An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 28: Don’t Rush God, Ask The Statues Whodunnit, and Heavenly Soundproofing (The Prophets (Al-Anbiya))

The Prophets (Al-Anbiya) 1-112
Don’t Rush God, Ask The Statues Whodunnit, and Heavenly Soundproofing.

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

The Prophets (Al-Anbiya) 1-20

“Mankind’s reckoning has drawn near to them, yet they are disregardful in [their] obliviousness.”

The Prophets apparently lists the Prophets, as you might guess. But it begins with addressing those who claim that the words of the Prophet (Mohammed) are not worth much because he is just a man -“‘[They are] confused nightmares!’ ‘Rather he has fabricated it!’ ‘Rather he is a poet!’” claim the doubters. The Qur’an points out that all the previous prophets have been mortals as well -“We did not make them bodies that did not eat food, and they were not immortal” but that their warnings were no less true - “How many a town We have smashed that had been wrongdoing”.

Smash! Smash the towns!

Particularly egregious to Allah in this section is that the people “play around”. “We did not create the sky and the earth and whatever is between them for play”. You need to be serious, apparently. Seems a bit dull.

The Prophets 21-40

“Have they taken gods from the earth who raise [the dead]?”

This section seems to largely address polytheists, saying that their gods are false and have not done the things that Allah has done. It’s a bit of a “my god is bigger than your god” contest, to be honest. It seems also to take a sideswipe at Christians in particular, making much of the fact that Allah has not created anyone that hasn’t died – therefore, obviously, Jesus can’t have risen from the dead, so nuh-uh to you.

As for the argument from creation, it mentions that God created mountains and what sounds like passes through them, but also some other points of interest. “We made every living thing out of water” it says. I thought it was dust or clay? Water is actually a more accurate idea, even if it’s not entirely correct. Other statements are even less correct, even if read purely metaphorically - “We made the sky a preserved roof” and “It is He who created the night and the day, the sun and the moon, each swimming in an orbit”. Well, the sun doesn’t orbit, even if the notion of “swimming” is a nice one. I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt here that this is purely a poetic description of their movement, rather than an actual belief in some kind of celestial fluid like ether or phlogiston in which the celestial bodies are suspended.

There’s a neat little swerve about not having to provide proof as well - “Man is a creature of haste. Soon I will show you My signs. So do not ask Me to hasten”. This works two-fold, one as a Treebeard-esque “don’t be hasty”, the other as a contrast; *man* is hasty, God is not.

The Prophets 41-60

“Apostles were certainly derided before you; but those who ridiculed them were besieged by what they had been deriding.”

Given the number of times that the Qur’an seems to mention people mocking the Prophet, it’s evident that he didn’t have much luck at first getting people to believe him. So I wonder how the religion spread so fast so early in its history.

Here’s where we get into the references to prophets, starting with Moses and Aaron who are given “The Criterion”, and then a mention of Abraham who, apparently, breaks up the idols of his forebears as a protest for monotheism.

There are some strangely modern sounding translations given in this section - “Should a whiff of your Lord’s punishment touch them, they will surely say, ‘Woe to us! We have indeed been wrongdoers!’” and - “They said, ‘Are you telling the truth, or are you [just] kidding?’”

Are they “kidding”? That can’t be how the original Arabic puts it. “Are they serious or not serious” seems a bit more … dignified, I guess.

The Prophets 61-80

“They said, ‘Was it you who did this to our gods, O Abraham?’”

There’s a new sequence from the life of Young Abraham, in which he smashes all of the idols of his people, except for the largest one. When the people ask him if he did this, he answers “‘Rather it was this biggest of them who did it! Ask them, if they can speak”. The people are forced to admit that the idols can’t speak, so Abraham chides them for not worshipping Allah instead. This doesn’t go down well and the people decide to burn Abraham, but God makes the flames cool for him.

Then there’s a quick skip through Isaac and Jacob, who are made “imams”, before jumping to Lot and Noah. I like how the preflood people get such short shrift - “They were indeed an evil lot; so We drowned them all”. Yeah, didn’t like them, so I drowned them all, wanna make something of it?

Finally God tries to take credit for something that humans did -“We taught him the making of coats of mail for you, to protect you from your [own] violence. Will you then be grateful?” I suppose, if you wanted, you *could* attribute invention and ideas to some kind of gift from God, but really? Sure, take credit for the mountains and trees but not armour.

The Prophets 81-100

“And Job, when he called out to his Lord, ‘Indeed distress has befallen me, and You are the most merciful of the merciful.’”

The rest of the prophets are discussed. I forgot that David and Solomon got a mention last time, and this continues here although there’s not much about them, mention of a storm and the enigmatic line that “Among the devils were some who dived for him and performed tasks other than that” – “him” in this case being Solomon. I love the vague reference to “tasks other than that”. But what kind of diving? Diving at him, like an attack? Or diving into the sea? Or what?

Next up is Job, where God says that “So We answered his prayer and removed his distress, and We gave him [back] his family along with others like them, as a mercy from Us”. But wait, You gave him that distress in the first place, thanks to a bet with Satan. So excuse me for not being awed by the mercy.

“Ishmael, Idris, and Dhul-Kifl” get a quick mention, those prophets specific to the Qur’an and who, if I remember, pretty much repeat the story of Lot. You know, it occurs to me that Lot didn’t do any kind of prophesying or preaching to the people of Sodom, according to the Bible, he just happened to be a righteous man that loved there. Nothing else is said about Ishmael, Idris and Dhul-Kifl expect that they are “patient”

Lastly there are a couple of vague references, to “the Man of the Fish” (i.e. Jonah aka Yunus) and

“her who guarded her chastity” (i.e. Mary). Oh, and Zechariah, father of John as well, I forgot him. So that’s the prophets covered, and then the chapter turns to discussions about keeping faith, and of how when “Gog and Magog” are unleashed at the end of days, how people that did not submit to God will come to regret it. I was right, it would seem, about what the Arabic for Gog and Magog is – Juju and Ma-juju.

The Prophets 101-112

“The Great Terror will not upset them, and the angels will receive them [saying]: ‘This is your day which you were promised.’”

There are only a few short verses to close the chapter, and I probably could have folded them into the last section, but never mind. In case you were worried that when you are getting your heavenly reward that you might be disturbed by the screams of those having their skin endlessly burnt off in Hell, don’t worry, because this section assures you that you won’t hear it. Good sound-proofing you see. You can relax in your garden with streams running through it and never have to spare a thought for those fools drinking boiling lead.

And that’s it for The Prophets. Pretty much more of the same, overall. I don’t really have much else to say in the summary thoughts.