me with them! [ma‘ādh Allāh min hātayni mā anzala-humā rabb-ī wa-lā amara-nī bi-himā rabbu-ka].” When the Messenger of God saw this, he was greatly disturbed [shaqqa ‘alay-hi] and said: “I have obeyed Satan, and spoken his words, and he has become a partner in God’s matter with me [aṭa‘tu al-shayṭāna wa-takallamtu bi-kalāmi-hi wa-sharika-nī fī amr Allāh].”

Allah resolves the error by “sending down” Q 22:52

So God removed that which Satan cast [ fa-nasakha Allāhu ‘azza wajalla ā alqā al-shayṭān] and sent down upon him: “We have not sent before you a Messenger or a Prophet but that when he tamannā, Satan cast something into his umniyyah; then God removes that which Satan casts and establishes His Signs clearly—and God is All-Knowing, All- Wise—to make that which Satan cast a trial for those in whose hearts is sickness, and for those whose hearts are hardened. Indeed, the Wrongdoers are in far dissension.” And when God absolved him [barra’a-hu Allāh] of Satan’s rhyming phrases and of his sedition, the Mushrikūn reverted to their errant state and their hostility. The news reached those Muslims who had been in Abyssinia and who were now approaching Mecca. They were now unable to return because of the severity of the suffering they would encounter, and were hungry and afraid. They were afraid that if they entered Mecca they would be attacked. So no man entered Mecca unless he had protection.”

(Al- Shabab 108-111)

The other scholarly work on the topic is an article by John Burton (1970), “Those Are the High-Flying Cranes”, Journal of Semitic Studies, 15 (2): 246–264

The Commentators: At- Tabari

When the Messenger of God saw how his tribe turned their backs on him and was grieved to see them shunning the message he had brought to them from God, he longed in his soul that something would come to him from God which would reconcile him with his tribe. With his love for his tribe and his eagerness for their welfare it would have delighted him if some of the difficulties which they made for him could have been smoothed out, and he debated within himself and fervently desired such an outcome. Then God revealed:

By the Star when it sets, your comrade does not err, nor is he deceived; nor does he speak out of (his own) desire . . .

and when he came to the words:

Have you thought upon al-Lat and al-‘Uzza and Manat, the third, the other?

Satan cast on his tongue, because of his inner debates and what he desired to bring to his people, the words:

These are the high-flying cranes; verily their intercession is accepted with approval. (Al-Tabari, p. 108)

The polytheists were delighted that Muhammad had at last approved of their gods. To return the kindness, they “prostrated themselves because of the reference to their gods which they had heard, so that there was no one in the mosque, believer or unbeliever, who did not prostrate himself” (p. 109).

Muhammad’s friendly relations with the polytheists were short-lived, however, for he soon learned that his verses praising pagan idols came not from God, but from Satan. Saddened to recognize his treachery against Allah, Muhammad lamented: “I have fabricated things against God and have imputed to Him words which He has not spoken” (p. 111). Yet “Gabriel” comforted Muhammad, informing him that all prophets fall for Satan’s tricks from time to time. This staggering and unbelievable claim even found its way into the Qur’an:

“And We did not send before you any apostle or prophet, but when he desired, the Shaitan made a suggestion respecting his desire; but Allah annuls that which the Shaitan casts, then does Allah establish His communications, and Allah is Knowing, Wise.” (Surah 22:52)

The History of al-Tabari, Volume VI: Muhammad at Mecca, W. Montgomery Watt and M. V. McDonald, trs. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988).

Other instances where Muhammed Succumbs to Demonic Influence

Muhammad is deluded by witchcraft into thinking that he did things that he did not, like sex:

“Narrated `Aisha: that Allah’s Messenger was affected by magic, so much that he used to think that he had done something which in fact, he did not do, and he invoked his Lord (for a remedy). Then (one day) he said, “O `Aisha!) Do you know that Allah has advised me as to the problem I consulted Him about?” `Aisha said, “O Allah’s Messenger ! What’s that?” He said, “Two men came to me and one of them sat at my head and the other at my feet, and one of them asked his companion, ‘What is wrong with this man?’ The latter replied, ‘He is under the effect of magic.’ The former asked, ‘Who has worked magic on him?’ The latter replied, ‘Labid bin Al-A’sam.’ The former asked, ‘With what did he work the magic?’ The latter replied, ‘With a comb and the hair, which are stuck to the comb, and the skin of pollen of a date-palm tree.’ The former asked, ‘Where is that?’ The latter replied, ‘It is in Dharwan.’ Dharwan was a well in the dwelling place of the (tribe of) Bani Zuraiq. Allah’s Messenger went to that well and returned to `Aisha, saying, ‘By Allah, the water (of the well) was as red as the infusion of Hinna, (1) and the date-palm trees look like the heads of devils.’ `Aisha added, Allah’s Messenger came to me and informed me about the well. I asked the Prophet, ‘O Allah’s Messenger, why didn’t you take out the skin of pollen?’ He said, ‘As for me, Allah has cured me and I hated to draw the attention of the people to such evil (which they might learn and harm others with).’ ” Narrated Hisham’s father: `Aisha said, “Allah’s Messenger was bewitched, so he invoked Allah repeatedly requesting Him to cure him from that magic).” Hisham then narrated the above narration. (See Hadith No. 658, vol 7)” (Sahih Bukhari 6391)

This is a similar hadith which adds the details that the delusion is of a sexual nature:

“Magic was worked on Allah’s Messenger so that he used to think that he had sexual relations with his wives while he actually had not (Sufyan said: That is the hardest kind of magic as it has such an effect). Then one day he said, “O `Aisha do you know that Allah has instructed me concerning the matter I asked Him about? Two men came to me and one of them sat near my head and the other sat near my feet. The one near my head asked the other. What is wrong with this man?’ The latter replied the is under the effect of magic The first one asked, Who has worked magic on him?’ The other replied Labid bin Al-A’sam, a man from Bani Zuraiq who was an ally of the Jews and was a hypocrite.’ The first one asked, What material did he use)?’ The other replied, ‘A comb and the hair stuck to it.’ The first one asked, ‘Where (is that)?’ The other replied. ‘In a skin of pollen of a male date palm tree kept under a stone in the well of Dharwan’ ” So the Prophet went to that well and took out those things and said “That was the well which was shown to me (in a dream) Its water looked like the infusion of Henna leaves and its date-palm trees looked like the heads of devils.” The Prophet added, “Then that thing was taken out’ I said (to the Prophet “Why do you not treat yourself with Nashra?” He said, “Allah has cured me; I dislike to let evil spread among my people.” (Bukhari 5765 Book 76, Hadith 79 Vol. 7, Book 71, Hadith 660)

“A Jewish man cast a spell on the Prophet , and he fell ill as a result of it, for several days. Then Jibra’il, peace be upon him, came to him and said: ‘A Jewish man has put a spell on you. In such and such a well there is a knot that he tied for you.’ The Messenger of Allah sent them to take it out and bring it to him. Then the Messenger of Allah got up as if he had been released from some bonds. No mention of that was made to that Jew, and he did not see that in his face at all.” (Sunan An-Nasa’i 4080)

Comparing Biblical Angelic Greetings with Muhammad’s

It is useful to make a short study of Biblical angelic encounters in order to appreciate what Jews and Christians would immediately recognize from their perspective as aberrations in the Muhammad’s own claimed encounter.

The Elegance of Biblical Angelic Greetings

Angels are respectful in the Bible, it is made clear who they are, usually (probably in all cases) they introduce themselves. Making an introduction is a basic and universal sign of acting in good faith, no matter which planet you come from, as we can see in even in a secular production like Star Wars, for example. If the person is afraid, they put them at ease, they always leave a good impression upon the person, and have the effect of strengthening that person emotionally and spiritually. By definition they are emissaries of the Most High God, so they do a proper and responsible job of representing Him. They are the best ambassadors in the Universe, let us say. The second issue here is the manner in which God deals with his chosen prophets. God primarily speaks with his “navi” directly, not through an angel. The anonymous cave angel model is completely alien to the Biblical notions of revelation.

Are there any outliers to this biblical model? When an angel comes in isolation, as to Mary and Zechariah, they are very clear who they are, and also this is in the inter-Testamental period, when prophecy has ceased for many centuries. Mary, Joseph, Zechariah are at this point being given private revelation and guidance, not something that they are told to go out and proclaim, nor even write down as the prophets of old were. In the case of the major prophets and patriarchs, they have all seen or heard from God directly at some stage, so when the angel is sent, it is as a continuing revelation, based upon the surety of that initial interaction. Muslims sometimes ask about other angelic encounters in the Bible like those to Lot, Hagar, Balaam. Lot is not regarded as a prophet at all in the Biblical sense, nor Hagar. Balaam is a non-Israelite, he is not counted among the prophets of Israel, he is opposed by God through an intentionally negative encounter with the angel and he dies a sinner, he does not have an exalted death. Apart from the well- known divine encounters and visions given to the other prophets which I will not recount here for brevity, we can also see the Lord speak directly to David in 1 Sam 23:2, 1 Sam 30:8, 2 Sam 5:19.

DANIEL
“He said to me, “Daniel, you are a man who is highly precious. Consider carefully the words that I am about to say to you. Stand up, for I have now been sent to you.” And when he had said this to me, I stood up trembling. “Do not be afraid, Daniel,” he said, “for from the first day that you purposed to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them” (Daniel 10:11,12)

ZECHARIAH

“When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him. 13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard…” (Luke1:12,13)

THE SPEPHERDS

^“ In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people” (Lk. 2:8-10)

MARY

“The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God…” (Luke 1:28,29)

CORNELIUS, ROMAN CENTURION

“he had a vision in which he clearly saw an angel of God coming in and saying to him, “Cornelius.” He stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” He answered, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God” (Acts10:3)

GOD SPEAKING TO DIRECTLY EVEN IN THE QURAN

Allah of the Qur’an speaks DIRECTLY to Adam (2:33), to Musa (7:143), to Isa (5:116) in passages that seemingly give a nod to the Biblical accounts.

Features of Muhammed’s Claimed Angelic Encounter

No Witnesses

No one saw the angel in the cave (at the initial encounter, nor at subsequent encounters which where supposedly at least annual at Ramadan); No one saw an angel the time Muhammed revealed verses “impromptu”; Lastly, never does Muhammed state “I heard the voice of Allah revealing such-and-such verse”. Given that this is the primary source for all of Islam, I would flag this up as a significant concern.

No Introduction from the Angel

The angel does not introduce himself to Mohammed in the Quran at all! He merely says one word “Recite! (meaning “Qur’an!”). This is the back-narrative of that first encounter in the Cave of Hira where it all allegedly began, and how the angel came to be associated with the angel Gabriel of the Bible, when Mohammed’s uncle Waraq bin Nawfal suggests it to him. It is a singularly terrifying encounter, which leaves Mohammed despondent, with both physical and emotional impaction.

Was Muhammed Tortured?- Left Terrified and Intractably Suicidal

When Muhammad first sees the creature in the cave (or claims to), the negativity does not just stop with the encounter, it just continues to have negative effects upon him of the worst kind. After being squeezed and really roughed up and shouted at, he runs in terror and of all things asks his wife to protect him. Then he becomes suicidal and three times attempts to throw himself off a cliff. Now without presuming the impossibility of angels producing such an effect upon those that God favours, a Jew or Christian would immediately see this as an aberration from the Biblical tradition. The forces of light do not cause spiritual disturbance, and we have already given examples of the Biblical encounters.

Muhammed asking his wife to cover him is is seen in multiple sound narrations. Covering oneself under a blanket which Muhammad employs is thought to be a pagan method of divination at the time, as well as a means of protection, which of course is absurd, there is no reason a spirit being is stopped by a piece of cloth.

“Narrated ‘Aisha: The commencement of the Divine Inspiration to Allah’s Apostle was in the form of good righteous (true) dreams in his sleep. He never had a dream but that it came true like bright day light. He used to go in seclusion (the cave of) Hira where he used to worship (Allah Alone) continuously for many (days) nights. He used to take with him the journey food for that (stay) and then come back to (his wife) Khadija to take his food like-wise again for another period to stay, till suddenly the Truth descended upon him while he was in the cave of Hira.

The angel came to him in it and asked him to read. The Prophet replied, “I do not know how to read.” (The Prophet added), “The angel caught me (forcefully) and pressed me so hard that I could not bear it anymore. He then released me and again asked me to read, and I replied, “I do not know how to read,” whereupon he caught me again and pressed me a second time till I could not bear it anymore. He then released me and asked me again to read, but again I replied, “I do not know how to read (or, what shall I read?).” Thereupon he caught me for the third time and pressed me and then released me and said, “Read: In the Name of your Lord, Who has created (all that exists). Has created man from a clot. Read and Your Lord is Most Generous…up to….. ..that which he knew not.” (96.15)

Then Allah’s Apostle returned with the Inspiration, his neck muscles twitching with terror till he entered upon Khadija and said, “Cover me! Cover me!” They covered him till his fear was over and then he said, “O Khadija, what is wrong with me?” Then he told her everything that had happened and said, ‘I fear that something may happen to me.” Khadija said, ‘Never! But have the glad tidings, for by Allah, Allah will never disgrace you as you keep good relations with your Kith and kin, speak the truth, help the poor and the destitute, serve your guest generously and assist the deserving, calamity-afflicted ones.”

Khadija then accompanied him to (her cousin) Waraqa bin Naufal bin Asad bin ‘Abdul ‘Uzza bin Qusai. Waraqa was the son of her paternal uncle, i.e., her father’s brother, who during the Pre-Islamic Period became a Christian and used to write the Arabic writing and used to write of the Gospels in Arabic as much as Allah wished him to write. He was an old man and had lost his eyesight. Khadija said to him, “O my cousin! Listen to the story of your nephew.” Waraqa asked, “O my nephew! What have you seen?” The Prophet described whatever he had seen. Waraqa said, “This is the same Namus (i.e., Gabriel, the Angel who keeps the secrets) whom Allah had sent to Moses. I wish I were young and could live up to the time when your people would turn you out.” Allah’s Apostle asked, “Will they turn me out?” Waraqa replied in the affirmative and said: “Never did a man come with something similar to what you have brought but was treated with hostility. If I should remain alive till the day when you will be turned out then I would support you strongly.” 

But after a few days Waraqa died and the Divine Inspiration was also paused for a while and the Prophet became so sad as we have heard that he intended several times to throw himself from the tops of high mountains and every time he went up the top of a mountain in order to throw himself down, Gabriel would appear before him and say, “O Muhammad! You are indeed Allah’s Messenger in truth” whereupon his heart would become quiet and he would calm down and would return home. And whenever the period of the coming of the inspiration used to become long, he would do as before, but when he used to reach the top of a mountain, Gabriel would appear before him and say to him what he had said before. (Ibn `Abbas said regarding the meaning of: ‘He it is that Cleaves the daybreak (from the darkness)’ (6.96) that Al-Asbah. means the light of the sun during the day and the light of the moon at night). Sahih al-Bukhari 6982

This is also narrated as “wrap me/ in garments” (Bukhari 4, 3238, 4957, 4954, 4922, 4925, 4926, Muslim 161a, 161d, Tirmidhi 3325)

What’s more in many of these, Muhammed claims to have seen Gabriel sitting on a chair/Throne (kursi), the same word usd for Allah’s seating (Bukhari 4, 4925, 4926, 3238, 4954 and Tirmidhi 3325, and Muslim 161a,d)

…This terrifying encounter is also documented in the earliest biographical record of Muhammad. Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah, p. 106:

“…So I read it, and he (Gabriel) departed from me. And I awoke from my sleep, and it was as though these words were written on my heart. Now none of God’s creatures was more horrible to me than a poet or a man possessed: I could not even look at them. I thought, “Woe is me poet or possessed – Never shall Quraysh say this of me! I will go to the top of the mountain and throw myself down that I may kill myself and gain rest.”

Az-Zuhri (died 124 AH/741-2 CE), also referred to as Ibn Shihab  credited with pioneering the development of sīra maghazi and hadith literature relates:  

“There was a gap for a time in the revelation to the Messenger of God and he was very sorrowful.  He started going early to the tops of the mountains to throw himself down from them.  But whenever he reached the summit of a mountain, Gabriel would appear to him and say, “Thou are the Prophet of God.” 

According to these narratives, following the terrifying and violent encounter with the spirit-being, Muhammad became suicidal. He believed he was possessed by a demon. When Jesus drove out the demons out of a man, they entered into swine and the swine jumped off a cliff (Matthew 8:32).

Muhammad’s Condition looked disturbing

There are only a few reports of anyone witnessing Muhammed in the process of receiving “revelations”. They sound like epileptic fits:

Snorting like a camel, Cold sweat

Would that I see revelation coming to the Messenger of Allah. He (Hadrat ‘Umar) said: Would it please you to see the Messenger of Allah receiving the revelations ‘Umar lifted a corner of the cloth and I looked at him and he was emitting a sound of snorting. He (the narrator) said: I thought it was the sound of a camel.” (Sahih Muslim 1180a)

Narrated Aisha: Verily I saw the Prophet being inspired divinely on a very cold day and noticed the sweat dropping from his forehead (as the Inspiration was over)”. (Sahih al-Bukhari 2)

This is just Muhammed describing what it’s like to his wife Aisha:

It was narrated that Aishah said: “Al-Harith bin Hisham asked the Messenger of Allah: ‘How does the Revelation come to you?‘ He said: ‘Like the ringing of a bell, and when it departs I remember what he (the Angel) said, and this is the hardest on me. And sometimes he (the Angel) comes to me in the form of a man and gives it to me.'” (Sunan an-Nasa’i 933)

All this for “Revelations” of stories that already common knowledge!

