An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 25: A Short Anthology of Folk Tales (The Cave (al-Kahf) 1-110)

The Cave (al-Kahf) 1-110
A Short Anthology of Folk Tales.

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 Cave (al-Kahf) 1-20

“When the youths took refuge in the Cave, they said, ‘Our Lord! Grant us a mercy from Yourself, and help us on to rectitude in our affair.’”

This surah takes its name from a story about a group of youths taking refuge in a cave (from what, we are not yet told), and being put into a magical sleep by Allah. As we shall see, some kind of metaphor is drawn from this. I can’t help but be reminded of Arthurian legends about a group of knights in a magical sleep until they are needed (as drawn upon by Alan Garner in the Wierdstone of Brisingaman).

Before we get to that, however, the surah opens with the usual platitudes about the provenance of the Qur’an, and there seems to be a specific warning to Christians, or rather those who claim that “Allah has taken a son”. Not so, says the Qur’an - “They do not have any knowledge of that, nor did their fathers. Monstrous is the utterance that comes out of their mouths, and they say nothing but a lie”. So there.

Anyway, a group of youths take refuge in a cave where they are put into a suspended animation as a kind of test upon them – the description later on says that they look to an observer as if they are just standing there, and their dog “[lies] stretching its forelegs at the threshold”. Ahhh. I hope the dog is in suspended animation too.

So, metaphorically, the Qur’an uses the “Cave” as a refuge of faith, where one goes once one has rejected polytheism - “When you have dissociated yourselves from them and from what they worship except Allah, then take refuge in the Cave. Your Lord will unfold His mercy for you, and He will help you on to ease in your affair”, at least, that’s how I read that.

There’s also an interesting reference to the sun - “You may see the sun, when it rises, slanting toward the right of their cave, and, when it sets, cut across them towards the left, while they are in a cavern within it. That is one of Allah’s signs”. Obviously this happens as the sun moves across the sky, but I wonder if the looking left and looking right are meant to be signifiers of something else; maybe looking towards or away from true faith, perhaps, A later verse mentions the suspended youths as looking left and right as well, which makes it doubly feel like there’s some kind of double meaning. I’m sure it’s to do with which path you choose in life; faith in Allah or following the (bad, wrong) polytheists. (Note added in editing: A few surahs ago there was reference to shadows to the left and right being suggestive of prayer, so perhaps that’s the connection).

The narrative moves to the youths waking up and wondering how long they’ve been asleep. They suppose about a day, and send some of their number into a nearby town to find a decent food shop – “Let him observe which of them has the purest food, and bring you provisions from there”.

The Cave 21-40

“So it was that We let them come upon them, that they might know that Allah’s promise is true, and that there is no doubt in the Hour. As they were disputing among themselves about their matter, they said, ‘Build a building over them. Their Lord knows them best.’ Those who had the say in their matter said, ‘We will set up a place of worship over them.’”

Poor pronoun attribution is a theme in this chapter. In the above quote, the local townsfolk (the first “them”) find the cave of the sleepers (the second “them”) and make wild guesses about how many there are – there’s a nice motif where they guess at a number and then add that “their dog makes [one more]”. I like that they include the dog.

The lesson that seems to be given here is; Allah knows how many of something there are, even if you don’t. So … don’t try to guess? This is also carried over in how many years the sleepers are in the cave. They are in there, in fact, for three hundred years “and added nine more”. Again, only Allah apparently knows this.

We move away from the sleepers, and back to the general message of the Qur’an and how it should be believed. God, apparently, doesn’t really care if you believe or not - “let anyone who wishes believe it, and let anyone who wishes disbelieve it”, except that if you don’t there is a Fire prepared for you and the sadistic detail that “they will be helped with a water like molten copper which will scald the faces. What an evil drink, and how ill a resting place!” So it would seem that God does care very much if you believe or not if He’s willing to punish you severely for not doing so. It’s not much of a choice.

Then there’s a parable of two men with abundant gardens with date vines, and a return of the poor pronoun attribution.  “He had abundant fruits, so he said to his companion, as he conversed with him: ‘I have more wealth than you, and am stronger with respect to numbers’”. He and him and his and him. It’s pretty obvious, really, but it does come across as clumsy writing. Anyway, it doesn’t happen yet, but there’s a foreboding that the boastful guy is going to come a cropper, as his neighbour warns him that he ought to have thanked Allah for his good fortune and not gone around bragging about it. If in the next few verses he doesn’t find his vines withered I’ll be very surprised.

The Cave 41-60

“And ruin closed in on his produce, and he began to wring his hands for what he had spent on it, as it lay fallen on its trellises. He was saying, ‘I wish I had not ascribed any partner to my Lord.’”

Oh look, there we go. Boastful people never do very well in myths and folk tales. Or parables, if you like.

There’s nothing tremendously exciting about the rest of these verses. It mostly covers some kind of Day of Judgment - “The day We shall set the mountains moving and you will see the earth in full view, We shall muster them, and We will not leave out anyone of them” and how the wicked will be cast into the fire, that kind of thing.

There’s mention of The Book, which doesn’t seem to refer to the Qur’an but rather a ledger of everyone’s deeds - ”What a book is this! It omits nothing, big or small, without enumerating it”.

