An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 92: Not Creepy Uncle Tariq (The Nightly Visitor (al-Tariq))
The
Nightly Visitor (al-Tariq)
Not Creepy Uncle Tariq.
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 Nightly Visitor (al-Tariq) 1-17
“By the sky, by the nightly visitor”
This is another surah where I’ve seen the title coming a long way off and wondered who or what the nightly visitor was. It sounds a bit like a creepy uncle (Creepy Uncle Tariq), but actually, “It is the brilliant star”. Which one, we aren’t told. My guess would be either Venus or Mercury (which show up at dawn and dusk), but to be honest it could be any of a number of singular bright stars. Or not even one specific one, just the idea of the stars coming out at night.
Having sworn on the night star, the surah states that’s there is a watcher over every soul (we’ve seen this before with the angels that take your soul, so perhaps these). Now, according to the notes, “The surah focuses on a series of examples of things coming out: the piercing night-star, spurting semen, the baby that bursts out of the womb, and plants that sprout out of the ground. All of these are used to illustrate resurrection from the grave”. There isn’t really a lot of this, though, so I can only guess that either the Arabic poetry is so subtle that there’s no hope of translating into English (which I doubt) or the footnotes are based on someone making a really reaching interpretation of the text.
For example, the surah says of mankind “He was created from an effusing fluid which issues from between the loins and the breast-bones.” There’s nothing else remotely connected to childbirth, so is this meant to combine ejaculation (the “effusing fluid”) with childbirth (the results ultimately grow between loins and ribs)? Because otherwise it sounds disturbingly like the author envisages semen seeping out of the bellybutton.
The surah also swears oaths by “the resurgent sky” (which is also translated as “rain-bearing”), and “by the furrowed earth” (which is the nearest thing to plants bursting from the ground that I can find here, and it’s only 17 short verses so there aren’t many places to look).
And what is sworn by earth and sky? This time that God has the power to bring the dead back to life in order to judge them -“it is not a jest”. A judged soul will have no-one to help them, which makes a kind of sense; you have to answer for your own actions. But, apparently, wicked people and God are engaged in a battle of wits - “Indeed they are devising a stratagem, and I [too] am devising a plan.”
Finally the surah ends with a plea to “respite the faithless”, for why, I can’t tell. Either to give them a chance to make amends and plead redemption, or to give them enough rope to hang themselves. Or both, I guess, depending on the choices that they make now that they have been “warned” by the message of the Qur’an.
Not Creepy Uncle Tariq.
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 Nightly Visitor (al-Tariq) 1-17
“By the sky, by the nightly visitor”
This is another surah where I’ve seen the title coming a long way off and wondered who or what the nightly visitor was. It sounds a bit like a creepy uncle (Creepy Uncle Tariq), but actually, “It is the brilliant star”. Which one, we aren’t told. My guess would be either Venus or Mercury (which show up at dawn and dusk), but to be honest it could be any of a number of singular bright stars. Or not even one specific one, just the idea of the stars coming out at night.
Having sworn on the night star, the surah states that’s there is a watcher over every soul (we’ve seen this before with the angels that take your soul, so perhaps these). Now, according to the notes, “The surah focuses on a series of examples of things coming out: the piercing night-star, spurting semen, the baby that bursts out of the womb, and plants that sprout out of the ground. All of these are used to illustrate resurrection from the grave”. There isn’t really a lot of this, though, so I can only guess that either the Arabic poetry is so subtle that there’s no hope of translating into English (which I doubt) or the footnotes are based on someone making a really reaching interpretation of the text.
For example, the surah says of mankind “He was created from an effusing fluid which issues from between the loins and the breast-bones.” There’s nothing else remotely connected to childbirth, so is this meant to combine ejaculation (the “effusing fluid”) with childbirth (the results ultimately grow between loins and ribs)? Because otherwise it sounds disturbingly like the author envisages semen seeping out of the bellybutton.
The surah also swears oaths by “the resurgent sky” (which is also translated as “rain-bearing”), and “by the furrowed earth” (which is the nearest thing to plants bursting from the ground that I can find here, and it’s only 17 short verses so there aren’t many places to look).
And what is sworn by earth and sky? This time that God has the power to bring the dead back to life in order to judge them -“it is not a jest”. A judged soul will have no-one to help them, which makes a kind of sense; you have to answer for your own actions. But, apparently, wicked people and God are engaged in a battle of wits - “Indeed they are devising a stratagem, and I [too] am devising a plan.”
Finally the surah ends with a plea to “respite the faithless”, for why, I can’t tell. Either to give them a chance to make amends and plead redemption, or to give them enough rope to hang themselves. Or both, I guess, depending on the choices that they make now that they have been “warned” by the message of the Qur’an.
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