“Jibril” in the Quran- is it even an Angel?

The Quran does not even state that Jibreel (Gabriel) was an angel.  Jibreel is mentioned only three times by name. That Jibril is the “ruh qudsi (holy spirit)” is inferred from the fact that the both him and the latter are said to have brought down revelations. Surah al-Baqara 2:97 “Say: Whoever is the enemy of Jibreel– for surely he revealed it to your heart by Allah’s command, verifying that which is before it and guidance and good news for the believers.”; 16:102 says that it is the “holy spirit” (ruh qudsi) which brought down the Qur’an.

Here we see that Jibril is mentioned apart from the other angels: ‘Whoever is an enemy of Allah, His angels and His messengers, and Gabriel and Michael; Allah is indeed the enemy to the disbelievers.’ (al-Baqara 2:98) And If you both turn to Allah, then indeed your hearts are already inclined; and if you back up each other against him, then surely Allah it is who is his Guardian, and Jibreel and -the believers that do good, and the angels after that are the aiders.”(Q 66:4)

However the actual encounter of the alleged angel with Mohammed is not documented in the Qur’an, but it is only found in the Hadith. And in those hadith, the being does not give a name. There are various other Hadith like the one where Jibril is trying to kill Pharoah under the sea before Allah’s mercy can reach him and another where Muhammed claims that a stranger he meets is him.

Muhammad thought Demons can give good advice

“Abdullah b. Mas’ud reported that Allah’s Messenger said: There is none amongst you with whom is not an attache from amongst the jinn (devil). They (the Companions) said: Allah’s Messenger, with you too? Thereupon he said: Yes, but Allah helps me against him and so I am safe from his hand and he does not command me but for good.” (Muslim 2814a, also Miskat al-Masabih 67 graded sahih by Zubair al- Aliza’i)

Conclusion

The conclusions are pretty much enumerated in the introduction, I might repeat the points here, because they are extremely important to understand, once I have completed editing:

The post Investigating the Issue of Demonic Admixture in the Qur’an appeared first on RespondIslam.net.

How does homosexuality fare in the nature vs. nurture argument, that is, could it be that environmental factors lead to it, or is it determined in the DNA. We can be fairly certain that a “homosexuality gene” does not exist because we do not see any familial inheritance patterns in the manner of the patterns that we see in known genetic conditions. However the caveat to this question is that even should it be the case that genetics is involved, this would not be a reason to maintain the normalcy of this condition, just as we do not genetically inherited conditions as normal, apart from innocuous variations in appearance that help us differentiate between individuals in the first place.

Homosexuality is definitely seen in the animal kingdom where its cause is similarly not understood, and even its purpose, my feeling from what I have read about it is that in cases it might serve a social purpose, and in many cases these might also be bisexual animals. There is a lot of research on this behaviour, but I have not made any sysstematic study of it at this point.

Anecdotally it is not difficult to come across several cases where there has been family breakdown or abuse in the upbringing, however once again, this is not a subject that is easily documented and reearched due to it’s sensitive and politically charged nature.

“But they’re Not hurting Anyone”?

The problem with the most popular “it’s not hurting anyone” argument is that such an argument would be equally applicable to any form of sexual deviancy in the which the harm is invisible: a secret love affair, secret visits to the brothel, polygamous/ polyamorous relationship, “open relationships”, bestiality- “surely it’s bettern than eating them!”. We can show how such “invisible harm” can be extended to more subtle forms of deviations from the norm like contraception and abortion, but that’s in the articles of those names.

Now in any scenario involving only one person, the potential for manipulation is minimal, since a person is likey to look out for their own interests, but marriage involves two persons as a mininum and many more if there are also children and further we must no fail to consider the admittedly more secondary yet not insignificant rights of grandparents. Any attempted legal definition of marriage must take due account of attempting to safeguard the the interests of all possible persons involved, because that is the point of having legal definitions. The modern decular definitions provide no more than financial protections in the case of a break up of the marriage.

For example, what protects the children against the possibility that they would have preferred a normal family? What protects the child against the possibility that their 18 or 30 year-old self would not have wanted the sex-change operatoin that their 7 or 10 or 12 year old self sonsented to? What is the protection against one of the spouses feelin presured into “consenting” to an open relationship for fear of being abandoned? What protects one of the spouses from “consenting” to not having children through being similarly pressured? What protects that 50 year old homosexual against being refused conversion therapy that might hve benefitted their 16 year old self?

When a man marries a woman, there are a number of implied promises of the institution. One of these implied promises is commitment, the other is that the women’s body will realize its reproductive potential. Now this might sound alarming “in this day and age”, however it is not unreasonable to state that even taken out of any religious context, the default desire for amy woman is to bear children and that of a man is to be a father and patriarch. A Christian marriage includes “freely accepting children” literally as part of the marriage vows.

The problem is immediately apparent: Human beings are poor judges of what does and what does not caue harm, and this is the reason rates of depression are on the rise worldwide and especially so in Western cultures where sexual deviations are increasingly acceptable. What’s more, it is also certain that humans in power are going to always be very adept at manipulating the boundaries of what consitutes “hurt” so as to benefit themselves.

This is why the church teaching does not merely condemn homosexual relationships, it also condemns divorce, live-in relationships, and contraception. No homosexual should feel singled out by the Church’s teaching, rather the latter teachings fall foul probably of a larger mass of humanity than those that are at rights with it. That’s hardly what “singling out” implies.

In fact if happiness indicators can be taken as a measure of whether these conditions are hurtful or not then it is quite simple to make the case for the injury cause by them to those involved. Those with LGBT and related conditions have vastly higher rates of suicide an depression than the general population. The usual pushback against making an argument based on such statistics, is that it is the social stigma and unacceptability of these conditions that are the reason for the stress that they cause. However this is begging the question, and furthermore large parts of the developed world are quite accepting on these issues anyway.

Sexual Complementarity in Traditional Family

There is a certain mystery of the complementarity of the sexes, from which it can be said that every rightly ordered human virtue is derived. The development of a virtuous upbringing begins with the experience of a child of the tenderness of a mother, beginning right with the first suckle at the breast, and the discipline of a father. From these experiences are derived every rightly ordered relationship in future life.

One might say that the attitude of chivalry toward all women which supercedes any sexual urges engendered by the ferocious love he will feel for his tender mother, and the attitude of justice to his brothers, which supercedes any competitive instincts, only from the fierce loyalty to his father.

Sexual Abstinence in a Christian Marriage

The joys of the Kingdom far outweigh the pains of privations involved along the road, like that of sex. Like refugees making the perilous journey across the sea escaping the terrible war in Syria, having given up their life-savings for the chance at life because the option for them is unthinkable. Life without sex is not really as unthinkable an option as it might sometimes seen and especially when put in the context of the spectrum of suffering. Like the Little Mermaid, it would be better to have no tongue, rather than to have a tongue and no hope.

Spiritually speaking, everyone bears their individual cross, so do those who are straight but had terrible upbringings or been exposed to strife and/or deprivation. So if one is indeed born with this condition as a birth defect through no fault of their own, one is nonetheless called to battle against it rather than accept it, which is what one would do with any other defect.

Indissolubility of Marriage

There is nothing in a religious Marriage ceremony that speaks of alimony, and the reason is simple, there is nothing in it that provides for divorce, hence the words “till death do us part”, as a gentle reminder to the couple, five words that have never been heard on this Earth, if they were not quoted in Christianity. Marriage is either forever, or else is isn’t at all. An atheist marriage IS a pre-nuptial contract, in the secular sense of the word. The only implication of the piece of paper is the various legal implications of protecting one partner from the other, and the children from both.

Is Lust Necessary for Love?

What is it that prevents two men from truly loving each without having sex? In Christian terms, abstinence from sex can be as much an expression of love as performance of it, or even greater. The sexual act is only proper to a loving relationship if it is rightly ordered to it because any act is capable of being harmful if disordered. If sex were truly indispensible to love, then one could never love anyone other than one’s spouse, even one’s parents, children, siblings, relatives and friends. And yet people will give their lives up for those they have never had sex with. Consider how persons give their lives up for others in the army or in various other rescue missions in the services. It is certainly a lie that sex is indispensible for a loving relationship, it is ceratinly also true that disordered perception and pursuit of sex is not only injurious to a relationship but can be disastrously ruinous to one’s mental health and it is certainly also true that voluntarily abstinence is not necessarily harmful to love.

Man is not defined by his physical desires, rather more often than not he is defined by his struggles and battles with them. Now in the case of love and lusr, while love means being ready to do anything for the other, lust is a physical desire and it is wanting the other for one’s sexual gratification. Thus lust in and of itself can have no place in a loving relationship. My dad once explained it to me thus: “If it is only for the object, then it would also be OK with any other object”. A man is not defined by his inclinations and desires. That is why it is condescending to tell a homosexual that it is OK for him to give in to his desires and that he cannot possibly control them.

In most relatonships lust can be disguised because it is tempered by elements of love that are also present. It is alwasy difficult to speak objectively of sexual matters, but I believe it might be agreed that even when one believes that pure lust has its place in a loving act, on the contrary the the lust is put in its place by the love in that act. In the final analysis, it is the love makes an act which seems like no more than a satisfaction of the lust meaningful, because it brings a satisfaction of love primarily. In other words, it is love that gains expression in the sexual act. However the point we are making here is that sex could not possibly be the only means for the expression of love and its satisfaction, as we have shown earlier.

What if they just stay comitted and not have children either?

Choosing a lifestyle that is representative of the injustices is an unwitting support to those injustices, in the same manner that pracititioners of inherently violent creeds in some western countries are implicitly lending support for practitioners in other countries where there are no restrictions to its violent practise through advertisement, normalisation, propagation and so on. Probably the most damaging effect of aquiescing to homosexual unions is the resulting movement to the legal redefinition of marriage, which heretofore had been defined as between a man and a woman. Now it is seemingly whatever two entities turn up at the registry office, because there are apparently 62 genders. What exactly would be the reason that a homosexual couple could not remain together and not have to amend the definition of marriage, because the law of the land if I understand it corectly grants equal rights to co-habiting couples anyway. But with changing the definition of marriage has enabled and opened the door for all the deviancies that we mentioned before. How so? If marriage as between a reproducing committed couple is no longer the basic unit for society and recognised as such then naturally it opens the door to all these other options for “basic units”, and essentially, there is no such thing as a standard basic family unit.

Real concerns regarding “Gay Subculture”

It is worth aquainting oneself to the darker side of the homosexual lifestyle and this can be seen in material written by gay persons themselves, examples of such recent articles: https://www.josephnicolosi.com/collection/why-reveal-the-dark-side and here: https://www.josephnicolosi.com/collection/why-reveal-the-dark-side.

I will write a synopsis of this issue in due course.

LGBTQIA+ indicates the arbitrariness of choice

Sexual discernment in LGBTQIA+ is fluid, which itself points to arbitrariness which too is fluid. Indeed aspects like fluidity and concurrence (simultaneous occurence) in the orientations negate the possibility of genetic determination which would in contrast imply their fixedness. For example if it were to be admitted that homosexuals find it simply impossible to resist the attraction of the same sex as opposed to that of the opposite sex, then is that not negated by the presence of bisexuals for which it is indeed possible? That is to say, a bisexual person is able to resist the temptation of the same sex, at least for the time that they are with the opposite sex. Surely also a bisexual person in order to live in accordance with the Biblical teaching could limit themselves to the opposite sex without this constituting an unreasonable sacrifice even by atheistic standards. The locus in the brain, if indeed there is one, that makes on either hetero or bisexual could not possibly be a one-say switch (or mechanism) in the some creatures and a two-way switch in others if indeed it is the same switch or mechanism. The same goes for gender, there are those in the LGBTQIA+ community who are quite comfortable with admitting that they are “gender fluid”. If the thing that detemines sex is fixed by the brain then it cannot be a th ing that also has the aability to become unfixed in some but not in otherse, if it si the same mechanism. And when the gender changes does the sexual orientation change with it? To spell it out anyway, if a person feels like a man on a different day and a woman on the next, then is this a person who’s orientations correspondingly also change, or if not then do they switch to not being homosexual anymore when the change to the opposite gender of their partners (if the “sponataneous” change in gender is indeed to be taken seriously). We are struggling to keep up at this point, are we not?

The point is that it is overly simplistic to try and make a case for the defense of an idealized comitted homosexual relationship if that which the argument is being made is not strictly representative of the group that is being argued for in the first place, and further there is good reason to conclude that overt harm can be caused by the practise.

The Bible, on Homosexuality

“No practicing homosexual …will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven”, blatantly flouted by  the Church of England among many others, who actually have gay priests and Bishops. So this poor guy, whose not inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven, is teaching his flock how to go to Heaven?

Leviticus 18:22 “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

Romans 1:26-28 ESV “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.”

Also importantly St Paul says categorically that there is no inheritance for ‘practising homosexuals and fornicators”. This certainly applies to pre-marital sex, and could just as easily apply to contraceptors and masturbators even:

1 Cor 6:9,10 “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.”

1 Cor.6:9

for example 2 Cor 1:9 NRSV “updated edition” (I don’t have this) waters down the homosexual part. My NRSV edition uses “sodomites”, which is at least accurate. Arsenokoitai is arsenos= males, koitai is sex, same word from which we get coitus, so its for male male sex, a word Paul uses only once. ESC-CE is pretty clear and uses “males who practise homosexuality”.

So you have Pornoi (fornication, any non-marital/illicit sex), eidolatrai- eidolos+ latria= idol worshippers, moichoi-adulterers, similar meaning to pornoi imo, probably prim. word for paramour, 3occ. (Heb.13:4; Luk.18:11); malakoi- “softies/effeminate”, referring to the practice of using boy prostitutes by Romans were using for their pedophilia, 3occ. (Mt.11:8, Lk.7:25, ) and the softness referring to the passivity, arsenikoitai, kleptai (like kleptomaniac), pleonektai (coveters, 5occ.), methysoi (drunkards), Lordoroi (verbal abusers), harpages (swindlers) will no inherit the Kingdom of God

1 Tim 1 9-11 “This means understanding that the law is laid down not for the innocent but for the lawless and disobedient, for the godless and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their father or mother, for murderers, fornicators, sodomites, slave-traders, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.”

Leviticus 20:13 ESV “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them”

Romans 1:32 ESV “Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”

Genesis 19:1-38 ESV “The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth and said, “My lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the town square.” But he pressed them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.”

Jude 1:7 ESV “Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”

1 Kings 14:24 ESV “And there were also male cult prostitutes in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations that the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.”

Judges 19:22 ESV “As they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, worthless fellows, surrounded the house, beating on the door. And they said to the old man, the master of the house, “Bring out the man who came into your house, that we may know him.”

Using Classical Arguments

There is no a priori argument for things like “natural law” in nature, because scientifically everything is evolution.

Evolution is purposeless, even survival is not the purpose, because you can ask “what’s the purpose of survival of the fittest?” and the purpose is the “survival of the species”, really. If the species is fit then it does not go extinct.

But what’s the point of the preservation of species? Well its the preservation of life. It seems like life on earth as a whole, and as a “super-organism” is attempting to avoid reverting to the non-life it came from.

Seemingly running parallel to this there is a tendency to rationality, because if nothing more than life was the point, then we could have just had bacteria. But then it could be argued that rational life is just an alternate pathway to preserving life as such.

So where does individual teleology come in? Individuals just blip in and out of existence like the little baby turtles on the beach getting picked up by seagulls, or the fish in a school getting picked by orcas and shark and so on.

It seems individual teleology is subservient to the overall preservation of the super-organism, like the little birds that go to make up a flock or the locusts in a swarm or the bees of a hive.

So if you say to an atheist “everything has a purpose, a human has the purpose of reproduction” they’re gonna be like “well, we’re not interested in increasing the world’s population through reproduction”, you know.

Then you might try to say “well if a thing that used for a certain is used for another thing instead, it can lead to emotional harm”, that’s potentially true, but how’re you supposed to prove something as subjective as emotions? they’re just going to reply “well, maybe we’re wired differently, now what?”

However if you did make a religious argument then you could say “well, you know, you’re not just a wheel in the evolutionary cog, in fact the you are the reason for evolution, rather than the other way round. God created evolution so that it could get to you, its not that he created you do that evolution could survive and continue to evolve.

But then they can still say, well that’s fine, but that still doesn’t mean that there’s a specific problem with homosexual sex, just because it doesn’t make babies, we’re still expressing love, love for creation, whatever.

Then you would either have to argue from St Paul and the Old Testament, or if they tried to wriggle out of that then add in the argument from silence too- how come there aren’t any model homosexual relationships in the Bible, right down to Greek and Roman times even when it was acceptable in those societies.

So in summary you’re down to two arguments: the religious argument, which the non religious will not buy, and the argument from harm, which is my article.

