An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 34: The Story of Moses (Again!) and the Story of Korah (Who?) (The Story(Al-Qasas) 1-88)

The Story(Al-Qasas) 1-88
The Story of Moses (Again!) and the Story of Korah (Who?)

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 Story(Al-Qasas) 1-20

“We relate to you truly some of the account of Moses and Pharaoh for a people who have faith”

Off the bat we’re into the story of Moses, and it tracks pretty much as given in the Old Testament. Pharaoh is a bad ruler - “Pharaoh tyrannized over the land, reducing its people to factions, abasing one group of them, slaughtering their sons and sparing their women”. God decides to raise some of the “abased” as “imams”, and tells Moses mother to cast him into the river when the time comes.

Moses is found by Pharaoh’s wife and raised as a stepson, and meanwhile Moses’ step-sister finds Moses’ mother and employs her as wet nurse. There’s a lot of “she” and “her” in this section that needs footnotes to point out who it’s referring to. The role of the sister (stepsister?) in particular suddenly drops in out of nowhere – “So she said, ‘Shall I show you a household that will take care of him for you and will be his well-wishers?’”. We have no idea who the “she” in this passage is.

Moses grows up, and one day encounters an Israelite and an Egyptian fighting. Moses kills the Egyptian with one punch, then runs away and asks forgiveness from God. The next day he encounters the same Israelite apparently doing the same thing. “Moses said to him, ‘You are indeed manifestly perverse!’” It somehow transpires that the Israelite think Moses means to harm *him*, and then someone else runs up and warns Moses that the “elite” are looking for him.

The Story 21-40

“So he watered [their flock] for them. Then he withdrew toward the shade and said, ‘My Lord! I am indeed in need of any good You may send down to me!’”

The story of Moses continues, with Moses in hiding in the land of the Midianites having killed an Egyptian. Whilst at a well he encounters two women who are hanging back from watering their flocks. The implication is that they have to wait because they are women (and that they have to take the sheep to the watering hole because their father is old and has no sons). So Moses waters the sheep for them.

Evidently this makes one of the women fancy him as she later “bashfully” approaches and offers Moses payment from her father, then also recommends to her father that they keep him - “One of the two women said, ‘Father, hire him. Indeed the best you can hire is a powerful and trustworthy man.’”

The Midianite father agrees, and offers one of his daughters in marriage “on condition that you hire yourself to me for eight years. And if you complete ten, that will be up to you, and I do not want to be hard on you”. It’s that quaint old Qur’anic politeness again – you can stay for ten years, if you like, no pressure…

Time passes, and we have the incident with the burning bush, and again Moses think first of news and second of, you know, something you are more likely to get from a brush fire “Wait! Indeed I descry a fire! Maybe I will bring you some news from it, or a brand of fire so that you may warm yourselves”.

The voice of Allah from the bush (although the implication here is that the voice comes from *near* the bush, perhaps to prevent some kind of idolatry of burning bushes) shows Moses the miracles of turning his staff into a snake and turning his hand white (whee), then tells him to go and show Pharaoh.

Pharaoh is not very impressed, and sarcastically orders one of his councillors “Hāmān, light for me a fire over clay, and build me a tower so that I may take a look at Moses’ god”. This sounds a little like the Tower of Babel myth has been mixed in to the Moses story. These verses end abruptly with Pharaoh and his people being “thrown in the sea” by Allah for their arrogance. So after a lot of early detail the story of Moses is wrapped up in a couple of verses.

The Story 41-60

“We made a curse pursue them in this world, and on the Day of Resurrection they will be among the disfigured.”

These verses seem largely to be reassuring the Prophet, and by extension encouraging people to listen to him. Doubters might claim that Moses was just a magician, or demand a more divine kind of apostle. One piece of advice given by God is to say, “well, you do better then” - “Say, ‘Then bring some Book from Allah better in guidance than the two¹ so that I may follow it, should you be truthful.’”

Those who listen get a “two-fold” reward, of some kind, and know to avoid vain talk and dedicate themselves to Allah. Those who follow their own desires are astray, for “who is more astray than him who follows his desires without any guidance from Allah?” I’m pretty sure elsewhere it’s been written that Allah kind of manipulates these people anyway, because otherwise how would He be omnipotent. I may have to check on that or watch out for it, because I do recall elsewhere that God basically washes His hands of non-believers and leaves them to their fate.

There’s a bit more about what makes a good believer, written so as to suggest that believing will make you behave in this way, rather than you need to behave in this way so as to call yourself a believer – rather like accepting Christ absolves you from sins instead of living a sinless life is the way to accept Christ. I suspect there’ll be more in the next few verses.

The Story 61-88

“Those against whom the word had become due will say, ‘Our Lord! These are the ones whom we have perverted. We perverted them as we were perverse ourselves. We plead for non-liability before You: it was not us that they worshipped.’”

Okay, maybe it doesn’t continue with the behaviour of the good, because the punishments heaped on the bad are evidently always more satisfying to write about. There’s a weird anachronism in the translation - “The news that day shall be blacked out for them”. A news blackout? Seems like a bit of an iffy translation to me – the intent is that the people will hear no word of each other.

Next we get a story about an Israelite called Korah - “Korah indeed belonged to the people of Moses, but he bullied them. We had given him so much treasures that their keys indeed proved heavy for a band of stalwarts”. He’s not a figure I remember from the Bible, but he’s a wealthy man that shows off his wealth despite people telling him not to, and to behave in better ways - “Be good [to others] just as Allah has been good to you, and do not try to cause corruption in the land”. That’s some sound advice.

Korah doesn’t listen, and walks about in his finery, “So We caused the earth to swallow him and his house”. The people seeing this are thankful that Allah didn’t kill them as well, and also vow not to follow Korah’s example. Well, they did warn him.

And that, really, is about it. I don’t know which is “The Story” – the story of Moses or the story of Korah. Maybe both. The chapter ends on advice to obey Allah and not get punished. We’ve seen this lots of times.