An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 94: The Menu in Hell: Prickly Pear served with Agave syrup and Tequila (The Enveloper (al-Ghashiyah))
The Enveloper (al-Ghashiyah)
The Menu in Hell: Prickly Pear served with Agave syrup and Tequila.
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 Enveloper (al-Ghashiyah) 1-26
“Did you receive the account of the Enveloper?”
Did I? I think I missed that message. I’ve had one about the Rending and the Winding Up, are they similar? Apparently so, since later we are told that “Some faces on that day will be humbled, wrought-up and weary” and by contrast “Some faces on that day will be joyous, pleased with their endeavour”, so evidently the Enveloper is another expression for the Day of Reckoning.
The middle section of this surah is divided between verses that describe the fates that await the humbled faces (“They will have no food except cactus”) and the joyous faces (nice carpets, goblets of drink, couches and a garden – you know the drill by now).
The latter section first notes many things that are supposed to demonstrate the existence of God, from “Do they not observe the camel, [to see] how she has been created?” and including sky, mountains and earth. To be fair, these verses have a good use of language, with similar sentence construction for each of the three things – “and the sky, how it has been raised? and the mountains, how they have been set? and the earth, how it has been surfaced?” The rhetoric works quite well there, I think.
Finally there are instructions for the Prophet - “So admonish—for you are only an admonisher, and not a taskmaster over them”. As we saw in the last chapter or so, the Prophet’s role is only as a messenger, and it is down to the individuals if they chose to believe, and God to deal with them according to what they do. “Except for him who turns back and disbelieves.” Ah, okay then. There’s always an exception. The choice of words makes it sound like the Prophet is allowed to be a taskmaster over, well, this sounds like a description of an apostate. But the last three verses instead state clearly that it is Allah that will deal with such people. It’s a little confusing, but that could just be the wonky translation again.
The Menu in Hell: Prickly Pear served with Agave syrup and Tequila.
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 Enveloper (al-Ghashiyah) 1-26
“Did you receive the account of the Enveloper?”
Did I? I think I missed that message. I’ve had one about the Rending and the Winding Up, are they similar? Apparently so, since later we are told that “Some faces on that day will be humbled, wrought-up and weary” and by contrast “Some faces on that day will be joyous, pleased with their endeavour”, so evidently the Enveloper is another expression for the Day of Reckoning.
The middle section of this surah is divided between verses that describe the fates that await the humbled faces (“They will have no food except cactus”) and the joyous faces (nice carpets, goblets of drink, couches and a garden – you know the drill by now).
The latter section first notes many things that are supposed to demonstrate the existence of God, from “Do they not observe the camel, [to see] how she has been created?” and including sky, mountains and earth. To be fair, these verses have a good use of language, with similar sentence construction for each of the three things – “and the sky, how it has been raised? and the mountains, how they have been set? and the earth, how it has been surfaced?” The rhetoric works quite well there, I think.
Finally there are instructions for the Prophet - “So admonish—for you are only an admonisher, and not a taskmaster over them”. As we saw in the last chapter or so, the Prophet’s role is only as a messenger, and it is down to the individuals if they chose to believe, and God to deal with them according to what they do. “Except for him who turns back and disbelieves.” Ah, okay then. There’s always an exception. The choice of words makes it sound like the Prophet is allowed to be a taskmaster over, well, this sounds like a description of an apostate. But the last three verses instead state clearly that it is Allah that will deal with such people. It’s a little confusing, but that could just be the wonky translation again.
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