A Teleology Argument?

One way of argumentation that has been used in the discussion is an old Aristotelian argument, which is from teleology. It’s also one of Thomas Aquinas’ 5 proofs for God, the argument that everthing seems to have some goal to which it is directed to, so how can that be the case if no one directed it in the first place. Extending that argument to the case of homosexuality, we see that man is directed to a specific end of reproduction and family life, so homosexuality seems a violation or at least an absence of that teleology ascribed to us by nature.

I don’t believe that this of argument works very well. It sounds patronising and nobody is convinced by it except if you believe in God in the first place, in which case you don’t need the “chair” argument anyway (some use a “the chair of for sitting, isn’t it?” type prop). I don’t see teleology as an a priori argument, not with the state of modern science. I can easily ask “well what’s the teleology of the electron field” or of gravity, or of light…there’s no obvious answers here. it would work at the time of Aristotle and Aquinas when they didn’t even have a magnifying glass, leave alone a microscope-or telescope, they didn’t have a periodic table, there is no clarity about it the sky a dome, is there’s only one solar system and nothing else, or only one galaxy even at the time of Newton etc etc A seed grows into a plant sure, but then it just becomes fertilizer, enters the carbon cycle, all living things are part of the carbon cycle, so where’s the teleology. If you try to say “you’re body is meant to reproduce because obviously you have there genitals etc”, you can argue well even people who get married often don’t have children, so then what. There’s over-population anyway, there’s not enough food etc etc. (not that I necessarily believe that). Many animals are not able to break free from their instincts, of hierarchy of the herd and so on. But humans can. Animals end is to be one with nature, but humans make nature work for them and manipulate it. Animals get evolved by nature, but humans have started evolving themselves. the main a priori teleology argument is that if you do something that youre body was not designed for then it is likely to have adverse health and mental effects. If the person is willing to take that risk then it would be up to them. Like contraception can lead to ovarian and breast cancer, same as the risks of not having a baby and not breast feeding, DVT, migraines, and other things, and the mental health associations are all there. That’s because you biology is geared for something else than what you’re doing to it. It’s a sort of healthcare argument. Like you should exercise, not just watch tv or you’ll get a heart attack.

In science there’s no purpose to life. At the most we are part of some macro-organism that is aiming to keep itself alive through the living and dying of its members, just like our own body cells and blood cells live and die inside us. There is no importance of the individual in science. The individual is just the place where quantum fields meet in a certain manner. Further scientifically how can you prove that human dignity is greater than animal dignity just because we are rational? So if we’re making a teleological argument then it can be argued that eating animals violates their teleology and so on.

Appendix: Should one tell one’s partner that one is HIV positive?:

If you read the leaflet, it says you shouldn’t feel forced to tell your partner you’re HIV positive, if you’re indulging in low-risk activities like kissing and sex with a condom. It’s a difficult question, I feel, and the situation is different depending on whether you’re married or not. Surely, Marriage should be based on trust. But non-commital sex, on the other hand, is mistrustful anyway.http://www.ippf.org/sites/default/files/healthy_happy_hot.pdf

So if you’re partner does not trust you enough to marry him, though you might in some cases even have his baby, then why does he expect you to tell him your deepest secrets? When you have casual sex, you risk HIV and STI anyway. Why would you trust anyone? On the other hand, if an atheist’s sanity depends on getting some decent sex, say they risk becoming suicidally lonely if the partner splits up with them over the issue. Then is a small risk of HIV not acceptable for the sake of “love”?

Truth is I’m not  sure what’s the right answer. But I think HIV victims mental state should be also considered. Let me put it like this: I find less justice in condemning an AIDS patient to loneliness, than in subjecting the community to the risk of infection, albeit small…for was that very community not to blame for that person’s condition in the first place? Why should only the patient be punished?

So this is the equation: 

Condition 1: no legislation against HIV transmission through wilful non-disclosure. Consequence for the larger community- no free sex. Consequence for HIV patient-sex.

Condition 2: legislation against HIV transmission through wilful non-disclosure. Consequence for he HIV sufferer- no sex. Consequence for the larger community- free sex.

Why choose conditions two over one, when it victimises the patient?

Answer this perhaps: what if you had multiple partners and were high risk for HIV. But you don’t bother checking, because obviously, you’d rather not know. You then infect a partner. Still culpable homicide?

That’s why proper justice only gets done in Heaven. And believe me, they’ll all be culpable. 

HIV or not, all fornicators will be guilty of grave sin.

The post The Problem with Homosexuality appeared first on RespondIslam.net.

“Attribute” is the First Question of Theology

Let us first attempt to see for ourselves how theological language might evolve from an initial simple God- concept. The first thing we might ask is how do we describe God. That is after all, the central aim of all theology. We describe him by his attributes, of course, after all that is literally what it means to describe something. So if we were not to presume any theological position in our inquiry, we would attribute things like life, love, goodness, beauty, truth, wisdom, mercy, kindness, strength and power, and would seem to cover most of the essentials for a reasonably satisfactory picture of a powerful being. What next, are we done? Well, either there is nothing else to say, or if we do want to write a second sentence in our theology book, it needs to address the first sentence- that dose it mean for God to have attributes. We started with one thing- God, and our first sentence introduced another thing- “attribute”. We’ve nothing else to discuss except those two concepts, and we’ve nothing to discuss about those two concepts apart from their relation to each other. So what could the possible relation be between God and his attributes? We’ve only a few possibilities, either they are abstract and unreal? If real then are they within him or without him as though in orbit, or the balls of a juggler. If they they are within God then are they the same thing with God, or different from him? Finally are they the same with one another or different from each other.

Summarizing Islam’s Tawhid Models

Most modern Muslims I have tried questioning regarding this seem say that the attributes of God are unreal or abstract, which then obviates all the other questions: “They’re just what Allah is like, you are not your attributes are you?” Well, are you? The first centuries of Islam were actually filled with intense theological effort, debate and controversy regarding this very issue of the attributes of God and their relation to him. The greatest Muslim thinkers fell into various camps regarding this issue, resulting in the main schools of Islamic thought (madhab). That modern position I just describe, that of the denial of the relevance of the question, would fall into one of the lines of thought that we will shortly describe. My contention here, as we examine these differing views is that every one of the schools, with the exception of the Mu’tazalis that make positive assertions about this relation are left with the problem of multiple eternal entities. The Mu’tazalis, one the other hand, held that the attributes are one and the same with God. This position has since been largely abandoned, quite likely because, as we shall see, its resemblance to Christianity is too close for comfort. This is a list of all the versions of how Islam understands monotheism:

1. The Mu’tazalis characteristically held that the attributes of God are identical with his essence. There are some variations of this which we shall see later in the discussion.
2. Others grouped God’s attribtues into those of the Essence, and those that were not (or attributes of action). God’s Essence is God, so what is not his Essence is not God. Since it is also eternal, this posed the problem of arriving at a minimum of two eternal entities, likely more.
3. There are different versions of which attributes belong to which group. Major controversy over the categorization of word, speech, will, and also “eternity”. Some thinkers take the latter group to be created (including speech) and some accord two wills to God, one in each category.
4. Others made a distinction between the essence of God and the attributes themselves.
5. Others consider the reality of the body parts that the Qur’an assigns to God like hand, feet, face, fingers, eyes literally and as part of God’s essence.
6. Finally some (predominantly Shi’a but also others) adopted a Neo-Platonic model and posit that God does not have any attributes at all. His attributes are in a different entity altogether (called the “First Intellect).

Examining the Primary Muslim Sources

We now look at the primary Muslim sources themselves and we shall see how the controversies in early Islamic history paralleled the controversies in early Christianity. For example, those schools that hold that the attributes are “neither God nor apart from him” are parallel to Christian Modalism in making the distinctions lack reality, those that hold that the attributes are separate from the essence or that the attributes of action are separate from those of essence, and even more literally in Shi’i neo- Platonism can be seen to parallel Christian Emanationism or Subordinationism and so on.

The earliest scholars of Islam acknowledge the difficulty in explaining the reality of God’s attributes without introducing a notion of multiplicity in the deity, and multiple alternatives are proposed to avoid this problem, either that they are that they are the same as God’s essence, or the same as each other, or that they are only applicable to God in a manner of negation or even in a metaphorical manner, and some say that these questions should not even be asked.

Later thinkers from other schools begin to make a distinction between the attributes that relate to the divine essence and those that relate merely to his relation to creatures. The question is raised as to the reality of these attributes which only arise in interaction and not in essence: nothing is contingent in God, so can we really say that he has contingent attributes at all, or is this mere words with not referent in reality, rather only meant to denote perceived effects of God in creation. This is important, because in this some of the prime virtues of God risk being relegated to non-being, which would mean that he hasn’t got them.

Significantly, even the Will of God is called into question because after all God wills interaction with creatures and creation itself, so some place this aspect of willing in the second category, the attributes of action rather than of essence. Others held that there are two types of will in God and still others held that willing is not one of God’s attributes at all. The controversy over the speech of God is part of this and led to a bitter controversy as to whether the Qur’an itself, which is in some sense the word of Allah is created or eternal. “Knowledge” is taken to be an attribute of the essence of God by Ghazali who comes much later. Al-Kindi takes a similar view to the Mu’tazalites, he is taken to be the first genuine systematic philosopher in Islam.

Mu’tazalites: Similarity with Trinitarian Christianity

First we look at how the Mu’tazalis identify the attributes of God with his essence itself:

“According to the traditional account, the founder of the Mu’tazilite school was Wasil b. ‘Ata’ (d.748), originally a pupil of al-Hasan al-Bari, who was a central figure in the history of Islamic jurisprudence, asceticism, and theological dogma (45)…Jahm b.Safwan (d.745), a contemporary of Wasil, and founder of the rival Jahmite school, appears to have held the view that God’s attributes are identical with His essence, another cornerstone of Mu’tazilite doctrine and the key to their claim to be the only true Muwah-hidun, (confessors of divine unity, a name also applied to Jahm and his followers)…. Jahm and Wasil, the founders of the two earliest schools of systematic theology, dealt with roughly the same cluster of theological problems that split the Muslim community asunder as early as the beginning of the eighth century.” (Fakhry, 47)

The more abstract theological assumptions of the Mu’tazilah revolved round their second major thesis, the unqualified unity of God (tauhid), which was aimed primarily at the Manichaeans on the one hand and the anthropomorphists and other Attributists (Sifatiyah) on the other (…) Thus the references in Koran (75:22) to the possibility of seeing God, or His face (55:27), as well as His “sitting upon the throne” (7:54,20:5), are either taken at their face value, without much ado, or the logical inference is made that God is possessed of corporeal and other characteristics which He shares with man. (Fakhry, 57)

The less extreme literalists and Traditionists were content to assert that God was endowed with a series of attributes, distinct from His essence, which were essential reduced in time to the seven attributes of power, knowledge, life, will, hearing, sight, and speech, stated to subsist eternally in God. To these, other active attributes such as creation, justice, munificence, etc., were added.

The Mu’tazilah, despite the allegation of their adversaries that they were out to strip God of all positive characteristics, appear to have simply sought to safeguard the unity and simplicity of God. The thesis of a series of positive attributes distinct from His essence and inhering eternally in Him tended to jeopardize this in so far as it involved, according to them, a plurality of eternal entities other than He.” (Fakhry, 58 quoting Al-Shahrastani, al-Milal, p. 30.)

Fakhry quotes Ash’ari writing about the Mu’tazalis. This is because there are few extant writings of the Mu’tazalis themselves and the evidence for their thought comes from these secondary sources, often their contemporary opponents like Ash’ari and Shahrastani:

“Even the chief antagonists of the Mu’tazilah, al-Ash’ari; brings out vividly, in his account of their view of the unity of God, their preoccupation with safeguarding His otherness and His transcendence above everything else:

“The Mu’tazilites are unanimous that God is unlike anything else and that He hears and sees and is neither body, ghost, corpse, form, flesh, blood, substance, nor accident and that He is devoid of color, taste, smell, tactual traits, heat, cold, moistness, dryness, height, width, or depth…,and that He is indivisible…and is not circumscribed by place or subject to time…and that none of the attributes of the creature which involve contingency can be applied to Him…,and that He cannot be perceived by the senses or assimilated to mankind at all…,and that He has always been the First, prior to all contingent things…and has always been knowing, powerful, and living and will always be so. Sight cannot perceive Him…and the imagination cannot encompass Him…the only eternal Being, beside whom there is no other eternal being, and no God or associate to share His realm with Him.” (Fakhry, 58,59, quoting Al-Ash’ari, Maqalat, pp. 156-57)

Fakhry describes how the Mu’tazalis found it useful to incorporate classical Greek thought into their theological pursuit:

In rationalizing their view of the unity of God, the Mu’tazilite doctors were apparently influenced by the Aristotelian concept of God as the pure actuality of thought, in whom essence and attribute, thought and the object of thought, are identified, as well as by the Plotinian view that God, who transcends thought and being altogether, can only be known negatively. Curiously enough, however, this view is attributed in the Arabic sources to a more ancient Greek authority than either Aristotle or Plotinus, namely, Empedocles, generally credited by Muslim authors with the doctrine of the unity of essence and attribute in God.” (59, Fakhry quoting Sa’id, Tabaqat al-Umam, p. 6; al-Shahrastani, al-Milal, p. 317)

Peter Adamson describes how the thought of al-Kindi (800-870CE), an early scholar and theologian of Islam aligned closely with the Mu’tazalites:

“Generalizations about Mu‘tazilite doctrines must be made with caution, since even restricting our attention to those who worked before or during al-Kindi’s time, there is a wide array of various views held by thinkers associated with the Mu‘tazilite tradition. Still, the rough outlines of a shared theory of language emerge from later reports of their doctrines. This theory was put forward primarily in the service of a negative theology that originated with the putative founder of Mu‘tazilism, Wasil ibn Ata. According to al-Shahrastani, Wasil argued that to posit an eternal divine attribute would be to assert the existence of a second God. (Adamson, 50: ref- Al-Shahrastani, Kitab al-Milal wa al-nihal, edited by ‘A. al-Wakil in two volumes (Cairo, 1968), p. 46.12-13. See further Nader, Le système philosophique des Mu‘tazila, pp. 49-50.)

“ Ab‚ al-Hudhayl affirms both that God’s attributes are the same as Him (al-sifat… hiya al-bari’) (ref: al-Ash’ari Maqalat, 177.14-15 [VE XXI.62] and, that His attributes are not distinct from one another (Al-Ash‘ari 177.15-16 [VE XXI.62]: “If someone asked (Abu Hudhayl): ‘is [God’s] knowledge [God’s] power?’ He said, ‘it is false to say that it is [His] power, and false to say that it is other than [His] power.’” See also 484.15-485.6 [VE XXI.64].) Ab‚ al-Hudhayl and other Mu‘tazilites also suggest that, unlike created things, God may have attributes by virtue of His “essence”(dhat) (ref: For this position in al-Nazzam see al-Ash‘ari, Maqalat 486.10-14 [VE XXII.173]. For Abbad ibn Sulayman, see 165.14ff [VE XXV.27], and also Daiber, Das theologisch-philosophische System des Mu‘ammar, pp. 203ff. Similarly Dirar says that God is “knowing” and so on “through Himself” (li-nafsihi): al-Ash‘ari Maqalat, 281.14.) (Adamson, 53)

“Usually al-Kindi defines essential properties as follows: a thing is essentially F if it would be destroyed by becoming not-F” (…) Mu‘ammar ibn ‘Abbad al-Sulami is said to have held that God has a word “not in truth (fi al-haqiyya) but only metaphorically (‘ala al-majaz),” and the same contrast was used by the early theologian Jahm ibn Safwan. In part al-Kindi’s solution to the problem of divine attributes agrees with the Mu‘tazila, by associating the attributes with God’s “self” or “essence” (dhat). (Adamson 55, see fn.34,35)

“This treatment of divine attributes shows al-Kindi responding to the Mu‘tazila and even agreeing  with them in spirit. Yet it also shows him giving arguments based on the tradition of falsafa rather than kalam, and expanding on that tradition with a theory of his own devising.” (p57)

Note that in addition to these sources and Ash’ari’s Maqalat, we can see Mut’azali teaching also quoted by al-Ghazali in the section to follow a bit later on.

Non-Reality of Attributes

However they also felt the need to explain just what the attributes meant, and they offered four possible explanations:

In rejecting the thesis of a series of eternal attributes inherent in God, the Mu’tazilah hoped to vindicate His absolute unity. The Koranic view of a personal Deity of such overwhelming concreteness, however, made it virtually impossible to give up altogether the positive attributes of God, especially that of power. Recognizing this difficulty, many Mu’tazilite scholars sought earnestly to rationalize the divine attributes in a manner which, while it safeguarded God’s unity, did not at the same time jeopardize the fullness of His Godhead. Four different attempts to wrestle with this problem are distinguished by al-Ash’ari in his account of Mu’tazilite doctrine:

• Some held, he states, that in saying that God has knowledge, power, or life, etc., we simply assert that He is knowing, powerful, living, etc. and that consequently He is not ignorant, impotent, or dead, etc., since this would not become Him. This is reported as the view of al-Nazzam (ref: Al-Baghdadi, Usul al-Din, p. 91, and Maqalat, p. 486.) and the majority of the Mu’tazilah of both the Schools of Baghdad and Basra.
• Others are said to have interpreted the statements that God has knowledge or power as referring not to the two attributes of knowledge or power as applied to God, but to the objects thereof.
• Some, who included the famous Abu’l-Hudhail and his followers, conceded the fact that God has power, knowledge, life, etc., but only in the sense that His knowledge, power, etc. are identical with Him (ref: Usul, p.91; al-Shahrastani, al-Milal, p. 34; and al-Khayyat, Kitab al-Intisar, p. 59)
• Finally, some contested the very legitimacy of stating the question in these terms and held that it is equally wrong to say that God has power, knowledge, life, etc., or that He does not. This appears to have been the view of another leading doctor, ‘Abbad b. Sulayman, and his followers.

