An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 85: Soul-Stealing Angels and The Vagueness of Prophecies (The Wresters (al-Nazi’at))

The Wresters (al-Nazi’at) 1-48
Soul-Stealing Angels and The Vagueness of Prophecies.

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 Wresters (al-Nazi’at) 1-24
“By those [angels] who wrest [the soul] violently, by those who draw [it] out gently”

Now here’s a cool concept – angels that draw out the soul at death; some do so gently but others rip it from the body. Alternative titles for this chapter are“(Soul-)Snatchers, Extractors, The Angelic Pullers, The Forceful Chargers, The Pluckers, The Soul-Snatchers, Those That Rise, Those Who Pull and Withdraw, Those Who Tear Out”. It makes me think of the Soul Hunters from Babylon 5 – an alien race drawn to the moment of a person’s death to collect the “soul” (which in this case might be a personality engram, the show is deliberately vague) so as to preserve the thoughts and memories of great thinkers.

I love the idea of angels that rip out your soul; I think it belongs with the other fantasy concepts I’ve currently culled from the Qur’an. What I’ll do with them, I don’t yet know.

Other angels are described as those that “swim smoothly” and “direct the affairs [of creature]”. Then we get a time “when the Quaker quakes and is followed by the Successor”. According to the footnotes - “Apparently, ‘the Quaker’ and ‘the Successor’ refer to the first and the second blasts of the Trumpet sounded by Isrāfīl on the Day of Resurrection”. I like that even Muslim commentators have to say “apparently” when referring to obscure titles in the Qur’an. It’s not just ignorant kafirs like me that don’t know what’s going on.

Anyway, the Quaker and the Successor call the dead from their graves, who are surprised at having been awakened. And as proof that this will happen, the reader is referred to the story of Moses against Pharaoh, briefly, where Pharaoh “denied and disobeyed” after Moses shows him “the greatest sign”. Well, at least that wasn’t really vague or anything.

The Wresters 25-48
“Is it you whose creation is more prodigious or the sky which He has built?”

The latter half of this surah retreads very familiar ground – since God created everything it’s no problem for Him to end things and set up afterlife punishments and rewards (you know the drill by now). Fire or Garden, you made your choice long ago and it’s too late to complain about it when you get resurrected, yada yada yada.

Finally the chapter ends with instructions to the Prophet in case “They ask you concerning the Hour, “When will it set in, considering your frequent mention of it?””

Which is a fair point, and not one I’d thought about so far. Remember in the Bible that it’s a bit confusing when the “Kingdom of God” is supposed to arrive (let alone *what* the “Kingdom of God” is supposed to be); Jesus mentions it coming to pass “before this generation has ended”, but we also get some suitable vagueness about “not knowing the hour”.

So it makes me wonder if the Prophet had any kind of imminent doomsday teaching in mind when he was spreading his message, or if his idea was also that it could come at any time – soon, or thousands of years in the future, but it will happen. The answer here leans towards the latter, the “know not the hour” concept - “The day they see it, it shall be as if they had not stayed [in the world] except for an evening or forenoon”. Which in many ways is the safer bet. If you give a definite date for Doomsday, you’ll look foolish when the day comes and goes with nothing happening (although, oddly, that never seems to stop these Doomsday Cultist types, they just mutter something about changing calenders and people still believe them).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dr Simon Reads... Appendix N. Part One: Poul Anderson

Image
Dr. Simon Reads Appendix N: Introduction This is a new series that will feature sporadically, in which I explore classic fantasy and science fiction works. You will either know what I mean by “Appendix N”, or you will have no clue. In the original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide, Gary Gygax provided a large number of appendices, from random smells to reputed magical properties of herbs and gemstones. Appendix N was a bibliography of works that inspired him. Back in 1982 when I first got hold of this book, there were only a couple of items on there that I’d read, and only a few other authors that I’d even heard of. Many years later, after, much reading, I returned to Appendix N expecting to have added greatly to the works on there that I’d read; but actually, there were still very few. Many of the authors were obscure or out of print authors of, for want of a better expression, golden age pulp; the kind that feature in Amazing Stories and the like. Now, ...
Read more

An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 80: The Nineteen Guardians of Saqar (sounds cooler than it is) (Shrouded (al-Muddaththirl))

Shrouded (al-Muddaththirl) 1-56 The Nineteen Guardians of Saqar (sounds cooler than it is). 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 Shrouded (al-Muddaththirl) 1-28 “O you wrapped up in your mantle! Rise up and warn!” Like the previous surah , Enwrapped, this one starts with God addressing the Prophet as one wrapped in a mantle. Last time, because of the emphasis on praying at night, I took this to be a reference to a literal cloak against the cold night, but here it seems to be more metaphorical. Perhaps it was always meant to be both. I think metaphorical because the Prophet is told to “ purify your cloak ” and to avoid “ i...
Read more

An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 121: Closing Thoughts

It took half as many posts to tackle the Qur'an as it did the Bible, 120 compared to 248, but it felt like longer sometimes. Perhaps because the Qur'an is written by a single man and deals with pretty much the same topic over and over, whereas the Bible is a compilation of multiple works, some of which are historical, some apocalyptic, some laws or building instruction, some philosophical, some poetic, some a bit of each. From that point of view, I'd have to say that the Bible was the more interesting work to read. Have I learned any great wisdom from the Qur'an? I'd have to say … no, not really. Granted, I probably didn't approach it with a particularly deep understanding of the material in the first place, but that (as with the Bible readthrough) was always my intent. Picking through line by line is still something of a deep dive, and in both books I tried to be alert for symbol and metaphor. Doing it that way, however, it's easy to miss thematic callb...
Read more