An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 83: It’s Like A … A Big Yellow Camel (The Emissaries (al-Mursalat))

The Emissaries (al-Mursalat) 1-50
It’s Like A … A Big Yellow Camel.

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 Emissaries (al-Mursalat) 1-25

“By the successive emissaries, by the raging hurricanes, by the sweeping spreaders, by the decisive separators, by the inspirers of remembrance”

There is, I must admit, some good poetry in this surah. Possibly the translators have done a better job at turning the Arabic into a more poetic English idiom, I couldn’t say. There are still the strange phrases, such as who or what are the “sweeping spreaders” and the “decisive separators” mentioned above? The way these are included as part of a list, however, means that they don’t stand out as they otherwise would, and we can read them as part of the rhythm of the words, and then later  come back to analyse.

I’m a little disappointed that the notes don’t provide any indication of what is spreading and separating. The emissaries and the inspirers of remembrance would seem to refer to previous Apostles, so maybe these terms are also applicable.

Still, the poetry continues with our old friend the Day of Judgment, where it’s said that “when the stars are blotted out, and when the sky is split, and when the mountains are scattered [like dust]”. Again, these are expressions that have been used before but being put together in a list like this gives them more potency.

And lastly, there is a repeated refrain of “Woe to the deniers on that day!” which once again lends a good rhythm to the language.

The Emissaries 26-50

“Have We not made the earth a receptacle for the living and the dead […]?”

The surah continues with more of the same, mostly talking of the fate of the faithless (as usual) and how there will be no respite for them on Judgment Day due to their denial of God. They are told to “Get off toward the triple-forked shadow”, which is an intriguingly evocative image. There’s no indication, sadly, of why the shadow has three forks, only that it provides no protection from The Fire.

There’s not much else to discuss for this latter half of the chapter. It continues the “Woe to the deniers on that day!” refrain, but the poetry does falter a bit when describing giant cinders raining down in Hell - “[bright] as if they were yellow camels”. I don’t know… in English there’s nothing very dramatic about a yellow camel, but I suppose as an ungulate-based simile it’s better than breasts like a flock of goats from Song of Songs in the Bible.