(Fakhry, 59, quoting Al-Ash’ari, Maqalat, pp. 177 f.; also pp. 483 ff.; and Wensinck, Muslim Creed, pp. 75 f.)

At the same time, other theologians were attempting to offer further clarifications and perspectives on the problem:

Other theologians, prompted by the desire to overcome the difficulty of predicating positive attributes of God, resorted to other dialectical devices. Thus Ibn al-Ayadi, a contemporary of al-Ash’ari, argued that attributes are to be predicated of God only figuratively or metaphorically. (ref: al-Ash’ari Maqalat p.184) Another notorious but subtle dialectician, Abu’I-Husain al-Salihr (ninth century), maintained that there is nothing more to the statement that God is knowing, powerful, living, etc. than the recognition that He is distinct from other beings so qualified or the confirmation of the substance of the koranic verse that “He is unlike anything else” (Koran 42:11), a thesis which reduced the attributes of God to empty verbal utterances (Fakhry, 60)

Later Mu‘tazilites agreed, often providing additional arguments for the point, that God’s oneness prevents our positing real and distinct divine attributes. So far, this seems not unlike what we find in al-Kindi. But what do the Mu‘tazila mean when they say that there are no such divine attributes? Later, hostile authors like al- Shahrastani are quick to accuse the Mu‘tazila of ta‘til, the rejection of the attributes authorized by the Qur’an (p51 Adamson)

Priority, Distinction, Createdness of Attributes- late Mu’tazali, Ash’ari, Hanafi

Some theologians begin to teach that the attributes as not something in God but rather mere “effects” (of God) in creatures. This begins to corrode the reality of the attributes altogether, since it implies they inhere in contingent things only, and are thereby contingent themselves. This is the reason we will often hear Muslims ask about the attribute of creation, the first of such attributes, when challenged about the possibility of love in TM “well God was eternally creator, was he not, although he did not create? So why could he also not have the ability to love although there was no one to love?” Well not according to these thinkers, creation for them is a contingent attribute, which is how a Christian would reply anyway, though not with regards to love:

Later doctors, such as al-Juba’i (d. 915), the famous teacher of al-Ash’ari, while asserting the attributes of God, simply reduced them to corollaries or, if our authorities are correct, effects of the essence of God, and denied that some of those attributes (such as hearing and seeing) could be predicated of God unless they are in an active relationship with their object or subject matter (i.e., the thing heard or seen) (ref: al-Ash’arT, Maqalat 175 f. 492, 522; also al-Baghdadr, Usul al-Din, p.92)

This original view would have rendered the attributes of God purely contingent accidents of His essence, dependent as they were held to be on their contingent object…(Fakhry, 60)

“A leading Mu’tazilite doctor, Abu Hashim (d.933), son of al-Juba’i, refined his father’s view by declaring the attributes of God to be states or conditions (singular: hal) of His essence, which are neither existent nor non-existent, or even knowable except through the entity to which they belong, but are nevertheless that which sets one entity apart from another. However, unlike other exponents of this view, Abu Hashim appears to have assigned a certain priority to some attributes, such as life, over others, such as knowledge, power or will, which were stated to be concomitant conditions or effects of life (ref. al- Shahrastani either Nihayat or Usul al-Din (I couldn’t follow which ibid. it referred to, p132)

It is not clear what Abu Hashim and others such as the Ash’arite al-Baqillani might have gained from this peculiar thesis, except possibly the recognition of the priority of essence over attribute in God, in the first instance, and the priority of certain essential attributes over others, in the second instance …

…Even when applied to God, the concept of eternity (qidam) was viewed with suspicion by some Mu’tazilite scholars, who were anxious to remove the barest hint of plurality in God. Thus Abu’l-Hudhail retained the concept and subsumed it under the same category as the other attributes, which he identified, as we have seen, with the essence of God. Mu’ammar made its application to God conditional upon the inception of contingent entities (huduth), whereas others challenged the validity of this approach to the problem and even denied that God could in any way be described as eternal (Ref: Al-Ash’ari, Maqalat, p. 18o.)

However, with regard to the other attributes of God, the Mu’tazilites made a distinction between essential and active attributes (…) Active attributes, on the other hand, such as love, will, munificence, speech (p.61) mercy, justice, and creation, could be affirmed or denied of God (Maqalat 187,508f.) This amounted to the admission that the latter class of attributes, which are in some relation to their object, are not essential to our conception of God, nor do they belong eternally to Him, as the former class does, but are merely accidental or contingent.

The two attributes over which the fiercest controversy raged in theological and philosophical circles were will and speech. In view of the logical correlation between the divine will and its contingent or created object, a number of Mu’tazilites, particularly the Basrah section of the school, with Abu’l-Hudhail at its head, declared the divine will to be a contingent accident (hadith), and as such to inhere in no substratum, since it could not without logical inconsistency be said to inhere in God Himself (ref: Al-Baghdadi, Usuul al-Din, pp. 90 f., 1o3; al-Ash’ari, Maqalat, pp. 189 f., 510). The head of the Baghdad section, Bishr b. al-Mu’tamir, and his followers, however, distinguished between an essential and an active will in God (Al-Ash’ari, Maqiilat, p. 190.), thereby emphasizing the bipolarity of this elusive concept in its double relation to God on the one hand and to the creature on the other. Others, such as al-Nazzam and al-Ka’bi, went one step further and denied altogether that this attribute could apply to God (Fakhry 61,62).

From the Ash’ari school, represented by thinkers like Juwayni and Ghazali are less literalist and so leaves out the body parts of the former school. Further the attributes are “not the essence”, rather “additional to it”. Ghazali mentions the Mu’tazalite teaching regarding the attributes including knowledge being no different from the essence with the exception of the will and the speech which are actually created attributes. Although the attributes are not the essence, yet they are said to subsist in the essence “whether in a receptacle or not”. Ghazali states all God’s attributes are eternal while expressing there being some “disagreement” in this respect with regards to the attributes related to action like creating, providing, misguiding:

“The seven attributes (earlier he has enumerated these as knowing, powerful, living, willing, hearing, seeing and speaking- my addition), which we established are not the essence. Rather, they are additional to the essence. According to us, the maker of the world (Exalted is he) is a knower with knowledge, living with life, powerful with power, and so on with respect to all the attributes. The Muʿtazilites and the philosophers deny this. They say: “The Eternal is one essence, and it is not possible to posit several eternal essences. The proof for these attributes establishes only that He is a knower, powerful, and living, and not [that there are attributes of] knowledge, life, and power.

Let us focus on the attribute of knowledge, so that we do not have to repeat the discussion for all the attributes. They maintain that being a knower is a state of the essence and is not an attribute. The Muʿtazilites, however, make an exception for two attributes. They say that God is a willer with will that is additional to the essence, and He is a sayer with speech that is additional to the essence, that He creates will not in any receptacle, and that He creates speech in a corporeal body, and hence He is considered a sayer through this speech. The philosophers, on the other hand, extend their inference to the case of the will. As for speech, they say He is a sayer in the sense that He creates in the soul of the prophet a hearing of arranged sounds, either while he is asleep or while he is awake. These sounds have no existence outside the soul, but only in the hearing of the prophet.” (Ghazali,184,185)
“we claim that all of these attributes subsist in God’s essence, that none of them could subsist in something other than his essence, whether the attribute is in a receptacle or not…all the divine attributes are eternal” (Ghazali, 194)
“the names that are derived for God from these attributes are true of him eternally- pre-eternally and post-eternally. He is eternally living, knowing, powerful, hearing, seeing and speaking. As for the names that are derived for him from acts such as “the provider”, “the creator”, “the exalter”, and “the debaser”, there is disagreement whether they are true of him eternally or not” (Ghazali, 213)

Literalism- Body Parts as Attributes

Of the Sunni schools, the Hanbalis, prominent among whom are Ahman b.Hanbal & Abu Ya’la place attributes like living, knowing, power, willing, perceiving (sight), speaking, hearing, willing, hands, face, feet and shin within the attributes of Essence, while those of judging, providing, forgiving, punishing, fashioning rewarding, honoring, creating are placed among the attributes of action. Here’s the only quote I can find at the moment, although its admittedly not very specific on the matter:

“God hears and does not doubt, sees and does not doubt, knows and is not ignorant, is generous and not stingy, Clement and not rushed, preserving and not for getting, near and not inobservant. He moves, speaks, looks, laughs, joys, and loves. He loves and hates, detests and is pleased. He is angered and displaced, has mercy and forgives. He makes destitute, gives, and withholds. He descends every night to the lowest heaven however he wills. He is the Hearing and the Observing (Q 42:11) The servants hearts are between two of the most Merciful’s fingers. He turns them over as he wills and fills them with whatever he desires. He created Adam with his Hand in his Image. The heavens and the earth and on the day of resurrection in his Hand. He will put his Foot in the Fire, causing it to recoil. He will remove a number from the fire with his Hand. The people of Paraside will look at his Face, see Him, and honour him” (Ahman b. Hanbal (d.855) Creed no.1, tr. Christopher Melchert).

Agnosticians: Hanafi-Maturidis, Ash’aris?

The Hanafi-Maturidi thinkers al Nasafi are again similar in their distribution of attributes. They are non-comittal as to whether the attributes are God or not and make the classic agnostic assertion “they are not he and not other than he”. They hold that the attributes of action are eternal:

“The names and attributes of God  are not He and not other than He…the attributes of God’ actions (…) – are all eternal and everlasting. They are not He and not other than He.” (Abu Mu’in al-Nasafi, Bahr al-kalam (1995), 90-91)

The Neo-Platonists- Shi’as

Not only are the Shi’as non insignificant numbers in the Islamic world today, in early Islam their numbers were much higher. Significantly, Shi’as adopt a Neo-Platonic model

Summarizing the Difficulties of Islamic TM

The harmonization we found in Christianity is simply not possible in TM models like Islam, where the attributes of essence cannot be harmonized with those of action, nor can attributes of essence like the Word, Knowledge (or love, which is not of the essence in Islam) be harmonized with each other or with the Divine essence itself. Thus there remain not just one but three levels of distinctions in the Nature of God in this form of TM: The distinction between the attributes of action and essence, the distinction between the individual attributes themselves, and also a distinction between the attributes and the essence. In summary, TM theology leaves open the question of distinctions that are attributable to the divine essence, because in the absence of plurality of Persons, there is simply no harmonization tool available to it, as we will describe in the section on Christianity which follows. What Christianity does is that it makes it possible that distinctions in God are made possible by relations between the persons rather than divisions within the substance. Those distinctions are not to do with anthropomorphic qualities, rather with the qualities that make God Eternal.

Trinitarian thinking does not Encounter these Issues

How does this relate to the Trinitarian distinctions? Because there is love between the persons and love is the basis for the personal relations, the actions which require interactions do not require to be external to God, because interaction is the essence of God himself. So already we can see that the necessity of the distinction between attributes of essence and action are being obviated. Attributes like mercy, forgiveness and the ability to create pose specific problems, however with love what we have been able to do it to ascribe at least one essential attribute to God and that one attribute is an interaction, or an interactive attribute. If we were to make the simple assumption that in God every attribute is the same as itself, that would mean that every attribute in God is the same as the power of the personal interaction which we have referred to as “love”. Because each of the persons are equal and consubstantial, they all possess that attribute in an identical manner without dividing or differentiating it “between” themselves”. Thus we have a God whose essence is an interaction and we have no need to make a substantial distinction between the two in order for God to have the capacity to interact. This itself is an incredible situation- if we do not presume the necessity of creation, we have just described a fully independent and active deity, simple in form with no complexity and therefore seemingly a perfect model for monotheism. The problems of describing the attributes related to created things, beginning with creation itself can be relegated to “non-essential” and are not a challenge or a defeater to the viability of the monotheistic model. God has one attribute, the attribute of Divinity itself, which is impossible for us to comprehend, leave alone divide. Trinitarianism obviates the need for any division in God, because distinction is provided for by the Persons.

Only Christianity truly says anything about God at all

Christianity requires the acceptance of only ONE fact about the Nature of God, and a further fact that relates to his interaction with Creation. With regards to the former, that one God can be tri-personal, and with regards to the latter, that God can become his creation. Every other belief of Christianity is an entailment of these two. And yet, out of all the world religions, only Christianity truly says something about God at all.

Some religions might appear simple when in fact they merely achieve an illusion of simplicity by providing no facts about the Nature of God. For example, the only positive assertion that Islam makes with regards to the Nature of God is that there is indeed a God. With regards to God’s interaction with Creation, all Islam says is that God forgives sin. There is no indication as to whether this requires a real personal interaction with Creation in order that this be brought about. There is quite a lot of disagreement among Muslims as to whether or not God can even enter creation in the first place. With regards to describing God, all the assertions are in the form of superlatives like mercy, strength and knowledge, all of which in turn, are necessitated by the absurdity of their absence- how could God possibly be weak, irate and “thick”? Elaborating on these superlatives is merely devotional writing, and and entailment of the felt-duty to say positive things about God. Agnosticism with regards to the Nature of God and his mode of interaction with us is perfectly understandable. However agnosticism cannot assert that it is “better” than any other position, the arguments can only be based upon personal incredulity.

The post The Search for Tawhid appeared first on RespondIslam.net.

The debate over Allah’s body/body parts raged in early Islam and still remains unresolved, largely due to a number of scriptural passages and texts seeming affirm this. One of the main conerns was that this would seem to contradict the Qur’anic teaching related to God’s transcendence that “nothing is comparable to/ there is nothing like God”. The opposite of transcendance is called “immanence”, which merely means the literal presence of God within creation. Muslims typically worry that immanence and transcendence might not mix, that they might be mutually exclusive states.

These questions are significant in polemics, where Muslims might want to use the argument against immanence to disprove the Incarnation. However there are several Qur’anic verses and traditions to the contrary, as we shall see. Nor does the Qur’an have any clear statement against immanence, nor also against one other property- omnipotence. Just as with immancence, omnipresence also increases the prior probability of an Incarnation- if God is already everywhere, he could also be somewhere, and this too is typically denied by Muslims polemicists.

Another reason for the Muslim concerns might be a certain degree of embarrasment: were God truly able to “come a-knocking”, it is hard to see why he does not do so for Muhammed, only the Biblical prophets and Jesus, as we shall also see.

However there is a deeper significance to Allah’s literal absence from the physical realm, one that is related to the very relevance of Islam’s Allah, and both in Heaven and on Earth. Islam does not require the real presence of the deity within the physical realm because the only interaction that is believed with dogmatic necessity is that with the book. There is no dogma of grace as with Christianity where there is a direct interaction of the deity with the human soul leading to its transformation, and nor is there a doctrine of theosis and so on. The Incarnation of Christ is just one more level of interaction of the deity with the fleshly realm, for a deity who already has an intimate interaction with the people in the Old Testament “dwelling with his people” and the Holy Spirit who already indwells the prophets. In Islam the onus is upon the believers themselves once again, to believe or not to believe, to repent or not to repent and so on.

Does Allah have a literal Body/ Body Parts?

In this article we look at the problematic implications of the famous “Shin-Allah” verse of the Qur’an 68:42 as well as related verse and traditions, identify potential problematic implications and provide a simple Christian interpretation of these themes. The question of whether or not Allah has literal body parts has been a major issue of debate with Islam from the earliest times, while in Christianity this is hardly a problem, because the real Humanity of Christ defines it anyway. That is to say, if Jesus is a real Man, he has a literal Body.

Allah to bare his Shin and Shape on the Day

The Shin of Allah

Verse 68:42 of the Qur’an seemingly indicates that Judgement Day will be ushered in by the event of Allah baring his shin to everyone. Although it does not say “my shin”, it is hard to see who else’s shin it could possibly be referring to as the “curtain-raiser” as it were, inducing prostation from his loyal followers:

“(Remember) the Day when the Shin shall be laid bare (i.e. the Day of Resurrection) and they shall be called to prostrate (to Allah), but they (hypocrites) shall not be able to do so” (Q 68:42)

In any case, the related hadith is quite specific that it is indeed Allah’s own shin in view here:

“We said, “O Allah’s Messenger! Shall we see our Lord on the Day of Resurrection?” He said, “Do you have any difficulty in seeing the sun and the moon when the sky is clear?” We said, “No.” He said, “So you will have no difficulty in seeing your Lord on that Day as you have no difficulty in seeing the sun and the moon (in a clear sky)…

…Then the Almighty will come to them in a shape other than the one which they saw the first time, and He will say, ‘I am your Lord,’ and they will say, ‘You are not our Lord.’ And none will speak: to Him then but the Prophets, and then it will be said to them, ‘Do you know any sign by which you can recognize Him?’ They will say. ‘The Shin,’ and so Allah will then uncover His Shin whereupon every believer will prostrate before Him…” (excerpt, Bukhari 7439)

As we can see in the above and following, the concern revolves around correctly identifying God. Apparently on Judgement Day when all of Mankind is gathered before God, Islam is still concerned about who is convening the gathering.

