An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 35: Unbelievers Shall Rue The Day! (The Spider (Al-Ankabut))

The Spider (Al-Ankabut) 1-69
Unbelievers Shall Rue The Day!

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 Spider (Al-Ankabut) 1-20

“Do those who commit misdeeds suppose that they can outmaneuver Us? Evil is the judgement that they make.”

The Spider starts on familiar territory – how God knows all and can tell if you are being hypocritical in your faith, and how those who “ascribe a partner” to God are fooling themselves. As well as bringing up Noah and Abraham as examples again, this chapter also tells how there is a divine command to be “good to [ones] parents”, but that this injunction is lifted it the parents are polytheists.

The verses states that “Those who have faith and do righteous deeds, We will surely admit them among the righteous”, and also that “Those who have faith and do righteous deeds” will be absolved of blame. Now … if you do righteous deeds then it’s probably taken as a given that you count as “one of the righteous”, that’s a bit tautological surely? But also, what exactly are the righteous deeds? We aren’t told – anything that isn’t classed as un-righteous by default, perhaps?

The Spider 21-40

“You cannot thwart Him on the earth or in the sky, nor do you have besides Allah any guardian or any helper.”

The last block of verses began talking about Abraham but then diverged into how great God is and how looking at the world proves His existence. As the above quote shows, God is big and can do what He likes, so nyah. There’s a very strange construction before we get back to the story of Abraham and other prophets - “Those who deny the signs of Allah and the encounter with Him, they have despaired of My mercy, and for such there is a painful punishment”.

What does that mean, to have “despaired of mercy”? Does this mean despaired of ever getting any, or does it mean that the mercy itself is despairing, a kind of “spare me your pity” feeling? Or is it just a dodgy translation and it’s supposed to mean something like “spurned My mercy”? The intent in context is pretty clear – the mercy is offered and for some reason no taken, therefore: burning.

And then suddenly the writing cuts back to Abraham who is about to be burned by an angry mob but is rescued by God. Then we are treated to another whizz through other prophets including Thalmud, Moses and of course Lot, who gets the longest segment. An angel appears to Lot as he rails against people that “come to men, and cut off the way, and commit outrages in your gatherings?”, and gives him the none too comforting advice that “Do not be afraid, nor grieve! We shall deliver you and your family, except your wife: she will be one of those who remain behind”. This gets repeated, but they never say why the wife will not be spared – once again there’s no element of disobedience to God (and her husband …) that causes Lot’s wife to die. It’s just ordained that she will. Probably for having gay friends.

The Spider 41-60

“The parable of those who take guardians instead of Allah is that of the spider that takes a home, and indeed the frailest of homes is the home of a spider, had they known!”

So *there’s* the spider. Now … relatively, spider silk is extremely strong. I used to have a spider that lived in the wing mirror of my car, and its web would happily survive motorway speeds. Calling it “frail” is perhaps not the greatest advert for the “Qur’an is scientifically accurate” brigade. That’s a pretty weak parable. What other arguments does this chapter offer us?

“Allah created the heavens and the earth with reason. There is indeed a sign in that for the faithful”. Ah yes, the idea that if existence is a deliberate creation then it must have some “reason” or “purpose” which therefore renders it superior to one arising from natural unguided processes. Apart from some kind of emotional satisfaction, however, this again is a weak argument. If the purpose is unknown, then it’s essentially irrelevant to mortal humans and so this makes no practical difference if there is one or not.

There are some other interesting snippets of Islamic belief – that “the prayer prevents indecencies and wrongs, and the remembrance of Allah is surely greater”. I mentioned some time way back in the Bible read-through that the purpose of prayer in Islam is not to ask God for anything, but to remind the worshipper of their position in the scheme of things and to keep their mind on God, and this kind of confirms it. I’m guessing that the prevention of indecency stems also from a continued awareness of God imposing morality, rather than some kind of magical remission of sins like a Christian worship.

“Do not dispute with the People of the Book except in a manner which is best”. For one thing, this must be an earlier surah to be more magnanimous with the “People of the Book”, before the Jews rebuffed the Prophet and made him angry with them. But I do like the typical hedging that you can dispute with them in a “manner which is best” – in other words, don’t dispute with them, unless you think they’re wrong.

And lastly for this section, there’s a neat bit of sidestepping the question of wrong-doers who apparently go unpunished and manage to thrive in life - “were it not for a specified time, the punishment would have surely overtaken them”. Allah does things in His own time, in other words. Handy.

The Spider 61-69

“Allah expands the provision for whomever He wishes of His servants, and tightens it for him. Indeed Allah has knowledge of all things.”

Okay, so maybe it’s a bit over the top having a section for a mere nine verses, but in the end I found a lot to discuss in the previous block. In fact I missed something out which is touched on here, the rather circular reasoning that “proof” of Allah is found in the hearts of those that believe in Allah. As verse 49 puts it, “Rather it is [present as] manifest signs in the breasts of those who have been given knowledge”. So, the proof of God is that people that believe in God, believe that God exists. That’s me convinced.

“And if you ask them, ‘Who sends down water from the sky, with which He revives the earth after its death?’ They will surely say, ‘Allah.’” They might, in fact, say that it’s due to the water cycle whereby heat energy from the sun causes surface water to evaporate until a combination of its density and cooling of the air causes it to return to liquid water and fall as rain. Of course, the believer’s counter argument would obviously be “Aha, but who created the water cycle in the first place?” and you’re back to square one.

Finally, I did enjoy this snippet of a verse, which is typical of the almost gloating tone the Qur’an strikes when discussing the fate of “wrong-doers” (in this specific instance, people that pray to Allah for help on a sea-voyage and then give thanks to other spirits or deities when they land) - “So let them enjoy. Soon they will know!” Soon, soon they will rue the day they crossed me! Muahahaha!