An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 68: Reading Is Magic (But The Jews Don’t Appreciate It) (Friday (al-Jumu’ah))

Friday (al-Jumu’ah)
Reading Is Magic (But The Jews Don’t Appreciate It).

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

Friday (al-Jumu’ah) 1-11

“O you who have faith! When the call is made for prayer on Friday, hurry toward the remembrance of Allah, and leave all business.”

This chapter has three messages – God is great, the Jews are rubbish, and you should drop everything to pray on Fridays. That’s really it, but it is only eleven verses long so that’s hardly surprising.

First of all the chapter declares that all things glorify Allah and that “It is He who sent to the unlettered [people] an apostle from among themselves, to recite to them His signs, to purify them, and to teach them the Book and wisdom, and earlier they had indeed been in manifest error.”

That’s really about it. I wonder if the miracle is supposed to be that an “unlettered” people are given a book, or rather Book, something entirely alien to them and probably magical (as Gilly says to Sam in Game of Thrones, “you know all that from looking at marks on paper?”). But then, if they’re unlettered how are they supposed to be able to evaluate it?

But then we move from that to having a go at the Jews. Possibly because, in contrast, they’ve had a Book for ages but apparently don’t follow it, judging by the verse “The example of those who were charged with the Torah, then failed to carry it, is that of an ass carrying books”. The Qur’an doesn’t like the idea of a chosen people - “Say, ‘O Jews! If you claim that you are Allah’s favourites, to the exclusion of other people, then long for death, should you be truthful.’” Does that make sense? Is the intent here that, well, if you’re the chosen of God then you ought to want death so you get to meet God? That seems to be borne out in the next few verses because it says that they won’t (seek death) because they know that they are wrong, and that the “death that you flee” will catch up in which case, it’s implied, there’ll be a good old burning due. I note that this is a Medinan chapter, when the anti-Semitism is ramped up.

Finally there’s a little bit about praying on Friday, and how the Prophet should argue that Allah is better than “diversions and dealing” which people might otherwise pursue instead of prayer. I’ve encountered the idea before that prayer in Islam is not about intercession, nor does Allah particularly care about nor need the prayers of mortals, but instead it serves as a daily reminder of something greater than oneself. So I guess there’s no particular metaphysical reason that Friday prayer is better than any other, but it’s another rule to follow purely to encourage obedience and submission.