Issues with the translation

There should be no confusion about the fact that the literal meaning is shin. That means, as with everything else, that whether it is a metaphor or not depends upon the context. This is the lexical entry for it: http://lexicon.quranic-research.net/data/12_s/253_swq.html.

The Lane lexicon mentions ” كَشَفَ عَنْ سَاقِهِ [lit. He uncovered his shank; meaning † he prepared himself for difficulty] (…) Thus, the saying يَوْمَ يُكْشَفُ عَنْ سَاقٍ, (Ṣ, Ḳ, TA,) in the Ḳur [lxviii. 42], (Ṣ, TA,) [lit. On a day when a shank shall be uncovered,] means † on a day when difficulty, or calamity, shall be disclosed. (I’Ab, Mujáhid, Ṣ, Ḳ, TA.)”

We can see that the lexicon is employing the Qur’anic usage here, which means that it is probably incorporating the views of commentators like Ibn Kathir. Thus the lexicon is probably limited to Islamic sources in this case and would the case in many cases, since pre-Islamic Arabic literature of even grammar is quite sparse. This is the limitation of the lexicon in such cases of difficult translations, it is going to use Muslims scholars. The commentators go with the metaphoric translation for the baring of the shin beign linked to calamities in general. The problem with this is that it doesn’t take into account that the verse is linked to the “authentic” hadithic narrations where the shin is linked to the very identity of Allah. Ibn Kathir himself narrates a hadith which itself does not sound metaphoric at all. Here is the section from his commentary on the verse:

“The Day when the Shin shall be laid bare and they shall be called to prostrate themselves, but they shall not be able to do so.) meaning, the Day of Judgement and the horrors, earthquakes, trials, tests and great matters that will occur during it. Al-Bukhari recorded that Abu Sa`id Al-Khudri said that he heard the Prophet saying, “Our Lord will reveal His Shin, and every believing male and female will prostrate to Him. The only people who will remain standing are those who prostrated in the worldly life only to be seen and heard (showing off). This type of person will try to prostrate at that time, but his back will made to be one stiff plate (the bone will not bend or flex).” This Hadith was recorded in the Two Sahihs and other books from different routes of transmission with various wordings. It is a long Hadith that is very popular.”

The rest of Allah’s Shape

Here not only the shin, but the whole shape is used for identification:

“Narrated Abu Huraira (…) he who used to worship the sun, will follow it, and he who used to worship the moon will follow it, and he who used to worship false deities will follow them; and then only this nation (i.e., Muslims) will remain, including their hypocrites. Allah will come to them in a shape other than they know and will say, ‘I am your Lord.’ They will say, ‘We seek refuge with Allah from you. This is our place; (we will not follow you) till our Lord comes to us, and when our Lord comes to us, we will recognize Him. Then Allah will come to then in a shape they know and will say, “I am your Lord.’ They will say, ‘(No doubt) You are our Lord,’ and they will follow Him…” (Bukhari 6573)

Here, we are given identifiers over and above what we have in the Qur’an, where we only find the shin. Apparently here Muslims will identify Allah because he is a two/more-eyed man. They will apparently have difficulty differentiating him from a miserable-sounding hen-toed, woolly-haired, one-eye-blind monstrosity:

“Narrated Ubadah ibn as-Samit: The Prophet said: I have told you so much about the Dajjal (Antichrist) that I am afraid you may not understand. The Antichrist is short, hen-toed, woolly-haired, one-eyed, an eye-sightless, and neither protruding nor deep-seated. If you are confused about him, know that your Lord is not one-eyed.” (Grade Sahih, Sunan abi Dawud 4320)

Man- made in the Image of God

A single Qur’anic verse of somewhat obscure meaning seems to imply man is created in the image of God. Others have famously used this to signify what is called the “fitrah”. The Arabic reads “fitrata l-lahi allati fatara l-nasa”- which would seem to literally translate “the nature (?) of God in which he has created man”. The actual meaning of fitrah in the verse is difficult to ascertain, because every one of the times that the f-t-r root appears in the Qur’an, it is related to the act of creating, the noun form fitrata appearing only once in the entire book. As it is, the syntax of the verse would necessitate that there is something pertaining to God upon which hsi creation of man is based.

The commentators have to do a bit more work to extract the current Muslim understanding of “fitrah” from this verse, a concept that was elucidated by a much later commentator, none other than ibn Taymiyya himself, something that does note emerge from a surface reading of the text:

“So set thy purpose (O Muhammad) for religion as a man by nature upright – the nature (framed) of Allah, in which He hath created man. There is no altering (the laws of) Allah’s creation. That is the right religion, but most men know not -” (Q 30:30, Pickthall)

We even have hadith saying that men were created in the image of God anyway, which lends support to the claim of Allah having these human body parts. This is still a remarkable hadith, given that we are told repeatedly in the Qur’an that nothing is comparable to Allah:

“Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, “Allah created Adam in His picture, sixty cubits (about 30 meters) in height. When He created him, He said (to him), “Go and greet that group of angels sitting there, and listen what they will say in reply to you, for that will be your greeting and the greeting of your offspring.” Adam (went and) said, ‘As-Salamu alaikum (Peace be upon you).’ They replied, ‘AsSalamu-‘Alaika wa Rahmatullah (Peace and Allah’s Mercy be on you) So they increased ‘Wa Rahmatullah’ The Prophet added ‘So whoever will enter Paradise, will be of the shape and picture of Adam Since then the creation of Adam’s (offspring) (i.e. stature of human beings is being diminished continuously) to the present time.” (Bukhari 6227, repeated in Muslim 2841)

There extremely strong attestation of the literal meaning of this in other hadith such as:

“When any one of you fights with his brother, he should avoid his face for Allah created Adam in His own image” (Muslim 2612e)

“Suwaid b. Muqarrin reported that he had a slave-girl and a person (one of the members of the family) slapped her, whereupon Suwaid said to him: Don’t you know that it is forbidden (to strike the) face. He said: You see I was the seventh one amongst my brothers during the lifetime of Allah’s Messenger, and we had but only one servant. One of us got enraged and slapped him. Thereupon Allah’s Messenger commanded us to set him free.” (Muslim 1658d)

and there are still others:

“Ibn Abi ‘Aasim narrated in al-Sunnah (517) that Ibn ‘Umar said: The Messenger of Allaah said: “Do not say ‘May Allaah deform your face’ [a form of cursing in Arabic], for the son of Adam was created in the image of the Most Merciful.” Shaykh ‘Abd-Allaah ibn al-Ghunaymaan said: “This hadeeth is saheeh and was classed as such by the imams and by Imam Ahmad and Ishaaq ibn Raahawayh. Those who classed it as da’eef have no evidence, except for the view of Ibn Khuzaymah, but those who classed it as saheeh are more knowledgeable than him. 

Ibn Abi ‘Aasim also narrated (516) that Abu Hurayrah said: The Messenger of Allaah said: “When any one of you fights let him avoid the face, for Allaah created Adam in the image of His Face.” Shaykh al-Albaani said: its isnaad is saheeh.”

Al-Tirmidhi (3234) narrated from Ibn ‘Abbaas that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “My Lord came to me in the most beautiful image and said, ‘O Muhammad.’ I said, ‘Here I am at Your service, my Lord.’ He said, ‘What are the chiefs (angels) on high disputing about…’” Classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh al-Tirmidhi. 

Whence this Memory?- “Prequel Life”

In the hadith above we (Bukhari 7439) we saw: “Then the Almighty will come to them in a shape other than the one which they saw the first time…‘Do you know any sign by which you can recognize Him?’ They will say. ‘The Shin,’. Once again we see “shape other than they know… shape they know” in Bukhari 6573.

This indicates there was a previous encounter, prior to the final one on Judgement Day. Muslims believe this is a memory from a “prequel” to this life (as seen in DIsney movies Soul and Boss Baby), a state even prior to conception in the mother’s womb (this should make all abortion illegal in Islam, although this is not universally taught). According to this interpretation, Allah extracts souls from the loins of Adam, and makes this covenant with them.

“Prequel-Life” is not the surface interpretation of the text

The two Qur’anic verses from which all this takes off neither mention nor necessitate any such “prequel” state. The first is the so called “Ayat al-Mithaq” or “verse of the covenant”, a word which does not actually occur verse itself. However in it the “descendants” are “taken” not only “from the loins” of Adam, but also of his descendants or “children”. This is just a description of normal human descent, where offspring comes from the parents. The supposed “covenant” could then have taken place at any time in history, for example in the manner that God spoke to the Israelites through Moses. As it stands, this conversation actually comes at the end of a long section that is about the “people of Moses” and Allah’s supposed dealings with them, and so could be seen as referring to an earlier time:

“And [mention] when your Lord took from the children of Adam – from their loins – their descendants and made them testify of themselves, [saying to them], “Am I not your Lord?” They said, “Yes, we have testified.” [This] – lest you should say on the day of Resurrection, “Indeed, we were of this unaware.” (Q 7:172, SI)

The second is the “fitrah” verse, Q 30:30 which we discuss later, but the surface translation of which would be “merely” that God created man in his own image, a well-known Biblical allusion.

Hadith/ Commentators favour “Prequel Life”

In fact, the “prequel-life” interpretation is universally attested to in the early reports. So even though to my knowledge none of these reports go back to Muhammed himself, literally all of the sahaba/ tabie’en (first and second generation followersof Muhammad), the early “Salaf” hold to this view. Al-Tabari, hailed by many as the greatest early commentator meticulously documents no less than 40 traditions related to the matter complete with their chains of transmission (isnads) and has no hesitation in considering this tradition mutawattur (universally attested and beyond question). This is an example of one such tradition as narrated by none other than Ubayy Ibn Ka’ab:

“God gathered all human beings, divided them into different groups, granted them human form and the faculty of speech, made them enter into a covenant, and then making them witnesses against themselves He asked them: ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They replied: ‘Assuredly you are Our Lord.’ Then God told them: ‘I call upon the sky and the earth and your own progenitor, Adam, to be witness against you lest you should say on the Day of Judgement that you were ignorant of this. Know well that no one other than Me deserves to he worshipped and no one other than Me is your Lord. So do not ascribe any partner to Me. I shall send to you My Messengers who will remind you of this covenant which you made with Me. I shall send down to you My Books.’ In reply all said: ‘We witness that You are Our Lord and our Deity. We have no lord or deity other than You.’ (Ahmad b. Hanbal, Musnad, vol. 5, p. 135 – Ed.)

On the other hand the Mu’tazali with their emphasis on reason, deny such a literalist view, as does Ar-Razi and Zamakshari. On the other hand, an important later commentator, Ibn Taymiyya, although he is usually aligned with the traditions, in this case goes agains them uncharacteristically and supports a metaphorical take on the issue.

Lastly, I was greatly helped in this issue by a video from the Exploring Qur’an and Bible channel, which I will link below.

“Prequel-Life/Memory” struggles to be coherent

If we reflect on all the cognitive ramifications of such a complex term as “testifying to God”, we can appreciate why it seems out of place at a time even before life has actually begun. Decisions like these require informed consent, which a person can only give at the age of accountability, something attained after a minimum period of life experience. In fact many will require their entire adult lives to come to a realization of the importance of spiritual matters. On the other hand here it is as though there were an age of accountability prior to the actual age of accountability. Again, the reason a “testimony” regarding religion might be required in the first place, would be some challenge or doubt with regards to the existence of God or his authority. But these are things that we encounter in our earthly life anyway, why go through it all a second time?

Thus it is hard to see how such an event, whereby we see God and then immediately forget that we did see him, could have any impact upon how we are judged. Is God really going to challenge atheists based on something that they were not supposed to remember anyway? What exactly does this add to a spiritual model in which we learn about God from scirptures, traditions, prophets and so on?

Christianity never felt the need for such a state, nor is there Biblical precedent for it. The reason we feel a yearning for God could be merely intellectual, because it stands to reason and thus appeals to our intellect, or spiritual, because the omnipresent God enkindles a yearning in our soul for our benefit, and in this very life (this is called “prevenient grace”, or that our souls naturally are drawn to the one that created them, because it is in their very nature, of which we know scan little, but that God permeates our very being, and we have no existence other than “in him”. Think of how an orphan child longs to find their biological parents because he feels organically connected to them, or the awarenes of having shared an intimate physical association with them in the earliest time of their life. Either way, “prequel life” would seem redundant and mythological.

Listen to King David describe this intimacy with God in our creation:

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.My frame was not hidden from you  when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Ps.139:13-16)

Or with Jeremiah:

“before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations” (1:5)

Allah with a literal Body cannot be Transcendent

These verses and traditions also require that Allah have human-type body/ body parts. Clearly the hadith 7439 and speak of a “shape they knew from the first time they saw him”, plus man is made in his image, and then there is the hadith of the one-eyed man. The Athari school, possibly the oldest school of Islamic thought has no problem takingsuch a literalist view. A God who has a body has a shape, and is therefore limited to the space delineated by that shape.

Even if it is held that God only presents the optical illusion of such a shape to us for our sake, but the question would still remain- the reason that Allah is using the metaphor of the shin must be to indicate that he has a shin, what could Allah be telling us by this? A body part cannot be a metaphor for the absence of body parts, there has to be a point to a metaphor, while in this case it is statedly linked ot identity and so it could not be a metaphor.

The Qur’an asserts that nothing is “comparable” to God, but clearly this “comparability” could not be related to a lack of body parts, rather that the body parts themselves possess some incomparable excellence. This goes in line with other verses where Allah seems to move through time and space, first building the earth, then turning toward the heavens in order to create them, then in further apparent sequential act, proceeding to establish himself over his Throne. There are huge discussions in the Islamic world about the whole “where is Allah” question which we will not go into, but which derive from these very descriptions.

Confusion about who’s in charge in the after-life?

It does not make sense that there will be confusion about who is in charge of things when we wake up from death, and it is hard to see how the one that is calling the shots could be anyone but God in the after-life. Muslim theology paints a picture of the lost souls standing at a street corner cold and still confused an bewildered in death even as they were in life, watching the shadows go by that are still vying for their attention. like the one-eye-blind, hen-toed man with woolly hair.

Summary: the Problem of Q 68:42, and a simple Christian Interpretation of the Theme

In Summary, we are led to believe that on the Day of Judgement, Muslims will be able to know exactly what’s going on and whom to bow down to because they will recognise God’s shape and shin. This is because they have seen them before in their “prequel life”. We can summarise the problems with such a belief:

1. This is the problem of Q 68:42: If Allah is providing body parts and shape as his positive identifiers, then they are his identity, not metaphors. Try using a metaphor on your drving lisence, for example. But a God who has a shape is delimited by that shape. Such a God can therefore not be transcendent. There are further correlates to this form since we are also told that man is made in God’s image, and body parts like the human face are directly linked to their likeness to God.
2. There cannot be any theological significance to the supposed “prequel- life”, is the mainstream Islamic interpretation of Q 7:172 and 30:30. Further, the verses themselves does no necessitate such an interpretation. Something has seemingly gone awry in the vaunted Islamic traditions, or someone has taken too many artistic liberties here.
3. Finally, a Christian interpretation of these themes seems a much easier fit: Chrsitians believe that they will see the form of the Man-God Jesus on Judement Day, and they have seen in before, in his earthly sojourn. Thus both the transcendence and physicality of God is married in Christianity, whereas in Islam they remain the subject of a perpetual and age-old debate. The most probable reason is that some of the themes are taken from pre-Islamic Christian and Jewish tradition anyway.

Does Allah enter into creation?

No he does not

Although the affirmation is rather weak, this is still an important contradiction because most modern Muslims hold almost dogmatically to the absenteeism of Allah in creation. Below is the only verse from which this might be derived. there are seemingly two obvious motivations for this position. The first being that the possibility of God being able to enter creation might be seen to be allowing too much for the possibility of the truth of the Incarnation. The second is that this offers some explanation for the Muslims as to why God never speaks directly to Muhammed.

Nothing in this verse is a positive assertion about God not being able to enter creation. It is about speaking to God. It clearly leaves open the possibility that God be in creation and wearing a veil in it:

“It belongs not to any mortal that God should speak to him, except by revelation, or from behind a veil, or that He should send a messenger and he reveal whatsoever He will, by His leave; surely He is All-high, All-wise.” (Q 42:51)

Yes he does

There are many places in the Quran and the Hadith which require God to be present in creation.

Firstly, the creation account implies that Allah needs to be in creation, since following creating he “ascends the Throne”. Clearly he had to start somewhere in order to ascend it. He asserts that he created Adam “with his own two hands”. Whatever “hands” is meant to represent, it is hard to see how it does not represent contact.