There’s a quick retelling of how Iblis refused to bow to mankind and how it’s foolish to follow him. And then we get the question “Who is a greater wrongdoer than he who is reminded of the signs of his Lord, whereat he disregards them and forgets what his hands have sent ahead?” Which is all well and good except the verse then says that “Indeed We have cast veils on their hearts lest they should understand it, and a deafness into their ears; and if you invite them to guidance they will never [let themselves] be guided”. So, if God has put a veil on these people’s hearts, how are they supposed to be able to regard the signs and why, then, is it their fault? I’ve mentioned this before in the Qur’an, and in the Bible before, many times. This is the kind of logical problem of free will you fall into when your deity knows everything and controls everything.

The Cave 61-80

“When Moses said to his lad, ‘I will go on [journeying] until I have reached the confluence of the two seas, or have spent a long time [travelling].’”

I mentioned folk tales before, and this section really does feel like a folk tale or fairy story. Moses and “his lad” go travelling, but they forget their fish (the author forgets to mention it too), or rather, it seems that the lad leaves it on a rock where it escapes back to the water “in an amazing manner”. The fish is supposed to be their supper, and the lad blames Satan for making him lose it. Okay. Maybe this is a meant to be a metaphor for something, but it swiftly becomes irrelevant. On the way back they meet a “servant” of Allah – an apostle or something supernatural we aren’t told – whom Moses asks to follow in order to learn “some of the probity you have been taught”. “You cannot have patience of me” warns the servant of Allah, which I think is like Yoda complaining that Luke is too young and reckless.

Nevertheless Moses follows the servant of Allah, forgetting his “lad” in the process it would seem. In true folk tale fashion, three encounters occur wherein the servant of Allah behaves in a strange fashion and Moses asks him why, and each time the servant chides him before, at the end, saying, “see, I knew you had no patience” but still explaining the behaviours. The events are these:

Moses and the servant are in a boat, and the servant puts a hole in it. Apparently this is to stop it falling into the hands of a tyrant who is stealing boats.

Then the servant kills a young boy, which apparently is okay because the parents are pious and would only have been disappointed by the boy who was too wilful. If that wasn’t callous enough, the servant says that now it will be okay because they can have a more obedient child instead.

Finally the servant rebuilds a wall for free, and this one’s kind of odd because there is a fortune buried under it that will be the inheritance of two boys – “As for the wall, it belonged to two boy orphans in the city. Under it there was a treasure belonging to them. Their father had been a righteous man. So your Lord desired that they should come of age and take out their treasure —as a mercy from your Lord”. I’m a bit confused as to why rebuilding the wall helps them, but I suppose it keeps the treasure safe from thieves?

The Cave 81-100
“They question you concerning Dhul Qarnayn. Say, ‘I will relate to you an account of him.’”

This chapter really reads like a collection of folk tales, with the Rule of Three looming large. This story is about someone called Dhul Qarnayn who travels to mythical lands. First he travels west (I assume) - “When he reached the place where the sun sets, he found it setting in a muddy spring, and by it he found a people. We said, ‘O Dhul Qarnayn! You may either punish them, or treat them with kindness’”. Dhul Qarnayn decides that judgment is up to Allah based upon the general behaviour of the sunset people.

Next, Dhul Qarnayn goes to where the sun rises and finds some people there. And doesn’t do much. “So it was, and We comprehended whatever pertained to him”. That’s all it says there, like there wasn’t any kind of interesting parable for the sunrise people.

Lastly Dhul Qarnayn goes to a place “between two barriers” where the people are being menaced by Gog and Magog. These are very Biblical figures and I wasn’t sure if the translator had taken some liberties. Nearest I could find in the transliteration is “inna yaʾjūja wa-maʾjūja mufsidūna”. I don’t speak Arabic, but I’d be willing to bet that Juja and Ma’juja are Gog and Magog. So perhaps it is a reference to Biblical giants.

Dhul Qarnayn builds a wall of iron and copper for the people to keep out Gog and Magog - “Bring me pieces of iron!’ When he had levelled up between the flanks, he said, ‘Blow!’ When he had turned it into fire, he said, ‘Bring me molten copper to pour over it’” but leaves them with a warning the God will knock it down at the end times.

The Cave 1001-111

” Do the faithless suppose that they have taken My servants for guardians in My stead? Indeed We have prepared hell for the hospitality of the faithless.”

The last few verses consider the end times and how wrongdoers will be burned, etc. Apparently the “biggest losers” will be those whose works have gone awry because they did the right thing for the wrong reasons. The righteous get a reward, and there’s a place called “Firdaw” that gets mentioned – apparently the most heavenly bit of heaven, according to the footnotes.

I did like the poetry of the verse “Say, ‘If the sea were ink for the words of my Lord, the sea would be spent before the words of my Lord are spent, though We brought another like it for replenishment’”

even though it doesn’t really connect to any of the verses around it.

I enjoyed that one; I do like a good folk tale and this was a little anthology of them. I’ve seen some commentators mocking the Qur’an for claiming that the sun sets in a muddy puddle, but having read that bit I don’t think that’s entirely fair. Yes, if you believe that’s literally true then you’re a bit of an idiot, but to me it is meant to be no more real than mountains of glass in Grimm’s fairy tales are real. It’s just a bit of poetic licence. Of course, if you claim that every word of the Qur’an is true, you’ve set yourself a bit of a problem. I think you’d be on safer ground claiming that it had *meaning*, but literal truth? No. And no mythology is meant to have literal truth.