An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 21: Don’t Blame Satan, He Warned You He was the Bad Guy (Abraham (Ibrahim) 1-52)

Abraham (Ibrahim) 1-52
Don’t Blame Satan, He Warned You He was the Bad Guy.

Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Qur’an version).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the Qur’an, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/2ApLDy0
For the online Qur’an that I use, see here http://al-quran.info and http://quran.com

Abraham 1-20
“We did not send any apostle except with the language of his people, so that he might make [Our messages] clear to them. Then Allah leads astray whomever He wishes, and He guides whomsoever He wishes, and He is the All-mighty, the All-wise.”

According to the notes, this chapter concerns Abraham settling Hagar (his concubine) and their son Ishmael in a new land. In the Bible, Hagar and Ishmael were cast out by a jealous Sarah, as I recall, and serve pretty much no further role in the story. Even the descendants, the Ishmaelites, tend to get mentioned only briefly. So I guess, in some ways, we’ll get their side of the story here, since they’re supposedly the ancestors of the Arabs.

But not yet, as first we have to endure more exhortations about how great and powerful Allah is. There are reminders of the prophets Noah, Ad, and Thamud, and of how the people refused to listen to them, using the very polite rejoinder “Indeed we have grave doubts concerning that to which you invite us.”

There’s some nice dialogue reported here, where the non-believers and polytheists tell the prophets that they are “just humans like us”, to which the prophets reply “yes we are, but Allah knows best”. The non-believers ask for signs to prove the claims of the prophets, which they are not given because this is considered a cheap trick; but then they get destroyed, so if Allah is willing to produce manifest evidence in the form of floods and rains of stones etc., would it not have been easier to produce some less destructive miracle to convince people rather than hide and then destroy them for questioning your existence?

Also in Interesting Language Corner, one of the punishments facing idol worshippers is that they will be made to drink “a purulent fluid”. Lovely.

Abraham 21-40
“Have you not regarded how Allah has drawn a parable? A good word is like a good tree: its roots are steady and its branches are in the sky.”

We start with some more supplications to Allah, including more about Allah creating all things (sun, moon, night, day, rain and … ships, apparently). There’s a bit about following people that are wrong, and how this is no excuse for wrong-doing. In fact, there’s a section where Satan himself says “look, don’t blame me because you’re going to hell, you knew I was a liar when you chose to follow me, not my problem”. That’s quite amusing.

And then finally Abraham enters the book, with a prayer to God thanking Him for sanctuary, and for his sons Ishmael and Isaac in his old age. I couldn’t find much to say for this section, it’s mostly more of the same. I rather suspect that the entirety of the Qur’an is going to be like this, it’s more a revelatory book of praise than much in the way of stories and rules.

Abraham 41-53
“Do not suppose that Allah is oblivious to what the wrongdoers are doing. He is only granting them respite until the day when the eyes will be glazed”

These closing verses are yet more promises of punishments awaiting the non-believer, or “wrong-believer”, it’s not really that clear who exactly will get punished. Everyone apart from those who take Allah as one God of all, I suppose. I note that promise that punishment will come at some point in the future, which is a nice cover for why wicked people can live prosperous lives – they’ll get punished in a magical place that no-one can see.

There’s an interesting reference to “The day the earth is transformed into another earth”, which from the following verses is some kind of judgment day stuff, since the wicked get “clothes of pitch” and ”fire covering their faces”. But that’s really about it. Once again, the eponymous character, Abraham, has a mere fleeting cameo.

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