God is said to speak “directly” with Moses, which is a unique gift that he is given (we can even ignore the fact that this is an obvious reflection of God speaking “face-to-face” with Moses). This is also confirmed in a famous hadith about intercession on Judgement Day, to be unique to Musa:

“and Messengers We have already told thee of before, and Messengers We have not told thee of; and unto Moses God spoke directly” (Q 4:164)

In this surah, the very fact that Allah has destroyed the mountain is here implying that it is his presence which has brought about the effect of destruction. Allah is not saying that he cannot be here, only that he cannot be seen, which was Moses’ request:

“And when Moses came to Our appointed time and his Lord spoke with him, he said, ‘Oh my Lord, show me, that I may behold Thee!’ Said He, ‘Thou shalt not see Me; but behold the mountain — if it stays fast in its place, then thou shalt see Me.’ And when his Lord revealed Him to the mountain He made it crumble to dust; and Moses fell down swooning. So when he awoke, he said, ‘Glory be to Thee! I repent to Thee; I am the first of the believers.'” (Q 7:143)

Further, only two verses later as if to cement the point made above, we receive proof that Allah is not necessarily universally corrosive as he calmly writes on stone tablets:

“Said He, ‘Moses, I have chosen thee above all men for My Messages and My Utterance; take what I have given thee, and be of the thankful.’ And We wrote for him on the Tablets of everything an admonition, and a distinguishing of everything: ‘So take it forcefully, and command thy people to take the fairest of it. I shall show you the habitation of the ungodly.” (Q 7:144,145)

Then we have other places where Allah is clearly in creation like:

“When he came to it, a voice cried from the right of the watercourse, in the sacred hollow, coming from the tree: ‘Moses, I am God, the Lord of all Being.'”(Q 28:30)

And again from the fire:

So, when he came to it, he was called: ‘Blessed is he who is in the fire, and he who is about it. Glory be to God, the Lord of all Being! Moses, behold, it is I, God, the All-mighty, the All-wise.” (Q 27:8,9)

The hadith (ibn Kathir, Qurtubi) both acknowledge that Allah is in the fire and does enter into creation. Further there is the hadith that states that Allah “descends” into the lowest Heaven in the last third of the night.

Here Allah is “with them”:
““God has numbered it, and they have forgotten it. God is witness over everything. Hast thou not seen that God knows whatsoever is in the heavens, and whatsoever is in the earth? Three men conspire not secretly together, but He is the fourth of them, neither five men, but He is the sixth of them, neither fewer than that, neither more, but He is with them, wherever they may be; then He shall tell them what they have done, on the Day of Resurrection. Surely God has knowledge of everything.” (Q 58:7)“

Allah does NOT encounter Mohammed nor any Muslim

In the Hebrew Bible, a prophet is a “navi” which we see used only a handful of times in the Qur’an as the Arabic “nabi”. Rather, the preominant term used in association with Mohammed in the Qur’an is rasool, which is essentially a messenger. Rasool is a generic term that can for example can also be used for the king’s messenger or emissary. Mark Drury charts out the  essential difference for us:

“the separation between heaven earth… pervades the Qur’an’s descriptions of revelation, which is by a process of “sending down” (v. anzala, n. tanzil). In the Biblical understanding, the prophet enters the divine council, coming into the presence of YHWH, where a meeting of human and divine takes place, and then YHWH speaks through the mouth of the prophet, as mediated divine speech. However in the Qur’an a portion of pre-existing “scripture” (Q:32:2) is “sent down” to the messenger, after which it can be recited by him repeatedly. Allah does not speak it through the mouth of a human being in an act of prophecy. In the Qur’anic understanding there is an inviolable separation, to a physical mediation…” (Drury, Biblical Reflexes of th[e Qur’an)

This is also the reason in the Quran the only interaction that Mohammed has with anything remotely divine is his meeting with the alleged angel in the cave. This even though throughout the history of the Jews, God speaks directly to the prophets, and all this acknowledged in the Quran!  It is only the new religion that has an absentee God who does not even speak to his favorite prophet, he “sends verses” down upon him through angels.

Proximity is metaphoricized to denote literal Abscence

Muslim will concede is that “Allah is present by his knowledge”, the meaning of which is given by “Allah knows everything that happens on the Earth”. This is of course, confirmation that Allah is not present on the Earth.

For example:

Q 50:16 says “we are closer to you than your jugular vein”

Allah is trying to tell people to be careful of what they think, because he will know. Muslims never treat this as meaning that Allah is literally inside a persons body or that he indwells a person. Translator Mohsin Khan actually even adds parenthetically “by his knowledge”:

“And the companions of the thicket and the people of Tubba’. All denied the messengers, so My threat was justly fulfilled. Did We fail in the first creation? But they are in confusion over a new creation. And We have already created man and know what his soul whispers to him, and We are closer to him than [his] jugular vein” (Q 50:14-16).

Or again here we see “he is with them”:

“God has numbered it, and they have forgotten it. God is witness over everything. Hast thou not seen that God knows whatsoever is in the heavens, and whatsoever is in the earth? Three men conspire not secretly together, but He is the fourth of them, neither five men, but He is the sixth of them, neither fewer than that, neither more, but He is with them, wherever they may be; then He shall tell them what they have done, on the Day of Resurrection. Surely God has knowledge of everything.” (Q 58:7)

Or famously here, Allah’s voice is in the bush:

Q: “Is God present on Earth?”

A: Always the same Muslim answer here: “by his knowledge” or sometimes “by his attributes, like seeing and hearing” (because Allah is said to be “all-seeing, all-hearing).

Q: (Second challenge): “does that mean that God is present?”

A: Repeated as above: “yes, by his knowledge and attributes”.

Q: “are God’s attributes Allah?”

A: “No”

Conclusion: ”If what is present is not Allah then Allah is not present”.

We can see that there is an obvious sharp shift in the manner of communication from Allah to Mohammed as compared to the Biblical prophets when even in the Quran the mode of Biblical communication is somewhat preserved in the case of Biblical:

“When he came to it, a voice cried from the right of the watercourse, in the sacred hollow, coming from the tree: ‘Moses, I am God, the Lord of all Being.'”(Q 28:30)

And again from the fire:

“So, when he came to it, he was called: ‘Blessed is he who is in the fire, and he who is about it. Glory be to God, the Lord of all Being! Moses, behold, it is I, God, the All-mighty, the All-wise.” (Q 27:8,9)

The account is retold, it is said that “when Moses came to it (the fire) a voice was heard” or even in some cases para-Christian retellings like the story of Alexander the Great (Dhu’l- Qurnain in the Qur’an), but never from the point of Mohammed’s own revelation (even here we see a possible exception (Q 60:3,4) although in rather suspicious circumstances when Mohammed is having a domestic issue with his wives and claims that Allah “informed him” of something that is said behind his back).

Compare this with the sustained proximity of God with his creature that is present throughout the Bible from the beginning of the Old Testament and we can see the obvious deficiency made manifest in Islam. In Islam Allah does not encounter nor speak to Muhammad nor any Muslims after him. He only speaks to Biblical figures that Islam claims to be Muslim.

The effects of the disjunction of God from his attributes is seemingly given its extreme expression in the religion of Islam. The Qur’an consistently asserts that God is “all-seeing, all-hearing”, and there is also a sequence in which God’s “voice” is heard “from the bush” by Moses. It is clear that this “quality” or “attribute” of “hearing/ seeing/ speaking” itself is on the Earth. At the same time it is the mainstream Islamic contention that God does not himself walk the Earth, there is no “real Presence” of God here. This implies a disconnect between God and his attributes (of voice, seeing, hearing) i.e. that God is not joined to his own attributes, for if God were truly joined to these attributes described, then he would be on Earth too (think diagrammatically of a table sat upon the earth, with the legs as the attributes and the table-top as representing God himself who is not those attributes).

Allah is NOT in Janna anyway

“Above the throne”- means not on Earth/ Heaven

Christians take it for granted that Heaven is synonymous with the presence of God. The Islamic conception of Heaven is however closer to that of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ and Mormons’ concepts of a sensuous Heaven without God.

The only clue Muslims have as to the location of Allah is given in this verse which we have already seen:

“Lo! your Lord is Allah Who created the heavens and the earth in six Days, then mounted He the Throne” (Q7:34)

This means that when Muslims use “Most High” in relation to Allah they are not using this merely as a title of purity rather also locatively in that he is above every location, even the Heavens.

“Do you feel secure that He, Who is over the heaven, will not cause the earth to sink with you …?” [Q 67:16]

“Allah, it is He Who has created the heavens and the earth, and all that is between them in six days. Then He rose over (istawa) the Throne (in a manner that suits His Majesty).(Q 32:4 also 10:3)

“Islamqa.com” the official Salafist site states:

“The salaf (pious predecessors) agreed that Allah is above heaven, as is reported by scholars such as al-Dhahabi in his book Al-‘Aluw li’l-‘Aliy al-Ghaffar.” The theology that has been worked out seems to be based upon the notion that Allah cannot be confined into a physical space, and therefore also not in Muslim Janna which is a physical space full of sensual pleasures. They therefore “locate” Allah not “in” but rather “above the heavens”: as sort of “Out of sight is out of mind”, solution…

Will Muslims see Allah in Jannah?

Will Muslims see God in Heaven? There are various hadith that state that the believers will indeed be given to gaze upon their Lord in some manner in Janna, and the islamqa website here: https://islamqa.info/en/answers/14525/will-the-believers-see-their-lord-in-paradise lists these with the conclusion that all that is certain is that the believers will be able to see God at Friday prayers while as to whether this will be case at other times is not certain, but not ruled out either.

One verse confirms that no eyes can see him, but Muslims might want to interpret this as being the case only in earthly life:

“Vision perceives Him not, but He perceives [all] vision; and He is the Subtle, the Acquainted (Aware)” (Q 6:103)

This verse might be taken to mean that Muslims will have a view of God’s Face:

“do not drive away those who call upon the Lord morning and evening, seeking nothing but his Face (wajhahu- his face)” (Q 6:52a)

9:72 is never even translated as “the pleasure in the presence of God”, rather this is meant to convey the joy of having God’s approval…being in God’s good books, to be approved by God, in the manner of saying “they enjoyed the king’s good favour”. That is how this word “ridwana” is translated every single other occasion in the Qur’an even when it is used in the exact same context eg. in 9:21 of the same chapter. This “ridwana” of Allah can be contrasted with the “bliss” “naimun” (ن ع م n-a-m root) that is derived from the gardens. In 47:28 we see “That is because they followed what angered Allah and disliked [what earns] His pleasure, so He rendered worthless their deeds”, it is obvious that this is seeking the approval of Allah. This is how the word is translated each of its 13 occurences in the Qur’an.

“God has promised the believers, men and women, gardens underneath which rivers flow, forever therein to dwell, and goodly dwelling-places in the Gardens of Eden; and greater, God’s good pleasure (wa-ridwana); that is the mighty triumph.” (Q 9:72)

This probably comes closest:

“Indeed, the righteous will be among gardens and rivers, in a seat of honor near a mighty (muq’tadirin) king (malīkin)” (Q 54:54,55)

Allah is not mentioned, and there is no definite article, rather “a king”. Allah is called “sovereign” in other verses “el-malikin” with the definite article, and it is one of his 99 names. Ibn Kathir indicates it does refer to Allah:

“… Allah said, (in a seat of truth,) in the Dwelling of Allah’s honor, encompassed by His pleasure, favors, bounties, generosity and compassion, (near the Muqtadir King.) meaning with the Magnificent King Who created everything and measured its destiny; He is able to grant them whatever they wish and ask for. Imam Ahmad recorded that `Abdullah bin `Amr said that the Prophet said, (Verily, the just will be with Allah on podiums of light, to the right of Ar-Rahman, and both of His Hands are right. They are those who are just and fair in their judgement and with their families and those whom they are responsible for.) Muslim and An-Nasa’i also recorded this Hadith.“

Now this is Judgement Day, not Heaven, since it is referring to “the Day”, and besides it would be absurd for faces to he distorted in Heaven. But it’s a very important verse because it gets used in apologetics all over the place, by leaving out the last phrase (which is v.24). The following verse too:

“some faces on that Day shall be radiant (nadirah) looking (nazirtun) at their Lord and some will be distorted (basiratun)” (Q 75:22-24)

“No indeed; but upon that day they shall be veiled from their Lord” (Q 83:15)

Similarly, surahs 2:223, 9:77, 50:20-22 all speak of Muslims “meeting” Allah, seemingly mainly in the context of Judgement.

“O Man! Thou art laboring unto thy Lord laboriously, and thou shalt encounter Him.” (Q 84:6)

There is a hadith which speaks of the delight of the vision of God, even though this sentiment is entirely missing in the Qur’an itself:

(Suhaib reported the Apostle saying: When those deserving of Paradise would enter Paradise, the Blessed and the Exalted would ask: Do you wish Me to give you anything more? They would say: Hast Thou not brightened our faces? Hast Thou not made us enter Paradise and saved us from Fire? He (the narrator) said: He (God) would lift the veil, and of things given to them nothing would he dearer to them than the sight of their Lord, the Mighty and the Glorious -Muslim 181a)

The hadith (Bukhari 7439 and 6573) assert that at least for the purposes of Resurrection Day, Muslims will be able to see Allah “as you see the Sun and the Moon in a clear sky” so that they can recognize his “Shin and shape”. The question then probably is one of whether this vision will be one of the pleasures of Jannah or not. The Qur’an, in sharp contrast to the Bible, is quite reserved about this and the concept is not really present, whereas a hadithic tradition does develop that takes more interest in it.

Worshipping Allah in Janna?

Further there is no particular verse which really describes the worship of God in Heaven as is described in the Christian texts like Revelations, or the great prophetic visions like that of Isaiah and Ezekiel, or in the Psalms.

Surah 10:10 states that the “call” of those entering Heaven will be “Exalted are You, O Allah ,” and that their “last call” (whatever that means) will be “Praise to Allah , Lord of the worlds!”

The angels do it, though, they never tire of worshipping Allah nor are they ever disobedient. Humans on the other hand look forward to several pleasures in addition to Allah. In modern language, the Janna experience would be advertised as “Allah+” as we see in the next section.

The first mention is:

“And when thy Lord said to the angels, ‘I am setting in the earth a viceroy (khalifatan).’ They said, ‘What, wilt Thou set therein one who will do corruption there, and shed blood, while We proclaim (nusabbihu) Thy praise (bihamdika) and call Thee Holy (nuqaddisu) ?’ He said, ‘Assuredly I know that you know not.'” (Q 2:30)

Allah CANNOT do Anything

The fact that the Allah as seen in Islam is conferred various limitations lends further credence to the theory of his irrelevance and likelihood of non-existence. The Allah of Islam is not the Judaic monotheistic deity which manifests with the “Shekinah” glory on Earth, nor the monotheistic Christian deity who is Incarnated in the Flesh. Both clearly interact with creation (there are numerous instances of this in the Old Testament, of course, the entire Torah is the story of this very interaction).

There is no action of Allah upon the Soul

Muslim believer “Repents” and God forgives. In Islam this is the end of the story, everything that needed to be accomplished has been accomplished at this point and therefore all the drastic action of God arriving on Earth, and dying for us in order to achieve a radical inner purity of the our souls, we could not possibly achieve of our own, is made redundant: “just repenting” has achieved all of that. The Incarnation and Death of Christ is seen in Christianity as that Grace through which we are able to stop sinning entirely, being “made new”, “in Christ”, however in Islam all of this is achieved through “just repenting”. Islamic apologists will argue that the same can be said of Jews, they did not require anyone to die for their sins either, which specific point is addressed in the article on Atonement ().

Once this is done, all that is left is for Mohammed to intercede (That Muhammad is the only intercessor for man is made abundantly clear passages like the lengthy hadith 7510 in Bukhari” and others, covered in the relevant article ().

There is no concept in Islam of God “regenerating” the soul of a person from within through a direct action in the soul. The closest that the Qur’an comes to the “new creation” concept of the Bible is 30:27 “And He is the One Who originates the creation then will resurrect it—which is even easier for Him.¹ To Him belong the finest attributes in the heavens and the earth. And He is the Almighty, All-Wise.”

Apart from being vaguely reminiscent of the Biblical verse, there is no real correlation of this verse to anything else that is happening in the rest of the Qur’an.

The whole concept of divine action in the life of the Human being is removed from Islam, with the denial of Christ. The full discussion of this is the article on the atoning Sacrifice of Jesus, to purify us of our sins.

But Allah also Does Enter Creation?

This is covered in the contradictions article. Let us examine this well-known hadith:

“Allah descends every night to the lowest heaven when one-third of the first part of the night is over and says: I am the Lord; I am the Lord: who is there to supplicate Me so that I answer him? Who is there to beg of Me so that I grant him? Who is there to beg forgiveness from Me so that I forgive him? He continues like this till the day breaks.” (Sahih Muslim 753b)

We know what the “lowest heaven” is, because it is the place that Allah adorns with the stars (Q 41:12). Thus it effectively, in modern cosmology, would represent the physical universe. To an ancient Arab, it would merely represent a dome above him, nearest to the earth that somehow held these “lamps”.

First, it does not seem likely the Qur’anic author is not aware that half the part of the earth that shroud in night is continually revolving 360⁰ around the Earth, like the visor on a bike helmet. That visor would then represent the shape of Allah himself. Thus given that it’s night somewhere on earth at every moment in time, Allah must be descended at every moment in time, he can never leave nor can he go out of orbit. In a flat-Earth perspective we do not have this problem because there is either night or day over the whole earth simultaneously.

Similarly, when Allah “turns and ascends over the throne” (Q 7:54, 13:2) at the end of creation. It seem as though Allah had descended for the purpose of creation, and therefore at the end of it requires to retrace his steps, much like what is occurring in the hadith.

Again we see in 89:22

IN CONCLUSION, for this hadith to work in a spherical earth scenario, “Allah” requires to himself be in fixed orbit around the globe. Not only does this imply a divine geocentricism “God orbiting the Earth”, it also means that God can never leave the Universe. The fact that he “descends” implies that he has abandoned the higher post, but he can never go back, because it is never not night somewhere on Earth.

Either God did not take the spherical Earth situation into consideration when descending, or more likely, as I would strongly contend, Muhammed had not considered the global day-night cycle when writing this verse.

This is not a problem in Christianity where the belief in divine omnipresence is non-controversial. As King David says in the Psalms:

Psalm 139:8 “If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.”

Muslim Response:

The obvious Muslims response, would be that these are metaphorical, and it only means that Allah is more attentive to the prayers of those praying in the last third of the night, given the level of difficulty and devotion that this involves, this kind of prayer can be seen as meritorious. This metaphorical interpretation is not available to some major Islamic schools like the Atharis.

Further, my intention here is a critique of the authorship of the text. I do not get the sense either in the Qur’an nor in the hadith that anything related to Allah is intended as metaphor or non-literal. It is very obvious when Jesus is speaking in parables, however Muhammed seems to really mean it when he says things like the satans were “eavesdropping on the divine councils”, or that Allah “shot stars” at them or “ascended over the throne” following creation, phrases that are very familiar to Muslims.

Allah coming to the lowest heaven in the last third of the night”. If the helmet is the globe then the visor represents Allah in the lowest heaven rotating around the earth around its hinges at the very healthy rate of around the world every 24 hours. Obviously the speed diminishes as you go toward the poles at which positions the job is much less taxing- “it is easier for Allah” (Q 30:27). Of course it would have been easiest for Allah had the earth been flat and not rotating at all, as should be obvious.

This is the closest that Allah comes to alighting upon solid ground in the Qur’an. However the mountain crumbles when he touches it, this was an unsuccessful landing. Appatently Allah does not reveal himself to Moses, he “reveals himself to the mountain”. So the answer is still “no”, I’m saying:

“And when Moses came to Our appointed time and his Lord spoke with him, he said, ‘Oh my Lord, show me, that I may behold Thee!’ Said He, ‘Thou shalt not see Me; but behold the mountain — if it stays fast in its place, then thou shalt see Me.’ And when his Lord revealed Him to the mountain He made it crumble to dust; and Moses fell down swooning…'” (Q7:143)

There are some traditions in which Allah approaches the Earth yet never quite: “touches base”:

“Allah descends every night to the lowest heaven when one-third of the first part of the night is over and says: I am the Lord; I am the Lord: who is there to supplicate Me so that I answer him? Who is there to beg of Me so that I grant him? Who is there to beg forgiveness from Me so that I forgive him? He continues like this till the day breaks” (Muslim 758b).

Contrasting with the Biblical Vision and Presence of God

This is in stark contrast to the transcendent God of the Bible where the anthropomorphisms are obvious, or manifestations for the benefit of man, while in truth it is maintained that “no man can see God and live”  and as Moses tells the Israelites “you heard his Voice in the Fire but you did not see his Form” (Deut.14:12). Thus even when we are told that on the mountain when Moses, Aaron, Nathan, Abihu and the seventy elders “beheld God” (Ex 24:11), and that “Under his feet there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.” (v.10), we can surmise that this is a vision given to them, rather than God’s true glory. The New Testament leaves us in no doubt regarding this where the transcendent God is described in words and verses that far exceed not only the Qur’an but anything that has every been written about God, whether in the words of Jesus “no one has seen God except the Son…” or in those of St. Paul “we shall see Him (God) as he is…”

Contrast with the Biblical verses that speak of being with God

The Bible, in sharp contrast is suffused with verses about the delight of being in the Presence of God which far outshine all other descriptions of the pleasures of Heaven which I quote some here. This is not even to mention the numerous Biblical verses equally beautiful that speak God dwelling with his people, about his love for his people, the glorious visions of God in his Temple…these are too many to mention here. It is staggering and hugely significant that Mohamed “corrects” these by omitting all trace of them. Again, in sharp contrast with the the Qur’an, verses about sensual enjoyments are quite hard to come by. If you want to read the verses promising sexual pleasures in the Qur’an alone, go to Is Islam Misogynistic?, and its a whole section on there.

1John 3:2 “Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

Revelation 22:4 “They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads.”

Revelation 1:7 “Behold he comes with clouds, and every eye shall see him.”

1Cor.13:12 “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

Exodus 33:11, also Num.12:8 – Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.

Psalm 4:6 “Many ask, “Who can show us the good?” Shine the light of Your face upon us, O LORD.”

Psalm 5:7 “But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy mercy: and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.

Psalm 11:7 “For the LORD is righteous; He loves justice. The upright will see His face.”

Psalm 16:11 “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

“As for me, I will behold your face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with your likeness.” (Ps.17:5)

“One thing I have asked of the LORD; this is what I desire: to dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and seek Him in His temple” (Psalm 27:4)

Psalm 36:8,9 “They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures…”

Psalm 65:4 “Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple.”

Psalm 140:13 “Surely the righteous will praise Your name; the upright will dwell in Your presence.”

Job 19:26 “Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.”

Conclusion

These issues are always complicated when it comes to Islam, because the hadith writers, one gets the strong feeling, and there are several examples of this, are copying Christian themes in order to strengthen their own theological positions, which would be easy since Christian ideas are quite widespread in the world at this point. If we focus on the Qur’anic text primarily and what it its primary thrust, we must conclude that Janna is primarily focused upon material pleasures like a millionaires’ playground, or like the cavorting that the pagan pantheons engage in in their version of bliss. We can state this much with confidence because we do not see the sentiment of desiring to gaze upon the Face of God expressed in the text at all, as something that in itself blissful and eternally so, nor do we see the sentiment of worshipping God and ministering to him expressed.

Whether this might be pleasurable or not is up for debate (outside Christianity), however what does not seem to require debate is that Janna is just not God-focussed in the Qur’an. Further there is a very strong orthodox view that God is not really present in Heaven at all, he is above it, and this too is taken from a Qur’anic premise. Thus if there is indeed to be any sighting of God, as believers are informed in lately arriving hadith, it could not be a “presence” rather only some form of image like pie in the sky. It is quite unsurprising that this is touted as being extremely pleasurable, however the situation remains that heaven is full of competing pleasures at this point and God one of them, who is not really present and likely only available for viewing intermittently.

The post Islam’s Allah- Present/ Absent/ Relevant/ Has a Body? appeared first on RespondIslam.net.

This concept that the Quran was possibly and even probably orally composed is probably the most single important concept for unravelling its genesis and its unique genre. Doing this has been made possible through much ground-breaking word in linguistics in the 20^th century that was not available before.

The question of the repetitiveness and other unusual features has often been raised, even by Muslims, and the usual answer, again from Muslims is that it is “to make it easy to memorize”. Indeed the Qur’an itself states:

“And We have certainly made the Qur’ān easy for remembrance, so is there any who will remember?” (Q 54:17)

I argue that this is only half of the answer: the Qur’an is repetitive because it was meant to be memorized not only by the people but also by the person composing it.

I make this strong contention based on pioneering work done by Milman Parry and Albert Lord dealing with the Greek Homeric epics, African, Slavic tribes and other fascinating material. The oral performer must keep his reciting in such a format that he may be able to reproduce it at a later performance, build upon it, and also pass it down to his pupils/ children who might continue the performance, since this was their source of livelihood, like theatre actors. In the Hijaz such oral performers were present, they were called qussas (kissa– story in Urdu). As we now know, the culture in the Hijaz was much the same, one of orality and oral poetry telling and performing.

Even a cursory reading of the Quran makes it obvious that the Quran simply is not like a regular book that one picks up at the bookshop: it has no discernible plot and seems to consist of a collection of rather rambling and repetitive edicts rather arbitrarily divided into chapters. This is not just a subjective claim on my part-  that the original order of the chapters actually seems to have been lost somewhere along its history is well accepted.

Mohammed never seems to have compiled a written volume in his lifetime, nor expressed a desire to do so. We will make the case here that the Qur’an is primarily what is called an “oral composition”. The reason that the Qur’an is easy to memorize is simply out of the necessity of entailed in that genre.

The Qur’an, was a poem composed by Muhammed over 23 years (obviously this is the critical, not the religious Muslim view). He did so in a manner that he could retain himself, since he was illiterate (most Muslims are extremely sure Muhammed was illiterate, and this would be entirely not uncommon in areas were literacy rates would be only a few percent if that). Thus for this purpose the text had to be repetitive, and it also ended up being unsystematic, since words were not easily erased or even rearranged mentally.

The content itself was based on Muhammed’s understanding and interpretation of Judeo-Christian literature, and adding to it his life experiences. This becomes analogous to the oral composition of famous poems like the Illiad and the Odyssey, as we will see, which would also have claimed some truth and some knowledge of previous legends. Dante’s Divine Comedy is also based upon scripture, and would also have been composed over several years, but Dante was highly literate, and so his poem had incredibly rich complexity and would, in contrast to these others, be extremely difficult to memorize. Many still recognize it as the greatest poem even written.

However this system of “making it easy to memorize” is not a perfect system since it relies on the human intellect and memory. Thus the problems that I have mentioned would have crept in. Try to compose an entire novel in one take, I’ve never heard of such a thing being done even in writing, hence the difficulty. Similarly also the stories of the Illiad and Odyssey evolved and gained accretions and editing. The safeguards around these were of course not rigid, so there was much more of this in their cases.

Milman Parry’s work on Iliad & Odyssey

Oral performance used to be an art form and a form of entertainment at social events where poets would relate the epics to the people gathered in the town square on in the market place. In the Hijaz, these oral performers were called “qussas”. In the modern era, people like Matthew Parry and Albert Lord have pioneered “oral literary theory” primarily in their  research on the great classic Homeric epics Odyssey and the Iliad, in an attempt to discover how they were composed. They were able to conduct research on modern oral performers like the guslari of Yugoslavian tribal villages, and were thus able to extrapolate their finding from these into their research into the historical works.

Let us examine some of Walter Ong’s work to try an understand the manner in which an oral composition is composed. Already the reader will begin to appreciate echoes of the Qur’an in it (if they’ve read it):

“Milman Parry’s discovery in his doctoral dissertation (1928) might be put this way: virtually every distinctive feature of Homeric poetry is due to the economy enforced on it by oral methods of composition, it became evident that only a tiny fraction of the words in the Iliad and the Odyssey were not parts of formulas, and to a degree devastatingly predictable formulas. Moreover, the standardized formulas were grouped around equally standardized themes, such as the council, the gathering of the army, the challenge, the despoiling of the vanquished, the hero’s shield, and so on and on (Lord 1960, pp. 68–98) (…) repertoire of similar themes is found in oral narrative and other oral discourse around the world… The entire language of the Homeric poems, with its curious mix of early and late Aeolic and Ionic peculiarities, was best explained not as an overlaying of several texts but as a language generated over the years by epic poets using old set expressions which they preserved and/or reworked largely for metrical purposes. (Ong, 23) Homeric Greeks valued clichés because not only the poets but the entire oral noetic world or thought world relied upon the formulaic constitution of thought. In an oral culture, knowledge, once acquired, had to be constantly repeated or it would be lost: fixed, formulaic thought patterns were essential for wisdom and effective administration (Ong, 24).

How, in fact, could a lengthy, analytic solution ever be assembled in the first place? An interlocutor is virtually essential: it is hard to talk to yourself for hours on end. Sustained thought in an oral culture is tied to communication. But even with a listener to stimulate and ground your thought, the bits and pieces of your thought cannot be preserved in jotted notes. How could you ever call back to mind what you had so laboriously worked out? The only answer is: Think memorable thoughts. In a primary oral culture, to solve effectively the problem of retaining and retrieving carefully articulated thought, you have to do your thinking in mnemonic patterns, shaped for ready oral recurrence. Your thought must come into being in heavily rhythmic, balanced patterns, in repetitions or antitheses, in alliterations and assonances, in epithetic and other formulary expressions, in standard thematic settings (the assembly, the meal, the duel, the hero’s ‘helper’, and so on), in proverbs which are constantly heard by everyone so that they come to mind readily and which themselves are patterned for retention and ready recall, or in other mnemonic form. Serious thought is intertwined with memory systems. Mnemonic needs determine even syntax.  (Havelock, Singer of Tales1963, pp. 87–96, 131–2, 294–6). Protracted orally based thought, even when not in formal verse, tends to be highly rhythmic, for rhythm aids recall, even physiologically. (Ong, 34)

In an oral culture, to think through something in nonformulaic, non-patterned, non-mnemonic terms, even if it were possible, would be a waste of time, for such thought, once worked through, could never be recovered with any effectiveness, as it could be with the aid of writing. It would not be abiding knowledge but simply a passing thought, however complex… In an oral culture, experience is intellectualized mnemonically. (35)

Since in a primary oral culture conceptualized knowledge that is not repeated aloud soon vanishes, oral societies must invest great energy in saying over and over again what has been learned arduously over the ages. This need establishes a highly traditionalist or conservative set of mind that with good reason inhibits intellectual experimentation. (Ong 41)

Thought Patterns in Oral Culture

Understanding the limitations of pre-literate society helps us understand why the Qur’an itself to the Western reader seems limited in substance, spirituality and introspection, intuition, contemplation, and reflection. This is indeed reflective of the shallow nature of pre-literate compositions, which we are able to, through the means of good 21^st century research, exactly how is was composed in the first place- and I posit much of it was indeed composed on the fly, in the manner that oral performers. Parry, Lord, Havelock and others have studied this very subject matter in modern-day pre-literate tribes in rural Russia and Yugoslavia, that preserve traditions orally. It has been shown by these same researchers that accurate textual preservation is not a primary concern in these cultures, how could it be, for there is not even a concept of text. For someone like Mohammed too, such concerns could not have been uppermost, and for the same reason. There are several narratives which I get into later where indeed Mohamed iterates that variants are acceptable, which would seem to reflect this sentiment “as long as you don’t make a verse of mercy into a verse of punishment” indeed would seem to allow for a wide range within those constraints.

“All thought, including that in primary oral cultures, is to some degree analytic: it breaks its materials into various components. But abstractly sequential, classificatory, explanatory examination of phenomena or of stated truths is impossible without writing and reading. Human beings in primary oral cultures, those untouched by writing in any form, learn a great deal and possess and practice great wisdom, but they do not ‘study’. They learn by apprenticeship—hunting with experienced hunters, for example—by discipleship, which is a kind of apprenticeship, by listening, by repeating what they hear, by mastering proverbs and ways of combining and recombining them, by assimilating other formulary materials, by participation in a kind of corporate retrospection—not by study in the strict sense.” (Ong, 8) “Written words are residue. Oral tradition has no such residue or deposit. When an often-told oral story is not actually being told, all that exists of it is the potential in certain human beings to tell it.” (Ong, 11)

Literate users of a grapholect such as standard English have access to vocabularies hundreds of times larger than any oral language can manage. In such a linguistic world dictionaries are essential. It is demoralizing to remind oneself that there is no dictionary in the mind,…without writing, human consciousness cannot achieve its fuller potentials, cannot produce other beautiful and powerful creations. In this sense, orality needs to produce and is destined to produce writing. Literacy, as will be seen, is absolutely necessary for the development not only of science but also of history, philosophy, explicative understanding of literature and of any art, and indeed for the explanation of language (including oral speech) itself There is hardly an oral culture or a predominantly oral culture left in the world today that is not somehow aware of the vast complex of powers forever inaccessible without literacy. This awareness is agony for persons rooted in primary orality, (Ong, 14)

Ong relates some of the experiments conducted upon such “pre-literates” by the Russian Luria among some Ukranian villagers: “…One series consisted of drawings of the objects hammer, saw, log, hatchet. Illiterate subjects consistently thought of the group not in categorical terms (three tools, the log not a tool) but in terms of practical situations —‘situational thinking’—without adverting at all to the classification ‘tool’ as applying to all but the log. If you are a workman with tools and see a log, you think of applying the tool to it, not of keeping the tool away from what it was  made for—in some weird intellectual game. A 25-year-old illiterate peasant: ‘They’re all alike. The saw will saw the log and the hatchet will chop it into small pieces. If one of these has to go, I’d throw out the hatchet. It doesn’t do as good a job as a saw’ they would not fit their thinking into pure logical forms, which they seem to have found uninteresting. Why should they be interesting? Syllogisms relate to thought, but in practical matters no one operates in formally stated syllogisms. In Luria’s field work, requests for definitions of even the most concrete objects met with resistance. ‘Try to explain to me what a tree is.’ ‘Why should I? Everyone knows what a tree is, they don’t need me telling them’, (Ong 49-51)

Luria’s illiterates had difficulty in articulate self-analysis. Self- analysis requires a certain demolition of situational thinking. It calls for isolation of the self, around which the entire lived world swirls for each individual person, removal of the center of every situation from that situation enough to allow the center, the self, to be examined and described. Luria put his questions only after protracted conversation about people’s characteristics and their individual differences (1976, p. 148). A 38-year-old man, illiterate, rom a mountain pasture camp was asked (1976, p. 150), ‘What sort of person are you, what’s your character like, what are your good qualities and shortcomings? How would you describe yourself?’ ‘I came here from Uch-Kurgan, I was very poor, and now I’m married and have children.’ ‘Are you satisfied with yourself or would you like to be different?’ ‘It would be good if I had a little more land and could sow some wheat.’ Externals command attention. ‘And what are your shortcomings?’ ‘This year I sowed one pood of wheat, and we’re gradually fixing the shortcomings.’ More external situations. ‘Well, people are different —calm, hot-tempered, or sometimes their memory is poor. What do you think of yourself?’ ‘We behave well—if we were bad people, no one would respect us’ (Ong54)

Genealogies- Purpose and Nature

Another feature of oral cultures was the preservation of oral genealogies. We see this phenomenon in the Bible, where the seeming inaccuracies in the genealogies of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke and also the fact that in Matthew these genealogies span right through the generations of Abraham Noah right up to Adam! We can see from the work summarised below that these were indeed features of pre-literate societies, and the purpose and nature of keeping these genealogies becomes more evident by studying these cultures. Further the Arabisn tribes among which Mohaed was born seemingly had the same traditions, and a form of genealogy has also been attempted to be traced from one such tradition.

“Goody and Watt (1968, pp. 31–3) cite Laura Bohannan, Emrys Peters, and Godfrey and Monica Wilson for striking instances of the homeostasis of oral cultures in the handing on of genealogies. Some decades ago among the Tiv people of Nigeria the genealogies actually used orally in settling court disputes have been found to diverge considerably from the genealogies carefully recorded in writing by the British forty years earlier (because of their importance then, too, in court disputes). The later Tiv have maintained that they were using the same genealogies as forty years earlier and that the earlier written record was wrong. What had happened was that the later genealogies had been adjusted to the changed social relations among the Tiv: they were the same in that they functioned in the same way to regulate the real world. The integrity of the past was subordinate to the integrity of the present. Goody and Watt (1968, p. 33) report an even more strikingly detailed case of ‘structural amnesia’ among the Gonja in Ghana. Written records made by the British at the turn of the twentieth  century show that Gonja oral tradition then presented Ndewura Jakpa, the founder of the state of Gonja, as having had seven sons, each of whom was ruler of one of the seven territorial divisions of the state. By the time sixty years later when the myths of state were again recorded, two of the seven divisions had disappeared, one by assimilation to another division and the other by reason of a boundary shift. In these later myths, Ndewura Jakpa had five sons, and no mention was made of the two extinct divisions. The Gonja  were still in contact with their past, tenacious about this contact in their myths, but the part of the past with no immediately discernible relevance to the present had simply fallen away. The present imposed its own economy on past remembrances.

Packard (1980, p. 157) has noted that Claude Lévi-Strauss, T.O.Beidelman, Edmund Leach and others have suggested that oral traditions reflect a society’s present cultural values rather than idle curiosity about the past. He finds this is true of the Bashu, as Harms (1980, p. 178) finds it also true of the Bobangi. The implications here for oral genealogies need to be noted. A West African griot or other oral genealogist will recite those genealogies which his hearers listen to. If he knows genealogies which are no longer called for, they drop from his repertoire and eventually disappear. The genealogies of political  inners are of course more likely to survive than those of losers. Henige (1980, p.255), reporting on Ganda and Myoro kinglists, notes that the ‘oral mode…allows for inconvenient parts of the past to be forgotten’ because of ‘the exigencies of the continuing present’. Moreover, skilled oral narrators deliberately vary their traditional narratives because part of their skill is their ability to adjust to new audiences and new situations or simply to be coquettish.(…) Oral cultures encourage triumphalism…”(Ong 48,49)

Reconstructive Memory- Bartlett, others

In the 20 century there has also been fascinating research done into the subject of human memory per se. Frederic Bartlett originally tested his idea of the reconstructive nature of recall by presenting a group of participants with foreign folk tales (his most famous being “War of the Ghosts”) with which they had no previous experience. After presenting the story, he tested their ability to recall and summarize the stories at various points after the presentation to newer generations of participants. His findings showed that the participants could provide a simple summary but had difficulty recalling the story accurately, with the participants’ own account generally being shorter and manipulated in such a way that aspects of the original story that were unfamiliar or conflicting to the participants’ own schematic knowledge were removed or altered in a way to fit into more personally relevant versions. For instance, allusions made to magic and Native American mysticism that were in the original version were omitted as they failed to fit into the average Westerner schematic network. Besides, after several recounts of the story had been made by successive generations of participants, certain aspects of the recalled tale were embellished so they were more consistent with the participants’ cultural and historical viewpoint compared to the original text (e.g. Emphasis placed on one of the characters desire to return to care for his dependent elderly mother). These findings lead Bartlett to conclude that recall is predominately a reconstructive rather than reproductive process. James J. Gibson built off of the work that Bartlett originally laid down, suggesting that the degree of change found in a reproduction of an episodic memory depends on how that memory is later perceived. This concept was later tested by Carmichael, Hogan, and Walter (1932) who exposed a group of participants to a series of simple figures and provided different words to describe each image. For example, all participants were exposed to an image of two circles attached by a single line, where some of the participants were told it was a barbell and the rest were told it was a pair of reading glasses. The experiment revealed that when the participants were later tasked with replicating the images, they tended to add features to their own reproduction that more closely resembled the word they were primed with.

Accuracy of Oral Tradition

In the past, literates have commonly assumed that oral memorization in an oral culture, normally achieved the same goal of absolutely verbatim repetition. How such repetition could be verified before sound recordings were known was unclear, since in the absence of writing the only way to test for verbatim repetition of lengthy passages would be the simultaneous recitation of the passages by two or more persons together. Successive recitations could not be checked against each other. But instances of simultaneous recitation in oral cultures were hardly sought for. (Ong56)

Most of these living South Slavic narrative poets—and indeed all of the better ones—are illiterate. Learning to read and write disables the oral poet, Lord found: it introduces into his mind the

concept of a text as controlling the narrative and thereby interferes  with the oral composing processes, which have nothing to do with texts but are ‘the remembrance of songs sung’ (Ong 58,59)

One of the most telling discoveries in Lord’s work has been that, although singers are aware that two different singers never sing the same song exactly alike, nevertheless a singer will protest that he

can do his own version of a song line for line and word for word any time, and indeed, ‘just the same twenty years from now’ (Lord1960, p. 27). When, however, their purported verbatim renditions are recorded and compared, they turn out to be never the same, though the songs are recognizable versions of the same story. ‘Word for word and line for line’, as Lord interprets (1960, p. 28), is simply an emphatic way of saying ‘like’. ‘Line’ is obviously a text-based concept, and even the concept of a ‘word’ as a discrete entity apart from a flow of speech seems somewhat text-based… (Ong 59) What was retained? The first recitation of a poem by its originator? How could the originator ever repeat it word for word the second time and be sure he had done so? (Ong 60)

Drawing Comparisons with the Qur’an

Oral Formulaic density in the Quran – Andy Bannister

In the case of Homer, formulas lie everywhere, with a formulaic density in places of 90%, a figure Lord described as ‘amazing’ considering we have only 27,000 lines of Homeric Greek to make comparisons with. Given that the Iliad and Odyssey also pass two other “tests” of orality (enjambement and thematic structure), there can be little doubt that Homer was an oral poet. …Magoun…conducted a formulaic analysis of the first twenty-five lines of Beowulf and found that 70% was repeated elsewhere in the corpus of Old English poetry, enabling him to conclude that Beowulf had been composed orally, just as Parry had found for Homer and the Yugoslavian guslari. Several Other developments continued to take place. Eric Havelock’s influential Preface to Plato helped further shape how people viewed Homer and Greek poetry, effectively asking the question what the poetry was for. He concluded that the poems were the encyclopaedias of their day, the tradition acting as “a collective social memory”; oral poetry was the way that traditional ideas and teaching were preserved and transmitted…

Roland turned out to have a formulaic density of 35.2%.  Based on this analysis, Duggan suggested that 20% represented a threshold beyond which one could be increasingly confident that a particular text was composed in oral-formulaic mode

The computer-generated results are significant, suggesting that the figure for the Qur’an’s overall formularity lies somewhere between 23.55% (if one uses a five-base sequence analysis) and 52.18% (a three-base sequence analysis); if one uses an analysis based on roots rather than bases, then these figures climb higher still. Whether one defines the criteria for what constitutes a ‘formula’ loosely or more rigidly, the computer consistently reveals such a high formulaic content, that one is confidently able. to concur with Dundes that the Qu’an is ‘extraordinarily high’ in formulaic content. Furthermore, some sequences of bases are shown to be staples of qur’anic diction, occurring dozens of times. In short, formulaic diction seems to be extremely deeply woven into the fabric of the Qur’an,

in just the same way as, for example, Parry and Lord were able to show for the formulaic diction of Homer throughout the Iliad and the Odyssey

 (155, Andy Bannister, Oral Formulaic Study of the Quran)

Literacy and use of written Script in the Hijaz

So it is useful to understand precisely the milieu into which the Quranic verses are received. This society is not just “poorly literate”, as some imagine (as a comparison, literacy in Palestine in at the time of Christ was thought to be only 3%,) rather in the case of the Hijaz, and for most Hijazis there is likely no concept of a book at all! All that there is, is the possibility of a rudimentary script, although there seem to be no written literature, that script is probably only used for the purposes of some rudimentary contracts between individuals, transactions etc. So also is the poetry of the region oral, although some of it does get written is in the neighbouring Syriac dialect, a derivative of Aramaic that Christians of the surrounding regions are using, which is why we can examine some of it today.

The Qur’an itself is first book to ever be written down in that culture, only arriving 23 years later, even 2 years after the death of Mohamed. So the first myth that we must dispel is that the Qur’an is not a “received document”, as is popularly conceived, and in the manner of the Books of the Jews like the Torah, rather it is an oral tradition for which a documentation is eventually accomplished. Even in 16:89 where it is mentioned “we have given to you this book (l-kitaba)…”, it is not necessary a physical book that is alluded to, “kitaba” can simply allude to an oral composition and the manner in which oral composers would refer to their compositions. We will at a later stage look more into recent research into cultures which have similar oral traditions and how their manner of preservation can be seen to be similar to the Qur’an. Again the Qur’an itself means “recite!”, not “write”.

Muslim response:

Dr. Mustafa al-A’zami compiled a list of approximately 65 companions in his book “Kuttaab un-Nabi (literally: “Scribes of the Prophet”), who used to write down the Revelation dictated by the Prophet, at one time or the other. They are: Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, Aban ibn Sa’eed, Abu Umama, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, Abu Sufyan, Abu Hudhaifa, Abu Salama, Abu-‘Abas, Ubayy ibn Ka’b, al-Arqam, Usaid ibn Hudair, Aws, Buraida, Basheer, Thabit ibn Qais, Ja’far ibn Abi Talib, Jahm ibn Sa’d, Juhaim, Haatib, Hudhaifa, Husain, Hanzala, Huwaitib, Khalid ibn Saeed, Khalid ibn al-Waleed, Zubair ibn al-‘Awwam, Zubair ibn Arqam, Zaid ibn Thabit, Sa’d ibn ar-Rabee, Sa’d ibn ‘Ubaada, Saeed ibn Saeed, Shurahbeel ibn Hasna, Talha, ‘Amir ibn Fuhaira, ‘Abbas, Abdullah ibn al-Arqam, Abdullah ibn Abi Bakr, Abdullah ibn Rawaha, Abdullah ibn Zaid, Abdullah ibn Sa’d, Abdullah ibn Abdullah, Abdullah ibn ‘Amr, Uthman ib ‘Affan, ‘Uqba, al-‘Alaa al-Hadrami, al-‘Alaa ibn ‘Uqba, ‘Ali ibn Abi-Talib, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, ‘Amr ibn al-‘Aas, Muhammad ibn Maslama, Mu’adh ibn Jabal, Mu’awiya ibn Abi-Sufyan, Ma’n ibn-‘Adi, Mu’aiqib, Mugheera, Mundhir, Muhaajir and Yazid ibn Abi-Sufyan.

The evidence of proof-reading is also available. Zayd ibn Thaabit would read out to the Prophet whatever he has written to avoid scribal errors. (As-Suuli, Aadaab al Kuttaab, pg 165; Majma’ az-Zawaid, i: 152)

-The pre-Islamic Hijazi poets like Imri’ ul-Qays, Tarafah ibn al-‘Abd, Zuhair ibn Abi Salamah, ‘Antarah ibn Shaddad, ‘Amr ibn Kalthoum, and many others, used to write long poetries on animal leather and hang it on the Holy Ka’ba! It has been mentioned by Ibn al-Kalbi (d. 204 AH), followed by Ibn ‘Abdi-Rabbihi (d. 328 AH), Ibn Rasheeq al-Qayrawani (d. 463 AH) and also by the famous historian Ibn Khaldoun (d. 808 AH).

-The proof of writing treaties is also available from the ‘incident of Hudaybia’. The Prophet along with 1400 of his companions in the year 629 AD came to Mecca for pilgrimage, but instead of the pilgrimage they had to make a treaty with the Meccans. The fourth rightly guided caliph ‘Ali ibn Abi Taalib wrote the treaty and was duly signed.

-Moreover, Radiocarbon dating has dated the San’aa manuscript (DAM 01-27.1) of the Qur’an (one of the oldest manuscripts of the Qur’an) as a manuscript written between 578AD (44 BH) and 669 AD (49 AH) with a 95% accuracy. (Sadeghi and Berghmann 2010, p 348, Brill publishers). Also, the Birmingham Qur’an manuscript (known as the oldest Qur’anic manuscript known) has been Radiocarbon dated and estimated to be written between 568 AD (56 BH) and 645 AD (25 AH) with a probability of more than 95%! – Not to forget the overwhelming number of inscriptions found all over Hejaz on rocks. One can find verses of the Qur’an, poetries, and small personal informations of the inscripting scribe himself (like his name + the year of the inscription + a prayer to Allah for himself and some others) (check out a few posts of the following page on Twitter with the user handle @mohammed93athar

My Rebuttal:

to the best of my knowledge, the poetry alluded to, and as I have already indicated was not in Arabic at all, what we have of manuscripts is in the Syriac script instead. A treaty is different than a word of literature, because the manner which it is written will be determined by the limitations of the script. So a cave-man might merely make a few marks on a stone as a sign of a pact, the meaning would be implied. I cannot find any manuscript evidence for this. Same goes for the rock inscriptions, they would have been written in the consonantal script. Whatever is the case, I do not believe that my contention “there were no works of literature/poetry in the Arabic script prior to the Qur’an” has been overturned. The fact that there are early Quran’s only support my argument, that the Qurans indeed were only written documents. Finally the narratives for the documentation are not from sahih Hadith. The accreditation of the Hadith is of the highest order in Islam and should easily override any counter narratives. That hadithic narrative tells us that the Quran was not documented in anything approaching complete form, nor memorised, since the prophet himself would have found it difficult to compile a document called a “Quran”, there was nothing to memorise it until someone did compile it.

The Quran essentially is “revealed” by Mohammed, in a series of verses that are interspersed with biblically themed stories. These stories are versions of whatever oral traditions of Jewish and Christians and Arabs that are floating around in the Arabic milieu, in the village square, at the market place, at the trading centres and so on. The article on specific Jewish and para-Christian sources for the Quran are dealt with in a separate article. But this sort of retelling of stories would have been normal in such an oral cultural milieu into which the Quran was born. In the Hijaz, these oral performers were called “qussas”.

Summary of Qur’an’s Compositional Stage

Mohammed never shows an intention of documenting his mysterious revelations, which are unwitnessed, unoriginal and familiar material (Quranic source material is discussed in a separate essay), amenable to changed which get rationalised as “abrogations”, and finally, unfinished: there is no verse that says “now the Revelation is ended”. A con does not know when the game will be up, he extends the con to the time of his death at which point he does not care. All the confusion that is present in the the Quranic narrative and the complex mysteries of qir’at and ahruf can be understood rather simply if this difficult truth is accepted. It is uncertain even what was being said by Mohammed, he seemed unsure as to what he himself had previously recited. In all this he was likely playing the role of a “qussa”, a village reciter/poet who retold popular legends with modifications around the themes to political agendas which in his case were quasi-religious.

Bibliography

• Lord, Albert, The Singer of Tales (Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature)
• Orality and Literacy, Walter J. Ong
• Havelock, Eric, A Preface toPlato
• Bart Ehrman says in interview that he took two years off everything to dedicate himself solely to studying oral transmission. His arguments are primarily against Christianity, however the principles are the same: Ehrman, Bart Jesus Before the Gospels ,How the Earliest Christians Remembered
• An Oral-Formulaic Study of the Qur’an

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